How not to be....

Expanding Your Mind at The Speed Of Life! www.StratoBooks.com

Why Read the Classics?

We all have been told to read the great masterpieces of literature. But, why?

For the quest of wisdom and insight? To understand the ideals of society? To promote ideas of justice and freedom, or honor and beauty?

Louise Cowan anwers in her article on The Importance of the Classics:

"The great books speak to us of honor and love and sacrifice; but they do not always speak in familiar phrases. They do not tell us what we already know. Transcending current opinion and fad, through symbol and metaphor they reveal a clear and uncluttered access to the realities that determine our lives..."

How do we recognize a classic?

Tradition has held that classics are works of a very high order that touch on matters of immense importance. They are not mere skilled works of whatever category; they establish a category of their own. In fact, when we examine those works that readers have agreed upon as classics, we find a surprisingly constant set of characteristics:

1. The classics not only exhibit distinguished style, fine artistry, and keen intellect but create whole universes of imagination and thought.
2. They portray life as complex and many-sided, depicting both negative and positive aspects of human character in the process of discovering and testing enduring virtues.
3. They have a transforming effect on the reader's self-understanding.
4. They invite and survive frequent rereadings.
5. They adapt themselves to various times and places and provide a sense of the shared life of humanity.
6. They are considered classics by a sufficiently large number of people, establishing themselves with common readers as well as qualified authorities.
7. And, finally, their appeal endures over wide reaches of time."

Expanding Your Mind at The Speed Of Life!

www.StratoBooks.com

Abridged verses Unabridged

What is the difference and which is better? An abridged audio book is a shortened version of the original book that may be more suited for listening to.

From Wikipedia ; Abridgement is most often used to adapt a book into a narrated audio version. Because books written for adults are generally meant to be read silen

tly to oneself (which is usually much faster than reading aloud), most books can take between 20 and 40 hours to read aloud. Because many audio book consumers are looking to more quickly consume the information of a book, and because of the high cost associated with recording and distributing 40 hours of audio, audio book versions of novels are often produced in an abridged version.Some party, usually an editor for the book's publishing company, will go through the text of the book and remove elements, notations, references, narratives, and sometimes entire scenes from a book that could be considered superfluous to the actual story or focus of the book in order to make its audible reading time shorter. A fully abridged audio book can span as little as 4 hours for a book that would span 20 hours unabridged.

The easiest content of a fiction book to edit out is back story often provided for characters or story elements that help support the reality of the story for the reader, but do not provid

e any narrative to the story itself. For example, a passage such as "John sped away in his automobile, a red 1967 Mustang he'd purchased from a junkyard and spent most of his college years restoring with his father" could be abridged to "John sped away in his automobile, a red 1967 Mustang" or even "John sped away in his car."

In a nonfiction piece, the mos

t commonly abridged details are references, charts, details, and facts that are used to support an author's claim. While it would be unprofessional or irresponsible to omit such details from a book, it is understandable for an audio book as it is assumed the listener wants to hear the author's opinion, and if he/she needs to check the details he/she may refer to the text.

Occasionally, an abridged audio book will be advertised as "Abridgement approved by the author," which would imply that the original work's author has reviewed the trimmed down version of his/her work and agrees that the intention or narrative of his story has not been lost, or that no vital information has been removed.

In many cases, an audio book for a popular title is available in both an abridged and unabridged version, though the abridged version often is released first and almost always costs significantly less than the unabridged version. Often, the two versions are produced independently of each other and may have different narrators. Unabridged versions of books are popular among those with poor eyesight or reading skills who wish to appreciate the entirety of the work, while the abridged version is more often referred by those who just want to follow the story in a quick and entertaining way.

Expanding Your Mind at The Speed Of Life!

www.StratoBooks.com

Changing Times and Economic Turmoil

The general population of the United States lacks knowledge of how the US economy works. We live our lives and rely on our employers to pay us for work, never realizing the fundamental mechanisms of where money comes from and how it passes through our society.

The US school system fails in teaching the basics of money and economics. Grasping an understanding of economic fundamentals is a great starting point in moving toward financial literacy and financial independence in our lives. Stratobooks recommends Adam Smith for the most basic understanding of our western capitalistic system.

From Wikipedia;

"An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist Adam Smith. It is a clearly written account of economics at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, as well as a rhetorical piece written for the generally educated individual of the 18th century - advocating a free market economy as more productive and more beneficial to society.

The work is credited as a watershed in history and economics due to its comprehensive, largely accurate characterization of economic mechanisms that survive in modern economics; and also for its effective use of rhetorical technique, including structuring the work to contrast real world examples of free and fettered markets.

Expanding Your Mind at The Speed Of Life!

www.StratoBooks.com

Who has time to read?

Who has time to read?
You do!

Our lives are busier than ever before in the history of humankind. We have more competing interests demanding our attention from all sides than at any other time in. Our complex, wired world has enabled any person or company willing to pay for advertising to shout in our faces almost every second of the day.

Almost all of that information is utterly useless to our intellectual development, yet the proponents and advocates of the information will argue otherwise. The success of advertising depends on how well they can get you to buy into what they are saying.

Ok, maybe sitting down with a good book seems a little sedate. For me, it seems like a waste of time. I could be doing so many other things with that time. But I know that reading is so important to my development. So what to do?

Audio books are the solution. There are so many activities that we do day after day that only require basic thought. Driving and listening to audio books is the single best way to multi task. Suddenly a commute to work doesn't have to be wasted time. With a good audio book, a road trip can become so much more valuable than the money it cost in gas to drive.

Walking or jogging for exercise while listening to audio books can also be a great way to learn without requiring any extra time. Even monotonous exercise can become fun if we are listening to something interesting. Basic chores around the house can become so much easier if we know our time is being used to educate our minds.

Expanding Your Mind at The Speed Of Life!
www.stratobooks.com

School is for Dummies

Have you ever heard the term "uneducated"?

It is typically a condescending term directed toward individuals who, for some reason or other never made it to college. It is a term that sticks in our cultural conscience as something true, or undeniable. It leads us to believe that those who have been to college are smarter than those who have not.

In part, this is a major shortcoming of the school system in the United States. The thinking leads the pompous college graduate into thinking that they are "educated" and intellectually superior to those who have not been to college. Ironically this nurtures a line of thinking that may lead to the arrest of the individual's post-school development.

The US school system is geared to teach children so that they can intellectually mature into adults and become productive participants of society. The underlying purpose is understood as getting an education to serve us in our life long career path. This process has worked ok in the past, but it puts the emphasis in development for our final purpose as a career person who is employable. Once graduation has been completed and we are comfortably in our job, we tend to shy away from further learning and development. There just isn't time anymore to study topics of interest to us, thus post-school development never happens.

We now live in a new era. Technology is expanding exponentially. Jobs and entire careers are outdated in a matter of a few years. Companies are no longer loyal to their employees. In today's world, to survive, we must continually be learning and developing intellectually. The new "uneducated" may now be the college graduate that became complacent and stopped learning after college, now finding him or herself out of a job because it had been outsourced overseas. The old way of thinking no longer aligns with the new way of living and keeping up with a changing world. Preparing for change with an uncertain future by developing our minds into intellectual greatness is the only surefire way to stay ahead of the game.

By learning about history and where we came from, to how people adapt in times of great change such as war and revolution, we can equip ourselves to better deal with the monumental changes that are certain to come in the future.

How big is your library?

Intellectual Development

Since the dawning of mankind, humans have sought to expand the capabilities of thought. The human brain is a powerful organ that has an almost limitless capability of memory and processing power. The more the brain is used, the more it can retain and process. The most efficient method for expanding the capabilities of the mind is through reading, or listening to the thoughts, principles, and laws of various subjects.

In our modern civilized and industrial society, our brains are the single most important factor in determining our livelihood and wellbeing. The more we understand about how our society works, the better off we will be financially, socially, and physically.

In the peak of the enlightenment, the greatest minds of the day boasted more about the size of their libraries than about the amount of their net worth. A person's intellect was respected far greater than their money, although most persons of the day who strove for a superior intellect acquired both.

The founding fathers of the United States of America were intellectual giants. They pursued strict regimented study of books and works through-out their entire lives. The highest priority was given to the study of subjects, giving them a well rounded understanding of the world in which they were born into. Without the disciplined self study that they engaged in, the US would have ended up as an outpost of Great Britain, not the superpower of the world that it is today. One only need tour the monuments of the founders or read the biographies to grasp the amount of intellectual power that these men wielded.

How big is your library?