On the subject of books, I wonder if there is any interest (here on OO.net) to do some form of reading groups… where two or more people read the same book, during roughly the same time frame (say a quarter) and discuss it? The primary reason would be to gain from such discussion. I don’t want to side-track this topic, and intend to post more fully on this. If anyone is really keen, and wants to respond, please start a new topic.
I am quite interested in doing this - even having just two people reading the same book would be very good, from my perspective. I get distracted when reading a book, by another book, and another. Having to reach a target, like, say, “Read Chapters 1-4 by Thursday” and then having the reward of being able to actually discuss all the stuff in it by the time of that target, would really encourage me to read and to be a better reader.
If anyone else wants to do this, I’m up for it. Let’s do it.
I am quite interested in doing this - even having just two people reading the same book would be very good, from my perspective. I get distracted when reading a book, by another book, and another. Having to reach a target, like, say, “Read Chapters 1-4 by Thursday” and then having the reward of being able to actually discuss all the stuff in it by the time of that target, would really encourage me to read and to be a better reader.
If anyone else wants to do this, I’m up for it. Let’s do it.
There’s a group of us systematically working our way through OPAR. (We did Tara Smith’s book Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics before that.) We’re averaging about one section a week. We just wrapped up chapter 6 on Sunday. There are archived podcasts of all the earlier discussions.
I am quite interested in doing this - even having just two people reading the same book would be very good, from my perspective. I get distracted when reading a book, by another book, and another. Having to reach a target, like, say, “Read Chapters 1-4 by Thursday” and then having the reward of being able to actually discuss all the stuff in it by the time of that target, would really encourage me to read and to be a better reader.
If anyone else wants to do this, I’m up for it. Let’s do it.
Once finals are over I’m looking for a good book to read over break. I’d love to do this.
Do you have any particular book in mind? I’d prefer not to do an Objectivist text, but I’m flexible.
Once finals are over I’m looking for a good book to read over break. I’d love to do this.
Do you have any particular book in mind? I’d prefer not to do an Objectivist text, but I’m flexible.
I too would be interested in doing this, but I do not want to limit myself to Oist-related readings. Also I’m partial to fiction, though good non-fiction is fine.
khaight, sounds good, but it’s a bit inconvenient for me, being 01:00 GMT.
Madkat, Athena, I as well want to avoid Objectivist literature. I think we’ve all read widely and enough of that. It depends on our collective tastes. I like books on the Arts, on psychology, on philosophy and history. I also like layman’s books on science.
A few I’d be up for doing:
The Red Queen (although I think a few of you have already read this book)
Aristotle’s Ethics (Nichomean)
Titus Groan (fiction)
The Russian Revolution 1917-1932, by Fitzpatrick (supposed to be a very good book giving an introduction to the topic, though might be a bit too pedestrian and not deep enough for a group reading)
Markets Don’t Fail
Shane (fiction; a rather brief read, but a good 'un)
khaight, sounds good, but it’s a bit inconvenient for me, being 01:00 GMT.
Madkat, Athena, I as well want to avoid Objectivist literature. I think we’ve all read widely and enough of that. It depends on our collective tastes. I like books on the Arts, on psychology, on philosophy and history. I also like layman’s books on science.
A few I’d be up for doing:
The Red Queen (although I think a few of you have already read this book)
Aristotle’s Ethics (Nichomean)
Titus Groan (fiction)
The Russian Revolution 1917-1932, by Fitzpatrick (supposed to be a very good book giving an introduction to the topic, though might be a bit too pedestrian and not deep enough for a group reading)
Markets Don’t Fail
Shane (fiction; a rather brief read, but a good 'un)
I’m quite easy - any recommendations?
I’d be interested, though about mid-semester I always get too invovled in school work. Over the break and into the first of next semester (about March?) I’d be up for Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, many other philosophical texts (suggestions range from Spinoza, whom Rand identified as a qualified good-guy in philosophical history, to Wittgenstein, to Plato, to Locke, to Shopenhauer, and more), some classic literature (Hugo, Homer, Shakespear, Joyce, etc.), and other challenging reads. I’ll be using some of my spare time to read intro business managment out of curiosity and interest. I doubt that’s the kind of thing anyone else wants to read for kicks, but I’ll still throw it out there.
I’d be interested in certain types of non-Objectivist non-fiction. Economic history would be a top preference, legal history would be next, with U.S. history or other history also being of interest. I say “history” for all those categories, because between the extremes of concrete history and abstract theorizing, I’d lean to the former.
I was planning on reading “How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It” by Arthur Herman. It’s about the Scottish Enlightenment.
“Focusing on the 18th and 19th centuries, Herman (coordinator of the Western Heritage Program at the Smithsonian and an assistant professor of history at George Mason University) has written a successful exploration of Scotland’s disproportionately large impact on the modern world’s intellectual and industrial development. When Scotland ratified the 1707 Act of Union, it was an economic backwater. Union gave Scotland access to England’s global marketplace, triggering an economic and cultural boom “transform[ing] Scotland… into a modern society, and open[ing] up a cultural and social revolution.” Herman credits Scotland’s sudden transformation to its system of education, especially its leading universities at Edinburgh and Glasgow. The 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment, embodied by such brilliant thinkers as Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith and David Hume, paved the way for Scottish and, Herman argues, global modernity. Hutcheson, the father of the Scottish Enlightenment, championed political liberty and the right of popular rebellion against tyranny. Smith, in his monumental Wealth of Nations, advocated liberty in the sphere of commerce and the global economy. Hume developed philosophical concepts that directly influenced James Madison and thus the U.S. Constitution. Herman elucidates at length the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment and their worldwide impact. In 19th-century Britain, the Scottish Enlightenment, as popularized by Dugald Stewart, became the basis of classical liberalism. At the University of Glasgow, James Watt perfected the crucial technology of the Industrial Revolution: the steam engine.”
Right, I’ve been thinking about this and realised that we have different time zones. I’m GMT and you’re in different parts of America. For me, then, it would be best to do a pre-midday (PST) time, so we would have to do this on the weekend. That’s if we want to do it via chat.
The alternate option is to have a text thing. Discuss it via private room on the chatroom here.
My recommendation for the next round. Economics and The Public Welfare(A Financial and Economic History of the United States, 1914-1946 by Benjamin Anderson. I have it but have not read it, yet.
My recommendation for the next round. Economics and The Public Welfare(A Financial and Economic History of the United States, 1914-1946 by Benjamin Anderson. I have it but have not read it, yet.
Excellent! That book is among the top three on my reading list, so count me in for that. In fact, I’ll order it this weekend, just in case.
BTW, I think that multiple, though smaller, groups can also work well, unless the same people are really eager to participate in multiple books.
Tenure: I’m not sure what the mechanics should be. We should probably “try something” and work out the kinks as we go. I had figured that we could create one or more forum threads as the primary “discussion backbones” for any particular book. Things like chat etc. can supplement that. I guess, if we’ve agreed on the Scots book, we should set up some approx. start date (perhaps after everyone’s exams, and taking the XMas holidays into account) and maybe we should also aim to agree on an approximate pace (50 pages a week? 100? 25?).
Why is non-fiction so popular in Objectivist circles? I like non-fiction, but it doesn’t exactly make for great discussion. There are so many great works of fiction in the Western Canon (Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Virgil, Lucretius, Camoes, Moliere, Ovid, Horace, Stendhal, Austen, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Proust, Ibsen, Wilde, Melville, Faulkner, etc, etc, etc) that will teach me far more about the human condition than non-fiction will.
To me, there’s nothing more enjoyable than untangling the abstractions and meaning of a skilled work of fiction, most particulary from an Objectivist perspective.
