The Bookish Life: How to Read and Why
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The Bookish Life: How to Read and Why
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Re: The Bookish Life: How to Read and Why
#2As I read this piece I was able to predict the direction it would go and the evidence that would be presented for each opinion. By the end I had been neither surprised nor enlightened by anything presented in it.
The author likes old books, dislikes digital reading devices and audiobooks, dislikes most things written since his own birth unless they were written about the western canon or by people trained entirely in the canon, is uninterested in reading books from other cultural traditions, and is completely self-satisfied with his extensive and erudite form of intellectual provincialism.
It is an infuriating piece that describes a small mind that looks large to the consciousness inside it. I would propose this alternate subtitle: "How Reading the Western Canon Allowed Me to Achieve an Entirely Unremarkable Relationship with Culture and Thought"
If you haven't read the article yet I'd recommend you not bother.
Re: The Bookish Life: How to Read and Why
#3As I read this piece I was able to predict the direction it would go and the evidence that would be presented for each opinion. By the end I had been neither surprised nor enlightened by anything presented in it. The author likes old books, dislikes digital reading devices and audiobooks, dislikes most things written since his own birth unless they were written about the western canon or by people trained entirely in…
While I agree with you generally, that you take such offense to the article is bizarre. Infuriating? Really?
Re: The Bookish Life: How to Read and Why
#4Is there a way to quantify the positive benefits of reading?
I would like to track it just like any other variable (body fat, resting heart rate, etc.)
Re: The Bookish Life: How to Read and Why
#5As I read this piece I was able to predict the direction it would go and the evidence that would be presented for each opinion. By the end I had been neither surprised nor enlightened by anything presented in it. The author likes old books, dislikes digital reading devices and audiobooks, dislikes most things written since his own birth unless they were written about the western canon or by people trained entirely in…
You sound far more motivated by bias than the author. At least he makes it pretty clear that his is an opinion.
Re: The Bookish Life: How to Read and Why
#6Is there a way to quantify the positive benefits of reading? I would like to track it just like any other variable (body fat, resting heart rate, etc.)
The benefit of many things is neither well understood nor objectively measurable.
How do you track the value of friends? The value of meditation?
Heck, how do you track the value (negative or positive) you get from reading this site?
Each of those things affects your mental state in some way, but we have no good way to directly track mental state.
We can track the effect of a good mental state by observing that one is more productive, or marks higher on a happiness scale, but those are second-order effects and there will always be many confounding factors.
We still can't evaluate intelligence nor longevity well enough to track any changes in those regards, and that is likely the area you would need to evaluate for tracking the impact of reading.
If reading makes you feel more content or more knowledgeable about subjects, or if anecdotally things you read seem helpful in conversation or in life, that's probably as good as you'll get.
I personally think that attempting to track and optimize even the most minute details of life is ultimately detrimental, but that's a rant for another time.
Re: The Bookish Life: How to Read and Why
#7As I read this piece I was able to predict the direction it would go and the evidence that would be presented for each opinion. By the end I had been neither surprised nor enlightened by anything presented in it. The author likes old books, dislikes digital reading devices and audiobooks, dislikes most things written since his own birth unless they were written about the western canon or by people trained entirely in…
I like the bitter passion. Who would u recommend to read outside the unremarkable western canon?
Re: The Bookish Life: How to Read and Why
#8As I read this piece I was able to predict the direction it would go and the evidence that would be presented for each opinion. By the end I had been neither surprised nor enlightened by anything presented in it. The author likes old books, dislikes digital reading devices and audiobooks, dislikes most things written since his own birth unless they were written about the western canon or by people trained entirely in…
Similar thoughts here. Furthermore, the author's writing style is annoyingly old fashioned and unnecessarily long.
>Like the man—the fellow with the name Solomon, writing under the pen name Ecclesiastes—said, “Of the making of many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh
Why not just "Solomon, writing under the pen name 'Ecclesiastes', said..."?
> I recall some years ago a politician whose name is now as lost to me as it is to history who listed reading among his hobbies, along with fly-fishing and jogging.
What was the point of this? Why not just "reading is my hobby"?
> But for the road to acquiring the body of unspecialized knowledge that sometimes goes by the name of general culture, sometimes known as the pursuit of wisdom, no map, no blueprint, no plan, no shortcut exists, nor, as I hope to make plain, could it.
Had to read this 3 times to parse the grammar.
Re: The Bookish Life: How to Read and Why
#9As I read this piece I was able to predict the direction it would go and the evidence that would be presented for each opinion. By the end I had been neither surprised nor enlightened by anything presented in it. The author likes old books, dislikes digital reading devices and audiobooks, dislikes most things written since his own birth unless they were written about the western canon or by people trained entirely in…
Similar thoughts here. Furthermore, the author's writing style is annoyingly old fashioned and unnecessarily long. >Like the man—the fellow with the name Solomon, writing under the pen name Ecclesiastes—said, “Of the making of many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh Why not just "Solomon, writing under the pen name 'Ecclesiastes', said..."? > I recall some years ago a politician whose n…
> > I recall some years ago a politician whose name is now as lost to me as it is to history who listed reading among his hobbies, along with fly-fishing and jogging.
> What was the point of this? Why not just "reading is my hobby"?
The point was that he considered reading a "hobby" as much as breathing for himself. You have to include the rest of that paragraph though to see it:
> I recall some years ago a politician whose name is now as lost to me as it is to history who listed reading among his hobbies, along with fly-fishing and jogging. Reading happens to be my hobby, too, along with peristalsis and respiration.
Re: The Bookish Life: How to Read and Why
#10> How can one know if a book is interesting until one has read it; memorable until time has or has not lodged it in one’s memory; rereadable until the decades pass and one feels the need to read it again and enjoys it all the more on doing so?
Well, 'interesting' is an opinion that an individual forms after having experienced something. In other words, there is no way for someone to not ever read an 'uninteresting' book. They must first read, to find out.