Interesting Links

I have lots of links that I've ommited to post.

1) A fascinating post on how Joshua Bell played the violin in a DC subway station and very few people stopped to listen.

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

-- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

...If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that -- then what else are we missing?

...We're busy. Americans have been busy, as a people, since at least 1831, when a young French sociologist named Alexis de Tocqueville visited the States and found himself impressed, bemused and slightly dismayed at the degree to which people were driven, to the exclusion of everything else, by hard work and the accumulation of wealth.

2) Books do indeed furnish a room.

3) An easter lesson. People, think for yourselves (which reminds me how much I love Monty Python).

4) The best books under 100 pages. I've been meaning to read Candide for a long time.

5) Favorite Monteverdi.

6) Favorite Wagner. Wagner of Oscar Wilde fame "I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says."

7) Book that blows Tyler away.

8) Favorite things Italian.

9) Favorite things German/Bach.

10) Best novels about politics.

11) If you want to speak with a human.

12) How to appreciate Shakepeare.

13) Favorite things Brazil.

14) Why do Investment Bankers get paid so much?

15) Why aren't US sports fans more violent? -- It's the price of the tickets!

Reading fast

One of my bad habits is that I read very fast. I find myself skipping blocks of text, and I have to force myself to slow down when I read something with the intent of "studying it" or I have to re-read the passage.

MR had a brilliant article on reading fast.

The best way to read quickly is to read lots. And lots. And to have started a long time ago.

Tyler has another reading tip:

Here is another reading tip: do less of other activities.

I can't stress how important this is. I don't have cable, and I watch practically no TV during the week save for The Newshour with Jim Lehrer on PBS and Prime Minister's question time from the web, which has freed up a lot of my time. I don't think I'll ever go back to watching as much TV as I used to. I remember a speaker in school likening TV to "brain candy" i.e. it sure tastes good, but it rots your brains.

Here's an idea that I must put to use:

Another way to read quickly is to cut bait on the losers. I start ten or so books for every one I finish. I don't mind disliking a book, and I never regret having picked it up and started it. I am ruthless in my discards.

I need to be more ruthless in my discards. So readers, do you read fast? Do you have any suggestions on how I can change my reading habits so that I savour what I read?

If there's one book that you read...

At the risk of sounding a bit doctrinaire, I strongly suggest that you read Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard. This is not a self-help book, but instead is a remarkably witty and erudite book complete with lots of studies and evidence that will explain why human beings are so bad at choosing what makes them happy and what you can do to change that. Please read it, and here's a link to a 20 minute talk by Gilbert to whet your appetite.Publish

One of Gilbert's points -- and what Buddhist monks have long known -- is that beyond a certain minimum money doesn't really bring one happiness, but the belief that money = happiness has to be present ( in spite of it being untrue) for the world's economy to survive.