But how do you read "How To Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler?

I really appreciated the ideas of that book but felt it would have been better delivered at a quarter of the length. Much of the volume was spent inventing or explaining classifications and definitions which seemed wholly unnecessary.

Could this have something to do with the time in it was first published (namely in the 40's)? What is obvious now may not have been obvious then.

To clarify, I didn't think the unnecessary parts were obvious, I thought they were manufactured and arbitrary... inventing classifications for books and discussing them at length in a way that didn't serve any purpose.

Catch-22 situation. Which is also the title of a book.