Gary Neal Hansen

Theology. It's good for you.

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Read Faster and Better with Book Reviews (Letters to a Young Pastor)

October 20, 2016 by Gary Neal Hansen 4 Comments

read faster and better with scholarly book reviews
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Dear ______:

I’m glad to hear that you are seeing the pattern inside my recommended reading strategies. For all those I’ve told you about so far (primary sources, textbooks, and scholarly studies) the pattern is to get a clear big picture, and then moved toward the details.

Think of it as the concentric circles that emerge when a stone plops into a still pond. If you want to get to the center, to find where the stone dropped, start with the outer circle and move to the middle, circle by circle.

Make Reading Fast and Effective

Now that you have that pattern in mind today I want to tell you about a key resource for getting the big picture quickly on a book before you dive in to study it: Read book reviews. That way when you open the actual covers of the book you know what you’ll find and what to look hard for.

Think of it as part of reading the book — just another helpful strategy as a master’s-level student.

Some people think reading reviews first is cheating. It isn’t. It is why most scholarly journals you look at have big sections of reviews.

Scholars don’t have time to read all the books they need to know about. They read reviews.

But I am sort of letting you in on the scholar’s dirty little secret here. Most don’t discover book reviews until they are in a doctoral program.

Read Scholarly Book Reviews

If you have a scholarly book to plow through, scholarly book reviews are the best to get the big picture quickly and clearly in mind.

Your seminaries library will surely give you online access to the full text of many scholarly journals.

1. Look for the ATLA Religion Index, though there are other useful ones too.

In the advanced search window, specify “author” or “title” of the book, and look for a checkbox to specify “reviews.”

2. Find Scholarly reviews.

When the results come up look for two things.

  • Look for a PDF symbol or something to indicate the full text of the review is available online.
  • Look for titles that indicate that the review is in a scholarly journal.

What I mean is avoid magazines that are written for the general public, whether those are denominational magazines or something like TIME. Look for titles like “Journal [or Bulletin, or Review] of the Society of XYZ” or “XYZ Journal”. Or, in the search results, look for a reference to the journal being “peer-reviewed.”

These will be reviews written by scholars in the field, for scholars in or out of the field. That’s you.

3. Read 3 of these scholarly reviews.

  • Each one will be about a page or two long.
  • The writer will summarize the book and its purpose.
  • You’ll get a sense of what one scholar thinks is good and not so good in that book.

Then you can make better use of your reading time since you’ll already know what is inside, what is useful to you, and what you ought to be trying to learn more about.

Preparing the Ground

Think of reading reviews as preparing the ground of your mind to learn. If you’re going to plant a garden gift to break up the soil to make it fit to receive the seed.

In terms of study you need some background knowledge to make your mind ready to study in detail on any topic. Book reviews are the way to get that background for an unfamiliar and challenging book.

Once you once you plow the field your actual reading will be both faster and more fruitful.

Blessings,
Gary

————

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! 

And if you found the post useful I hope you’ll share it using the buttons below.

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Filed Under: books, Ministry, Seminary, Uncategorized Tagged With: Book Reviews, Speed reading, Strategic reading

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Comments

  1. David Goodwin says

    October 20, 2016 at 11:10 AM

    Wish I had heard that when I was in seminary !

    Reply
    • Gary Neal Hansen says

      October 20, 2016 at 12:06 PM

      Thanks David! Hope you’ll share the post with a seminarian somewhere…

      Reply
  2. gary panetta says

    October 21, 2016 at 5:37 PM

    Gaining an overview or map of a field or a subject matter — via a textbook or reviews of scholarly books — before zeroing in on detail is helpful in still another way.

    Keeping in mind an overview or a map can help you make connections between one subdivision in a division of knowledge and another.

    For instance, it might be an interesting exercise to take a handful of book-reviews dealing with the Trinity and compare what is summarized there with a handful of book- reviews dealing with prayer or ecclesiology. What are ways in which our conceptions of the Trinity, prayer, and church might reflect and reinforce one another? How might these connections help us in leading congregations — how we worship, what we preach, how congregation members are equipped for ministry?

    Reviews and summaries of all sorts can provide valuable grist for brainstorming.

    Reply
    • Gary Neal Hansen says

      October 21, 2016 at 7:49 PM

      Thanks, Gary.

      That sense of perspective which allows one to see interconnections is a great insight.

      If you ever do the exercise you describe here I would love to hear the results.

      Reply

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Theology. It’s good for you.

I'm a Church historian by trade. My writing, speaking, and teaching explores the Christian past to equip today's disciples. Join me here for regular posts on the best of theology, spirituality, community, and ministry. read more…

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