How to Get More From Your Reading in 2022 (Patreon)

As the season of giving thanks is upon us, I wish to express my deep gratitude for you.

Thank you for being here with us and reading this great literature with so much passion. 

Today's show covers different mindsets and habits to help make your reading more rewarding. 

Topics include journalling, book reports, reading difficult books, ranking your books, reading aloud, multiple reads, finding time to read, how to read symbolism, finding art in the real world, the value of rereading, and much more.

As this is a long audio, we have timestamps below. So feel free to jump to whichever topic most interests you.

Video Timestamps:

• 0:00 reading into the year ahead
• 2:00 writing book reports
• 3:00 why readers abandon books after college
• 4:00 learning to fall back in love with reading
• 6:30 reading and writing as play
• 7:30 the most valuable skill to develop in a divided world
• 9:00 the genius of George Eliot, Proust, and Tolstoy
• 10:00 learning about others from a great trial lawyer
• 10:30 how to discover your thoughts through writing
• 11:40 a personal growth writing exercise
• 15:00 what Montaigne did when finishing a book
• 16:55 how to read “over your head”
• 18:00 reading difficult books
• 19:30 Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy
• 21:00 how to journal about the Great Books
• 22:00 journaling and shadow work
• 22:48 Proust, Milton, Joyce, and Shakespeare’s sonnets
• 24:00 how to rank/grade your books
• 25:00 Harold Bloom’s theory of influence
• 26:00 Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and their influences
• 28:30 George Orwell and Kurt Vonnegut on ranking books
• 30:00 applying wine appreciation to books
• 34:00 how to read your books aloud (to yourself and others)
• 36:15 chanting poetry as meditation and oracle
• 37:00 choosing empowering beliefs
• 38:00 how to read books like scripture
• 38:45 serial and multiple reads
• 42:40 reading great literature in one sitting
• 44:28 give yourself more time than you think you’ll need
• 47:00 recapping the page you’ve just read
• 48:00 how to meet the characters
• 48:30 how Proust appreciated art
• 49:00 “our social personalities are a creation of the thoughts of other people.”
• 50:00 Viktor Frankl on how to help others grow
• 50:40 how to meet the writer (sympathy and suffering)
• 51:10 working through a single author’s canon
• 52:00 developing a speciality topic of interest (theme/era)
• 52:30 make a reader’s date with yourself
• 54:00 how to do marginalia (and keeping a commonplace book)
• 55:00 copying our poetry by hand (and pretending you’re the poet)
• 57:00 seek to create/stitch together your own philosophy
• 58:00 how Montaigne approached difficult books
• 59:00 conduct an etymological dig
• 1:00:00 the influence of language upon thought
• 1:01:00 how to read symbolism
• 1:01:40 dream analysis and dream journals
• 1:02:00 an interpretation exercise with Aesop’s Fables
• 1:04:00 classic vs modern books
• 1:04:30 reading literature in three lights (visual, musical, metaphorical)
• 1:05:00 Tolstoy’s theory of art criticism (labyrinths of linkages)
• 1:06:00 how to find allusions in literature
• 1:07:00 aim to find good company in your reading (self-talk and self-acceptance)
• 1:08:00 why have aims and challenges with your reading
• 1:09:00 art is long, but life is short (memento mori)
• 1:09:40 how to find the art in the real world and nature
• 1:10:00 Emerson on history, nature, architecture
• 1:11:45 how to read history
• 1:12:00 reading through different critical lenses
• 1:12:55 making time for deep-reading
• 1:15:55 reinforcing the importance of rereading
• 1:17:00 learning to become more present
• 1:19:00 sharing a meaningful poem with you

Tomorrow we have the latest Q&A Show (with great questions as always), and upcoming content will cover the latest instalment of 'The Turn of the Screw', an introduction to Middlemarch (and becoming the first reader), the first Great Expectations lecture, a look at the book editions we're using, and much more.

Thank you, and happy reading!