I never thought about this before, but damn, you're right! Many of my most beloved books were written 50 to a 100 or more years ago. Heck, even the comic art I love is 50 or more years old! Maybe it's that temporal distance from the reality under which older books were written which also makes the writings more intriguing? You've given me a buffet of thoughts to munch on!
Amen. I’ve got my father’s complete Harvard Classics series in my study, and I’m currently reading Flannery O’Connor’s stories and re-reading J. D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye.” I enjoy contemporary authors like Claire Keegan, but I’m finding authors like Anton Chekhov and Fyodor Dostoevsky offer deeper sustenance than most of today’s content. If only I’d started this deeper reading in high school, instead of trying to impress Stacy Coffman and her friends.
I'm looking forward to reading some of the classics too. In school we read Gatsby, and 1984, but I never thought about reading historical age books before this idea popped onto my podcast player last week.
Hope you are enjoying Substack. You seem to have a bunch of folks who followed you onto the new platform. Talk soon!
Thanks, Paul. Yes, thus far, I love Substack’s ease of use. Some of my subscribers find the comment system on Substack difficult, with email confirmations, etc. Thanks for this post, it sent me down a rabbit hole and I subscribed to the guy’s newsletter.
Nice, James. Since researching the ideo, I've found that quite a few writers are in this camp. I don't think we need to stop reading all current books, because then we wouldn't be able to talk about new ideas. I like learning about new and novel ideas, as opposed to same and consensus thinkinng. Old books are new to me.
A thing about the older books that gets me is the effort it took to get them presentable to get them published. The writing and the .editing. No copy, paste, save. So time consuming.
I never thought about this before, but damn, you're right! Many of my most beloved books were written 50 to a 100 or more years ago. Heck, even the comic art I love is 50 or more years old! Maybe it's that temporal distance from the reality under which older books were written which also makes the writings more intriguing? You've given me a buffet of thoughts to munch on!
Thanks E.R.! Just chew every bite 30 times, eh...
Amen. I’ve got my father’s complete Harvard Classics series in my study, and I’m currently reading Flannery O’Connor’s stories and re-reading J. D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye.” I enjoy contemporary authors like Claire Keegan, but I’m finding authors like Anton Chekhov and Fyodor Dostoevsky offer deeper sustenance than most of today’s content. If only I’d started this deeper reading in high school, instead of trying to impress Stacy Coffman and her friends.
I'm looking forward to reading some of the classics too. In school we read Gatsby, and 1984, but I never thought about reading historical age books before this idea popped onto my podcast player last week.
Hope you are enjoying Substack. You seem to have a bunch of folks who followed you onto the new platform. Talk soon!
Thanks, Paul. Yes, thus far, I love Substack’s ease of use. Some of my subscribers find the comment system on Substack difficult, with email confirmations, etc. Thanks for this post, it sent me down a rabbit hole and I subscribed to the guy’s newsletter.
Really liked this, Paul!
Nice, James. Since researching the ideo, I've found that quite a few writers are in this camp. I don't think we need to stop reading all current books, because then we wouldn't be able to talk about new ideas. I like learning about new and novel ideas, as opposed to same and consensus thinkinng. Old books are new to me.
A thing about the older books that gets me is the effort it took to get them presentable to get them published. The writing and the .editing. No copy, paste, save. So time consuming.
What an awesome perspective, Paul. You've definitely piqued my interest to learn more.
I enjoy diving deep into interesting and novel perspectives too... Thanks Heather.