I am 4 books in—they get better and better as you go. The 4th ends in a very dramatic way. The hardest part is what you just read. It starts very slowly but after the first 50-100 pp, it takes off.

I took a break for about a year to read other stuff, but I’ll return to the last three soon.

I do the opposite. I reread sections if I don’t get the point. I reread books that I love, my favorite books 4 times (maybe 5 soon). Read however you want, but as Nabokov said, “one cannot read a book: one can only reread it”.

Yea it’s also loooong (at least it was when I first tried to read it at 17).

The Grand Inquisitor is somewhere in the middle and is a stand alone section that originally got me interested, and you see its influence on other works and is one very good reason to read Brothers. There is a similar section in The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy, for example.

It took me four tries to get through it because I found it very hard too. I think the plot is complex enough, and the characters have complex feelings and motivations. It might be richer than what you’re used to (it was for me).

Just read the abstract and you’ll get the 1 min overview

Long COVID has been studied quite a bit in large studies, so rather than saying “might” it’s better to look at what’s actually been linked to it.

Example: https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(22)00072-1.pdf

Who cares? If it is trash and you say it is trash, then you did your part. It sounds like you also got some attention, for better or for worse.

I would guess that part of the problem is due to the relative needs of subject matter. Science and math are perceived as more important than they used to be. Partly parents don’t read as much, too, and kids mimic their parents.

What about eating pups

Partly why not X has to do with trial design early on. It’s harder to do large trials for different regimens. Most people believe the original two courses were too close together though.

Many of the books that I’ve read with prefaces are largely plot-independent. But many of my favorite books are kind of plotless masterpieces of writing, not so much storytelling. I think if a book is really worth your time, then it should be rereadable. Otherwise, why does it really need prefacing?

500, classic lit though we have a fair amount of business

If you have books from the same publisher over the years (Vintage, eg) you can check the price increase

Most of the best books aren’t taught in class (just a tiny fraction). So once you have the tools, there are many books out there waiting for you. So maybe a number are sacrificed to class, but it’s a tiny fraction.

The lack of appreciating symbols has to do also with the literal nature of interpreting our surrounding. We used to attach more meaning to seemingly unimportant things (eclipses, flowers, weather) because we didn’t understand how they occur.

Some of the lesson is about acquiring the interlinear sense for symbols. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man used to be taught in AP English because the use of color and symbol is insanely intense (overbearing). I.e., the sounds of words refer to other meaning and myth around flight.

It’s an easy read. It’s highly praised for the gritty noir ambience that basically became or took over a genre of sci fi books, movies, and other media. Snowcrash is a good comparison if you need a followup in the “pantheon” of sci fi, or Left Hand of Darkness.

Indolamines are not exactly toxins—they include some very interesting molecules (neurotransmitters). So it may just be natural metabolites of these gut bacteria.

Bat tumors?

Almost done with my first read of Finnegans Wake. I reread Ulysses to prepare for it, as well as parts of Vico’s New Science and 1001 Arabian Nights. It’s been a summer project that I started in June. Also I consult Wikipedia, Online Etymology Dictionary, and Google Translate a lot.

The Tempest because it was mentioned in BNW (also where the title comes from). I did the same with the order you mention (Zamyatin’s We).

The movie is also excellent. I think the book does a good job of being accessible to 8th graders based on its point of view, style, length. Its efficacy is one of the reasons it irks racists. Compare it to Huck Finn, which meanders.

Well we can’t say every (just ours). And it takes a very powerful telescope to detect it, so it’s not that much light relative to closer objects.