I'm looking into reading the entirety of some authors' works and would love to have some tips. Has anyone done this before?
What do you look for? What type of notes do you keep? Anything else to look for?
Sounds interesting. Did you have a particular author in mind?
Before I can decide on the author to tackle, is there a way for Logos to tell me how many pages (or how many words) of material I have for a given author in my Logos library. Ideally, it would rank the authors by the pages of material I have on each of them in my Library.
From my limited experience with Christian works, authors write outside of their expertise. And I try to avoid reading material that is outside of their expertise because I don't have time to read everything.
Did you have a particular author in mind?
In honor of a favorite author who recently passed... I'll attempt Eric Carle. [:D]
I have a list of what I am reading at any given time now or in the future so I just finished reading through Gene Getz Men of Character books on Saturday and now I am reading the Practical Works of Richard Baxter. He simply was after Getz on my list. Edwards, Owen, Barth, Lewis, Carson, Kaiser, and hopefully soon Neusner are on the list. Currently, I am only using Saturday to read author works. As I read new authors if I like them I might add them to the list to read their works assuming they have more in my library. Notes are an issue we do by ourselves but depending on the resource I might take notes or just use clippings for later research.
Has anyone done this before?
Yes, many times. When possible, I try to read the works in the order written so I can watch the development of thought and not accidently try to apply the author's later understanding to his early works.
What do you look for? What type of notes do you keep?
Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren's classic How to Read a Book is an excellent guide to reading any author: different levels of reading for different types of books, how to take notes, etc. Unfortunately not available in Logos (though it should be), but it's worth getting in whatever format you can get your hands on: paperback, Kindle, from the library...
Here's the Table of Contents:
Am thinking Tim Keller, as I find his writing most interesting. Im thinking it'll be a lifetime goal as I'd like to read all his sermons, along with books, articles etc.
I have his book and it's incredibly helpful!
Love the chronological idea. Do you have any other systems to reading authors? Do you keep notes? Write thoughts?
