The delicate art of how not to read a book

More than 55 years ago, a little known academic named Mortimer Adler published ``How to Read a Book." The 400-page tome, aimed at ``readers and those who wish to become readers," was a surprise hit and spent several weeks on 1940 best seller lists.

An update of this hot-selling concept would be: ``How Not to Read a Book." Books are expensive, and most of them are not very well written anyway. I have not read dozens of books in just the past few months. I am prepared to share my secrets of un-reading with you.

But before I unpack my handy, how-not-to guide, I should mention the most obvious example of a book you needn't bother reading: Bob Woodward's latest best seller, ``State of Denial." If you bought or read this book, you need to have your head examined.

The contents of ``Denial" have been splattered all over the front page of The New York Times. They have been excerpted in The Washington Post. Slate magazine printed a helpful guide to the ``good parts." Woodward has appeared on every talk show in the country, trumpeting his astonishing scoop, that the Bush administration has mismanaged the war in Iraq. As American Prospect writer Matthew Yglesias sardonically noted, ``Denial" is ``on the cutting edge of making it as convenient as possible to not actually read the book."

Here is my four-step primer on How Not to Read a Book:

1. Excerpts. In the old days, The New Yorker used to serialize doorstops like Robert Caro's multi volume Lyndon Johnson biography or Neil Sheehan's tightly constructed 900-page profile of John Paul Vann. The magazine covers Italian fashion now, so you have to migrate to the Financial Times to experience books you have no interest in reading.

Did someone mention Wall Street titan Sandy Weill's new memoir, ``The Real Deal, " now running in the FT? Referring to the investigations of Citigroup under his watch, Weill writes, ``I hated the idea that my ethics and character could be doubted." Then, Jeffrey Skilling-like, he blames his problems on overzealous reporters working for The Wall Street Journal. Laugh Out Loud; I've read enough.

2. News coverage. Luckily there are plenty of journalists eager to reprint publicity handouts and pop them in the paper in the guise of ``news." These typists have always been generous to Woodward and hyperventilating investigators like Ron Suskind. Now I am seeing the face of cashiered Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina in the news, as she hawks her new book, ``Tough Choices."

I read a book about Fiorina a few years ago, in which she was trying to convince Hewlett-Packard to pay for shipping her yacht from the East Coast to the West Coast. Tough choices indeed.

3. Reviews. The traditional crutch for avid nonreaders, and still useful. In a generally positive review of Kate Atkinson's latest novel ``One Good Turn, " New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin let slip that ``midway through, the plotting starts to click."

OK, I'm doing the math. In a 418-page long book, that means I am reading 209 pages where the plot is not clicking. The best book written in the 21st century, Jan Morris's ``Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, " is only 203 pages long. That's a good argument to pass on Atkinson, I'd say.

4. Conversation. In the old days, back when people read books, you could pick up quite a bit of information just by chatting. I found that Frank McCourt's heart-rending memoir, ``Angela's Ashes," was a terrific book not to have read, because everyone else had. ``I couldn't believe those living conditions," someone would say to me over lunch. ``Yes, and the little children dying," I would answer. ``It was so, so sad."

5. Bookstores. They're just glorified libraries, as far as I am concerned. I recently wandered into a store and devoured maybe 70 pages of the blockbuster ``Fiasco," by Washington Post military writer Thomas Ricks . That was more than enough lineage for me to absorb the author's astonishing scoop, that the Bush a dministration has mismanaged the war in Iraq.

Happily for Ricks and his publisher, there are thousands of people eager to pay $28 for this hot - off - the - press information. But I am not one of them.