All I do is read. When I'm done reading, I pick up another book and read. After my reading for classes is done, I read the economist, online articles from Drudge, the London Times, or ESPN (for fun mind you).
Often times, before I go to bed, if my room mate (my brother) is still doing stuff, I pick up another book or article that was sent to me by a friend, or quite often, my grandmother.
So, what if I were illiterate? My life would be impossible. Meaningless. Futile. My life to this point has largely been defined by what I read, how I read and interpret it, how often I read it, and what I write and speak about in regards to that reading. I'd like to think I'm expanding my mind. Reading is like a drug that opens the mind, activating dank, dark, unknown corners of the cerebrum. And if that's truly the case, my brain is as open as the internet in Amsterdam (as compared to the internet in China).
I am 100% certain that my future career will only require more reading, so I might as well learn how to overload the system now. Send me your summer reading lists, class book lists, favorite novels, poets, etc. and I will read them and give you 'Cliff's Notes' like synopses free of charge (Don't worry if you're reading selection is dry, I read anything, from boringly elitist ramblings of wanna-be philosophers, to telephone books and encyclopedias).
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3 comments:
As someone who has to read tens of thousands of pages per year professionally, I totally concur.
For stuff that will be out of your usual bailiwick and might throw you for a bit of a loop, check out Chauncey's GAY NEW YORK, 1890-1940: The making of an Urban Male Subculture,
STORMING CAESAR'S PALACE, about welfare mothers in Vegas in the Seventies.
Eugene Genovese's ROLL JORDAN, ROLL is excellent on slavery, and I also liked A NATION UNDER THEIR FEET -- about slave politics before and after liberation.
One of my favorites, though, has got to be Alan Taylor's LIBERTY MEN AND THE GREAT PROPRIETORS: The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760-1820. Was crucial in my thesis.
See also Richard White's THE MIDDLE GROUND: INDIANS, EMPIRES AND REPUBLICS in the GREAT LAKES, 1650-1812. Simply excellent.
Reading is the key to a lot of things. Good on ya. I am an economist reader myself also. Not many people subscribe to that kind of stuff around here though. A great book that I just read is "Slow Food Nation: Why our food should be Good, Clean and Fair" by Carlo Petrini. It really opens your mind into the things that we eat and where our food comes from. Check it out.
Love to read as well. Here are the books I have just finished.
FOOLING SOME OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME, by David Einhorn. It is about Corporate Scandal that is unadressed because of political connections.
BULL! by Maggie Mahar.
It is a case study of market cycles focusing on the Bull market from 1982-2004.
Enjoy!
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