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DedBanzay

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I started learning to read when I was about 3 months old, by the way. I truly believe it is the reason for my academic success.

 

Good for you, but sadly i think sometimes (and especially in contemporary times) personal culture and success donìt go together well. The world today asks for specific knowledge, while it's always best to have a general culture. Culture fills you up and make you a better human being. I study architecture and i work 90% with computer graphics, modelling and stuff, and i'm just disappointed to see many of my colleagues be stratospheric with computers and ignorant about history, literature, art and so on. Fortunately there are also many of them who have many other interests and a wider culture, but i think we will be a "race in extinction" in the few next years.

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Reading and learning are not necessarily connected these days. So much can be learned in other ways. And one can read to relax, to 'escape' and to pass time - all valid reasons as well as learn.

 

I have read a good few 'classics' in my time - The Lord of the Rings, Dune, The Earthsea Trilogy - or more seriously, the complete works of Shakespeare and the author of Oliver Twist (which I cannot type in as it objects to the first four letters), most of Conrad, Henry James etc. etc. Now I prefer far lighter fare - the last book I read was 'Last Tango in Aberystwyth' and no I am not making it up.

 

But of course now I spend a lot of time writing and so there isn't much time for reading. When there is, the last thing I need is to have to THINK! For that, I play super fiendish sudoku and deadly killer sudoku.

 

Anyhow authors I'd recommend include in no particular order:- Terry Pratchett, William Shakespeare, Raymond Chandler, Graham Greene and Anthony Price. Some of them are a little 'dated' but they are all fun to read which is what counts for me.

 

BTW that's not a complete list by any means just a few 'different' authors off the top of my bookcase.

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I started learning to read when I was about 3 months old, by the way. I truly believe it is the reason for my academic success.

 

Good for you, but sadly i think sometimes (and especially in contemporary times) personal culture and success donìt go together well. The world today asks for specific knowledge, while it's always best to have a general culture. Culture fills you up and make you a better human being. I study architecture and i work 90% with computer graphics, modelling and stuff, and i'm just disappointed to see many of my colleagues be stratospheric with computers and ignorant about history, literature, art and so on. Fortunately there are also many of them who have many other interests and a wider culture, but i think we will be a "race in extinction" in the few next years.

 

 

Reading will always be fundamental to opening doors you never knew existed. However, the focus these days is on preparing youth for enterprise through contemporary knowledge i.e. computers, technology, science. Education is really just adults preparing kids to carry the weight of the world so... bye bye culture. =/

 

I too began reading at an early age, and I think it helped prepare me to absorb greater amounts of information. Of course the flip side was being branded as a "nerd".

 

As for titles, I appreciate few genres: sci fi and thriller/horror mostly. Not much drawn to "classic" titles aka the crap they force feed us in organized education esp. Shakespeare. Some authors include Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen King, Philip K. D!ck, Asimov, Neil Gaiman, Steinbeck, Robert Frost, and others.

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Anything one is forced to read may leave a bad impression - in my case I was out of school five years before I could actually look at a novel by Thomas Hardy - but I can assure you anyone who has seen a good production of a Shakespeare play (i.e one in which the actors illuminate the text so the audience understands it) would never regard it as crap.
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I love Shakespeare, actually. I have never been able to see a production, good or bad, but I have read many of his plays.

 

Romeo and Juliet- 3rd grade. Boy, did I take some flack for that!

 

Othello-5th grade.

 

Macbeth-6th grade

 

and two others. I can't remember which, though.

 

 

Wish I could go to Britain and see a good production.

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In my view it isn't a sin as they were already contractually affianced but things looked different to some in the early seventeenth century. And yes, it would. As it is terribly wrong for people to be allowed to give birth to kids when they don't want them. But we'll not go there or it'll turn into a banned subject.
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In my view it isn't a sin as they were already contractually affianced but things looked different to some in the early seventeenth century. And yes, it would. As it is terribly wrong for people to be allowed to give birth to kids when they don't want them. But we'll not go there or it'll turn into a banned subject.

I'm not saying that I think it's a sin; I was stepping in the shoes of them. They liked wholesome, complete families which requires a father. I won't say my perception of right/wrong as that's not appropriate to the topic; I'm just discussing the play.

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I'm sorry for you doomjockey, that you dislike Shakespeare. I can only blame incompetent overbearing teachers for not instilling a love of his works in you. I often hear people say they dislike his works, and without fail, when I inquire as to the 'why?' the answer is invariably. their teachers force fed them the same old, and in MY opinion, wrong interpretation of the works. A prime example, I feel, is Hamlet. How many professors tell their students that Hamlet was insane, and absolutely refuse to accept another interpretation of Hamlet's actions. If you don't want to read it, check out the movie Hamlet with Mel Gibson as Hamlet. I feel that he portrays Hamlet as it should be, not insane, not crazy, but merely ACTING as if he were insane to fool his peers. Case in point: Hamlet: "But come: Here, as before, never, so help you mercy. How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself, as I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on." (Language interpretation: don't tell anyone, but I think it's necessary to play crazy)

 

 

As for seeing enactments of Shakespeare's plays....I had the opportunity to see A Midsummernight's Dream, King Lear and one of my favorites Twelfth Night or What You Will.

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