Summer Attempt to Become Intellectual
Submitted by geek on Mon, 06/16/2003 - 07:47
Tags:
- Common Sense by Thomas Paine
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix by J.K. Rowling - I'm not sure if this will actual further my endeavor, but I read it so it goes on the list. A lot more character depth, though several characters do not become more likeable.
- Bee Season by Myla Goldberg - My friend gave me this when I told her I wanted to see Spellbound. I really enjoyed it, possibly even more so because I've always wanted to be Jewish. I don't know why, it just appeals to me more than any other religion (I'm very atheist). Anyway, the book was good, and written by the daughter of a teacher at my high school.
Author Comments:
It's my last summer before college, and I'm trying to read good books. I don't just want to be smart, I'm trying to become intellectual. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Any attempt to become intellectual will be greatly aided by starting off with Plato's Apology. Grab the Jowett translation, which is pretty good, in the public domain, and all over the internet for free (here for instance). The Apology is Socrates' speech to defend himself against charges that he was corrupting the Athenian youth with his teaching, and his life is in the balance. The first part is his defense. The second part is after the verdict, where the accused had the chance to propose his own penalty. The final section is after he is condemned to death. It isn't a long piece, but I'm not sure that everybody shouldn't read it once at some point.
Just my opinion...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
The translation you link to also fits right in with the professor's plan of increasing output by reading shorter books. I just copied the text of that free translation to Word, set the font to eight-point Times New Roman, set my top, bottom, left, and right margins to half-an-inch, formatted it to two columns, and got the whole thing down to six printed pages!
I didn't even think about that! It would fit right into the Professor's plan.
I love the public domain... Too bad I hate reading for long periods of time off a computer screen, and I have yet to sink money into investing in a printer. :(
Naturally, I love libraries!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I don't like reading off monitors for extended time either (although I do it). The futuristic device I'm looking forward to is "electronic ink" which is really just a paper-like substance that contains thousands of little ball bearings that are black on one side, white on the other, and held in an orientation magnetically (or though some other black magic). Think of 'em as pixels. So you've got this sheet of "paper" covered with these thingies, and your computer can spin 'em like pixels to display text, simple graphics, etc. Then get a couple hundred such sheets, bind them together, and you've got a reusable magic book that can hold whatever documents you want! A few years ago Wired had a breathless article about a couple companies that are working on this, and I can't wait! Well, I *can* wait, and sadly I expect I will for quite some time. But I want one!
Yes, I've read about that. It could well revolutionize the newspaper industry especially, if it can be done cheaply enough. Hook the paper up, download the day's edition, kick back with the coffee and enjoy. Not that I get the paper, but still, fascinating.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
A minor quibble, but shouldn't the title of this list be Summer Attempt to become an intellectual or Summer attempt to become intelligent? "It just dont read good to me this way..."
Thank you, however "intellectual" is actually both a noun and an adjective.