好学英文网提纲：仅以此文献给每一个想读书或者为了学习而读书的人们。

How Should One Read a Book?(中文翻译请见下方)

In the first place, I want to emphasize the note of interrogation at the end of my title. Even if I could answer the question for myself, the answer would apply only to me and not to you. The only advice,

indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. If this is agreed between us, then I feel at liberty to put forward a few ideas and suggestions because you will not allow them to fetter that independence which is the most important quality that a reader can possess. After all, what laws can be laid down about books? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day;

but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. To admit authorities,however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries.

Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions----there we have none.

----Editor of Joozone Woolf

请参考好学英文网提供中文翻译：

应该怎样读一本书

首先，我想强调一下文章标题后面的问号。即使我自己可以回答这个问题，这个答案也只能适用于我而不是你。说实在的，关于阅读，一个人能给另一个人的最好建议就是不要听从任何建议，要根据自己的直觉，运用自己的理智，得出自己的结论。如果大家同意我这个说法，我就可以无所顾忌地说出一些看法和建议，因为你们不会被它们左右而失去主见，这可是一个读者应该具备的最重要的品质。

说到底，关于书本能有什么明文规定吗？滑铁卢战役当然是在某一天发生的；但是《哈姆雷特》是一个比《李尔王》更好的剧本吗？没有人能这么说。对这个问题每个人都必须自己拿主意。如果让权威们——不管他们裹着多么厚重的毛皮和长袍——进入我们的图书馆内，让他们告诉我们怎么读，读什么，怎么去定位我们读的书，那就践踏了自由，而这恰恰是阅读这块圣地的生命之所在。

在其他地方我们也许会受到法律和常规的制约——在读书时这些都不复存在。