How to Motivate Yourself to Read (20 Tips & Mindsets)
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- Опубліковано 12 чер 2024
- 📚 Read the Great Books with Hardcore Literature: / hardcoreliterature
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🎙️ open.spotify.com/show/70IZA24... (Subscribe to the Hardcore Literature Podcast on iTunes & Spotify)
🏫 hardcore-university.teachable... (Hardcore University, Exam Preparation Courses)
✍🏼 benjaminmcevoy.com My Personal Website
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Hardcore Literature Lecture Series
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📔Contents Page: cutt.ly/CmNhRY3
🎖️ War and Peace: cutt.ly/U3nzGma
🎭 Shakespeare Project: cutt.ly/B3nxHH7
🐳 Moby Dick: cutt.ly/K3nzVKf
☄️ Blood Meridian: cutt.ly/P3nz6Qp
🍂 Wuthering Heights: cutt.ly/N3nxxYt
🇮🇪 Ulysses: cutt.ly/x3nxQmN
🚂 Anna Karenina: cutt.ly/vmNhAWv
💀 Crime and Punishment: cutt.ly/rmNhFt5
⚓ Persuasion: cutt.ly/amNhX7b
☕ In Search of Lost Time: cutt.ly/5mNh8oD
⚔️ The Hero’s Journey: cutt.ly/UmNjrE3
🌸 Siddharta: cutt.ly/YmNjuzi
🎠 Don Quixote: cutt.ly/cmNjoK4
❤️Shakespeare’s Sonnets: cutt.ly/nmNlW7V
🇫🇷 Les Misérables: cutt.ly/J3YixoA
🕯️ The Turn of the Screw: cutt.ly/nToAQQ3
🖋️ Dickens Seasonal Read: cutt.ly/9ToAybt
📖 Middlemarch Serial Reading: tinyurl.com/45rv965c
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0:00 how to read more books
0:30 confusion is prologue to understanding
6:25 curate your bedside reading stack
9:29 take artist dates to secondhand bookstores
15:22 gift books to those you love
19:27 have a one-page reading quota
22:56 read poetry every day of your life
25:46 pair walking with listening to literature
28:39 draft your bakers dozen every year
32:44 1x language learning project per year
36:35 embrace commentaries and guides
39:11 1x author speciality project per year
42:19 befriend the biggies
45:03 schedule artistic cross-pollination
47:15 make a list of books you won’t read
49:12 discern the personality type of characters
50:27 keep a file of favourite narrative devices
51:09 read fiction as though it’s non-fiction
51:52 change the lens through which you read
52:56 read with great passion
43:17 happy reading
I am 16 and I love to read. I try to read as much as I can, but sometimes I don’t due to stress, homework, or just procrastination. In all my time of watching reading tip videos on youtube I have never found a video that supplies me with such good helpful information as this one.
Others on this channel are so proud of you! Keep up the great work!!
Stop doing your homework or school work. It might as well reignite your passion for reading.
I have only just seen your post. I know just what you mean. Don’t neglect your schoolwork, because it has to be done. However make sure you always have a book that you are reading for pleasure. I hope you’ll find that private reading will help you overcome stress and procrastination. Don’t worry about packing it in but just read as much as you comfortably can.
I am nearing retirement but am determined to make my remaining years as rewarding as possible. You’ve given me some great ideas. Thank you
That’s so exciting to hear, Mark. I’m thrilled I could help give you some ideas :)
I hope your had a good journey-but even though, in retirement there must still be a great journey to tackle, my dear fellow human. Bless your soul.
Wonderful
I'm heading for retirement as well. Can't wait to have days and days to read.
May God give you many happy and healthy days ahead! Love every minute of it!
Ask yourself now, in your conscience, if this isn't the guy you would want as your first choice to be your own children's instructor of literature. I am continuously awed by Ben's video presentations. I, more than once during the course of this video, imagined Ben as delivering an introductory lecture to first year university students of literature. Had I, in my youth, been one of those students this lecture would be as spiritually inspiring as my first experience listening to Tchaikovsky's _1812 Overture_ . Excellent and priceless advice, and so eloquently communicated!
clearly. I'd also love to have Wayne Gretzky as my son's hockey coach and Jerry Rice as his football/conditioning coach.
Exactly! You are hundred percent right and expressed it eloquently - I feel it the same way.
Even on some topics that I thought I "knew", Ben still had something else for me to learn and take notes on. This is the first time I wish I had had a UA-camr as a big brother so I could have started reading earlier 😂
I think Ben's passion is what sets him apart. There's no substitute for that.
He is amazing and very gifted. We are blessed to be a part of his online community
These are the types of videos that make me really grateful for youtube. Thanks for fighting the good fight and promoting literature and reading habits Ben!
Thank you so much, my friend. I really appreciate that :)
I'm halfway through War and Peace and despite it being an astonishingly easy work (by far the Russian novel that I've had the least trouble with) I'm downright frightened by Tolstoy's attention to detail and psychological acuity. At times it feels like I myself have developed a sixth sense.
That's the most perfect description I've heard for the experience of reading Tolstoy - like developing a sixth sense! I'm completely with you on that.
@@kinda4664 The Mandelker-revised Maude
I think I'll read War n Peace again. I read in my 20s. I'm 70 now.
@@debifambro1039 would be a great way to gauge just how drastically you've changed in those 50 years!
Horses for courses. I tried War and Peace. Couldn't connect with it. On the other hand, once I started Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate, I had to keep reading.
Chatting to a friend of mine (of nearly forty years), she mentioned she was reading The Count of Monte Cristo. I spoke about Anna Karenina and, lo and behold, she had read that last year. And when I said I was reading Crime and Punishment next, she immediately said Dostoevsky - it's great! I'm so pleased. this is a friendship that is being rekindled due to us living very different lives in different countries (Uk - me, Japan, Spain and Chile - her). We are still very much in alignment but in a new way.
My advice is to set a timer for half an hour. If I want to read for an hour, I’ll split the time between two books. I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read using this method. Once you make something a habit, it becomes ingrained within your consciousness. Some people can become intimidated by the large vocabularies found in classic novels, but I look upon it as a learning experience. When I stumble upon an unfamiliar word, I look it up and write it down. I then might choose to use it in my own writing. As a result, I’ve expanded my vocabulary to a very substantial degree.
YES!
Great tip
Great tip...I love adding to my vocabulary and finding new ways to read more
The one page idea is exceedingly good. I have a five minute rule of studying Spanish everyday, I’ve had it for a couple years. Now I’m reading Borges in the original Spanish. Really, I never would have thought I could do that.
That's astonishing!!! I'll fallow your lead !!!
Great job
Congratulations!
What is your technique for studying Spanish?
I discovered this channel by accident and what a wonderful experience it was!
The way you talk about literature has restored my willingness to read.
I'm going to watch the rest of your videos. Take care
Aw, thank you so much. That makes me so happy to hear. Thank you for watching, and happy reading :)
@@BenjaminMcEvoy Thank you 😊
So agree.
Our family called it taking a “stress break”. Also here’s an insomniac tip: visualize an empty table. If on this table you see something that you can do something about then get up and write down what you can do about it. If it’s something you can’t do anything about then CLEAR THE TABLE and have. sweet dreams. Love your videos
Fellow INFJ here - I just fell into your channel as a recommendation after watching Miriam Margolyes Dickensian Christmas on UA-cam. As a recent retiree, my first reaction was a feeling of despair at the inadvertent reminder of my enjoyment of reading and goals unachieved, the collateral damage of life. However, in continuing to watch your video essays and lectures I realized that I need not look at the goals not met as irredeemable failures. I've set the goals up again for my future, starting with joining the Hardcore Literature Book Club. Thank you for reigniting a lost love.
I find your videos life-changing. You always motivate us to read and your love for reading shines throughout your videos.
Thank you, Raj. I really appreciate that, my friend. So lovely of you to say :)
I have fallen in love with your channel. You are one of the most refreshing and informative booktubers out there. I'm planning a video on a similar topic which utilizes a lot of tips from other youtubers, but this video is so unique and jam packed with information that I'm going to direct people here first because it's just that good!! Thank you for making such inspiring content!
Thank you so much, Li :) You have completely made my day! And thank you for recommending me. I can't wait to enjoy your video 😊
When life stagnates, your videos are always the go-to places for me. I really appreciate all the work and effort you make!! ♥️♥️
That's so lovely of you to say. Thank you so much, and thank you for being here 😊🙏
"Read one poem every day" - is a great advice! After reading Terry Pratchett's "Mort" in Russian in some moment I've noticed an allusion to 130 sonnet, which I've known in translation. So, I'm on my way on reading Shakespeare sonnets in English now, one sonnet per day. Well, I'm on 36 to date, but I have good feelings and mindset about finishing them. Thank you for inspiration about Shakespeare!
I plan to read DiscWorld ..I have Guards! Guards!
That's so cool. Mort is fantastic. I actually read it in German. I was also fortunate enough to meet Sir Terry before he passed. Such a lovely man :)
Guards! Guards! is a fantastic one. A favourite of mine, along with Men at Arms :)
I am struggling to read due to ADHD troubles. Hopefully, your tips will give me the push I need to be a better reader. Thank you!
I also am a reader with adhd and I've found that making a short goal like 10 pages or one chapter everyday really helped. It becomes part of your daily habit and some days you still won't be able, but small goals really seemed to help me.
Maybe find someone working with applied kinesiology, it may be possible they can re-wire you. I've heard dyslexia cleared up in 15 mins
Benjamin, the lifelong reading habit involving reading a poem, a short story and and essay a day is gold! Thanks for sharing that and for this video. I’ve already been doing part of this but to commit to it everyday is building a palace of treasures! And smaller increments of reading certainly keeps one passion to read alive rather than making this a required chore.
The last several years I have enjoyed co-reading my grandchildren's summer reading lists with them (ages 12-15). We periodically get together to discuss the finished books & have had wonderful discussions! I taught them to annotate, which they found very useful when it came to writing essays during the school year. I'm surprised to discover some books I loved as a child no longer hold my interest, while re-reading classics is much more enjoyable now that I have life experience & a lifetime of reading behind me. It has been an enjoyable experience for us all . [I did have to reread "Gulliver's Travels" this summer (my grandson is studying British Lit this coming school year). I certainly understood its context & author's intent in a deeper way, but still find a little goes a long way!]
That’s so cool
I'm currently reading Emma by Jane Austen, in english. As a spanish native speaker I have to say it's been as enriching as it's been challenging. It will take me more than a month, at least.
Thank you for your videos, I've learned a lot :)
I'm enjoying a reread of Emma at the moment myself, Adriana :) Fantastic book. I think it might actually become my favourite Austen :) I'm so happy you're finding it an enriching experience!
i am currently reading Kurt Vonnegut slaughterhouse five and it is a bit challenging for me, so thanks for the video it actually motivated me to persevere through the book 🙏 .
This is one of the best vids I’ve watched in 2022. It feels like I’ve got a mentor for how to do life. A mentor that I never had as a teen. Thank you Benjamin 🙏
Thank you, Cathy 🙏 You've made my day! I appreciate you being here :)
Ben, your point about having lived enough to truly appreciate more a piece of literature is spot on. I read King Lear last spring. It spoke so much to me about family, treachery, greed, etc. This play uniquely due to events in my own life, I agree that one should slow down the reading with a greta piece of work or else one misses too much. George Eliot I think is much like that. Sophocles, the Theban plays, were like that fro me, themes of old age, dying, redemption, etc speak directly to my middle aged self. Often, one needs to accumulate mileage to gain further understanding and wisdom, I could not agree more. The great authors can put into words what many of us would like to say and what we think in a manner that engages, instructs and inspires. I just wanted to share these thoughts with you and to say thank you again for all of your time and work. Take care.
OMG sooo happy I found you! :D Chewing through some challenging PhD reading and finding an enthusiast like you is a drop of fresh water in the desert! Thank you! :D
Aw, thank you, Katja :) That's so lovely of you to say. I wish you all the very best of luck with your PhD :)
@@BenjaminMcEvoy Awww thank you too for the words of encouragement, am trying my best! 😊🙏 I’ll definitely be binge watching aaaaall your videos now that I’ve found you. 🤩 Keep up the great work you do. 😊💪🙏
your passion and brilliance for literature really shines through with each and video. currently struggling with Hamlet. been throughly enjoying Tess of The D'Urbervilles
Thank you, Zoe. That's so kind of you to say. Hamlet is a difficult one, but slow and steady and you'll break through it :) Hardy's 'Tess' is one of my favourites. Very emotional draining novel!
@@BenjaminMcEvoy heavy stuff indeed. the beginning reminds me The Mayor Of Casterbridge. Particularly the lands of Wessex and how Thomas Hardy beautifully made them come to life
In the film Sabrina with Harrison Ford, Sabrina asks her father why he was always driver and he conspired "because that job gave her time to read". At that moment I knew what I wanted to do, not be a chauffeur, but when the day I retired I would dedicate my time to read everything I could not during my busy life. Now I’m at that stage and I’m starting to fulfill my wishes. This channel has been a great inspiration, motivation and help.
I love your perspective that confusion is the prologue to understanding. It’s true if you’re open to learning, which I assume most of us are on this channel. I also love the idea we’re not supposed to get everything immediately. Yes! I used to read hours every day and wrote morning pages for 10 years. Now I read almost no books and most of the writing I do is in comments like this. I’m inspired to embrace those old habits, thank you. Luckily I go on artist dates all the time. Now a fun Shakespeare pun: “Two maggots are playing in dead Earnest.”
I love your passion for reading Ben. You have given me the confidence to take on books that I would normally stay away from. You are spot on about relishing the challenge and I will take that mindset with me next time I feel overwhelmed by a complex book
Thank you very much :) I'm so thrilled to hear that! Absolutely, enjoy the challenge and take pleasure in the difficulty - I've found this to be good advice in many areas of life :)
Oh man, that one page a day bit really resonated with me. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I've went from loving reading to hating it multiple times because of goals I wasn't ready for and that feeling of failure that comes with it.
I also love the kindness you have towards yourself and reading. I don't know if that's something you meant or if that's something I'm projecting onto the video because I needed to hear it, but all the talk of passion, love of literature, exploring other fields, collecting passages, taking breaks, delaying gratification etc. was very wholesome and appreciated.
While I won't be setting as big a goal as you would be able to and also indulge in works that aren't considered 'great literature', I will take some of this advice to heart and hopefully make some much needed changes to how I live.
Overall, lovely video. It's rare that I stumble across a "x tips for..." video in which all the tips seem relevant, applicable and insightful. Many thanks.
Edit: one more thing. I realise this would probably be its own video topic and maybe you spoke of this. But, how exactly does one choose what to read? With billions of works and not enough time, it feels like every book you choose to read comes with a choice not to read a thousand others.
I found Shakespeare's language to be a huge barrier. I read a middle English Canterbury tales with footnotes and took my time to learn the language of it. After that Shakespeare was breeze. The Elizabethans still used a lot of those odd words Chaucer used.
So happy to stubble onto your UTube channel, Ben! I can't quite believe listening to your experience and intelligence about reading books is so delightful. Thanks for sharing the love of books with the rest of us.
A friend recently told me about your channel and I’m grateful!! You have so many good suggestions I started taking notes! I love the one-page reading quota, read poetry every day, etc. Thank you for sharing your passion for reading!
That's so lovely of your friend to recommend the channel, Laurie :) I'm so happy you're both here! :)
difficulty means growth , totally agree with u
💪💪💪
I'm reading Pynchon's _Mason & Dixon_ right now. There are several threads and frames going on at the same time in this book, and one can so easily get lost. For this book I'm finding it very beneficial to read the brief Wikipedia entries for each chapter/episode prior to reading the chapter in Pynchon. This releases my mind from worrying about tracking where the frame is and where the thread is going while reading the chapter, and I'm free to simply enjoy the characters in their _milieu._ _Mason & Dixon_ isn't the kind of book that can be spoiled in this way. I'm really enjoying this book.
sounds interesting. Good solution to clear too much complexity.
I like your tips Mate 👍🏻 but when you have three young kids it's hard to deep read downstairs haha. I'm the opposite at this moment in time....My downstairs books have been fun escape books like short stories, comic's or manga... My upstair book is literary books, deep reading and poetry. ... It was through you're channel that helped me find Keats and it helped me in the busy days to be happy with just reading a few poems a day. And I thank you for that.
Your videos always gave me huge inspiration--not only encouraged me to read but made me feel very excited about reading... thank you a lot for this.
Completely agree with the idea of language learning! I've been learning French and Italian dreaming about reading my favorite authors in the original. It's just awesome to feel the beauty of languages:)
Very happy I just found you. Blessings from chicago🐈⬛🐈⬛🐈⬛
Thank you, Susan! And happy reading over in Chicago!
Ben, thanks for your encouragement to explore literature to enhance every facet of one's life! I'm really glad you're out there experiencing your Bliss!
Thank you, Eric! I really appreciate that, my friend :) Thank you for being here!
Really struggling with Great Expectations, so thank you.
Your videos are such an inspiration and I’m always finding myself stretching my limits with reading literature after listening to your reviews , ideas and motivation. Keep up the great work .
Thank you so much :) Hearing my videos have that effect on you makes me incredibly happy! I'm thrilled to have you here, and happy reading :)
I’m reading an epic fantasy ..ten book series Malazan Book of The Fallen (the prose is beautiful..and the story of course is ..epic in scope). Ten books that are a thousand pages each..i set a goal each day on how many chapters I will complete. Plus there are UA-cam channels dedicated to talking about this series which makes the experience even more enjoyable.
Wonderful, Ben. The videos are always flawless, insightful and, most importantly, they come from the heart. I love Dickens; thus, I have decided to embark on that 1 special author journey: I have only read Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol, but I absolutely adore them. Alongside Levin; Pip, Wemmick and Joe are some of my favorite characters in all of literature. Furthermore, I will apply more of your tips, which I have written down, to get more out of my reading and increase my appreciation and love for art. Since I am part of the book-club, I have been lucky to come across many of these great tips before:)
Fantastic video. Currently majoring in English Literature, and I find great inspiration by watching these videos!!
Thank you, Matthew! Good luck with your English Literature, my friend :)
I'm an INFJ too. No wonder I feel so good watching this channel.
Yay, another INFJ 😊 Well I'm very happy to have you here, Anna :)
@@BenjaminMcEvoy
What’s an INFJ?
@@vanessamay3689 INFJ stands for Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Judging. It's the rarest personality type, according to the Myers-Briggs test.
Me too!
It was my INFJ that brought me to this channel!😂 Feels good I’m not alone here.
Thank you for this video, Benjamin. English isn't my first language, but I had always loved reading, nothing literary but it was something I love, and when I was asked to read great literature at uni, I was at a loss. I loved reading and being able to understand, and enjoy, what I read. However, the difficult reads put me off of all reading for a really long time. Always felt like something didn't click, that something was going over my head, but I'm trying to relearn how to love what I lost to appreciate it more.
What you said about confusion being a prologue to understanding and setting small goals resonated with me a lot. I was listening to you driving back home, and here I am putting a couple of books on my night stand, just finished your video, and will start my one-page goal. Thank you.
So many gems in here, as always! I subscribe to George Saunders' newsletter, and he recently shared a project that would fit really well into your idea of an annual "reading project." It's called "One city, ten years" and it is based on a class Saunders taught several years back. Pretty self-explanatory: You pick a city, you pick a ten year period, and you read as much as you can from and about that city and time period. Poetry and prose written by authors in/from that city, but also history and biographies about that time, too. Maybe even digging into newspapers and other primary sources. Anyway, I thought it sounded cool!
Love your videos, they are enlightening. Thanks for posting.
I love visiting Little Free Libraries and picking out a book, and setting it back after reading into another one.
Lots to think about there. At the moment my most urgent takeaway is that I have an unfinished mug of coffee somewhere. Then some poetry to read.
Thank you so much for your content, Benjamin! 🙏
Hi Ben. I’m commenting once again to thank you; without your videos, I wouldn’t love literature like I do today and wouldn’t have studied as hard in Sixth Form as I did. After receiving poor GCSEs, I had no choice but to move to another mediocre state school - but your videos kept me motivated, and my love of reading only grew!
Fast forward to now. After managing to get my 3A*, I have just received an unconditional English offer from Durham, and will see how my Cambridge application goes this Winter! I can hardly believe it even now, and I genuinely mean it when I say your content had a huge part to play. Thank you, and I look forward to many more videos in years to come :)
Listening to your videos even just in the background when I’m driving or thinking about other things helps me read more. It brings books to my mind, some times the forefront some times background. It helps books loom larger in my world than they otherwise might and I find myself reading more. Thank you.
Struggling with The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Your first tip of confusion will become understanding - I will hold that thought and use to the end. Also using the commitment of one chapter a day. Thanks for the pep talk.
It is definitely worth teaching children Shakespeare. They may not be equipped for every allusion or every layer of meaning, but the plots of most of the plays are strong enough to grasp their attention. I can vividly remember watching Julius Caesar, the Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream before I was 10.
I’ve just found your channel Ben. Thanks so much for your advice. I’m 62 and just started an A level literature course. I used to read a lot when I was young; my course has re ignited my love for literature. I’m going to order some books I’ve been meaning to read as you have really motivated me.
I have recently come across your channel and I must say you are inspiring! You put the excitement back into reading for me so thank you! I intend to watch all your videos, your enthusiasm is contagious! I am already putting your suggestions into practice! Thank you ☺️
Benjamin, I have watchef to every video you have posted more than once. I also have listened to all you Spotify content. I t makes me really happy when you post new content. Thank you so much for stoking my love of great literature.
Wow. That's so great to hear, Tom. I'm incredibly grateful to have you watching and listening :) Thank you so much for being here, and reading with me!
Thank God! UA-cam suggested me a channel like yours. If I have to describe you in a sentence that would be this: You're a breath of fresh air...
Aw, thank you :) That's very kind of you to say. I'm so happy UA-cam suggested the channel to you too :) Happy reading, my friend!
You videos are long but the time just flys by. Thanks for sharing your love of literature and for all of your great tips. I will definitely try to be more perseverant (sp?) with the more difficult reads. I like to underline and take notes when I'm having trouble concentrating on what the author is saying. It's so cool that you have a public from several generations. I'm a 53 year old American living in France and I too love to read. Yes, reading foreign books in their original version is such a treat.
Love that interior wall. Great channel, great videos. I've found myself in a much more stressful mood lately, and watching youtube videos and reading comments sections certainly haven't helped. Breaking away from the news once in a while, getting away from people, and diving into literature is a great reset. Going to start reading Great Expectations today.
confusion being prologue to understanding, what a wonderful tip and good to remember when trying to plow through the 'difficult' books! I also love the upstairs books vs downstairs book classification, I find myself doing the same thing, just never put a name to it before. I adore secondhand bookstores, there's really something special about going in to see what the latest new find could be, and of course support for the local community and connecting with other regulars has been a lovely way to make new friends. I've had Matthew Beaumont's "Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London" on my to-read list for a while, your tip about linking walking with listening to literature has reminded me to get on that one, might be fun to see if there is an audio version of this one :) Thank you Ben for another fantastic video. Cheers!
Thank you for the Treasure Trove of suggestions! This is why I always look forward to your videos..
Thank you, Karrie :) I'm thrilled to have you watching!
I love going to secondhand bookstores. I’ve found so many treasures and I just love your view of connecting to other readers.
Im thankful for your advice! I’ve decided to take up the ray Bradbury reading challenge. So I have three individual stacks on my bed stand, one for essays, one for poetry, one for short stories. Each stack with a bunch of different and exciting authors.
That's so awesome to hear, Joshua. You're in for a fun ride with the Bradbury reading assignment. I'm sure you'll find a bunch of new favourite authors :)
I’ve actually been on a wave of reading recently, in part thanks to the discovery of your channel, but since I’m starting War and Peace today this should be useful for the long run.
Wow. That's so awesome to hear :) Good luck with War and Peace - phenomenal work of literature. Without giving away any spoilers for future content, we should have some discussions on W&P here in the near future :)
@@BenjaminMcEvoy sounds great I’m looking forward to that content. I’m enjoying W&P so far, so it would be wonderful to see some of your videos on it.
Hi. I'm a new subscriber..recently retired..but busy at home. I am finding your broadcasts illuminating. I've generally avoided having a number if book on the go, but I've found your tips a useful tool to challenge that..After all I do not limit myself to just one musical artist!! So..thanks...its good to be here. I have many of your uploads to catch up on. Lucky me. BTW.. currently reading "Berlin Alexanderplatz" by Alfred Doblin (translated). I'm told it has "Ulysses" parallels.
Brilliant, inspiring advice, thanks so much. I have been looking for ways to structure my reading, and Bloom's 'how to read and why' has been really helpful in terms of content, but these ideas about structure and habits is exactly what I needed, thankyou!
Thank you!!!! I love the upstairs downstairs books. I shared your video with a friend writer and told him his books are my downstairs books. Great tips!
O’-perfect, I’ve been waiting for another video, Ben. God Bless.
God bless to you too :)
Thank you Ben, as always!
Thank you, Karen :)
Thank you for putting me into action. Listening to you and your advice is so uplifting.
Thank you for these inspiring videos ... love and respect 💕
At my old age I found this treasure, your talks, yr introduction n yr opinion n the best way to start reading n rereading all those great pieces of literature. Thank you !
I have just discovered this channel and it is most enjoyable. I used to read the "biggies" for fun as a younger woman and I found them far more enjoyable than more popular books being devoured by my friends. I simply cannot be bothered with trashy books and I don't care how snobbish that makes me sound. However,, like many people I stopped bothering with regular reading as I got older.
You have inspired me to get back to reading. Your enthusiasm for the life of the mind reminds me of my late father. He was the person who inspired my love of Shakespeare, and all the great writers .He also took us to Art galleries when we were children and told us about the meanings behind many of the paintings.
When it comes to great works I will never read it has to be "A la recherche..." Although I did enjoy a film version of Swann in Love with Jeremy Irons. That resonated with a love affair of my own. However Proust's sexual habits - including torturing rats - put me off him .Generally speaking I would favour great writers over verminous rodents, however when it comes to torture - I'm Team Rat all the way !
I was sorry to hear that you have "gone orff" Conrad. My dad loved his books and reminded me that English wasn't this man's first language - I don't think it was even his second. It annoys me that people who have never read Heart of Darkness or have merely skimmed it, dismiss it as racist .I felt that Conrad saw the actual heart of darkness lay within the white colonials. Conrad was a man of his time.
I don't know if you will ever read this comment but I have enjoyed writing it anyway.
Very interesting. Thank you. Subscribed.
Thank you for watching :)
Hi Benjamin, I recently discovered your channel and have found it to be extremely fascinating and delightful. It is so rare to find people who love books these days, and especially the way you do, with a true passion. I am a scientist doung research, so I don’t get as much time to read literature as I would like, but over the years I have accumulated a lot of books. So I am trying to restart reading as a hobby, with a small daily reading goal, as suggested by you. Your tips on note-taking, journaling and essay writing are very helpful and inspiring as well. Moreover, it is such a pleasure to be in the company of so many people who love books so much in this electronic age. Congratulations for your great work and please keep at it. By the way, I am waiting for my Everyman edition of The Brothers Karamazov to arrive, which I bought recently from Amazon. I am bracing myself for a monumental task, but am encouraged by your talk on the topic! Thanks again for your wonderful channel!
Subscribed! I really enjoyed this video - the second one I watch - you evoke such equanimous, yet joyous inspiration!🙏
Thank you, Yuyi :) I'm so happy you're here! I appreciate your kind words :)
I with you 💯% regarding used books...
Your comment about "upstairs/downstairs books" brings to mind the British drama series "Upstairs Downstairs." The Upstairs folks were leisure/aristocratic people (at least on the surface), and the Downstairs folks were the hard-working maids and cooks and valets...there is an analagy to your idea meandering around somewhere in my brain...😆
I'm so glad, that I found your channel. Very good and interesting tips. You're a very positive and well-spoken person. Thank you for sharing your experience :)
Thank you, Alice. That's so kind of you to say! I'm grateful to have you here :)
I just found your channel a couple of days ago. I now have Proust's In Search of Lost Time, all 6 volumes .....on the way, along with a pretty journal to write in while I read it......I am soooo excited!! (I have been listening to a lot of your videos.....and am finding them so helpful!! Thank you for sharing your enthusiasm for great literature with us!!! )
Inspired by your top 50 list, today I went to a 2nd hand book store and left with Anna Karenina, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Moby Dick, Great Expectations, The Brothers Karamozov, Great Expectations, Ulysses, Vanity Fair, a collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, and Middlemarch- all for $60. Where to start??!! :)
I just found your channel... I didn't know how much I needed your content. Thank you for existing.
That is lovely of you, Agustina :) Thank you so much for being here!
This is how I (finally) read Ulysses: I forgot about all that "Cultural Context" stuff. I found myself a number of quiet pubs. Then, I went and plonked myself down of an evening in a corner with two or three pints, for a fortnight or so. I know this sounds like it's off "READERS' Top Tips" in Viz, but if I hadn't, I still wouldn't have read Ulysses.
Hey Ben, so many good tips!!! Lemme try to write a Baker's Dozen here for 2023
1. Ullysses
2. Gravity's Rainbow
3. The Recognitions
4. J R
5. Moby Dick
6. Montaigne's Essays (an essay a day except for the long ones)
7. The Poetry of Emily Dickinson (a poem everyday at least)
8. Mahabharata
9. The Tale of Gengi
10. The Tunnel by William Gass
11. Clarissa
12. Infinite Jest
13. New Science by Giambattista Vico
Awesome baker's dozen right there! You should see how strongly I'm nodding right now :) Chef's kiss for Giambattista Vico - very nice!
Another fun video that I really enjoyed. Thank you for all your great insights. The two take-aways that sparked my interest to try are: pick an author & read everything he or she has written and pick a language to learn. Now just need to pick author & language. Thank you for helping me set some new reading goals, Bonnie.
Thank you!
Your thoughts, comments and advice are nourishment for the soul. Thank you.
Your enthusiasm is infectious. Excited to put some of these ideas into action. Makes life so much more interesting.
Thank you, Will. I appreciate that, my friend :) Happy reading!
I always learn something from your videos!
I also love to foster the love of reading and love gifting books. Thank you for your wonderful videos.
Thank you so much :) I really appreciate that! And lovely to know you like to gift books too!
Thanks for a great video. I prefer second-hand books and bookstores because older books are often of higher quality and easier to read: better paper, larger print, wider margins and better leading.
All great tips for reading. Thank you for this.
You're so welcome :) Thank you for watching!
What a video! What an inspiration! Thank you for this, Ben. 🙏🏽
Thank you so much, Paul! I really appreciate that :)
Amazing tips, thank you for these :)
Thank you :) I'm so happy you enjoyed them!
You’re right about the aha moment. I first read Macbeth and Jane Eyre as a thirteen year old. Now years later as one with life’s experience, I look at these very differently.
Macbeth and Jane Eyre are two extraordinary works when it comes to our relationships changing over time. It's only relatively recently that I've personally felt like I really 'got' the power of both of them, despite reading and loving them when I was very young!
Brilliant. Thank you.
I totally agree with the one author focus approach.
I fell in love with Ishiguro's The remains of the day and spent most of 2018 reading all of his other works to date. I have done this previously with Dostoyevsky, Kafka and Wilde. I actually do this with film directors, since the advent of dvd media in 1998: Ozu, Kurosawa, Hitchcock, Bergman, Chaplin, Kieslowski, Welles and Kubrick good notable ones to start off with. I think it's a wonderfully rewarding and enjoyable technique.
Thank you Benjamin for the excellent tips.
Thank u so much SO HELPFUL
Wow(again)! The upstairs vs downstairs books? great. I love this idea.
Great Reader lifestyle tips. Thanks!
Thank you, Daniel :)
Ben, you put form some great ideas. Keep going, Dude, we are watching your input, excellent 👍.
Thank you, Richard. I appreciate that, my man 😊