Ep 67 - How to Create a Powerful Daily Reading Practice
Hardcore Literature
Benjamin McEvoy
4.8 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 4 June 2023
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Thank you so much. Happy listening and reading!
- Benjamin
Timestamps:
- 0:00 a powerful morning reading practice
- 2:00 on staying consistent with your habits
- 7:00 how I structure readings of scripture
- 8:00 my meditative reading of Moby Dick
- 9:00 reading imaginative literature scripturally
- 10:00 speed-reading vs subvocalisation
- 11:00 on rereading resonant passages
- 12:00 theatre of the mind & simple contemplation
- 13:00 imagination, empathy, applying the senses
- 14:00 threefold present & eternity in the text
- 16:00 mindfulness in our everyday lives
- 17:00 future as string of present moments
- 19:00 good material for the reading practice
- 20:00 from Aurelius to Rilke & Tolstoy
- 22:00 how the practice differs from reading
- 24:00 how Virginia Woolf read great literature
- 25:00 why I love reading difficult books
- 26:00 reading as conversation & act of love
- 27:00 the ease and joy of the daily practice
- 28:00 the four steps of my reading practice
- 32:00 practice walkthrough with Tolstoy
- 33:00 Tolstoy's Wisdom: Passage One
- 39:00 Tolstoy's Wisdom: Passage Two
- 45:00 Tolstoy's Wisdom: Passage Three
- 48:00 Tolstoy's Wisdom: Passage Four
- 52:00 Tolstoy's Wisdom: Passage Five
- 56:00 Tolstoy's Wisdom: Passage Six
- 59:00 let us know about your practice
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everybody, how are you doing today? I hope you're keeping well and I hope your reading is going well. |
| 0:06.6 | Today I'd like to talk to you about my daily reading practice, which forms a core part of my morning routine. |
| 0:16.8 | And I'd love to do a little walkthrough of this practice using Tolstoy's Calendar of Wisdom. |
| 0:25.5 | Now, we began this year reading Tolstoy's, War and Peace at the Hardcore Literature Book Club, |
| 0:31.8 | and so many readers said that this was one of the most profound readings they had ever experienced. |
| 0:39.8 | We had a really special lecture series. |
| 0:42.9 | So, in order to keep Tolstoy in our lives, |
| 0:46.3 | I recommended those who fell in love with his writing to pick up his calendar of wisdom, |
| 0:52.7 | which offers a curation of daily maxims and thoughts for every day of the year. |
| 0:58.5 | It's a beautiful resource to dip into in the morning to get your day started in a very strong, positive way. |
| 1:08.7 | And speaking of the Hardcore Literature Book Club, at time of recording, |
| 1:12.0 | we have kicked off a few new, exciting lecture series. We've wrapped up Dostoevsky's |
| 1:18.5 | The Brothers Karamazov, and that was a very interesting reading experience, a very cognitively |
| 1:23.9 | challenging reading experience, and we are now reading Virginia Woolf's Orlando. |
| 1:30.3 | We're also reading the short stories of Alice Monroe, Tolkien's, the Lord of the Rings, |
| 1:34.8 | and we are continuing through the works of William Shakespeare. |
| 1:39.0 | So there's a lot of really exciting discussions going on, and we have such a great group. If you're not already reading |
| 1:45.8 | along and would like to join in, you will be very warmly welcomed at patreon.com forward slash |
| 1:51.9 | hardcore literature. Now, let's talk about how to create a powerful daily reading practice. So, |
| 2:00.0 | I personally like to wake up in the early hours of the morning. |
| 2:04.7 | That twilight time just before birdsong starts to fill the air. You know, when you can still |
| 2:11.4 | see stars poking through the fabric of the night. I love that time of the morning, the stillness, the quiet. |
... |
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