(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best history of books

It's almost certainly based on this book which to be fair, is somewhat original in its approach.

I actually read it early on and consider it formative if for no other reason than unintentionally demonstrating the uses and limits of biographical criticism in philosophy and ideology.

People do need something to live for and meaning. And that meaning can't come just from working and making money and buying shit.

Not saying you have to turn to god though either. You should read the book

https://www.amazon.com/All-Things-Shining-Reading-Classics/dp/141659616X

Interesting philosophy book.

Try Alberto Manguel's History of Reading

The Pooh Perplex. (Say it out loud)

https://www.amazon.com/Pooh-Perplex-Freshman-Casebook/dp/0226120589

A Companion to The Crying of Lot 49 is helpful if you want to examine the book more closely.

I highly recommened All things Shining. It makes a very interesting case for Moby Dick.

Just look up the one on that page! Is two clicks too difficult for you?

http://www.stevencscheer.com/bannedbooks.htm

http://www.amazon.com/100-Banned-Books-Censorship-Literature/dp/0816040591

The Golliwog only appears truly villainous in a single story by Blyton and her other characters such as bears, goblins, and monkeys are far moreso. What is far more likely is that someone has attempted to read too far into a children's story and come to an erroneous conclusion based on nothing of substance. See Rudd's work for a more thorough reading.

In retrospect there's a bit of hyperbole in what I've said. (hyperbole is so hot right now - Trump)

By 'internal world' I mean your inner thoughts. Think of your mum; that world. (is it really your mum in that world?). Introversion.

> Jesus changes the prohibition of all the outward actions mentioned in the Hebrew Law into the prohibition of the inner thoughts of those actions. Paul emphasizes what was later put down by Matthew, that “thoughts [of] murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, slander— these all proceed from the heart; and these are the things that defile a man” (Matthew 15:19). In so doing, he switches private inner feelings in general from the margin of one’s life to one’s central concern.

That's a quote of a quote from All Things Shining, which was a reasonably interesting read. So while, at the time, people did have an 'internal world' it wasn't nearly as important as the 'external world'. Your outer actions were the only thing to be judged. god was outside, not inside like he is now in most western religions.

Personally I think that inner world has become more and more prevalent in the human experience as we've invented writing, literacy has become common, and now we have television, the internet and so on. I mean most of us communicate mostly by text now; words in our heads.

If you go back even further there was no concept of the inner world at all. At some point humans must have become what we now call 'self aware'. Prior that there was no 'self'.

A really cool, illustrative example of how differently humans have thought throughout time, how different cultures and morals and ethics and people's lives were, is that we didn't even have the concept of the colour blue until fairly recently.

/coffee rant! phew!

I'd like to add that Jesus (real or not) probably wasn't the only one coming to the same conclusions, he was just famous for voicing them. Not unlike Darwin and the theory of evolution; there were many people publishing the same at the same time.

tl;dr human thoughts evolve over time collectively. We are part of a collective consciousness that has a history.

From the Amazon description:

> Long before the invention of printing, let alone the availability of a daily newspaper, people desired to be informed. In the pre-industrial era news was gathered and shared through conversation and gossip, civic ceremony, celebration, sermons, and proclamations. The age of print brought pamphlets, edicts, ballads, journals, and the first news-sheets, expanding the news community from local to worldwide. This groundbreaking book tracks the history of news in ten countries over the course of four centuries. It evaluates the unexpected variety of ways in which information was transmitted in the premodern world as well as the impact of expanding news media on contemporary events and the lives of an ever-more-informed public.

> Andrew Pettegree investigates who controlled the news and who reported it; the use of news as a tool of political protest and religious reform; issues of privacy and titillation; the persistent need for news to be current and journalists trustworthy; and people’s changed sense of themselves as they experienced newly opened windows on the world. By the close of the eighteenth century, Pettegree concludes, transmission of news had become so efficient and widespread that European citizens—now aware of wars, revolutions, crime, disasters, scandals, and other events—were poised to emerge as actors in the great events unfolding around them.

Adler was an odd fellow who had odd ideas about literature and reading, as Alex Beam details in this excellent bit of cultural history: http://www.amazon.com/Great-Idea-Time-Curious-Afterlife/dp/B0027VT07O

My man, this book was written for you.

https://www.amazon.com/All-Things-Shining-Reading-Classics/dp/141659616X

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You can get the gist of it in this interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpQHxJQrg1E

But I do highly recommend the book as the authors use Wallace in the same way you described. They ultimately contrast Moby Dick to Infinite Jest and suggest the answer to the meaning crisis might share something in common with the worldview of the Iliad.

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I'll check out your essay on Monday when I have the time.

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yw douche-bag:)

>A product of ten years of research and support from leading American and European universities, A Universal History of the Destruction of Books traces a tragic story: the smashed tablets of ancient Sumer, the widespread looting of libraries in post-war Iraq, the leveling of the Library of Alexandria, book burnings by Crusaders and Nazis, and censorship against authors past and present.

>With diligence and grace, Báez mounts a compelling investigation into the motives behind the destruction of books, reading man's violence against writing as a perverse anti-creation. "By destroying," Báez argues, "man ratifies this ritual of permanence, purification and consecration; by destroying, man brings to the surface a behavior originating in the depth of his personality." His findings ultimately attest to the lasting power of books as the great human repository of knowledge and memory, fragile yet vital bulwarks against the intransigence and barbarity of every age.

Are they equating criticism with actual book burning? The logical gaps are so big it's hard to follow.

>Where they burn books, bodies will soon follow.
Time and time again this has proven true. From ancient Greece to 1940s Germany. Only this time it's digital media.

Yeah dude that totally happened in America before, they burned so many bodies.
Ignoring the physical/digital and ACTUALLY BANNED/NOT BANNED differences that only an idiot would dismiss, of course.