reading
Books are meant to be used
Wow, that's pretty cool
Why we should read
Narrative codes
A web of books
Silent Conversation
A GameSilent Conversation tells classic stories, poems and haiku in an interactive way, inspired by Walter Savage Landor's motto What is reading but silent conversation?. They are presented as levels where the player controls a small line (similar to a text prompt) to go through the winding words.
Interoperable Personal Libraries and Ad Hoc Reading Groups
An Article by Maggie AppletonWe would need a system that enables people to:
- Publish a list of books they would be willing to discuss with other people to the open web. Antilibraries – collections of books you haven't read yet but would like to read – are particularly well suited to this proposition.
- See which books people in their social network want to discuss, and/or subscribe to other people's lists
- Be notified when 4+ people in their network have the same book on their discussion list – possibly via an email thread?
- Coordinate and schedule a time to read and discuss the book with that group.
If a book can be summarized, is it worth reading?
An Article by Austin KleonIt is my opinion that if a book’s contents can be adequately “summed up,” so that you really don’t miss anything by reading the summary, it is not actually a book worth reading. (Of course, there’s no way to tell whether a summary is adequate or not unless you have also read the book.) Also, I suspect that the harder you find it to summarize a book you have read, the more valuable it might be.
Highlighter
An ApplicationHighlighter is a personal knowledge bank and collaborative learning network designed to feed your curiosity and help you examine new ideas.
Finding nourishment vs. identifying poison
An Article by Austin Kleon & Olivia LaingA useful analogy for what [Sedgwick] calls ‘reparative reading’ is to be fundamentally more invested in finding nourishment than identifying poison. This doesn’t mean being naive or undeceived, unaware of crisis or undamaged by oppression. What it does mean is being driven to find or invent something new and sustaining out of inimical environments.
I would like to adopt that line as a mission statement: “To be fundamentally more invested in finding nourishment rather than identify poison.”
Because you can identify all the poison you want, but if you don’t find nourishment, you’ll starve to death.
Which Books You Truly Love
An Essay by Salman RushdieI believe that the books and stories we fall in love with make us who we are, or, not to claim too much, the beloved tale becomes a part of the way in which we understand things and make judgments and choices in our daily lives. A book may cease to speak to us as we grow older, and our feeling for it will fade. Or we may suddenly, as our lives shape and hopefully increase our understanding, be able to appreciate a book we dismissed earlier; we may suddenly be able to hear its music, to be enraptured by its song.
Of Note: Better Text Annotations for the Web
An Article by Brandon DornGenerally speaking (and ignoring questions of styling, API availability, etc.), an ideal Web annotation pattern follows these principles:
- Annotations appear in close visual proximity to the primary content.
- Their design neither distracts from nor hides the primary content.
- The preceding principles are followed regardless of screen width.
The only pattern I’ve found that meets these criteria is FiveThirtyEight’s.
...As it turns out, FiveThirtyEight didn't invent this pattern. It likely originated in medieval illuminated manuscripts which contain “interleave notes” — comments written literally between the lines.
What 80% Comprehension Feels Like
An ArticleOne of the major principles of extensive reading is that if a learner can comprehend material at 98% comprehension, she will acquire new words in context, in a painless, enjoyable way. But what is 98% comprehension?
The case for rereading
An Article by Mandy BrownReread a book enough times, or often enough—keep it at hand so you can flip to dog-eared pages and marked up passages here and there—and it will eventually root itself in your mind. It becomes both a reference point and a connector, a means of gathering your knowledge and experience, drawing it all together. It becomes the material through which you engage with the world.
The most interesting things that come to mind
A Fragment by Nabeel QureshiA meta note, inspired both by Proust and by this book about Proust: after reading a book, when you're making notes, don't refer to the book; just write down the most interesting things that come to mind. This is a better way of digging out what actually struck you about the book; as soon as you have the book to reference, you will start looking up the bits you "should" write about, and end up aiming at comprehensiveness rather than interestingness. Your actual criterion should be whatever interested you. Later, you can fill in quotations & references.
Title Cities
An Artwork by Nicholas RougeuxA book’s title page contains more than its namesake—including its author, contributors, publisher, and release date, and. Antiquarian books are known for having lengthy titles, especially those of a scientific nature. These books’ frequently unassuming title pages are gateways to a wealth of knowledge and the focal point of this project.
Title pages of antique influential scientific books covering a variety of subjects were coded and reimagined as colorful cityscapes based solely on their words to illustrate the unique body of knowledge readers would find within.
Boxes were drawn around each word of a title page and color-coded by its first letter (words beginning with “A” are one color, “B” another, and so on). Each title page has its own palette. Those boxes were then upended and arranged to form an abstract cityscape while maintaining their original sizes relative to each other.
In Praise of Shadows
- Things that shine and glitter
- A naked bulb
- The Japanese toilet
- Empty dreams
- Most important of all are the pauses
Things that shine and glitter
We find it hard to be really at home with things that shine and glitter. The Westerner uses silver and steel and nickel tableware, and polishes it to a fine brilliance, but we object to the practice. On the contrary we begin to enjoy it only when the luster has worn off, when it has begun to take on a dark, smoky, patina.
A naked bulb
The sight of a naked bulb beneath an ordinary milk glass shade seems simpler and more natural than any gratuitous attempt to hide it.
The Japanese toilet
The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose.
Empty dreams
But I know as well as anyone that these are empty dreams, and that having come this far, we cannot turn back.
Most important of all are the pauses
Japanese music is above all a music of reticence, of atmosphere. When recorded, or amplified by a loudspeaker, the greater part of its charm is lost. In conversation, too, we prefer the soft voice, the understatement. Most important of all are the pauses. Yet the phonograph and radio render these moments of silence utterly lifeless. And so we distort the arts themselves to curry favor for them with the machines.
The glow of grime
Of course this 'sheen of antiquity' of which we hear so much is in fact the glow of grime. In both Chinese and Japanese the words denoting this glow describe a polish that comes of being touched over and over again, a sheen produced by the oils that naturally permeate an object over long years of handling—which is to say grime. If indeed 'elegance is frigid', it can as well be described as filthy.
Lacquerware
There are good reasons why lacquer soup bowls are still used, qualities which ceramic bowls simply do not possess. Remove the lid from a ceramic bowl, and there lies the soup, every nuance of its substance and color revealed. With lacquerware there is a beauty in that moment between removing the lid and lifting the bowl to the mouth when one gazes at the still, silent liquid in the dark depths of the bowl, its color hardly different from that of the bowl itself.
To throw a shadow on the earth
In making for ourselves a place to live, we first spread a parasol to throw a shadow on the earth, and in the pale light of the shadow we put together a house.
The world of shadows
The 'mysterious Orient' of which Westerners speak probably refers to the uncanny silence of these dark places. And even we as children would feel an inexpressible chill as we peered into the depth of an alcove to which the sunlight never penetrated.
This was the genius of our ancestors, that by cutting off the light from this empty space they imparted to the world of shadows that formed there a quality of mystery and depth superior to that of any wall painting or ornament.
That one thing against another creates
Such is our way of thinking—we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.
Wasting light
Yamamoto Sanehiko, president of the Kaizo publishing house, told me of something that happened when he escorted Dr. Einstein on a trip to Kyoto. As the train neared Ishiyama, Einstein looked out the window and remarked, "Now that is terribly wasteful." When asked what he meant, Einstein pointed to an electric lamp burning in broad daylight.
And the truth of the matter is that Japan wastes more electric light than any Western country except America.
- Poured
The eaves deep and the walls dark
I would call back at least for literature this world of shadows we are losing. In the mansion called literature I would have the eaves deep and the walls dark, I would push back into the shadows the things that come forward too clearly, I would strip away the the useless decoration. I do not ask that this be done everywhere, but perhaps we may be allowed at least one mansion where we can turn off the electric lights and see what it is like without them.
Follow the brush
One of the oldest and most deeply ingrained of Japanese attitudes to literary style holds that obvious structure is contrivance, that too orderly an exposition falsifies the ruminations of the heart, that the truest representation of the searching mind is just to 'follow the brush.'
I could never live in a house like that
Mrs. Tanizaki tells a story of when her late husband decided, as he frequently did, to build a new house. The architect arrived and announced with pride, "I've read your In Praise of Shadows, Mr. Tanizaki, and know exactly what you want."
To which Tanizaki replied, "But no, I could never live in a house like that."
There is perhaps as much resignation as humor in his answer.