How To Retain Your Reading
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ส.ค. 2020
- 📚 Read the Great Books with Hardcore Literature: / about
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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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I received a Master’s Degree in History 34 years ago. I’m 63 and unfortunately rarely have had time these last few years to sit down and read anything for pleasure. Your videos have prompted me to pull a copy of Great Expectations off the shelf and begin reading it again for the first time since 1975.
Hey hey can you teach me EU history
I worked on my Masters in English many years ago and recently retired from a job that had nothing to do with my major. Thankfully I now have personal time to return to the books I love. I have started reading the classics again FOR MY OWN PLEASURE. It has been enlightening. Coming to the works now with a wealth of life perspectives has allowed me to have a much deeper understanding of the connections and the implications that I never stopped to think about and appreciate during my earlier readings. Plus, I was essentially speed reading in order to get through all of the material. It was a terrible way to read the classics, and yet I was able to produce acceptable papers and successfully present them in my graduate seminars. Benjamin has inspired me to go back to my literary roots for myself. My reading experiences have become so much richer and enjoyable.
Me too, I have been a pathologist and legal graduate and at 58 this is my first reading of Shakespeare having always read legal or medical works. You are never too late to discover new horizons 😊
I read Anna Karenina slowly and I still remember the thrill of recognizing the accurate description of what true love feels like when Levin thinks of Kitty: ‘He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.’
OMG that's beautiful!
A beautiful quote, I wanna read this now
I am so glad I found your channel. You inspired me to 'dig up' some of my old books and read them again, like, 'East of Eden' by John Steinbeck which, I read in college, as an assignment. I was 18 and reading it again is better with age. Lol I also went online and purchased some of the top 50 best classics (from your video). This is a life changer for me. Thank you, please don't stop these videos. I will be exploring all your other recommendations too. 😊
Great segment on How To Retain Your Reading. I don't have many friends, and the few I have are not readers like me but that's ok...I now have you as my teacher.
I always used to feel guilty for not reading enough books in a year😕😩 listening to your argument for reading less books was a revelation😮 you’ve made me feel so much better and confident😊
Hands down the best video available on reading for retention. A few of these points I’ve also come to realize over time, but hearing them clearly articulated by another person really cemented them into my brain. Thanks for the videos man.
Thank you, my friend. I really appreciate that! Happy reading :)
Great video - this is one of my main gripes when I read and then cast my mind back to what I read a few months ago and can’t even remember the characters’ names! Thanks for the tips :)
Thank you, Freddy! I really appreciate that :)
HE IS LIKE THAT LITERATURE FRIEND I NEVER GOT TO HAVE ❤️
Funny you should talk about retaining what your read. I recently was looking at one of my bookshelves and I saw a book I didn't recognise. I picked it up and it was a nice hardback copy of In the Name of the Rose. "Oh," I though, "I must read that." and then looked through it and saw I had passages marked all the way though the book and I had no memory of reading it at all. The crazy thing is I remember the shop I bought it in, even where it was in the shop but no memory of reading it at all. Weird!
I could listen to you speak all day. I truly appreciate your you sharing your knowledge with us.
Hi Benjamin, just discovered your videos a few days ago and you've re-ignited my interest in reading great literature.
Something that helps me greatly in retaining what I've read is to take a break after a book, at least a week, sometimes more, before reading another one. For me, this allows the totality of the novel to really sink in.
I'm a slow reader anyway. I might read 5 novels in a year if I'm lucky. I live the books. The characters, plots and style of writing in each book consume me totally. Even after my reading session when I'm going about my day I'm going over what I've read in my head wondering what will happen next.
I must start journalling though. It's not something I've ever done and I think I'm missing out on some key self-development opportunities. Thanks for all that you do, Mark
Bellissimo video.
Oggi ho camminato con i miei tre cani 🐕 🐕 🐕 in una bellissima fredda alba profumata dalla tua dolcissima voce.
Abito a 100 km da Roma.
Questa è la terra degli Etruschi, degli olivi e del cielo azzurro.
Quando cammino accompagnato dalla tua voce mi sento come Robert Walser nel suo libro “La passeggiata”.
Grazie
Giorgio
Reading a book as though you are preparing it to teach it to students is a great way to fully comprehend it. Study it, outline it, summarize the plot, make a list of the characters and main themes. You will then absorb that book into your mind.
Hello Benjamin!!! My eldest sister introduced me to you through your videos on Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. I am enthralled in the world of classics, and try to find as much time as possible in reading anything to do with the type of work. I have recently started a blog for other reasons, but want to include literature within it. However, I feel as if I am not qualified (academically or skillfully) to do so. Such literary works have so many factors to it that I feel I would not be doing it justice in writing posts on it. I am quite frankly unsure of how to go about this… love your videos and community by the way!!!
Thanks for motivating me to read.
I now film myself on FB, reading books aloud, & 1 or 2 friends may watch. And I also comment on what I've read, and highlight bits right there on camera.
It also makes your voice stronger
The Koreans have this Gongbang practice:
• Students film themselves for hours, often not speaking throughout the video
• Claim it's a self-motivation tool and a way to prove to parents they're working
I used to write in-depth reviews of books I read on Notion and I also have a book review website that I created years ago but kind of abandoned... Thank you, you've motivated me to pick everything back up!
That's so cool!! I'm so excited to hear you're picking that back up :)
Part of this is actually how I stumbled upon your channel-after recently reading Blood Meridian in the midst of a McCarthy run I'm on, which I loved and left me wanting to dig deeper, ponder, discuss, and learn more about and from, I came across your video on it, and then, TH-cam algorithm, here we go. I'm enjoying your content here, so cheers!
I'm so happy to have you here, Trey. I must thank the TH-cam algorithm :) Wonderful to hear you recently read Blood Meridian. Terrific novel. I'm so excited for McCarthy's two new books to come out later this year!
@@BenjaminMcEvoy Me too! I've already pre-ordered the set. I read The Road years ago and probably before I was ready for it tbh. I recently read a noir comic series (not sure how you feel about the medium) called Scalped by Jason Aaron (think Casino but on an Indian reservation-dark, gritty; I loved it) in which he threw a little not so subtle nod to McCarthy, prompting me to elevate a couple from my extensive "saved for later" shopping cart: No Country For Old Men and Blood Meridian. Funny how these things go. I read those two and got absolutely hooked. Got Outer Dark, which I just finished and also really enjoyed (found a great review of that online too that highlighted some allegories and connections that were above my head and made it even richer as a result), and Child of God, which I'm currently reading. The remainder of his oeuvre has been acquired and added to the queue.
I was just telling my wife how it's funny how sometimes you'll hear someone talk about being jealous of someone else that's experiencing some novel or author for the first time (my neighbors were discussing Ken Follet's Pillars of Creation in this way), and I feel like I can recognize and appreciate that in my current McCarthy journey in real-time, so that's pretty cool. Of course added to the list of classics and non-classics alike that I've always got lined up. You're right though, you'll simply never be done in a lifetime, and that's ok!
13:04 so true. I somewhat distance from my books whenever I don't get intimate with them so to speak.
In my opinion, the best way to retain what you read is trying to find the core meaning of the book(even read professional literary critique if necessary).You may not retain all plot points, but you don't have to, the core message is the important one and maybe the name of major characters and events!
I totally agree with you. This reminds me of one of my secondary school teachers - a scary art teacher - who gave me the best revision tip. It was exactly this. Seek to understand, rather than memorise. It definitely works the best.
I find you to be such a dynamic and engaging and entertaining and erudite speaker, like a hyperliterate Russell Brand. I am hooked on your mood and your message.
Great tips bro, I already do some of them, but I'll be definitely using the ones I'm not doing already.
This hits home!
I don't retain much
I absolutely love reading and listening to audiobooks at the same time for the toughies.
14:38 LOVE the video, thank you!
I love these videos. The only thing I would add is that if the book is being read in translation, to read multiple translations. Especially with Chekov, there are some translations available that really make poetry out of his words, while others read so flat as to be quite tedious. I'm insanely excited to try the new translation of Beowulf (one of my favorite reads anyway) by Maria Headley. And of course, argue about it with my friends :)
Thank you, Amanda! Great recommendation. I wholeheartedly agree :) I've got three translations of Chekhov and they certainly do differ. So much so, I've decided to learn Russian to cut out the middleman. I'd love to hear what you think of the Beowulf translation. I shall check that one out myself too!
Hey Ben thanks, I follow you in all your platforms.
Hey, Ahamed! Thank you for following :)
A great piece of advice, thank you😊. I've recently ran into your videos and they help me a lot to better understand the greatest works of literature.
You are so welcome! Thank you so much for watching and for your kind words :)
Just recently came across this channel and I've literally watch everything! Awesome tips and motivational advice. Would love to know your views on the Scriptures as literature.
We read for enjoyment, for learning how to live a better life, experiencing new perspectives, or experiencing our own perspective more clearly. Why is it important to read books slowly and methodically? I think the writing dictates the speed at which you should read. I wouldn't read a Colleen Hoover book slowly and methodically, but I might read a Charles Dickens' slowly. The language and pace of the writing dictates the speed I read.
Very nice... but Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, Les Mis, War and Peace, and ....... ATLAS SHRUGGED??! I’m planning Dante, Middlemarch, Brothers K, Ulysses, then The DaVinci Code.
I recently finished Crime and Punishment, and I just started War and Peace. Always great to know there are other people pleasuring themselves with these novels!
Hello, I just stumbled upon you and really enjoy your content. This is exactly the kind of advice I was looking for.
Did you note taking video get removed? I can't seem to find it.
Thank you very much :) That one's over on the Hardcore Literature channel: th-cam.com/video/5uFCtrx2FHY/w-d-xo.html
I'm the same way about having too many irons in the fire - 20 or more books I've started - including 150 or so pages into BOTH "Brothers Karamazov" and "Crime and Punishment."
My shameful list -
"Also Sprach Zarathustra" ( I can get by reading German )
"The Red and the Black" Stendhal - I'm just amazed with how suspect it was to even read books in parts of France back in the 1840's unless it was church related or the law or some scientific and military. The reactionary forces that were in charge during the post-Napoleonic era were chilling. It was like that in France, Germany, Austria and Russia. The ruling classes were so freaked out and spooked by political stirrings that if you were seen reading a book in a neighboring town the word would get around.
"Odysey" - I read it both in high school and college but never has it jumped out of the pages for me the way it does now - I was so taken with the first pages that I started listening to intro Homeric Greek courses and read a few paragraphs in the original Attic Greek - spellbinding.
Several downloaded pdf's of Nietzsche books in English "The Birth of Tragedy," "Beyond Good and Evil," "Ecce Homo," "The Birth of Tragedy," "Human, All Too Human."
Heinrich Heine "Harzreise" - dual language - my German gets rusty, Heine wrote in German so powerfully and beautifully that Hitler had his grave bombed in Paris. It infuriated Adolf so much that Heine was Jewish and had mastered the language to a level equal to any German writer.
Eduard Mörike "Mozarts Reise nach Prague" - dual language German - English - This is one of the most beloved stories in the German speaking world, everyone from philosophers, scientists, writers love this story - I think it's something they all ready in Gymnasium ( high school ). Mörike's poetry is often ranked as equal to Goethe's.
Thomas Mann "Felix Krull" - I read this in English about 20 years ago. I just couldn't put it down. I told myself I would reread it in German one day. I've started a few times in German with switching to English when I feel I'm missing too much but I can't seem to get into the story this time but I haven't given up.
Herodotus Histories - I've been reading quite a bit about Greek philosophy with a few different books by Classics scholars and some rather addictive recorded classroom lectures by Arthur Holmes at Wheaton College - a Christian College teacher who convenced the school to make Philosophy a department separate from Religion. I can't recommend his lectures highly enough - fantastic lecturer. So many subjects from Politics to Christianity, Judaism, neuroscience, artificial intelligence relate to Greek thought and later philosophy - once you have studied it you want to go back and rethink everything!
Some biographies of Albert Einstein. One of the books is so technical it's almost 80 percent mathematical formulas it's very slow going but I'm determined to understand gravitational waves because the latest discoveries in that field mean scientists can detect not only what passes through the universe but what happens when the universe itself shakes - Einstein predicted this but it was only proven a few years ago. The field is in its infancy. Einstein made his prediction 1916 - the proof came in 2015 - almost a hundred years later. Disturbances in the curvature of space-time itself occur when 2 large black holes collide. Getting my old Math books out and working through relativity problems where you calculate exactly how much time passes when you are going almost as fast as the speed of light is a very strange ride. The units of distance when going that fast are in light-years but the units of time on your ultra-fast relativity clock are in meters. It takes some heavy lifting of the mind muscles to get your brain thinking that way. Astro-physicists say that we have been in the silent picture era when it comes to the information gathered until now. With the ability to detect a completely new form of energy it puts Astrophysics in the era of the talkies.
Nietzsche had a high opinion of Stendhal. Have fun reading!
Before, I really loved reading George MacDonald. I will see if I can find them again.
Thanks a lot Benjamin for all your nice and emmensely enjoyable videos. I am learning English as a second language and I find your videos instructive, fun, and really engrossing... Keep up the good work, friend 👍
Thank you, Hisham :) I'm happy to have you here, and thrilled you're learning English!!!
Some terrific advices! Thankyou.
What was the name of the website that you mentioned about the great courses. Couldn't find the link in the description
Thank you! The company used to be called the Great Courses, but they recently changed their name to Wondrium. They also have their back-catalogue on Audible :)
Yes. 'Teaching' a book has a similar effect.
Great video and tips, thank you. Have you considered narrating audiobooks?
Thank you, Jared. That's a very kind compliment. I appreciate that, my friend. It's actually a dream/long-term goal of mine :)
@@BenjaminMcEvoy Fantastic. I’m from America and could listen to your voice for hours. You are blessed with many gifts. Thank you for sharing them with the world.
I always feel bad that I might be reading and re-reading pages because I didn't fully understand and so sometimes I look to see if the book has a movie to add more to what I've read and it helps me with retention as well.
I do a youtube book review channel. I'm trying to sell my own book by doing reviews of other books but I must say I've retained a lot of information of the books I've read by having to write a book a review. Catcher in the Rye would have come and gone for me but my review really forced me to think hard about why I liked it so much. All those silly book reports we did in school were not so silly afterall!
Sometimes I do see Amazon reviews for books that are really long and well thought out. I wonder if that's why the reviewers take time to write these.
Terrific advice. Great work. The summarising is so obvious really but have I ever done it? The only factor is time. But getting more out of great literature is a direct link to the mind that created it. Quite right to put down speed reading. I am almost half way through Don Quixote and have learnt a reasonable amount about chivalry by looking things up. But its only scrathching the surface. Keep up the good work. You are an excellent communicator.
Where can I find books like those you have? (Hard cover, leather maybe? Those are beautiful, I've already searched on Amazon, ebay, I didn't see anything like this, that's so beautiful)
Everyman's Library :) I take the dust jackets off. Available on Amazon, but you'll see the dust jacket advertised. They are beautiful underneath!
@@BenjaminMcEvoy Thank you so much! I'm a 46 years old enginner from Brazil and I'm just starting to dive into this world of literature, and I'm really fascinated by your videos, seriously thinking on making part of your hardcore club! Keep the good work!
i love ur videos
Thank you, Sandie :)
I love marginalia. Sadly, I can't always do it because often I am reading a library book. What do you recommend for note taking when you are not reading your own copy of a book?
Check out about common place notebook,might help.
Benjamin, I love your podcast and comments. A problem I have that applies to a number of authors and their novels is their reputed political positions. I read part of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged but was influenced in a negative sense by what others have said about her and her support of the House's Unamerican Activities Committee headed by Joe McCarthy. I know I need to have a different outlook on her that isn't prejudiced because of my extreme dislike of the far right. On the other side of the coin, I find I have an uncritical admiration for authors who have leftist views and am repulsed by writers with religious sympathies. Maybe I just have to read more. I want to have a deeper appreciation of these writers who are offering us a look into their and ultimately our souls (dammit I used a religious word).
8:23 exactly why I'm so drawn to this channel 😭
Here’s the video he mentions for note taking!
m.th-cam.com/video/5uFCtrx2FHY/w-d-xo.html
Honestly slowing down your reading is big, rather than trying to do some good reads shit "100 books a year challenge hehe xd 😂👌", I challenge you to read 5 books and really, deeply understand them.
Jelly Roll Morton, eh?
I joy they way talk about lt
I like the sound of my voice ;-)
I disagree. We are human beings, not for sale. Reaad, humanely...