Tag: Reading

Liked https://blog.ayjay.org/getting-through/ (blog.ayjay.org)

There are many valid reasons to read, but if you’re about self-improvement in one way or another — an increase in knowledge or insight or, hey, even wisdom — then one of the most reliable ways to become a better reader is to read fewer books but read them with greater care. If you would be wise, an essential book you know intimately — through slow reading or repeated reading — is of more use to you than a dozen lesser books that you know only casually.

getting through – The Homebound Symphony by getting through – The Homebound Symphony

Bookmarked https://blog.ayjay.org/here-we-go-again-2/ (blog.ayjay.org)

I agree that novels, and other long narratives, have become less culturally central, less influential, than they were fifty or sixty years ago. (And I regret this.) But are they less culturally central than they were a hundred years ago? I’m not sure about that. Two hundred years ago? Hard to say.

How many ambitious and masterful novels can we reasonably expect our culture to produce each year? How many thoughtful and sensitive readers can we reasonably expect those novels to have? I don’t find these questions easy to answer.

here we go again – The Homebound Symphony by Alan Jacobs

It is interesting to think about how many people read books alongside the discussion of listening to music. One of the really interesting ideas presented by Michel Faber in his book Listen is that there are actually people who do not like music at all. Maybe the same goes for literature and long reads?

Liked https://buttondown.com/kin-lane/archive/a-week-of-being-kin-lane-may-26th-2025/ (buttondown.com)

“We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel… is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.” ― Ursula K. LeGuin

A Week of Being Kin Lane – May 26th, 2025 • Buttondown

Bookmarked Reading and Writing Is How You Will Find Your Way by Kin Lane (Kin Lane)

I can’t tell you how to live your life. I can only relay how I am managing to find balance in my own life. Begin by turning off the TV and the Internet regularly. You don’t have to go 100%, just consciously do it on a regular basis. Then find a book or two to read. It can be anything that interests you. It will take you a while to build up the muscles you need to read, so be patient. Then just start journaling along the way in a physical or digital notebook. Do this for a couple weeks or couple months, then take note in how you feel.

Reading and Writing Is How You Will Find Your Way by Kin Lane

Kin Lane reiterates why reading a book is the answer. This same message is carried by Audrey Watters too:

Get off the Internet and read a book. Read it in paperback or hardcover. Read a digital version. Listen to it read out loud to you by the author or by a voice actor. I do not care. But read a book. This is the literacy initiative we need right now: actually fucking reading. And reading something longer than a text message or status update, to be clear.

Executive Disorder by Audrey Watters

Bookmarked https://blog.ayjay.org/a-taxonomy-of-writers-2/ (blog.ayjay.org)

A couple of years ago I wrote about kinds of thinkers: Explainers, Illuminators, and Provokers. That classification was based on effect, that is, what those thinkers do for me as a reader. But you can also classify thinkers by their purposes. Thus my second tripartite scheme, thinker-writers who are

  • Diagnostic
  • Prescriptive
  • Therapeutic

Source: a taxonomy of writers: 2 – The Homebound Symphony

I am intrigued by Alan Jacobs’ taxonomy of the effect and purpose of writing. I wonder if this might be a useful means of categorisation when reflecting on what I have read and consumed. I feel that it would be interesting to consider a breakdown of content in this way.

Bookmarked Book Quotes (momobookblog.blogspot.com)

I always come across these fabulous quotes about books, reading, libraries, well, anything that has to do with reading is great. I thought I’d share them

Source: Book Quotes by Marianne

I was looking for the source of a quote I had written down “reading feeds the soul” and stumbled upon this trove of quotes about reading. Along with Austin Kleon’s list of quotes about writing, these seeds provide a useful point of thought and reflection.

Bookmarked I Do Not Have Enough Ideas by Kin Lane (Kin Lane)

Having, producing, evolving, and connecting good ideas together takes work. It takes practice. It takes momentum. It takes reading books. No, not just online. Books have a different frame rate, and fiction and nonfiction each have variations of this. Sure, read blogs, but they aren’t the same as losing yourself in a book. Sure, read that book on exactly the topic that interests you by that person who looks just like you, but it won’t be the same as reading a book that is way out of your comfort zone by someone who looks nothing like you.

Source: I Do Not Have Enough Ideas by Kin Lane

Talking about having enough ideas, Kin Lane talks about reading books that take you out of your comfort zone. This feels like an extension of Amy Burvall’s “In order to connect dots, one must first have the dots”.

Read https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/how-to-talk-about-books-you-havent-read-9781596917149/

In this delightfully witty, provocative book, literature professor and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard argues that not having read a book need not be an impediment to having an interesting conversation about it. (In fact, he says, in certain situations reading the book is the worst thing you could do.) Using examples from such writers as Graham Greene, Oscar Wilde, Montaigne, and Umberto Eco, he describes the varieties of “non-reading”-from books that you’ve never heard of to books that you’ve read and forgotten-and offers advice on how to turn a sticky social situation into an occasion for creative brilliance. Practical, funny, and thought-provoking, How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read-which became a favorite of readers everywhere in the hardcover edition-is in the end a love letter to books, offering a whole new perspective on how we read and absorb them.

Source: How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard

With How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, Pierre Bayard explains how we are always already talking about books we have not read because we cannot ever actually read them. I wrote a longer response here.

ᔥ  Austin Kleon — How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre… ()

Continue reading “📚 How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read (Pierre Bayard)”

Bookmarked You Are What You Read, Even If You Don’t Always Remember It (blog.jim-nielsen.com)

I cannot remember the blog posts I’ve read any more than the meals I’ve eaten; even so, they’ve made me.

It’s a good reminder to be mindful of my content diet — you are what you eat read, even if you don’t always remember it.

Source: You Are What You Read, Even If You Don’t Always Remember It by Jim Nielsen

In a short post, Jim Nielsen reflects upon the purpose of reading, that being to expand your thinking. This thinking was in part inspired by Dave Rupert’s discussion of ideas over facts and how we check these.

The goal of a book isn’t to get to the last page, it’s to expand your thinking.

Source: How do you verify that? by Dave Rupert

This reminds me of something Amy Burvall once suggested:

“in order to connect dots, one must first have the dots”

Source: #rawthought: On Ditching the (Dangerous) Dichotomy Between Content Knowledge and Creativity by Amy Burvall)

The challenge that both Nielsen and Rupert touch on is that we are not always conscious or critical of the ideas (or dots) as we consume them, even so they make us who we are:

I cannot remember the blog posts I’ve read any more than the meals I’ve eaten; even so, they’ve made me.

It’s a good reminder to be mindful of my content diet — you are what you eat read, even if you don’t always remember it.

Source: You Are What You Read, Even If You Don’t Always Remember It by Jim Nielsen

This is based on a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.

For me, the notion of unconscious ideas harks back to something J. Hillis Miller once said about the ethics of reading:

As we read we compose, without thinking about it, a kind of running commentary or marginal jotting that adds more words to the words on the page. There is always already writing as the accompaniment to reading.

Source: ‘The Obligation to Write’ by J. Hillis Miller

Liked https://blog.ayjay.org/accountability/ (blog.ayjay.org)

You can assign reading to students; but if you don’t develop strategies for holding them accountable, then it doesn’t really matter what you assign. They’re Self-Deceived Rational Utility Maximizers after all, and if there’s one thing you can never change about them it’s that. 

https://blog.ayjay.org/accountability/

Replied to My Reading Practices for Book Club Selections by Chris AldrichChris Aldrich (boffosocko.com)

As part of my reading process, particularly for book club related reading, I’ve lately settled on what seems to be a particularly productive method of reading for my needs.

Thank for sharing your process for reading as a part of a book club Chris.

Your first step of flicking through some reviews and the contents reminded me of a piece from The Marginalian about Bill Cosby’s strategies for reading faster, in which he talks about previewing first:

Previewing is especially useful for getting a general idea of heavy reading like long magazine or newspaper articles, business reports, and nonfiction books.

Source: How to Read Faster: Bill Cosby’s Three Proven Strategies by Maria Popova

I am interested in your us of audiobooks. I must admit, I have really turned to audiobooks as I felt I was never going to get quality reading time to sit quietly with a book. Just wondering, when listening, do you have to be giving your whole attention, or do you listen while doing other things? For example, I have heard Cory Doctorow explain how he ‘reads’ while swimming. Personally, I like listening in my lunch breaks while pounding the city streets, but I often wonder if there is something lost in doing two things at once, especially if I have a thought and want to make a note. Really, that is my biggest challenge, actually doing something with what I read.

Bookmarked How to Read Faster: Bill Cosby’s Three Proven Strategies by Maria PopovaMaria Popova (themarginalian.org)

“Nobody gets something for nothing in the reading game.”

Bill Cosby may be best-known as the beloved personality behind his eponymous TV show, but he earned his doctorate in education and has been involved in several projects teaching the essential techniques of effective reading, including a PBS series on reading skills. In an essay unambiguously titled “How to Read Faster,” published in the same wonderful 1985 anthology How to Use the Power of the Printed Word (UK; public library) that gave us Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 timeless rules of writing, Cosby offers his three proven strategies for reading faster.

Bill Cosby provides an interesting set of strategies associated with reading:

  1. Preview — If It’s Long and Hard
  2. Skim — If It’s Short and Simple
  3. Cluster — to Increase Speed AND Comprehension
Bookmarked General Questions to Use in Book Clubs or Lit Circles by Pernille Ripp (pernillesripp.com)

Book clubs or literacy circles are some of my most favorite explorations to do with kids. Making space for deep discussions, led by the students, and framed by an inquiry question is something that I love to be a part of. That’s why we have done book clubs twice a year for the past many years. I would not do more than that, kids also want to have experiences where they are not forced to read a certain book with peers, even if they have a lot of embedded choice. And as always, when in doubt, ask your students how often they would like to do them, make space for their ideas and allow for personalization and ownership.

Pernille Ripp provides an extensive list of questions to support book clubs / literature circles.
Bookmarked Why Learn to Read? (daily.jstor.org)

The value placed on literacy has changed over time, shifting from a nineteenth-century moral imperative to a twentieth-century production necessity.

Deborah Brandt explains that learning to read has meant many things over time.

“Literacy was irrevocably transformed from a nineteenth-century moral imperative into a twentieth-century production imperative,” Brandt concludes, “Transformed from an attribute of a ‘good’ individual into an individual ‘good.’”

This reminds me of Doug Belshaw’s work on digital literacies and how what this means can vary.

Liked Ibram X. Kendi on His New Book and Why Kids Today Need the Kinds of Books Being Banned by Zan Romanoff (Reader's Digest)

These diverse stories don’t just help us better understand ourselves, though. They also help us understand and empathize with people of different backgrounds.

“It is a huge loss for people to not be able to find themselves in books, particularly if they’re a person of color, if they’re queer, if they’re women or trans,” Kendi says. “And it’s a huge loss for people who are not trans and people who are not queer and who are not people of color. It’s a loss because they’re not able to learn about others.”

Bookmarked Who should read aloud in class? (The Confident Teacher)

Professor Diane Lapp, from San Diego State University, in the categorically titled, ‘If you want students to read widely and well – Eliminate ‘Round-robin reading’, suggests the following approaches:

  1. Repeated reading, which involves repeating a reading modelled first by the teacher or another proficient reader.
  2. Choral reading, which means reading together with others who are proficient readers.
  3. Echo reading, or the student echoing or repeating what the proficient reader has just read.
  4. Readers’ Theatre involves a dramatic reading of a text or script by the students.
  5. Neurological impress, which involves the student and teacher reading together while tracking words.
Alex Quigley questions the practice of popcorn reading and instead focus on more fluent reading strategies.
Bookmarked 5 strategies for reading complex texts (The Confident Teacher)

Any time a pupil is reading a complex text, it will likely prove difficult, effortful, and even frustrating. We cannot just expect to offer pupils harder and harder texts and expect them to become better readers either. However, by explicitly teaching pupils to be strategic and to cohere their knowledge and understanding, we can offer them the right tools to tackle the job of reading complex texts.

Rather than simply relying on simpler texts, Alex Quigley discusses some strategies for supporting students with grappling with more difficult texts. This includes:

  • Sharing the secret that struggling is actually normal
  • Generate curiosity by getting students to engage with texts through student questions and predictions
  • Activate prior knowledge to help make connections
  • Identify and teach keystone vocabulary
  • Read related texts

Associated with all this, one of the biggest challenges with reading comprehension is addressing the question why read any text at all? For example, should everyone be made to read Finnigan’s Wake?

Replied to Read Fiction (Daily-Ink by David Truss)

Usually I only ‘let myself’ read fiction on holiday breaks. But I’ve been drawn a lot more to fiction in the last couple years. It started a couple Christmas breaks ago when I received some free ebooks from Audible and I listened to a science fiction novel and got hooked into an epic series. Then I listened to a couple books that I never would have selected for myself, just because they were free… and I loved them. But reading fiction outside the holidays always came with a little self-imposed guilt.

David, your discussion of fiction reminded me of an interview between Stan Grant and Dan Haesler where at the end of the conversation they talk about the power of reading, thinking and questioning when it comes to leadership. This is about going beyond one’s own world view and challenging your perceptions. I think that fiction is a powerful way of doing this.

As Ursula K. Le Guin touches on in her introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness:

In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find – if it’s a good novel – that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it’s very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.

Two pieces of fiction that have left me wondering lately have been Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. Both capture a world from many different perspectives vastly different from my own.

Replied to #tdc3632 #ds106 #ds106 What are you reading? (The DS106 Daily Create)

“Books” flickr photo by Vicente RG shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license Tell and/or show us what you’re currently reading. Maybe tell us why as well? Tweet your response t…

Inspired by Kim Stanley Robinson, Damian Cowell and BBC In Our Times podcast, I am currently meandering my way through Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. #tdc3632 #ds106