True to his own form, the author of Aristotle for Everybody reduces his topic to an everyman simplicity without doing it a disservice. It is also to render assertions that seem self-evident and elementary, yet which excluded would render incomplete the whole, such as "Listen to whoever is speaking and make it apparent that you are listening by not letting your eyes wander or your attention be diverted." The effect of this is often to illuminate and clarify. True to the form of his master and forebear, the great Aristotle, Adler defines and distinguishes the genus and species of his topic with the skill of an expert surgeon bearing an unusually sharp lancet. Mortimer Adler's How to Speak, How to Listen (1983), a belated follow-up to his bestselling classic How to Read a Book (1940) is flagged on the cover of the Touchstone edition as a self-help book, but the text far exceeds that descriptor.
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