Something New for Contributors

I'm starting work this summer on preparing a new edition of How to Make Notes and Write, which was originally my father's A Short Handbook for Writing Essays in the Humanities, to which I added an additional Social Science focus. Each time I return to it, I update the existing content but also try to add an new section. This summer, I want to add a section on effective reading. In order to do this, I think I'll go over some of the most important texts on the topic. It occurred to me that others might be interested in reviewing these along with me, so I thought I'd do two things.

First, I'll write about my reactions to the texts, chapter by chapter, so people get a sense of what stood out to me and what I thought. I've already posted my thoughts on the first ten chapters of Adler and Van Doren's classic, How to Read a Book. I'll also be going over Ahrens' How to Take Smart Notes and Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor. Maybe I'll even dip into Forte's Building a Second Brain. I also thought I might invite contributing subscribers to join me in a Zoom discussion or possibly several, to talk about what they got out of the books as well. I realize I don't have a lot of contributing subscribers yet, but I thought this might be the sort of thing that might make it worthwhile, supporting my work here.

Let me know if you'd be interested in discussing several books on reading and note-taking. In the meantime (second thing), I'm thinking of emulating

John Halbrooks

' approach to his Tolkien read along, which I enjoyed very much. He wrote a weekly post that went out to everybody and then a second post for paid subs. My approach to posts so far has been that everything is free for a month. But if I'm going to shift this year toward relying on my Substack writing to support myself, I will need to build a community of contributing members. Since I don't have a lot of contributors yet, maybe I'll wait a bit before I start hosting Zoom discussions. But in the meantime, maybe I'll continue posting my chapter-by-chapter reactions to these books for free but then add weekly posts for contributors that go to the next steps and deal with how these readings are influencing my own writing about the topic. Discussing what I plan to say; even previewing drafts.

Right now, as I've been transitioning to doing all my writing in this single Substack, I have opened my archives so everybody could see the thousand-plus posts. This will continue for another week, until next Wednesday the 15th. So maybe I'll begin with a post this weekend, talking about what elements of the first part of How to Read a Book impressed me the most and how I plan to build on them. This first one will be free, to give you a taste of what I'm going to do. Then the additional ones will be for contributors.

This is one of several ideas I have about how to create additional value that will justify your support. I'll be working on a bunch of other ideas too -- and if you have suggestions I'd love to hear them. And if you’re able to shift to a contributing subscription, that would be much appreciated.

Thanks! --Dan