In the brief preface to How to Read a Book, Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren explain the revisions and additions made to the book since its original publication more than three decades ago. The authors also explain why they felt these changes were needed: Despite the higher percentage of college students as of 1972, instruction in reading still tends to end at the elementary level. Adler and Van Doren list “new insights into the problems of learning how to read” and a “much more comprehensive and better-ordered analysis of the complex art of reading” as reasons why their work needed to be revised (xi).

Adler and Van Doren begin Chapter 1 by explaining that their book is “for those whose main purpose in reading books is to gain increased understanding” (3). According to the authors, reading is an active exercise rather than passive, but the degree of “active reading” can vary. They suggest that receiving communication of any kind is just as much an activity as speaking and writing. The more actively one reads, the more they will understand what the writer is communicating.

Chapter 1 also explores the three primary goals of reading: reading for information, understanding, and entertainment.