Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
A few of my links this month have to do with books, which are the main tools many of us use for learning.
- Short documentary on Yuri Gagarin, the first human in orbit.
- What the Hubble Telescope saw on your birthday
- The ALA’s 2019 list of the most frequently challenged books
- A Quora discussion on why Soviet math textbooks are so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks of the same time period
- Books a professor recommends to his software engineering students (and they aren’t all tech books)
- Focus 2020: Prioritize Student Choice
I often joke with my husband that if MoonGirl read half the books we own and managed to retain 25% of what she read, she would probably be more educated than many people we knew (including us).
Books are the true time machines. By reading them, we are not only instantly transported to different times and places, but within the minds of those who wrote the words we are reading, even if they have long passed away.
Perhaps that is why books are so influential to so many of us, but they can also be revolutionary and controversial as well. My general viewpoint on reading is to enjoy and understand what the author is trying to convey, to keep an open mind and set it within the context for which the book is set, but to also interrogate and investigate with a healthy dose of skepticism (when needed).
What is your viewpoint on reading? What are your favorite genres of books to read (I love speculative fiction, while my husband devours what I call informational nonfiction)?