What book are you reading right now?
The Hobbit, American gangster, and other tales of New York, and the Bible. It’s the start of the Lord of the Rings series I’ve wanted to read.
It keeps your mind sharp. I’ve noticed a pattern between people who are smarter and more interesting and those who read.
I just finished Martin Luther by Eric Metaxis.
I always have more than one book going
War
US Spy Jet Circles Russia Amid Drone War Fears
World War II-Era German Bunker Found Beneath Couple’s Home
Literacy
The dawn of the post-literate society…An Intellectual Tragedy
Entertainment
The Cast of ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,’ Then and Now…
Pets
‘Where’s Your Mama?’: Dog Steps In After Deputy Launches Search For Missing Elderly Woman
Europe
Everything Is Going Wrong For Europe’s Liberal Darling President
BMW Shares Post Sharpest Drop In Year After Profit Warning; Citi Flags China Troubles As Potentially “Irreversible” – I’d rather drive a Porsche anyway.
UK
The BritCard Digital ID PsyOp – Covid lockdowns were just a trial run I guess
Health
Americans Want COVID-19-Era Policies to Sunset, Poll Finds – We didn’t want them to start
Terrorism
Another leftist-terrorist arrested for trying to blow up a church in DC where SCOTUS justices were planning to attend – Who’s causing the violence, despite the rhetoric?
Artificial Intelligence
Could AI’s Growing Thirst For Water Usher In Localized Resource Wars
Antifa
Portland to Deploy Naked Bike Ride Against National Guard – Oh that’s going to scare them, but then I’ve been to Portland, it actually might scare them
What books do you want to read?
I’ve started liking History, so historical fiction not textbooks. I’m starting a series by C.J. Box about the outdoors. If it’s good, I’ll have a whole series to read.
I’m also reading Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
I’m finishing the last book of the Expanse so Sci-Fi has been good to me for a few months now.
The point is I always want to read. I’ve read since I was a young child. I was the only one of my siblings who did. I can escape into my own world this way and people don’t bother you when you are reading.
To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.
October 1, 2024
Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.
Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.View More
This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.
Read: Why kids aren’t falling in love with reading
“My jaw dropped,” Dames told me. The anecdote helped explain the change he was seeing in his students: It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading. It’s that they don’t know how. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to.
What daily habit do you do that improves your quality of life?
Exercise, both my body and mind. I swim miles, climb mountains on my bike, play golf, Tai Chi, and take my dog for long walks.
I continue to study foreign languages and take college level courses. I read a lot of books also. I’ve always loved that.
This keeps me busy. It’s hard to stay young.
I don’t know if you are a reader like me, but love books and am always looking for another source of recommendations.
Granted, my tastes don’t always go with the crowd, but here’s the crowd’s pick for a good book list.
I used to read the paper there. Now I read the phone. I still say I have to go read the sports page to be nice about dropping a deuce.
Don’t forget that if by chance you use the talking to another person feature on your phone, that you can be heard making bodily noises, or at least the echo that everyone recognizes.
With CGI and the video game culture of limited attention span, combined with the need to shoot everything that moves, there haven’t been great movies recently.
You have to tell a story, build up tension, explore a characters mind and motivation to become emotionally involved.
I don’t need to write the cliche because anyone who reads knows it’s true. You can’t cram the development of what is going on inside of your mind into 1-2 hours of someone else’s version of the story.
Besides, in the race to become the most “woke”, most of the protagonists are cast incorrectly.
Enjoy reading. It’s better than wasting time on fake book.
Note: intelligent people generally read a lot. There are many ways to read a book. Authors read for story arc’s, character profile and emotional connection.
Many people learn from textbooks, but for general reading, here is a good list I found on how high IQ people read:
1) Find a personal angle: You need to relate to what you’re reading
2) Get a bird’s eye view: Get the basic outline of the book by skimming through the table of contents (and the rest of the book); try finding a central theme
3) Drum up curiosity: Draft a few “curiosity questions” based on the theme; consider these questions as you read the book
4) Create your own structure: Identify key points in the book and leave space for you to take in-depth notes
5) Record key insights: Take in-depth notes based on the elements you mentioned in Step 4; think about what the “Takeaway Message” is.
6) Review your notes: Now that you have a summary you have created in your own words, it’s now time to review; try to remember the details related to the messages you recorded 10 minutes, 2 days, 1 week after finishing the book.
7) Repeat with another book.
Here is the link to this list.
Delusions of Adequacy 