Best history & criticism books according to redditors
We found 387 Reddit comments discussing the best history & criticism books. We ranked the 141 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 387 Reddit comments discussing the best history & criticism books. We ranked the 141 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
![The G. K. Chesterton Collection [50 Books]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41G-1mB192L.jpg)
Read more :\^)
I personally don't put much stock into the whole speed reading thing. You lose the sense of the prose and you likely take less away from the material (I do).
I'll echo what others have said and work on comprehension. Also, you could read "How to Read a Book" by Adler and Van Doren. It's an insightful look at what constitutes a text and how you should approach it. It focuses not only on literature but other texts (history, science, poetry, etc.) as well.
in the medieval period it was widely understood that every single word, except the word word, is a metaphor (that is, a carrying across)
grammar is much more than acquiring knowledge - it is context & structure as an art & science. the early stoics referred to it as the "logos spermatikos" (or the seed of a word). if you're looking for something's etymology or order (questions like who said it?, what was said?, under what premises?) -- you're dealing with grammar.
grammar & rhetoric working together in "sacred eloquence" (through well-proportioned analogy) became the charter for Christian education from st. augustine up through the renaissance. at this point, the printing press set grammar (or letters) in a brand new context that many took for granted, leading to much confusion in the west. . .
opposed to this method throughout time were those who believed that the book-of-the-world was best interpreted directly through logic or dialectics - trying to nail words down into translatable forms (like number for instance). . .
marshall mcluhan wrote about all this for his phd, which outlines these controversies between the ancients (grammar & rhetoric) and moderns (dialectic) through different periods in western history -- very much worth a read if you're interested in the trivium.
https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Trivium-Place-Thomas-Learning/dp/1584232358
i'm pretty interested in grammar, so i'm interested in the fact that aristotle never said the quote in the sidebar (and curious how it got there . . .)
Off the top of my head, in no particular order:
The Undercover Economist: Easily the best of those "Economics in everyday life - books"
The Blank Slate: Steven Pinker on the nature/nurture debate. This really opened my eyes on questions like "Why are the same people who fight against abortion for the death penalty", for example.
Complications: This and his second book, Better, gave me an incredible insight into medicine.
Why we get sick: Very good explanation of the defence mechanisms our bodies have and why treating symptoms can be a very bad idea.
How to read a book: An absolute classic. Turns out I've been doing it wrong all those years.
The Art of Strategy: Game Theory, applied to everyday situations. Always treats a topic like Nash equilibrium, Brinkmanship etc. theoretically and then goes into many examples.
A Random Walk Down Wall-Street: Made me see the stock market completely differently.
The Myth of the Rational Voter: The shortcomings of democracy.
The White Man's Burden: Fantastic account of the problems faced by the third world today, and why it is so hard to change them.
You are a socialist, right? Now I may be a reactionary, but I can say that one admirable feature of historical socialist movements was their belief in the capacity of poor people to uplift themselves culturally even amidst conditions of toil and poverty. I can't imagine any of those socialists saying that the poor have no recourse but to sedate themselves with intoxicants and distractions. And how strange that a life of hopeless drudgery, malnourishment, a crippling shortage of "mental bandwith", or whatever, didn't prevent turn-of-the-century miners from becoming far more well-read and cultured than most middle-class people are today, all in a world without Google Books.
I got you my man.
Try this on for size: https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?keywords=how+to+read&qid=1570602870&sr=8-4
I've posted this before (a few times probably, haha), but this is a good Catholic "starter pack" list that I got from my classes:
Start here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764807188/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019925995X/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Then go here:
https://www.amazon.com/Story-Christianity-Vol-Church-Reformation/dp/006185588X
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061855898/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=T5D86TV1MTCSQAYZ4GHR
G.K. Chesterton is always a good supplement (Heretics and Orthodoxy):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ALKPW4S/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
One of the best apologetic anti-atheist books:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1587314525/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Bible Study:
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Testament-Anchor-Reference-Library/dp/0385247672/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1477868333&sr=1-1&keywords=raymond+brown
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1585169420/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809147807/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
(Jewish perspective on NT): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195297709/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
How to Read a Book. Actually really good and useful.
I've heard good things about this:
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
It's just going to take practice. If you've spent your whole life reading popular scifi and fantasy (I don't know what you read), then jumping straight into something like Dostoyevsky or Joyce will be incredibly challenging at best. For many of these classics you can find annotated versions and countless online resources.
Personally, I'd start with an annotated edition to help curb your desire to jump on the internet every time something curious comes up. That can really take away from your enjoyment of the book.
Another thing would be to try and familiarize yourself with Ancient Greek and Roman texts, the Bible and other religious texts, Shakespeare, world history--basically the classics. You'll find that a good deal of the references, symbols, and allusions are likely rooted in these sources, and will be easier to spot and understand as you read more.
The problem isn't the book usually, but the method towards digesting the material.
Here is the only book needed on that subreddit:
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading https://www.amazon.com/dp/0671212095/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_8cSXAb37CK2ZK
Because it has the ability to change any book into a long term influence.
Romance novels have always been the most popular most popular and bestselling genre. Another popular romance writer, whose book was not so different from 50 shades, is getting an 8 figure advance for her next book. If you're interested in understanding the draw of romance novels, there is a very interesting text, though from the 1980s, still feels very true today.
So the question is not really "What is the draw of the 50 shades" series, it's "why did 50 shades become more popular than all of its peers"? Regardless, romance/erotica writers are making bank today, especially because they write very prolifically.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095
Most of it, to me, is putting yourself in the author's shoes and internalizing the argument and asking yourself what fact set and thought process is leading him her to that conclusion, and how someone else's or your own view of the world might lead to a different conclusion.
Play devil's advocate and ask yourself how you would prove the author wrong (antithesis)... what would happen if you take the author's thesis to an extreme? Then maybe try to find the broadest, highest-level principles at stake and combine the antithesis with the relevant pieces of the author's thesis to arrive at a synthesis.
I think we may be looking for the same things. I read a book a few weeks ago called Pragmatic Thinking and Learning that I found really helpful and interesting. Its not too expensive and if you have the money I'd recommend it. Don't be intimidated by the programmer talk, none of it is really relevant.
Last week, I discovered a wiki that gave great advice on learning and memory techniques that seemed like it would have been extremely useful. I've spent the last hour searching for it but I just can't find it. When I come across it, I will let you know.
Another book that I found useful a few months ago was How to Read a Book. Don't let the title undermine the books value; its an awesome book. Definitely worth looking into. I don't follow the advice given in the book very rigidly, but since I've read it, I've found that I approach books much more methodically and absorb the information much more easily.
Its great to see that there is someone else out there looking for the same sort of resources I'm looking for. The way I look at it, learning is a skill that can be developed and mastered. It is an interesting pursuit in and of itself.
I haven't found any single resource for this sort of thing but maybe we can put together a subreddit where we can pool our resources for things that may be particularly helpful.
Off the top of my head:
You can google "how to improve reading comprehension" for more suggestions/strategies.
Edit: I've heard good things about the Feynman Technique. You could look that up, as well.
I'm currently reading "How to Read a Book"; it outlines and illustrates exactly how to read different types of books. So far I'd highly recommend it. There's also an Audible version.
I think it's fine to admit that you developed a love of reading later in life! That said, while you scoop up some of the classics/recent favorites at your own pace, another book you might want to check out is "How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read," by Pierre Bayard.
>With so many important books out there, and thousands more being published each year, what are we supposed to do in those inevitable social situations where we’re forced to talk about books we haven’t read? Pierre Bayard argues that it doesn’t really matter if you’ve read a book or not. (In fact, in certain situations, reading the book is the worst thing you could do.) Championing the various forms of “non-reading,” How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read is really a celebration of books, for book lovers everywhere to enjoy, ponder, argue about—and perhaps even read.
I read it a couple years ago because I heard it was funny, and I've definitely noticed since reading it as a side effect I feel much less awkward talking to That One Guy who shows up at every book club I join and inevitably starts a thinly-veiled dick measuring contest of dropping the title of every "prestigious" book he can think of into conversation. It might be helpful in a similar way to you by providing some tips in general for approaching book discussions, and help you push aside some of those imposter syndrome-y feelings in the meantime while you keep working on building up your Goodreads "read" shelf for real.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095
It's a real book.
In addition to reading, reading, and more reading: interact with your reading. Write notes during and after you read a novel. Write all over the margins (if you dare). Think about what you've read. This might sound crazy, but have a conversation with your book. Your author is trying to have a conversation with you, so go ahead and reciprocate. What are they talking to you about? What questions are they asking you?
Act like you're filling out the major sections of a Spark Notes book.
The more you learn, the more questions you'll ask yourself. The more you read, the more you'll find that the answers to these questions often come from particular places. There are patterns that authors use when crafting the answers to those questions (rest assured they are thinking about them always), and the more you read the more you'll pick up on those particular patterns.
If you've ever read something and thought that a passage seemed significant in any way, you've already started picking up on those patterns. You might think the author spent a peculiar amount of time describing some mundane thing, or the author seems to be using a lot of the same imagery, and so on. These are all ways the author is communicating to you through more than just the story. The more you read, the more obvious these become.
Keep a "reading journal" where you write these ideas down. It doesn't matter if you never go back to them, because the act of writing forces you to think about it a little longer, and helps solidify these patterns in your mind. You'll find that it's easier to analyze the works you read and you'll get more enjoyment from them.
Talk to others about a book if you can. I've begun to think that reading (or appreciating any art) is a communal act more than a solitary one. Learning what others have to say about a particular piece will help you learn new ways of viewing material that you couldn't come up with on your own, and therefore find new ways to view material in the future.
Don't worry about being behind in your class. Many of them have their own ideas for sure, but I'd be willing to bet a few of them are just reading Spark Notes before they come in to class. Either way, as I said before, other people have different ways of reading material and different levels of experience reading. This doesn't make you any more or less behind in your expertise. You have your own, very unique, background in life that gives you a unique perspective and therefore unique insight into every piece of literature (or otherwise) that you pick up. What you find significant in a novel, even if it's totally different than everyone else, is just as valid as anything else. (A professor may like strong support for your arguments so you may have to give a little there, but with for-pleasure reading it still holds)
Finally, after you've read the book and thought about it and wrote your own notes about it, go ahead and read the Spark Notes on it. I loved Slaughterhouse Five and picked up on a lot of things, but reading those Spark Notes blew my mind! Just like conversing with friends, Spark Notes help you view the material in new ways and even provide overwhelming support for their claims.
I also want to add (and it's been posted before), I cannot recommend How to Read Literature Like a Professor enough. It will help you immensely, even if you think you already understand literature.
This book definitely helped me a lot when I was struggling in AP lit. I highly recommend it:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Literature-Like-Professor/dp/006000942X
I've been reading Charles Hill's Grand Strategies, which at first probably doesn't seem like /r/literature material, but bear with me.
If you have any interest in international relations history, then this book is something that you should pick up. Unlike straight history books or IR theory, Hill illustrates the major developments in international relations history through selections from major works of literature throughout history, from Homer's epics up through the present.
This is a humbling book. When you read it, you realize that you are not even close to well-read enough to have written something like this. Beyond just the breadth of his knowledge of literature and its historical context, the lateral connections he makes between works are unexpected and interesting. It's a book I couldn't even begin to write at this stage in my life.
I'm only a couple chapters in, but one of the effects has been that my Amazon wishlist (usually filled with international relations and history books) is filling up with classic works of literature.
>I got about 2 paragraphs in and knew exactly who must have posted this.
I'm surprised it took you that long! You do know my username is prefixed to every one of my comments, don't you? But perhaps it's not all that surprising after all, in light of your "analysis" of what little of the article you managed to read. For it does NOT state that "you must be an intellectual." On the contrary, what it actually says is that "There is something 'magical' in art that cannot be explained intellectually, which touches us in ways we cannot put into words." (Emphasis mine.)
Perhaps this basic ability to understand what a sentence actually says is still beyond you. If so, then I recommend that you get a copy of Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book? In it you will read the following:
>The first level of reading is what we will call Elementary Reading. Other names might be rudimentary reading, basic reading or initial reading; any of these terms serves to suggest that as one masters this level one passes form nonliterary to at least beginning literacy. In mastering this level, one learns the rudiments of the art of reading, receives basic training in reading, and acquires initial reading skills. We prefer the name elementary reading, however, because this level of reading is ordinarily learned in elementary school. The child's first encounter with reading is at this level. His problem then (and ours when we begin to read) is to recognize the individual words on the page.... At this level of reading, the question asked of the reader is "What does the sentence say?"
Just as in the grades of school, one must pass beyond this first grade of reading comprehension before proceeding to the more advanced levels—among which is included what might be termed analytical reading. It is at this stage that one is first able to offer a critique of a work; but if we have not graduated to this level of comprehension, then we not competent to provide any such critique—whether positive or negative.
Still, I must give you some credit: for you were at least able to follow the advice given at the end of the second paragraph, where the invitation to stop reading was extended to those for whom the author's thesis might fall on deaf ears!
As far as finding the article "off-putting" or "condescending," I cannot do better than to quote Francis Bacon, who once remarked that "some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." This applies to the articles from Occult Mysteries as much as to my own comments. If you find that they are not to your tastes, then by all means pass them by in favor of something more sugary.
These are good resources. I'd also add the classic How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. I use it as the first text in my reading methods course and it works well with undergrads despite being a half-century old.
How to Read a Book. This would have saved me a lot of time and I would have gotten a lot more out of my reading had I read it before seminary.
There's a really classic study of the romance genre, and women's reading habits, that takes this argument apart. It's worth a read.
Have you checked out "A Gravity's Rainbow Companion" by Steven Weisenburger? The book does a great job of providing line-by-line references of the many obscurities of the book. If you are interested in the Qabalistic elements of GR something like Aleister Crowley's Liber 777 might be helpful.
Sounds like a review written by someone using the crib sheet from "how to talk about books you haven't read"
https://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent-Read/dp/1596915439
I wouldn't call it definitive, but I'm pretty sure that in his book Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest Greg Carlisle posits several thematic-type things that unify the various shorter sections in chapters with circle headings.
Check out Elegant Complexity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002H9VXQC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
It's pretty much exactly what you're looking for I think.
People of the Book is almost pornography for bibliophiles. This book had me seriously considering going back to school to learn about document preservation.
I went through a period of wanting to read a lot of books about books about a year ago. I think I even have an old submission in r/books on the same subject. Here are a bunch of books I still have on my amazon wishlist that date to around that time. This will be a shotgun blast of suggestions, and some may be only tangentially related, but I figure more is better. If I can think of even more than this, I'll edit later:
The Man who Loved Books Too Much
Books that Changed the World
The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
How to Read and Why
The New Lifetime Reading Plan
Classics for Pleasure
An Alphabetical Life: Living It Up in the World of Books
The Library at Night
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop
Time Was Soft There
I have even more around here somewhere...
Edit: Ok, found a couple more....
Among the Gently Mad: Strategies and Perspectives for the Book-Hunter in the 21st Century
At Home with Books: How Booklovers Live with and Care for Their Libraries
Candida Hofer
Libraries in the Ancient World
The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read
A Short History of the Printed Word
Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption
Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work
The Book on the Bookshelf
A History of Illuminated Manuscripts
Bookmaking: Editing, Design, Production
Library: An Unquiet History
Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms
A Passion for Books: A Book Lover's Treasury of Stories, Essays, Humor, Lore, and Lists on Collecting, Reading, Borrowing, Lending, Caring for, and Appreciating Books
A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books
And yet I still can't find the one I'm thinking of. Will get back to you...
Fuck yeah, I found it!
That last is more about the woman who own the store than about books, but it's awash in anecdotes about writers and stories we all know and love. Check it out.
The following suggestion is by no means condescending or even insulting at the least bit but How to Read A Book is a pretty useful resource in learning how to properly read, absorb and be engaged with any piece of literature that comes your way. Hope this helps!
Right now I am reading How to read a book and would recommend reading it before you read any other book.
As someone said, ''All books are mute till you have read this one''.
Most book summaries are bad in that they don't connect the different themes in an intelligent way to actually allow your brain to comprehend the important details correctly and quickly - which is the point of a summary. The summaries in this sub are quite good, but only because there are committed people who did the really deep digging and can bring up the gems to show you in a comprehensible way.
Reading the book is always, always more beneficial than reading the summary (unless time is a factor, like cramming for a test). You won't get less content from reading the book versus reading the summary, but 99% of the time you will lose content from the summary.
If you are struggling with reading comprehension and retention, I absolutely recommend Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book. Read it all the way through, deliberately, carefully, then read it again a year later using its own tips. It has helped me get 40-50% more juice from each book since. It's a tremendous capital investment in your reading ability (which will serve you well here and in life).
Yep that's perfectly normal, just go with the flow and at some point it will start making (some) sense. The first part is a bit rough, it gets easier to follow (and more entertaining) from the second part on. Though honestly most things only clicked for me on the second read-through.
People often recommend the companion guide, and you can also use the page annotations on the Pynchon wiki. Haven't used either of them yet, but I'm due for another re-read anyway so I think next time I'll get the companion.
Pretty clumsy altogether. There's a bit too many 'half-quotes' and unfounded assertions (McLuhan as fascist? Nope). Here's just one--
>The same man who claimed, in 1963, that our era “is the greatest in human history” had been decrying, only a few years before,
The full quote (unless the article, which doesn't cite a source, is using a different one) is from 1968 in a televised panel interview with Malcolm Muggeridge, Norman Mailer & Robert Fulford:
>McLuhan: Well, for heaven’s sake, this present time we’re moving into, this electric age, is the dawn of much the greatest of all human ages. There’s nothing to even remotely resemble the scope of human
awareness and human –
>Fulford: Now that's a value judgment.
>McLuhan: No, this is quantity. Most people make their judgments in terms of quality. I’m merely saying, quantitatively, this is by far the greatest human age. What further valuations would you wish to make?
>Fulford: Oh, I thought when you said “greatest” you meant the finest, that is –
>McLuhan: No.
Just as Neil Postman, WIRED, Douglas Coupland and the rest of McLuhans 'disciples' (whether they are 'general semanticists' or 'transhumanists') did not understand him one bit, nor do his critics then or now.
Any confusion as to Marshall's intention with his work stemmed from his image. He was, at the heart of it, a Renaissance scholar who desperately sought after a return of Grammar school in the Trivial sense - as the millenium-spanning tradition of learning faded out of fashion in Queen Elizabeth's England.
>“I am resolutely opposed to all innovation, all change, but I am determined to understand what’s happening. Because I don’t choose just to sit and let the juggernaut roll over me. Many people seem to think that if you talk about something recent, you’re in favor of it. The exact opposite is true in my case. Anything I talk about is almost certainly something I’m resolutely against. And it seems to me the best way to oppose it is to understand it. And then you know where to turn off the buttons.”
Anybody who hopes to seriously understand where Marshall was coming from (still quite saliently) ought to read his PhD thesis, which was just recently published - along with Media & Formal Cause.
https://www.amazon.com/Media-Formal-Cause-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/0983274703
https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Trivium-Place-Thomas-Learning/dp/1584232358/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=QPXK93Q8BM41YR61KNCC
> You would be surprised how powerful an argument based on non-judgement is to a group of people whom have been brought up with the idea of "may he who is without sin cast the first stone".
You're such an ameteur. Jesus did not tell people not to judge.
> Your hedonism, which you so decry, does not seem to be having a notable effect on the human species other than to make weekends more enjoyable.
If you were to read this book, you would learn that the working-class of the 19th century were far more educated than those today. Hedonism and anti-intellectualism are bound tightly, like two rotten peas in a pod. I'm sure you've lamented the dreadful level of political discourse... Well, you indirectly support it.
Moreover, it is well known that people are generally less happy than they used to be, despite huge increases of personal wealth. Huh, I wonder why that is... Certainly nothing to do with the fact that we live in a spiritual wasteland.
> In those societies where the protestant ethic was not so brutally imposed on the populace and they have a far more balanced idea of hedonism - surprise surprise - they do not have this problem.
You don't appear to even understand what the Protestant Work Ethic is. A country with a Protestant Work Ethic would have no problems with hedonism; work itself would be pleasing.
Practice is paramount for philosophizing, more you read, discuss, and learn the more efficient you will get at it. It never gets easy, its always a lot of work, but you more or less learn the motions to it. Honestly one of the best books i have ever read was http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/0671212095 How to read a book. Best damn 15 i spent!
How to Read a Book is a great book along these lines. It changed how I approached my reading list in some pretty dramatic ways.
> Unfortunately, since that last class, I've fallen out of it and I'm not entirely sure how to get back in. I'm not very good at teaching myself things.
I think that self-studying is a skill. And just like any other skill, you become better at it the more and the better you practice it. If you aren't very good at it yet, then you probably just haven't done it much, or perhaps you haven't done it properly.
If you don't know where to start developing the skill, I highly recommend reading the article The Making of an Expert (PDF) by K. Anders Ericsson, published in the Harvard Business Review. It is a concise introduction to Ericsson's research on acquiring expertise, full of valuable insights. Some of the more useful and relevant ones are the importance of deliberate practice in acquiring expertise, how long it actually takes to become proficient in a field of expertise, and the fact that the final stage in acquiring expertise involves no instructors (i.e. it is characterized by self-studying).
I also believe How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler to be useful in developing this skill. This book describes the difference between present teachers, like the ones you can interact with in an educational institution, and absent ones, such as the authors of books. It then lists a number of very useful general guidelines on how to approach learning from these absent teachers, followed by some more specific ones describing how to approach different kinds of reading matters. It is essentially a self-studying guide.
And since this is /r/logic and you expressed an interest in getting back into the subject, my final recommendation is A First Course in Mathematical Logic by Patrick Suppes and Shirley Hill, which is an exceedingly lucid, accessible, elementary and rigorous introduction to logic. It is very well-suited for self-studying and might be a useful refresher, although depending on the courses you've taken and how much you recall from them, it may be too elementary for you. I posted a more detailed description of the book in a different thread on here a few days ago.
How To Read A Book.
A great novel that will teach you about the different types of books, how to take notes, make outlines, and read for understanding in general.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0671212095?pc_redir=1414393418&robot_redir=1
Excellent book. This was given to me as a gift before college, and I single handedly give it credit for getting me through the tough literature of my theory and philosophy classes.
I should probably be more clear; I mean it's best to read The Crying Lot of 49 to get an idea of what constitutes heavily-thematic content that Pynchon created based on popular culture (the anarchist in/and Porky Pig, the Trystero play, literalizing Maxwell's Demon) and what constitutes content that Pynchon put in simply referencing popular culture for the fun of it (the mock-british boy-band, Dr. Hilarius' voices). Ultimately, I'm trying to draw a line between so a younger reader (ie, one who does need to hunt down the references) doesn't get bogged down by assuming everything is structural and nothing contingent.
I don't think this is too reductive a method...(feel free to tell me otherwise)
If I'm wrong, or just in any case, OP, there is Pynchonwiki if you're at a loss for research of any stripe. Try to avoid the "Reader's Companions". The only formal Pynchon Study still worth reading is Joseph Slade's.
Also, speaking of technology, have you (/u/winter_mute) ever read Hart Crane's The Bridge? If you are familiar Slade points out some really incredible parallels between them that really struck me...
This is the only book you need to read.
Well like I said, Hayden White is a heavy hitter and has the advantage of being a historian who plays with literature (so he is approachable).
Another good approach is to check out lit classes or, perhaps even more accessible for the busy professional, podcasts of lectures by lit professors. Listening to what they prioritize, what language they use and how they approach material can be quite interesting/helpful
For instance I found listening to The Tolkein Professor quite elucidating. It helped that he is also a medievalist and I am also a big Tolkein nerd.
Let me think about some other options for reading material and I'll do an edit tomorrow.
edit:
Hope that helps!
You seem to have the will and desire, which are more important than an education and natural intelligence. Diligence and discipline are everything in writing, not how 'smart' you are.
There are two roads you must take here, both simultaneously. First, you must become a great reader. Start off by reading authors who are 'accessible,' meaning they do not initially make great demands on their audience. In the west, these are authors like:
1.) Mark Twain (Huckleberry Fin)
2.) George Orwell (Any of his books)
3.) Ernest Hemmingway (Check out his short stories)
4.) Jack London (Call of the Wild)
5.) Jane Austen (Pride & Prejudice)
Here are the rules of reading:
1.) Read slowly. Imagine each scene in your head. Evoke your memory to make the text come alive.
2.) Read everything twice.
3.) Have a dictionary on hand and look up EVERY word you don't understand.
Here is a book recommending some of the best books in history. Each book has an introduction; flip through it and see what interests you.
Here is a book that provides a guide on how to read anything well.
Second, you must become an addicted writer. You must write everyday, it doesn't matter about what. The only key thing is that you enjoy it. Once you get into the habit of reading+writing, and you enjoy it, start looking into books that help you improve your writing. There are a lot to choose from; here are two examples:
1.) How to Write a Sentence, by Stanly Fish
2.) Elements of Style, by Shrunk and White
If you continue to read and write everyday, pushing yourself into more difficult books and more elaborate writing, you'll start to develop a taste for good reading/writing yourself, and be able to distinguish it in the world around you. From there, it depends on what your goals are. Good luck.
The Science Of Harry Potter does a better job keeping your attention. Actually is quite an interesting book... a little cheesy, but explains complex science fairly well.
日本語版はないみたいけど、英語が読めるならこれをお勧め
http://www.amazon.co.jp/Storytelling-Animal-Stories-Make-Human/dp/0544002342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426978550&sr=8-1&keywords=the+storytelling+animal
Adler's How to Read a Book sounds cliche but I highly recommend it.
Read "How to Read a Book"
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/0671212095/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321631804&sr=8-1
After many verbal recommendations from him, I finally borrowed How To Read a Book from a friend. It's an incredible book, and it has a lot to offer especially if you've never been trained in logic, liberal arts, or just how to read arguments well.
I'm an engineer by training and trade (with the reading/writing skills of one to boot) but enjoy reading 10-15 (mostly nonfiction) books a year. I've never known there was more to reading than just starting on page 1 and plowing through. With the advice from this book, you'll be able to cut to the core propositions of a theological, philosophical, historical, and even fictional argument without losing appreciation for the work as a whole.
Allow me to recommend How to Read a Book. In addition to giving a guide to educating yourself through your own reading, he gives a large list of important books for a well-round literary education that may (or may not) prove useful.
The institutes are surprisingly very readable. I read that somewhere in a couple places, and my experience reading them bears out this truth. Try out this article, note this:
>1. The Institutes may be easier to read than you think.
J. I. Packer writes, “The readability of the Institutio, considering its size, is remarkable.”
Level of difficulty should not determine a book’s importance; some simple books are profound; some difficult books are simply muddled. What we want are books that make us think and worship, even if that requires some hard work. As Piper wrote in Future Grace, “When my sons complain that a good book is hard to read, I say, ‘Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves; digging is hard, but you might find diamonds.'”
There are few works in history that had the influence the Institutes had, and had the effect of changing the course of history as this work did. One more though, I also own this version of Calvin's Magnum Opus, am about 250 pages in, it's the easiest version to read, I find, because it is shorter than the 1559 version and the headers and other aides makes this translation quite a treat, for me, a Calvinist.
I would definitely start with Machen, you cant go wrong. World Magazine said it's one of the 100 best books of the millennium:
>It was named one of the top 100 books of the millennium by World magazine and one of the top 100 books of the twentieth century by Christianity Today. / “An admirable book. For its acumen, for its saliency, and for its wit, this cool and stringent defense of orthodox Protestantism is, I think, the best popular argument produced [in the controversy between Christianity and liberalism].”
One last to share, I listened (ironically) to Dr. Adler's classic How to read a book which is a great one for whatever level of reader we find ourselves to be. We read and are driven to this endeavor because we seek to grow our minds. I don't mean to pile on, but you asked hehe. A few books to add to your list, believe me, when you start asking and keeping a "to-read list" it always seems to grow. There's lots of good stuff when you know what to look for :-)
Grace and peace.
Yeah, I got turned on to marginalia a long time ago. But, if you're skittish about writing in a book, you can write in a notebook as you go along. I don't even think it's so important to go back over your notes. Writing them is the main thing.
Of course, I think that there is a wide variety among human beings when it comes to reading comprehension. Some people seem to be able to read at a very quick pace and retain what they read, even with technical books presenting new topics. But, I'm not one of those people. I do what I can.
I read everyday with my coffee. I also carry a book with me everywhere and read on line, in waiting rooms, etc. Try some of the advice in How to Read More - A Lot More by Ryan Holiday.
For heavy texts, my approach depends on the type of book. I mostly follow the method Mortimer Adler set out in How to Read a Book.
I set my objectives with the book. Look at the table of contents, back, index, etc. get an idea of what is in the book, skim and dip, then I plow through the whole book not spending too much time getting sidetracked or looking stuff up, take some notes, re-read at a slower pace. Try to get the 'unity' of the book; what is the author trying to say?
For fiction, poetry and plays, I just plow through on a first read. Don't get too worried about missing things or understanding everything. In a re-read, I create an outline of major characters and plot points.
You'll never get everything out of a great book on the first read. Accept that and try to get at least something out of it.
Online Great Books is a paid community that reads and discusses the great books together. Jordan Peterson appeared as a guest on their podcast in this episode. Enrollment is currently closed but you can sign up to be notified when it opens again.
They basically follow the reading list from Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book, minus the Bible and some of the scientific and mathematical works. You can find the list on Wikipedia too.
Any Great Books reading list is going to take years to complete. Don't be intimidated and don't feel like you need to rush.
The first 150 pages of this book is all u need. I was in the same boat with you earlier this year. Since march I've read 100+ books
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095
There's also another book: how to read better and faster
I would move onto the second book if u feel like u want to read even faster but buy the first book right now.
There are several types of reading strategies. Sometimes, a surface-level reading where you quickly scan through content is called for. At other times, you will need to buckle in and go through dense material with a pencil and dictionary app in hand. Reading literature versus philosophy versus scientific literature all has variations of technique, but there are a few strategies that apply across the board:
There are other suggestions I could post, but they would be stolen from How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler just like all of the above advice was stolen from that excellent book.
I'd recommend you to read and study this book by Adler and Van Doren, titled "How to Read a Book".
>Originally published in 1940, this book is a rare phenomenon, a living classic that introduces and elucidates the various levels of reading and how to achieve them—from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading. Readers will learn when and how to “judge a book by its cover,” and also how to X-ray it, read critically, and extract the author’s message from the text.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095
COME! COME! SPECIAL OFFER! FOR ONLY $12.68 YOU! YES YOU! CAN HAVE THE SAME BOOK AS YOUR WAIFU!
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How to read a book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren
Packed with full of insights and guidelines to make one a better reader. Reading leads to information, information leads to knowledge, knowledge leads to understanding, and understanding leads to wisdom.
A better reader, a smarter person. Happy reading ;)
If you are always "zoning out" when you read, then you're simply not engaging the material you're reading. You need to take a more active approach to reading. For me, it took a mindset shift—I used to subconsciously think that just passing over the words will magically transfer all the author's knowledge to me. No, I have to work hard at it, to understand what the author is really trying to say, and then figure out if it's true or not. I have to dig into the book and work hard to uncover the little gems of insight that it contains.
This book completely changed how I read:
http://amzn.com/0671212095
I can give you a brief summary of how I generally apply the above book (I generally read non-fiction, so this is aimed towards that). First, read the ToC, Preface, and summaries of each chapter, trying to understand the basic structure and flow of the book. Try to figure out what the book is about in general, the parts of the book, its structure, and what kind of book it is. Once you've done this, you're ready for what the authors call an "Inspectional Reading." Read it lightly, not worrying to understand difficult passages. Understand only what the surface of the book has to teach you, and breeze through sections you don't understand. Once you're done with this, you'll have a much better understanding of what parts of the book are important and which parts you don't understand. Often, much of what you don't understand won't be important anyway!
Then you're ready for "Analytical Reading," in which you dive deep into the book, answering questions like:
You can iterate on these questions for a long time, but at some point you'll decide that you have received all that the book has to offer you, and you can put it down and move on.
I've got 95 too! I'm kind of excited about that number simply because it was higher than I thought it would be. There's another dozen or so that are somewhere in my TBR pile.
It looks like the list is from an actual reference book compiled by a bunch of literary critics. This list does seem a little off. I love Jane Austen, but are all her books absolutely must reads? Probably not.
I know he wrote it on engineering graph paper and was supposedly working on it in the late sixties and early seventies. Tons of Academic papers and books have information on his sources, but probably the easiest and most accessible for this type of information is The Gravity's Rainbow Companion https://www.amazon.com/Gravitys-Rainbow-Companion-Contexts-Pynchons/dp/0820328073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519580469&sr=8-1&keywords=gravity%27s+rainbow+companion
Enjoy the read!
It's not from Pynchon but THIS is a fantastic guide to the book which provides an overwhelming wealth of detail. In some ways this guide is as dense and as heady as GR itself.
Actual quotes from friends who claim to have read IJ: "The first 200 pages are so can be a slog, but if you stick with it, you will change your life" "Use three bookmarks" "read all the end notes (96 pages)", "Take notes", "Buy a guidebook" Sure, and I'll quit my job and retreat to a secluded mountain top cave where I'll live on rainwater and yak's milk. Maybe then I might get through that book...provided I don't die of exposure during those 20 years.
There's this study of Infinite Jest. I haven't read it, though, so I can't speak to its quality.
It’s more of a writing book than specifically worldbuilding, but Maps of the Imagination by Peter Turchi might appeal to the cartography fans of this sub.
Another approach
I have a book for you.
I just finished reading Contagious: Why Things Catch On and really enjoyed it. I started How to Read Literature Like a Professor the other day and am enjoying it so far.
Clearly you haven't seen the mocking you got for trying that path. I don't think you have any real knowledge of what you're bitching about, and it sounds to me like you're rehashing someone's argument that you imperfectly understand. For instance, you mention Homer and The Illiad. The Illiad covers only a two week period of what is a much larger conflict. It is extremely 'repetitive, cluttered and long-winded' because it was originally an entirely verbal document. Like the Bible, there was an entire cycle of works built around the larger conflict, but the rest of the 'books' in that 'bible' are lost to us and known only by extracts from the latin 'cliff notes' that survived. My comment does not reinforce your central argument. Indeed I haven't seen an argument from you except that 'the bible is boring, herp/derp'. The reality is, the bible and Shakespeare together are pretty much all of English literature. The rest is commentary. I'd recommend you read this book if you're confused on that point. Don't worry. It only has words of few syllables and isn't that taxing to read.
This book changed the way I read literature and I actually began to enjoy it--as an investigator enjoys solving a murder!
One of my favorite books on sentence structure is Stanley Fish's "How to Write a Sentence." He's a lively writer and there are a lot of good examples.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Sentence-And-Read/dp/006184053X
Another sentence master is Nabokov. Check out sentences in Lolita. So many of them are amazing.
But really, I think both paragraphs read fine. I wouldn't worry about varying structure for the sake of making each one different. Just try to make everything simple and clear. Meanwhile read a lot, copy down sentences you like to get ideas, and keep writing. You'll get better.
No so but this book is incredible.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Sentence-Read-One/dp/006184053X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501842758&sr=8-1&keywords=How+to+write+a+sentence
A few more come to mind, less literature but more about stylistic and analytic skills you'll require in your advanced years in the Humanities.
People say to read a good style guide like Strunk & White, which is just okay. But I'd highly recommend Pinker's A Sense of Style--he also unpacks some of the problems with Strunk & White's core edicts.
Stanley Fish is just a great person to read in general. From his op-ed stuff in the NY Times to his class How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One. I'd also highly recommend reading the full introduction of the Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism or the introduction to Rifkin & Ryan's Literary Theory: An Anthology. When it comes to the lit theory stuff there are some good torrents with a lot of anthologies and canonical texts lumped together as PDFs. I also find a lot of good stuff with my Scribd membership.
I would love for you to message me when it's out.
As for books you should read, I would start with the three most commonly recomended books for writing. Believe me, these are gold printed on paper.
How To Write a Sentence
The Elements of Style
On Writing
and here's a great reference book: The Little, Brown Compact Handbook. Don't be turned off by the price, just search for a much cheaper older addition, it will have the same information.
One of my degrees is in English. One of my favorite things to do is read. I'm also old, so I've had many, many, many years to read books. I'm constantly on the lookout for lists such as the one Austin-G was kind enough to compile for us. I've diligently attempted to plow through books found in The Lifetime Reading Plan and 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I also love listening to Nancy Pearl on NPR and checking out her book suggestions.
Somehow people found this so very offensive that they thought I deserved downvotes for not contributing to the conversation.
TL;DR: Some people are sad, pathetic and petty.
Because of all this, it's not surprising that I've read most of the books that are in the top 200 books that fellow redditors have read too.
The Science Of Harry Potter
I remember reading this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intellectual-Life-British-Working-Classes/dp/0300153651 a few years ago and i honestly think it's still roughly the same but getting worse. That's why I'm leaning more towards the theory that bots are leading the most gullible down this road. Things don't just flip around from autodidactism to complete idiocy without a BIG push.
My little sister watched The Truman Show in Religious Education at school the other day. I think we haven't seen anything yet... but i remember at school we didn't even have R.E. most of the time and when we did we watched rubbish TV shows, shouts to the Vicar of Dibley.
Oh what specifically?
As far as East Asia/Indian Ocean stuff, Robert Kaplan is a pretty good introduction. His book Monsoon is a really good primer on the history of the Indian Ocean region, and it's ongoing (and increasing) importance in international politics. His new book Asia's Cauldron is promising, I haven't read it yet but it is a contemporary and forward looking take at the South China Sea and its role in shaping the future of international relations in the region. I actually just bought it the other day and will be reading it soon (spending the next 18-33 months abroad doing various things). Kaplan's books tend to be a very readable mix of history, personal anecdotes, and political analysis. Sometimes he can get a bit full of himself, especially in sections of Monsoon, but he does a great job at making what he writes accessible to a wide audience while still being at least interesting to read for academics.
For a primer on broad international relations, International Politics is a great starting point. This was my introduction to the field, and while it can be quite dense, it is very informative. It is a collection of essays and articles that is aimed at an intro level IR class (100 level), so while it is certainly on the academic side of things, it is still very approachable, so long as you have the patience to occasionally look up terms and concepts, for someone with no academic background in the subject.
As far as a general reading on grand strategy, I have only heard amazing things about Charles Hill's Grand Strategies. Basically it examines military grand strategy from a historical perspective, the politics behind the strategy, and also ties it into popular literature (such as Shakespeare) in order to make the concepts approachable and digestible for the average person.
For modern military theory that is applicable to today's world, and probably worth understanding given what has been going on in the world for the past decade and what continues to happen, you might be interested in David Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerrilla. Kilcullen has two major books on insurgency, one is Counterinsurgency which is a higher level approach to the topic, while Accidental Guerrilla is a distillation of his observations and studies on counterinsurgency viewed put into a framework that would be easier for the average person to understand.
Admittedly I am a bit biased, as Francis Fukuyama is a family friend, but his latest works The Origins of Political Order and Political Order and Political Decay are great looks into how and why the state system arose, as well as flaws in political systems, corruption, etc.
His earlier (and more famous) book, The End of History and the Last Man is still a very interesting read, although without the proper framing it can be a bit odd in the current global political climate. It works off of a concept that I think is best described in Phillip Bobbit's The Shield of Achilles, which Bobbit terms the "long war". The grand concept of the Long War is that the game changing interstate conflicts throughout history have predominantly been between different types of states. It is a bit of a Darwinist look at state politics and political order, seeing different political models (democracy, communism, fascism, monarchy, etc) as directly competing, and there being a series of successors. The End of History works off of a similar premise, basically saying that once the Soviet Union collapses (it was originally formulated as a series of articles in the late 1980s), Liberal Democratic Capitalism would be the predominant political system, and that it would mark the "end of history" as we knew it up to that point. History had been dominated by massive regional and worldwide conflicts between states that often differed in structure, and that once all the major powers had pretty much gotten to the point of L-D-C, then interstate conflict as we knew it would cease to exist. Obviously conflict still exists, but it is much harder to imagine a World War III in todays world, despite tensions with Russian and China, than it would be just 30 years ago.
Ayn Rand had some really great tips about overcoming writers block: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Fiction-Writers-Readers/dp/0452281547
This book talks about the evolutionary purposes of storytelling - why do humans really need to tell stories? and why do we like them so much? It doesn't make sense from a typical evolutionary standpoint - it doesn't protect us or get us food directly.
Gottschall quotes some research that says that storytelling might have been kept around evolutionarily as a way to show off to mates.
Yeah no worries happy to help, definitely PM me. I'm happy to offer you suggestions if that's useful to you.
If you're at all curious about the mechanics of what you're trying to work with your audience, it might help you to understand it based on brain science. The problem with forcing a symbol onto a character or a character into a symbol sets up a battle between your right and left hemispheres of the brain.
The right hemisphere lacks language so it largely works in meaning, symbols, images, and lives in the moment. The left hemisphere (specifically the portion behind your left eye) is constantly trying to generate a story of what it's seeing and make predictions of what will happen next based on what happened before. It also seems to contain language primarily.
So, in my opinion, symbols ideally should be generated by your right hemisphere which is responding to reality but unable to coin it words. From there, your left hemisphere should gather that up and codify it into a storyline. However, by trying to craft the symbol first, that's likely how you got a blockage. You're telling your left hemisphere to create the symbol which is disconnected by meaning because the left hemisphere doesn't really care if things are meaningful or not. It just wants to generate a story to cover it's ass.
There's a good writeup about how they learned all of this mentioned in Jonathan Gottschall's book The Storytelling Animal. Basically, in the early 1960s, a man's corpus callosum (the median between his two hemispheres) was severed and so his hemispheres couldn't talk to each other. Then, they gave the man a divider and began to show each of his eyes different things. So they might show his left eye a picture of chickens and his right eye a field of snow. They'd offer him objects and his immediate reaction came from his right hemisphere, so he'd grab a snow shovel. However, his left hemisphere had to justify why it had done that and so when questioned why he went for the snow shovel, he said "To pick up the chicken poop!"
The point is the right hemisphere is the center you want to trigger deeply in your audience. That's why peculiar symbols and mythic motifs stir people in deep ways. It's the right hemisphere that wants to swing a light saber for example, or responds to conversations in Tarantino films about food. The problem with a lot of screenplays is there's a lack of understanding of these core ideas and as a result, some people just let their left hemisphere generate story thread garbage that doesn't really make sense or work.
Now that's not to say that you have to have an insane understanding of symbolism to write a good screenplay. You don't. We all understand these things deeply in our own right hemispheres. You should, however, be aiming to be inspired by your own deeper meaningfulness but also willing to share your ideas with others to polish your storytelling. This is why oral storytellers are constantly re-working their stories.
The shortcut of course, is to utilize standard mythological motifs. However, there's problems with this as anyone who learned Joseph Campbell's Hero Journey can see. Just because you're using a mythological motif doesn't mean you're utilizing meaningful symbolism. The Hero's Journey is a collection of 12 or so motifs that Campbell saw. Well those aren't the only motifs out there. Vladimir Propp's version has about 31 core motifs (he calls functions) and Stith Thompson's collection has over 46,000 motifs and are quite useful for story generation if you develop an eye for updating old storyforms. (I've done quite a few story creation experiments using Thompson's stuff).
If you don't work from an understanding of meaning and symbolism, it's like creating a person whose bones are all dislocated from each other and therefore can't move. If your story can't move, it definitely can't move your audience. You need meaningful symbolism to pull that off, and it doesn't take much to be honest. Stanley Kubrick would write his films around 6 to 8 meaningful symbolic ideas, which he termed "non submersible units" and then craft the story around that. Ray Bradbury in his book Zen in the Art of Writing describes hiding meaningful moments from his childhood into his stories in order to give them soul as well. You get the idea.
The Storytelling Animal?
I would suggest to do 3 things before you dive into any philosophy books.
The first is enroll and take the Coursera Learning to Learn course(it's free). The second is to read Mortimer J. Adler's How to read a book, and the third is to read Susan Wise Bauer's The Well Educated Mind.
After finishing those, pick up a general history of philosophy book, and dive into the primary sources, starting with the early philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, and branching off into any branch of philosophy that interest you.
The /r philosophy subreddit can be a useful tool in learning where to go once you start, I suggest a couple 'where to begin' searches to get a reading list.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095
How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler
How to Read a Film by James Monaco
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
My father has recommended this to me on numerous occasions. I just haven't picked up a copy. It may be useful to you
Mortimer Adler put together a great [list] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_books#Sample_list)
He also makes an important distinction between being well read and being widely read. (It's about what you can get out of it)
So i would advise his inimitable [how to read a book] (http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095)
How to read a book
I´m serious...read this book. It will give you the discipline and the will to keep reading. After you read this you will realize you were doing it wrong.
I'm a bit late but I hope you see this.
I was in the same boat (although more into non-fiction) and can strongly recommend two books:
The first is How to Read a Book. When I first saw the title I though: "Pfft, I know how to read a book", but then you start reading it and realise that you don't know shit. This book deals with comprehension mainly, so it seems perfect for your situation.
The second book is less important but one I'd recommend to anyone who does a lot of reading. Breakthrough Rapid Reading talks about "speed reading" and is set out like a six week course. You can do 20 mins every evening to increase your reading speed whilst maintaining (or even improving) comprehension. There are a lot of speed reading resources out there, but I think this is one of the best. Certainly worth a look as you can make pretty rapid gains early on.
I am not insulting you by this. If you want to learn to listen and understand, you must first learn to read and learn. Please pick up a copy of Mortimer Adler's wonderful book, "How to Read a Book". It's one of the finest books ever written about reading, learning, and critical thinking. It contains the core of your college eduction, which seems to be missed these days: The ability to teach yourself.
I beg you to read it, because it changed who I am. My eyes would glaze over at anything other than fiction. Now I am learning Abstract Algebra, Spanish, and Guitar. No teachers except the masters who wrote the books I'm learning from.
I beg you to read this book, as it is the key the the largest door in the world. You can learn at the feet of the greatest minds who ever lived. Learn politics from Plato, Math from Euclid, literature from Shakespeare... If this was a college for the only the price of the books, wouldn't you go there instead?
Finally, I beg you to read this book so you may become a full participant in your own life and that you may have a life that others will wish to participate in.
While I'm certainly no expert by any means, I believe things that can help include reading and practice.
A friend once told me reading good books helps you learn good writing, and good writing I would imagine also leads to good speaking.
Practice would be helpful too. Even if we don't write well, we get better by just forcing ourselves to write, and similarly with reading and speaking.
A popular book on reading books that I've noticed is ["How to Read a Book" by Morimer Adler.] (http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095)
Thank you for sharing this.
Dr. Peterson said this in abbreviated form during one of his Q&A sessions. He emphasizes setting aside the reading after encountering a significant idea and then re-synthesizing it by writing your thoughts on it and how it relates to your existing body of knowledge (i.e. adding memory "hooks" to the new information).
Also, the book How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler dispels the assumption that all reading is equal. Essentially, there are different forms of reading which are suited for different types of material and goals. The passive form of reading most people do is best suited for recreational reading (i.e. magazines or novels) where retention of information is not the primary goal. This form is less taxing, thereby promoting the relaxation/recreation goal. The deeper forms of reading where retention (and more importantly, understanding) is the goal, require a form of reading much different than the "start at the beginning and read sequentially" form to which most are familiar.
The concept of "chunking" is interrelated to all these sources: Waterloo, Dr. Peterson, Adler, et. al. - which is the concept of actively relating new information to existing information. This helps by literally increasing the number and strength of neural connections to the physical site of the new memory, as well as structuring the new memory in such a way as to assign meaning to it. Chunking is also how brains become capable of dealing with concepts of increasing complexity. The vast majority of those who are regarded as super-intelligent in some field do not process more chunks of information than the average person. As an example, Bobby Fisher didn't rely on an extraordinary short-term memory to think so many moves ahead in his chess games; instead, he had synthesized his knowledge of chess so extensively to be able to think of entire sections of the board and entire sequences of moves through time as single chunks of information, whereas a beginner would think about individual pieces during the current turn as chunks. So each are dealing with the same number of chunks, more or less, but if information were ice - one is chunking in terms of ice cubes and the other is chunking in terms of ice bergs, with corresponding "weights" of ability.
I have three of them. Meditations, Tao Te Ching, and Man's Search for Meaning.
I read Tao Te Ching many years ago. I think it was above my reading level at the time as I can't recall much about it. I wasn't really paying attention to what I was reading or properly digesting it.
I have the Gregory Hays' version of Meditations. It's up next after I'm done Flow. So far Flow mentions quite a few things I recognize from Stoicism. Directly mentions Diogenes in the first chapter.
Man's Search for Meaning will probably follow shortly after Meditations.
I've only heard of the Bhagavad Gita, so that's as familiar as I am with it. I assume it's a book of wisdom or something like that from India.
I do make notes of the books I read, so if you'd like I can forward them to you when they're ready. Currently putting together some for How to Read a Book, The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance, and Atomic Habits.
> There’s a massive fallacy in thinking that just because you read something means you understood it.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095
There are 3 reasons about this:
a) For a huge segment of the population, the act of reading a whole book is an accomplishment in itself. Once you've done such an epic thing, how can you tell yourself that now you have to actually go and understand what you were reading? :D
b) Just like breathing, just because you can, doesn't mean you're good at it. But it feels trivial so it's easy to assume that you have the skill, when if fact you don't.
c) Some people read without the intention of understanding, but for other reasons, such as pleasure or peer pressure.
I'll close off with my favorite phrase that pisses off people: "50% of humans have a below average IQ".
It depends on the subject matter and what you need to do with it. How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading has great advice for the different purposes. Don’t just trudge through each reading from page one. Scan, skim. Be careful what you decide to give a close reading of.
Keep a journal of your readings and make notes. That will help review the insights you pick up and remember where important references are from.
Instead of one notebook per class I personally recommend keeping all your reading notes in one book. Save the first four pages as a table of contents. Number the rest of the pages. That way when you get a new reading assignment you can add it to the TOC list and next to it note what page it starts on. That way you can skim it quickly to find it again. These tips are from the Bullet Journal method.
You know what? I have an awful memory. My SO gets mad at me all the time because she'll tell me things and I'll inevitably forget them.
Which is to say that your memory isn't holding you back. It's the way you interact with information you want to retain that is the problem here, much like it was for me.
My background is that I wanted to "become smarter". Didn't know wtf that meant but I figured reading book was important to that goal so that's what I did. I've read some really awesome books and I can tell you that I don't remember a lot of them.
However, there is a book that you should absolutely read to learn to how correctly interact with the information you're trying to retain: How to Read a Book, by Mortimer J. Adler. The book is an instruction manual on how to read books effectively, so as to learn from them and really really understand them.
Nowadays, I can't say that I remember specific parts of books that I read, but I absolutely can recall the general idea of a book (which is often helpful in conversation) and whereabouts in the book I read something so I can look it up again if I need to.
And this information can be applied to literally anything you read.
As far as learning in general, Make It Stick was alright. Would recommend, but it's pretty basic.
Read this book. Seriously. I will make you a better
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Readin
You could start with a book like this: E. D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy or Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book or How to Think About the Great Ideas.
Or you can, like you've said, gather some info. about certain historical periods or cultural eras and decide to learn more about them. It's not easy, but you're living in a time where you can easily and freely access a lot of information.
Thank you. Looking through the links you gave helped me find a book that's more along the lines of what I'm looking for. Do you know if this is any good?
How to Read a Book. No joke. Just getting into reading. Only read most of the Harry Potter books as a kid and just sparknoted everything I've had to read for school. So I need to learn the basics.
After that, I plan on reading What Liberal media by Eric Alterman. I torrented all episodes of The Daily Show a few weeks ago and in one of the earlier episodes Eric came in for an interview to plug the book. It's basically about how our "liberal" media is just establishment media.
After that I'm not sure, but there's a million books I want to read and I need more time on my hands...
EDIT: Actually no, after HTRAB I'll be reading Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V. S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee as it's a much easier read than What Liberal Media. Already read some of it, it's very fascinating.
There's a book about that...
It's actually pretty good.
I'm currently reading this.
You might want to give it a shot. The least it will do is give you a purpose for reading. There is supposedly a pretty good recommendation list as well (I refuse to look at it until the end, in fear of quitting the book).
Perhaps not in the exact same archetypal analysis that Jung, Peterson and Campbell pursue, but Mortimer Adler wrote an entire book about "active reading".
Here's my summary post of that book from a while back..
In particular, understanding certain works of literature, I would say, falls under the category of "coming to terms with the author", as per what Adler describes in his book.
Perhaps even deeper than that, if you presuppose that "people don't have ideas, ideas have people", then working and analyzing within the metaphorical and mythological frame of reference could be seen as a way of getting to terms with an idea itself, to which the author is only a harbinger of.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095/
Only if it suits your goals.
How is your health? How is your routine? What is your idealistic lifestyle? 5-years? 10-years? 20-years?
What influences have driven you without your knowledge (parents, teachers, impulses)?
Write a 10-page paper on the benefits of college. A 10-page paper on its opportunity costs. And a 10-page paper on what lifestyle you want to build. Or a 20-page paper. Hell, just go for a book, and sell that. The bottom line is the more you put in now, the better off you will be in your "choice" (which is basically a rationalization of whatever limited information you currently have in a given moment).
Think of your ideal goals or just general thoughts of life:
Will it involve kinky foreign sex at 18?
Will it involve biking?
Will it involve long work hours?
Do you wish to fix things in your life? Work out, exercise, interact with people more often?
Did you know hypnosis is real? Especially the erotic type.
Did you know most people cannot properly read a book? Here is a good starting introduction.
Honestly I would wait and delay it until you find the best college for your needs. Plus right now your frontal lobe is still developing until 23-25 which makes long-term planning a little difficult to perceive at times. And you are getting the spam of "GO TO COLLEGE" non-stop which is priming your own cognitive choices to be "well should I go to college or " instead of "this is what I have, my goals, what should I do to meet them?"
In the meantime, the independence, work experience, and savings rate at your age (with compounding interest) is critical to your own future education. By self-discovering and molding your thinking, you will be ahead of your peers that just go to college without the experience.
Can you make $50,000 now per year? Can you save a significant portion? Do you have a goal outside of work/school? A lifestyle you want to build?
You could go to college now or go to college with experience, more maturity, and a higher net-worth. Which translates to less pressure and more education for your own understanding. You get better choices and better results. You could go travel for the knowledge, meet experts in the field, and overall understand yourself on a higher level.
Check out /r/financialindependence, /r/leanfire, and you probably alright know about /r/cscareerquestions
And then there is /r/simpleliving (for happiness), /r/digitalnomad (for options), /r/Flipping (for turning waste into profit), /r/churning (travel rewards) /r/Entrepreneur (business expansion)
First I would say that your state of confusion is normal at your age. The brain matures around 25 and time should help you find a bit more peace but only then.
I would suggest to find a mentor : someone you respect, can look up to and are confident that they have your best interest at heart. Could be a family member or a counsellor perhaps. Expose your questions and take his or her input seriously.
Also, do not underestimate the power contained in good books. This is the most condensed wisdom one can find. Start with How to read a book and ask your mentor for reading advice as it is easy to drown in the quantity.
Have a look at How to Read a Book: The Classical Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles van Doren.
how to read a book on amazon
How To Read A Book
Looks like I'll be starting with Jung! I have Modern Man In Search of A Soul and The Essential Jung - picked that one up randomly so I hope it's valuable.
As much as I'd love the guide that it seems MoM gives (I'm considering going back to school for philosophy, despite the risk, and would love some extra encouragement to "aim properly"), I can put it aside for now. If tackling Jung and Hegel gives me a critical eye to MoM, all the more reason to hold off.
I respect Peterson a lot, and I'm a big fan, but I always want to be able to look at ideas critically and judge them on their full merits.
Is your knowledge of Hegel and Jung self-taught? I'm currently reading Mortimer Adler's How To Read A Book in order to prepare myself to tackle these texts.
Interesting quote you pulled from the Philosophy subreddit. My interest in Hegel stems from my Christian background. I can't help but feel that Hegel, Jung, and (by extension) Peterson, are touching on a way to bring Christianity into the 21st Century.
You might benefit from reading this.
How to Read a Book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0671212095
Reading is your skill, approach it that way and you'll be ahead of the rest.
Work your way through 1001 books to read before you die
The link to the actual book
You might want to try 1001 Books to read before you die...
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
The justification is in a book form. http://www.amazon.com/1001-Books-Must-Read-Before/dp/0789313707/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292706196&sr=8-1
You absolutely, positively, without question, must... must! Get the Stephen Weisenberger book that explains all the references to you and read it along with the book. Otherwise it sounds like meaningless ramble (which some of it is)...
http://www.amazon.com/Gravitys-Rainbow-Companion-Contexts-Pynchons/dp/0820328073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324691753&sr=8-1
It's not a scholarly article, but Steven Weisenburger's A Gravity's Rainbow Companion is definitely something you'd want by your side.
Re-read Infinite Jest with Elegant Complexity by Greg Carlisle. It really makes it that much better.
:)
>dogma- n. a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true
Ok, got it.
> "If you don't read a book, you can't review a book."
https://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent-Read/dp/1596915439
That's whole book about talking about books that you haven't read.
> "If you don't look both ways, then you're going to get hit and you won't be able to cross streets at all."
I've done this many times, and STILL I LIVE.
Both of those things are principles of yours that you have laid down as incontrovertibly true.
Come on, buddy. You're a smart guy.
Sure, here it is! The independent poems in this all seem to be formatted correctly, just the ones in novels are messed up - I read Ballad of the White Horse with no problem.
I like. Just keep in mind other fantasy influences, and look into what people didn't like about those books. I can see parallels, but as long as you are aware of it, its fine. I write fantasy too, and a good deal of my work is keeping track of that. I'd recommend this book to help with both reading and writing, especially understanding archetypes and reader perception. Have you started writing it yet?
"how to read literature like a professor" (http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Literature-Like-Professor/dp/006000942X) ...a shitty idea indeed
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Literature-Like-Professor/dp/006000942X/iliketurtles
I believe you have something to learn my boy.
I don't usually do writing exercises because it feels like carving out time away from my WIP. But there are two things I do. I use the process in How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One by Stanley Fish. Save great sentences and write your own using the same constructs. I publish them on Medium with an anonymous account so they are out there, but not really.
​
The other thing I do is get the fingers moving before a writing session by typing a great work out, I like typing out an epic poem by Coleridge because it is so meta to do so. He relates in his biography that in school he would copy out his favorite poet's books to give to friends because he could not afford to purchase them.
Basically, once we've proved that time travel, warp speed, and other such things are 100% completely impossible, then we can start classifying that type of science fiction as fantasy. But we haven't done that yet.
It's also fun to look at fantasy books like Harry Potter from a science fiction standpoint. As Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
this book may interest you- links known scientific theory adn some of the 'magical' events in HP
Nice reply. I really would stress the technical definition of capitalism (private ownership of the means of production, with the goal of profit), because it allows a lot of useful investigation. Still, i like your thinking that capitalism is about the weekends, and it got me curious.
I was taught in school that the two-day weekend was invented by Henry Ford, along with a whole raft of worker benefits, and that we have him to thank for every free Saturday. I found this Politifact article that lays out a more detailed picture, and suggests that Ford was simply responding to the pressure of a decades-long campaign by workers. Also, it points out that the now-standard work week (8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, Saturday and Sunday off) was not formalised in the US until 1940, well after Henry Ford’s time.
This suggests that we owe our weekends of luxury not necessarily to generous employers, but to the organised struggle of workers.
If we look further back in history, we might see that industrial capitalism has a history of very long work days, with very little holiday. I actually work on the grounds of a mansion in an old mill town. The employer and their family lived in the grand house, on top of a hill, with a view down to the river where the mills ran. The slope is terraced by small houses, built to house the mill workers, and which used to be slums. In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was very little legal protection, and the workers endured shifts up to 14 hours a day. Child labour was employed in some parts, and there are accounts of beds ‘never getting warm’ because, as soon as the father would get home, the mother would get up to work. Wages were generally very poor, and children would often suffer from malnutrition.
Some really good info on this:
Very good book
An overview of working conditions
It’s vitally important to note that the factories, the mills, the looms, were all privately owned, and operated for profit. It was in the interest of profit that wages were low and the work day was long. This powerful motive is still present today.
The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (Yale, 2010) is excellent. As the title suggests, it isn't primarily about what people's bodies did day to day but about what their minds did: "This landmark book provides an intellectual history of the British working classes from the preindustrial era to the twentieth century. Drawing on workers' memoirs, social surveys, library registers, and more, Jonathan Rose discovers which books people read, how they educated themselves, and what they knew."
The Republic
Leviathan
The Prince
1984
Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order
Best book for screenwriting IMO: John Yorke's 'Into The Woods'
And best book for writing (which gives valuable, but indirect lessons in screenwriting) IMO: Ayn Rand 'The Art of Fiction'
Hope this helps!
Well, solidify the idea you want to convey first, then, make a map or something so you can travel through all those characters you like to create, place them, on the stories, fiction, non-fiction, western, drama, etc, etc,
some things that may help you:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Fiction-Writers-Readers/dp/0452281547
http://www.amazon.com/On-Becoming-Novelist-John-Gardner-ebook/dp/B00AB7NYZU
http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Journey-Structure-Edition/dp/193290736X
You should take notes in some sort of organized and integrated system. I personally recommend taking notes in the books themselves and then transferring them to an external notebook. It's also a good idea to read things multiple times, particularly after you've made some preliminary notes.
For a more comprehensive look at what you should be doing, see this
A classic that might help:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095
Howard Hendricks' Living by the Book is a great place to start, or the classic How to Read a Book is quite useful also.
Using the reading techniques from the books above and some basic notes for insight into the culture and other translator's issues can get you pretty far. The .NET translators' notes are probably the best free resource, along with the many different translations available online.
You will probably eventually want to at least learn enough Greek grammar to be able to muddle through with a good lexicon, perhaps with Logos or Accordance.
Classic book on how to read - a must read!
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/0671212095
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/0671212095
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095
Mainly about reading books but can be applied more generally.
How to Read a Book is another book along the same lines that I usually recommend.
How to Read a Book
How many times have you read the books?
You could be falsely assuming the cause is your quick reading and not that you've only read the available literature once instead of three times.
I think understanding that there's more to be found and a desire to look for it should be enough to slow you down. If you find yourself zoning out and reading in a more skim-like manner, go back a few paragraphs to what you remember reading last and start over.
Or if you really want a good resource, get How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. It's about reading and reading closely and when the two are appropriate and whatnot. Adler was a great man. He's the one who also spearheaded/managed the Great Books of the Western World organization/movement. Not everything he recommends needs to be applied but it's good to know how to (as someone learned thinks you should) properly read closely when you want to.
Thanks. My answer to your 1st paragraph: I mean 'reading skills' like How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler
or the following tip from Peter Smith, Teach Yourself Logic 2016: A Study Guide, p. 8:
>I very strongly recommend tackling an area of logic by reading a series of
books which
overlap
in level (with the next one covering some of the same
ground and then pushing on from the previous one), rather than trying to
proceed by big leaps.
Your 2nd paragraph: No offense at all, and thank you for the correction! As I fixed it, should you edit your comment to remove this to forestall confusion?
Start here.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095
My favorite books by him include How to Read a Book and Aristotle for Everybody.
I would highly recommend this author for anyone looking to study Thomas Aquinas - or for anyone who simply would like an introduction to philosophy.
It's actually not. Tai Lopez reads a book in 10 minutes which is ridiculous. This method is a part of a 4-part method created by the man who literally wrote the book on how to read a book, Mortimer Adler.
There are 4 reading levels: elementary, inspectional, analytical, and synoptical. Analytical readings are meant for books that deserve deep analytical reading, and synoptical readings are for topics that require more than one book to fully grasp mastery.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you look at it), self-help books fall into the category of reference books. That means that you're reading the book for information and trying to pull actionable items out of said book to incorporate into your daily life. This also means you don't need to read the author's whole life story and how when he was 2 he was diagnosed with ADHD and his mom didn't have enough money for meds, or whatever the story is. Just look for actionable items and start incorporating them into your daily habits.
I agree with what you said about Tai Lopez 100%, I alwayst tell people to stay away from him. But what he's claimed as his secret to success is just one of a 4-step process stolen from Adler and made into this "secret weapon for success (and lambos)."
This is actually something I've confirmed with Shane Parrish from Farnam Street Weekly, and he states the same thing in his "How to read a book" course. In terms of intelligence and dedication to the art of reading, Shane is light-years ahead of snake-oil salesman Tai Lopez.
You can read more here:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/06/17/how-to-read-a-book/
https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/how-to-read-a-book/
Check out this book.
Step 1
Step 2: Practice
This one might help.
Here is my advice to anyone going to college or wanting to learn: Read How to Read a Book. I'm not insulting you, I was 35 when I read it and it's a life changing book.
Ok, if you want to be a programmer, I recommend reading The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. It's not a light read but will get you solid understanding to work from. Learn C, work with pointers and get to understand them. If you do graphics this will be invaluable. Oh, and start writing code. There is no substitute for experience, I've seen people with masters degrees in software who couldn't write code. That being said, get a general degree in Computer Science or Electronic Engineering. It's a great fallback and you might enjoy writing code for F-22s more than writing video games. (Just saying)
Oh, write your own game. Write pong and pac-man. If you are good at what you do you will always have a place to do it. The universe is funny like that.
Adler and Van Doren's How to Read a Book is a classic.
"How to Read a Book"
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/0671212095
I did a word search in this thread for the titles of these books but I did not see them. If they've somehow been mentioned already, sorry.
How to Read a Book
Yeah yeah, a book called how to read a book. This book has a lot of information to help you filter out the crap you don't want to read from the crap you do, and in the back it has a huge list of good books to read. This book is a good place to start.
Remember Everything You Read
If you google speed reading, Evelyn Wood's face appears. This is a book about speed reading with a focus on education, and it reads like one of those "the secret" type success gimmick books, but even if you don't care about reading faster, get this for the all-important retention techniques.
There is a lot more to the skill of reading than knowing the language in which the book was written. These two books are like keys to locked doors.
Mortimer Adler - How To Read A Book
How to Read a Book
>If you guys are actually reading full books of the Bible that are of this length and/or longer every single night I would highly suggest stopping, taking your time through a single one in a longer period of time so you glean more from it,
There are different kinds of reading, and a place for each kind. An overview reading such as /u/CrucifiedBruxter is doing provides heaps of contextual information that you wouldn't get if you just spent a year mining everything you could out of Romans. The problem comes if you only survey (and forgo depth) or if you only dig (and forgo context).
Helpful text recommended by Dr Michael Horton
My question for you is why? If you do this, know that your work prospects will go down. If you plan on going into full time ministry that will pay you, great. If not, just be aware. Source? I got my BA in Biblical Studies and was unemployed for two years after graduating. Didn't get much employment help from the school either. Now to your questiom.
It depends. History classes study....history. Ethics classes study.... ethics. I know it sounds like it's a whole specialized field unto itself but you will study the same topics you would at most other school. With one exception. If it's a good school, it will teach these things from a decided and unashamed Christian worldview. A good intro to that would be the book The Univers Next Door by James Sire. Read a lot and make sure you read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler as well as a good Systematic theology (like Wayne Grudem's or Millard Erickson's) to get grounded in the basics. You're going to do a lot of reading and writing so be ready for that.
If you're into reading critically, I'd join a book club so you can discuss the book afterwards. That should help you recreate some of the classroom feel, that you're missing out on. Here's one on reddit if you're interested. I haven't participated in it, so I don't know the quality of discussion, but it seems to have a lot of members.
You could try reading sitting up, slower, at a desk, and taking notes with a pen. That might help you pay attention and develop thoughts about the book.
I remember a book being talked about here a while ago called how to read a book that might be worth looking into. I personally haven't gotten around to reading it, but it seems to be highly recommended and is supposed to help with intelligent reading.
Sorry for a jumbled response, but I hope that gives you some ideas about where to start.
I mean there are basically two ways. One: improve your fundamentals. That's like the long-term strategy. Basically, read like crazy. New Yorker, the Atlantic, New York Times, non-fiction books, and what not. It's like if you don't even have the muscle to throw a three-pointer, then it's pretty much pointless to practice 3pts.
Second is to learn some reading skills. Annotations, skimming & scanning, etc. Personally I'm not a big fan of these, but they do come in handy if you don't have, like 5 months to incrementally improve your reading.
If you do have the time, I would recommend the following two books:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Literature-Like-Professor/dp/0062301675/ref=pd_sim_14_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0062301675&pd_rd_r=35Q5NY3NKYMXGNRRAZZ6&pd_rd_w=4BP03&pd_rd_wg=oJkPO&psc=1&refRID=35Q5NY3NKYMXGNRRAZZ6
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095
How to Read a Book :
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0671212095/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1414263573&sr=8-1
Then, of course, there's this list, and now it's like we have homework and the due date is our dying day. Doesn't get much more definitive than that.
I love it. It is a SLOW read, but it's wonderful. The deliberate manner of nearly every point in the book will make you able to ponder it for hours and hours on end.
I'd add that you should definitely read the book with some version of annotations (this one is great but you can find it online for free I'm sure, or you can try this website). I also like keeping up with these illustrations for each page of the book because it's fun to do so. Enjoy the book most of all, but don't get discouraged if it starts seeming like a bit of a chore.
https://www.amazon.com/Compact-Bedford-Introduction-Literature-Thinking/dp/1319037275
Hello, it appears you tried to put a link in a title, since most users cant click these I have placed it here for you
^I ^am ^a ^bot ^if ^you ^have ^any ^suggestions ^dm ^me
And this
https://www.amazon.com/Compact-Bedford-Introduction-Literature-Thinking/dp/1319037275
The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, 11th edition by Michael Meyer
IBSN: 978-1319037277
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1319037275/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
love you man :)
With all due respect to the conclusion you've made - the research I've done leaves me with no doubt that the Catholic Church is the true bride of Christ, the defender of the faith through the ages - and the gates of hell shall not come upon it. It took a long time for me to come to this realization (as an avid conspiracy person), but when I did it was precisely the sort of profound tear-inducing disbelief at my own obliviousness. That not only does God love his children, but that he trusted his weakest apostle with the keys to His kingdom and revealed the purpose of the name he had given him. It is the joy of knowing that through faith this world is not completely lost. This is a collection of people who have and maintain this feeling regularly.
Marshall McLuhan put it best when he said "you can tell when somebody has left the Church, they've stopped praying." Faith is a mode of perception that makes life infinitely more joyful and fulfilling. I have been growing through this faith, thinking twice about my actions before I do them, and always looking for where I may find a hint of God's will for my life.
It is worth noting that the Church has never formally adopted ANY gnostic dogma of self-enlightenment (the chief lie of the Prince of this World, as you rightly point). Though the controversies initially rose within the medieval church among early apocalyptic Franciscans and Cathars after the crusades; Jesuits who stole the patristic education of the trivium and locked it into private life and confidentiality, there is still a staggering amount of holy work that has been done. The Church even officially disbanded the Jesuits, and if it weren't for Catherine the Great's sanctuary for them in Russia in the 19th century, they would've been completely stamped out from the church altogether. Unfortunately they were a large part of Vatican II. The point is, it may not be worth throwing the baby out with the bath water.
History, grammar, the story of continuity to the point in life where we find ourselves is essential to any new learning, or making. We will get much better ideas of where we should go when we can retrace steps and see how we got here. This grammar, this continuity comes tied to our memory. every human is designed with faith of God. We simply have to remember who we are.
For this, I could not recommend ANY more (as I always always do here) Marshall McLuhan's doctorate, which is basically a trivium that winds up being the story of the Catholic Church idealizing holy civilization.
https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Trivium-Place-Thomas-Learning/dp/1584232358
People have been kept from the Truth; because the Truth will set them free. This is why they are called Liberal Arts. When they are not directed inward, as Masons and Jesuits and countless hallucinating others would have it, but instead the arts are directed to God through Christ... it is why we say He is the source of all supernatural gifts.
McLuhan said about the times he lived in: "we've adopted the attitudes of the Renaissance controversialists without ever learning what those controversies were originally about." and "Just why the medieval fourfold-exegesis method of the patristic school slowly faded over the years of the late Renaissance has never been explained and deserves its own study."
If the controversies began within the church, they can be defended against within the church.
The patristic tradition of the Catholic Church from Augustine to Erasmus calls us to live in constant search of new learning. learning various kingdoms, having helpful stories of distant lands & times at the tips of our fingers, and how to arrange them in ways to inspire devotion and true involvement from the free will of the listener, all in service of guiding them towards salvation.
The Gnostics want everybody to live conceptually, that is, stuck in frozen patterns of their own making. Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out to all the best philosophers that by their nature, all of their notions were the OPPOSITE of reality, truth & actuality because it is a still snapshot of a naturally dynamic process. The Gnostics have always feared people who live free from ideas that freeze them. This is only possible for a Christian, because it is this infinite mystery (not mystic, but a sober recollection and expounding of true experience) is precisely why he died for every single one of us.
love and respect my brother. your post will save many souls here.
I have some but depends on what you want
About planets:
http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/0984470034/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286906911&sr=1-2
About languages:
http://www.amazon.com/Language-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/098447000X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268637297&sr=1-1
i dont know about it too much but heard its good:
http://www.amazon.com/Maps-Imagination-The-Writer-Cartographer/dp/1595340416
This is THE deal:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/158297103X
Another helpfull thingy:
http://www.amazon.com/Strata-Terry-Pratchett-ebook/dp/B003NX6Y6U/
Peter Turchi wrote about this in http://www.amazon.com/Maps-Imagination-The-Writer-Cartographer/dp/1595340416. I don't know if it's germane, as this book deals as much with composition as criticism.
Or you can just read this one! Haha, I found this book at one of those giant library book sales a while ago, it is pretty amusing.
Wow, History subredditors really do their homework... Kudos! (It was my first submission to this subreddit)
FYI, I also own [this book][1].
PS: yes, I read the whole article before submitting; yes, I know it's completely misleading; yes, that was intentionally provocative
[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent-Read/dp/1596915439/ "But I haven't read it yet, either... ;-)"
Relevant: http://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent-Read/dp/1596915439
How to talk about books you haven't read.
There's a book that covers this feeling somewhat. It deals with the idea that not only is there an uncountable number of works that we can never experience in a lifetime, there's also no way to replicate the same experience of reading/watching/playing something every time. That is, you can never watch the same movie twice. It also covers how there are works that we've never read/seen that we can talk about because they're part of a sort of "collective library" that cultures share. Interesting read.
https://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent-Read/dp/1596915439
How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read is a fun book about books that leads to lots of interesting reading. It's nonfiction but relatively light reading.
How to talk about books you haven't read, by Pierre Bayard.
French lit prof., excellent read which taught me not to read every book in order to talk about them - he even confesses his not reading Proust while teaching it in university courses, and explains why it doesn't affect the quality of his teaching.
If you search for "Spanish reader" on amazon you will find many possibilities. In your shoes I would try the top-selling Muerte en Buenos Aires.
I get mine on Amazon by searching "Graded Spanish Reader" or "Easy Spanish Reader". Print versions can be expensive, but the Kindle versions are usually only a few bucks (or, like this series, included with a $10/month Kindle Unlimited subscription.) Readers do what they're meant to do, but they can be a bit dull, so after a while you may want to move on to simplified novels like this Zorro adaptation or this detective story.
I recomend a refersher course in The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes
I'm a 6 ft 4 blonde, blue eyed German with an IQ of 130.
No problems getting laid, thank you.
Get back in the Gym and stop projecting online big guy.
I'm interested in the biochemistry of the sexual experience. So what? Knowledge ist the weaponry of the mind (and dick, in this case). So you better stay a dumb boy, so you can get cucked by your sister and raise her african sons.
For you
1.) This, by the end of three weeks my reading speed increased by about 100 wpm. The cliff notes is to basically use your index finger or pen to mark where you are on the page (that increased my wpm by about 50 wpm) the rest was just practice/patience.
2.) This one helped me to read more efficiently.
Obviously, I'm not Bill Gates, but you might consider picking up How To Read A Book.
First, http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095
Then, The Everlasting Man.
No, this one aint:
http://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Complexity-Foster-Wallaces-Infinite/dp/0976146533
http://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent-Read/dp/1596915439/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417075572&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+talk+about+books+you+haven%27t+read
I feel like we're like these people, except with anime.
>You have no idea what you are talking about
Yup looks like a total lack of reading comprehension, here I'll walk you through it real slowly.
>I know you’re a racist because you took an entire population of people and just referred to them as “blacks”.
Notice how he doesn't say you are white here? He just says you're racist.
>Cant wait to here how you’re not racist though because you call people whites...
And here he says that you'll make the excuse that you aren't racist because you refer to white people the same way. Once again, he doesn't say anything about your race.
>I bet you are a white person that lives in a rich suburb. PS: I am black. I will wait for your racist remarks about black folk supporting Trump.
I don't really care who you're saying you are today, save your autobiography for someone who gives a shit.
Honestly a total lack of complex reading comprehension may be the best excuse for supporting Trump. He talks in nice short sentences and doesn't get too complex with his thoughts, and all the reports of his crimes use big words and take more than a minute to read.
If you wanna brush up on those skills I highly recommend [Adler's "How to Read a Book"] (https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095/ref=sr_1_1?crid=189G3HDZUS039&keywords=adler+how+to+read+a+book&qid=1551383567&s=books&sprefix=adler+how+t%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C211&sr=1-1)
Sure it does, and what I'm asking for isn't even in that section.
Here, this should help you in the future.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095
You could go read that and then write a snide review. What bot-level fun.
You need to learn how to read. You haven't asked a proper question or formulated a proper response to the facts. The only proper response here is to ignore anything that is not a direct question, i.e. an attempt to ascertain the facts, or to speak legitimately according to limited knowledge, which you do not even have.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Z5PpkQadm5EC&q=disagreeing#v=snippet&q=disagreeing&f=false
Especially poignant section: http://puu.sh/vlzl7/3d7ae87aba.jpg
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095/