That's kind of funny because there's a major trend now following people like Elon Musk who promote skimming through engineering texts. The idea being that you're not going to learn rocket science reading a dissertation on rocket fuel, but you will become aware of things you hadn't done before, and retain random knowledge that could be useful and will be useful as you continue skimming more and more technical books.

Adler doesn't say you should read every book deeply though. He defines four levels of reading, from reading the table of content, to deep reading and synthesis of multiple works in the same domain.

Elon's technique makes sense, but you can't just do that. The most impressive people seem to be T-shaped: they have very deep understanding of their specialty, but they also a familiarity with a wide breadth of fields.

I skim a bunch of technical software books that are not immediately useful to me. My goal is not to remember every detail, it's just to get an idea of what's out there, and where to find more information if I need it.

This type of reading is described in Adler's practical book. It's called "syntopical reading" in which you read multiple books about the same topic in furtherance of some particular idea. In this style of reading, you're encouraged to skim, skip sections, etc.

Elon may skim through some texts but he definitely also does some thorough reading and research as well..

"One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to."

-Elon Musk Reddit AMA https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk...

Musk is a CEO, not an engineer.

He is a CEO and an engineer, one known in particular for going from zero to rocket scientist level impressively quickly.

Are you claiming that Musk does engineering work for SpaceX?

From what I heard yes, he does, if you count his nanomanagement. Moreover, he most definitely did initially - SpaceX didn't start with full complement of trained aerospace engineers on board. He learned his rocket science before starting the company.

He regularly participates in design discussions with engineers, and reviews their designs, I think. From what I hear, outside of software startups, he's one of the most technical CEOs in the world.

Most definitely an engineer, then a CEO.

Farnam Street has an excellent overview of how to read a book that is based on Mortimer Adler's book: https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/how-to-read-a-book/

I'm trying to reconcile your statement with Alan Kay's, who said he has read about 16,000 books in his life.

Should I read slowly and be well read? Or read quickly and get the big ideas of lots of fields?

To me, deep and broad aren't mutual exclusive. My take is that well read persons are, to use the technobabble du jour, "tee-shaped".

Or rather double/triple/quadrouple/n-ple tee-shaped having read broadly across many fields and comparatively deeply in more than one. Relative depth in multiple areas becomes easier and more likely with age as interests change and realized opportunities to read to greater depth accumulate.

Reading deeply requires time. Reading broadly requires time. Neither has a shortcut. Neither precludes the other given a lifetime.

Depends on your goal IMO. You can't do both - it's something I've struggled with in my life so far... Interested in too many things to become an expert at any one

Well, I think you can't do both with all of the things. Figuring out priorities is surely one of life's biggest challenges for those of us with many interests.

Changed my life as well. I am starring at the 50+ volume collection of the Great Books and usually have one within an arm's length.

Same. Another benefit of reading How To Read a Book is that it inspired me to read higher quality books such as the Great Books.