Member: echopkins

CollectionsYour library (976)

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TagsPhilosophy (174), Politics (139), Law (123), Classic Literature (117), Sociology (101), Reference (98), Economics (89), Africana Studies (89), African American History (83), Ethics (79) — see all tags

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Favorite authorsFrancis Bacon, Honoré de Balzac, William Blake, W. E. B. Du Bois, Pierre Bourdieu, Epictetus, Samuel Johnson, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Michel de Montaigne, Friedrich Nietzsche, Marcel Proust, La Rochefoucauld, William Shakespeare, Benedictus de Spinoza, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Max Weber, W. B. Yeats (Shared favorites)

About meIn 2003, I read "What Every Schoolboy Doesn't Know" by Dr. Mortimer J. Adler.

Soon after, I ordered a 2003 printing of the 60-volume Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. Great Books of the Western World. Though not a complete canon of great books that deserve to be read at least once, it's one of the best collections to start with. The volumes arrived in the spring of 2003. Then, for the first time, at age 29, I began to "read well."

"To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written." (Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Chapter 3 "Reading.")

That was hundreds of books ago, when my adult education had just begun.

About my libraryHundreds of good books, a few dozen great books, and about eight sublime books.

MY RATING SYSTEM

***** The author's or authors' ideas, syntheses, or analyses changed my philosophical opinions.
**** The author's or authors' ideas, syntheses, or analyses changed my ideological opinions.
*** Some of the author's or authors' ideas, syntheses, or analyses were novel or educational.
** The author or authors analyzed or synthesized ideas with which I was familiar.
* This book entertained me or provided valuable historical information.

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Real nameE.C. Hopkins

LocationArizona

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/echopkins (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/echopkins (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (60), Awards (108), Characters (628), Places (142)

Member sinceSep 26, 2006