How to prepare for a seminar on a book

A seminar is not a test of whether you finished the book. It is a conversation about what the book argues and whether the argument holds up. The students who do well are rarely the ones who read every page twice. They are the ones who arrive with a clear sense of the book's claims, a few specific passages they can point to, and two or three questions they actually want to discuss.

This guide works for university seminars, school discussion classes, and book groups that take their books seriously. The worked example is Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens, a book that suits discussion well because it makes large, confident claims that invite disagreement.

1. Find out what the seminar is for

Before you open the book, read whatever your tutor or organiser has given you: reading instructions, discussion questions, the course outline, or the topic for that week. A seminar on Sapiens in an anthropology course will ask different questions from one in a history of ideas course or a first-year common read.

If you've been given questions, they tell you where to put your attention. If you've been assigned only certain chapters, focus there, and know just enough of the rest to place them in context.

2. Get the argument before the details

Start by finding the book's main claim and its structure. Read the introduction, the contents page and the conclusion first. Our guide to finding the main argument of a book covers this step in more detail.

For Sapiens, this quickly gives you the frame. The book is organised around four turning points: the cognitive revolution, the agricultural revolution, the unification of humankind, and the scientific revolution. Running through all of them is Harari's idea that humans can cooperate in huge numbers because they believe in shared stories, such as money, nations, religions and companies, which exist only because enough people believe in them.

If you can explain that in two minutes, you are already ready for a good part of the discussion.

3. Read with the discussion in mind

When you read, you're not just collecting information. You're collecting material to talk about. Keep three kinds of marks:

• Key claims: sentences where the author states a position clearly. These are what the group will argue over.
• Evidence: where the author supports a claim, and how strong that support looks to you.
• Reactions: places where you were persuaded, unconvinced, surprised or confused.

Note page numbers as you go. In a seminar, being able to send everyone to a specific page is far more useful than saying "somewhere in the middle he argues...". It puts the whole group in front of the same words, which keeps the discussion grounded in the text.

4. Pick three passages worth talking about

Choose three short passages you could read aloud. Good choices are passages that:

1. State a central claim in a striking way.
2. Seem weak, overstated or open to challenge.
3. Connect to something else on your course or in another book.

With Sapiens, an obvious candidate for the second kind is Harari's chapter on the agricultural revolution, which he provocatively calls history's biggest fraud. He argues that farming made life harder for most individuals even as it allowed human populations to grow. People disagree about that, and a seminar can spend a productive half hour on whether it is fair, what "better off" should mean, and what kind of evidence could settle it.

5. Write down questions you actually want answered

Prepare two or three open questions. Good seminar questions have more than one reasonable answer and can't be settled by looking something up.

Weak questions ask for facts, such as when Harari dates the cognitive revolution. Stronger ones ask for judgment:

• "If nations and money are shared fictions, does that make them less real, or does it change what we mean by real?"
• "Is a history this broad useful, or does it flatten too many differences between societies?"
• "Which of the four revolutions does Harari argue most convincingly, and which least?"

Having questions ready also helps when the discussion stalls, which happens in almost every seminar.

6. Prepare a short position, held loosely

Decide what you think about the book's main argument, and be able to say it in a few sentences with one piece of support. For example: "I find the shared-stories idea convincing as an explanation of large-scale cooperation, but I think the agriculture chapter overstates its case, because it treats a long and varied process as a single bad bargain."

Hold the position loosely. A seminar exists to test ideas, including yours. Changing your mind in response to a good point is a sign you're doing it well, not a loss.

7. Bring a connection to something else

Discussions come alive when someone links the book to another text, a lecture or an event. If you've read another book that speaks to the same question, mention it. Harari's own Homo Deus carries his argument into the future. Sebastian Junger's Tribe looks at belonging and small-group life from a very different angle, which makes an interesting comparison with Harari's picture of early human bands.

In the room

Preparation does most of the work, but a few habits help during the seminar itself:

• Speak early, even briefly. The longer you wait, the harder it gets.
• Build on what others say: "To add to that..." or "I read that passage differently...".
• Refer to the text. Give a page so everyone can look.
• Ask when you don't understand something. Others are often wondering the same thing.

If you only have one evening

Prioritise in this order: know the main argument, have one or two passages marked, and have one real question ready. That minimum is enough to take part well. A careful partial reading with clear notes is usually more useful in discussion than a rushed full reading you can barely remember.

Where to go next

• How to annotate a book
• How to read a book for class
• Sapiens chapter-by-chapter guide