Comments by "greyone40" (@greyone40) on "Jared Henderson" channel.

  1. For me the best thing about this video is that you are looking forward to reading to your son. A friend of mine had to go and put his children to bed one time when I was visiting. When he came back we had a game of bridge (four of us of course). It was quite a wait for him to come back. Why? because he was reading a chapter (one per night) of The Hobbit to his son and daughter before turning out the light. What a great Dad.
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  2. Just started that a couple of weeks ago myself. Interesting so far, and I have had to make myself a cheat sheet to keep track of all the character names.
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  3. There is a little book from Malcolm Muggeridge called "The End of Christendom" that I picked up in 1980 or so. I have returned to it many times and have had a better understanding of his thoughts over the decades as I have gotten older and seen and experienced more. It has even been a good book for relieving anxiety.
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  4. This is a lot of good advice in such a short video. I also have several books on the go at one time. One trick there is I keep it to only one fiction book (story), and any other can be technical, historical, philosophy sort of non-fiction. You did give it a mention, but I think it's important to emphasize that having a comfortable chair or place to read is going to make a big difference.
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  5. A good list. I am surprised to see Frederick Douglass' book on there. I have only read it once, but it beckons every time I go to my bookshelves. Definitely worth reading again. I have been reading McCarthy's "The Road." I know what you mean about his lack of punctuation, mostly a case of no quotation marks for dialogue.
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  6. Just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Now returning to continue reading "Scalia Speaks," collection of Antonin Scalia's speeches. Before those I read "Witness" by Whittaker Chambers, which is a bit intimidating at 800 pages, but quite good. I really need to keep a log of what I read, because the only others I remember from this year are re-readings.
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  7. I am surprised that you haven't read more Tolstoy. I credit Tolstoy for making it easy for me to read Crime and Punishment. One of Tolstoy's shorts that is really interesting is "God Sees the Truth, But Waits." Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions.
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  8. I have read Hitchens' book on Orwell, so this was a good example. I would say that it is not a difficult book, because most of the terms that he uses are familiar to me. He is also a good clear writer. The book on Marxist history looks like a difficult one. One of the things that makes something a difficult read for me is when a smarter person is trying to explain nonsense. This author being critical of Marxism is taking on a difficult task, for sure. Robert Bork gave an explanation of "substantive due process" in one of his books. He thought it was not a legitimate judicial/legal concept, but gave a pretty good explanation of the thinking of the people who came up with it. Thanks for posting this. Now I want to pick up Hitchens' book again.
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  9. You make great points about the internet. I grew up without it, and we all learned to look up things in books. That is something that should still be encouraged. As an analogy, I have worked with carpenters, and one wise fellow said that he will train with hand tools first (handsaws and hammers) before allowing to use power saws and nail guns. Similar to being disallowed calculators when learning math, it forces someone to properly learn the skills.
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  10. I learned phonics in the sixties before that whole language came along. Thankful for that.
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  11. Interesting list, and interesting thoughts. Thank you. I finally read Crime and Punishment this past summer, and I was surprised that it wasn't really all that difficult. I chose to read it because it is shorter than Brothers Karamazov, which I will get to soon. Stories that I keep going back to are Tolstoy's short stories, which I think helps when you go to other Russian writing from that time. You've mentioned Le Guin before, and she is definitely going on my list.
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  12. I've never used a kindle. I still think that I would prefer physical books. Being surrounded by shelves of books is a good feeling.
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  13. Many years ago I read John Steinbeck's book on King Arthur. Almost no memory of it. I believe it was published after his death, so it may not be as he had intended it to be finished.
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  14. My project his summer is reading The Brothers Karamazov. I found early on that your advice of writing notes is essential. The copy I have doesn't have a character list, which is something that I found helpful in the edition of Crime and Punishment that I have. So I made notes of the names and created a cheat sheet on the computer which I have yet to print out. Just the exercise of writing the notes with pen and paper helps to remember what you have read, as you said. Karamazov isn't even a difficult book. It is clearly written and well translated. It's just long. I want to find out what happens, so won't be giving up on it. This is a helpful video.
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  15. We are story telling beings. I really like that. I am a procrastinator, so I would probably be writing about what I did three days ago.
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  16. I like your choices, especially because you recommend going to the books, and not to commentaries. My first choice would be Marcus Aurelius, because he saw philosophy as having the end objective of becoming a better person. Augustine was another one I wish that I had read earlier in life. As you say, all of these titles will give more with subsequent readings.
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  17. Good advice.
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  18. I like seeing people in your comments saying how they have been inspired to pick up books again because of your talks.
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  19. Nice! I also liked Conrad's "An Outpost of Progress."
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  20.  @scp240  Thank you. I am going to look for that one.
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  21. Regarding sitting standing and posture. I imagine that as a philosopher you would do a lot of walking. Many people including myself find that walking is one of the times when we do our best thinking, and enjoy it greatly as well. My back troubles would be horrific if I didn't do my walking. So I am curious if you have a walking habit, and what sort of thinking do you do while you are out there.
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  22. Not bad for eight minutes!
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  23. I'm glad I have all my books in paper form. I did hear about "Camp of the Saints" being deleted from Kindles some time ago. Didn't know it was this bad. Of course if they can do it for one item, they can do it for anything.
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