In the mood for read? 1
I know that the main reason why people don’t read is that teachers don’t read.
Neither the parents, nor the adults with them.
I have taught for many years. I know that teachers don’t read. When teachers meet in the teacher’s lounge, books are seldom discussed. If we talk about books, as in the case of young people, we talk about fashion books: Harry Potter, Maze Run, etc.
Up to this point. I will not speak any more, for now, about the defects of the teachers and the educational system. Nor of the effects of the customs and intellectual habits of the people.
In the mood for read?
I am a reader. I have written a book and I have others in the oven. So I feel empowered to talk to you about it.
Feel boring?
If you are bored, I recommend reading history or anthropology books. Books that talk about custom, other countries, other times. Book with titles like “Fashion History”, “Stories from the Middle Ages”, and the like.
Do not confuse them with books on sociology or philosophy. History books are good when you’re bored because they give a lot of information but with a narrative. There are many characters: soldiers, women, kings, shepherds, generals … and the story of these people is told. That is very entertaining. Another thing that makes them entertaining is that you find out about events, circumstances, how you lived before or how you live elsewhere.
Of these there are many. I recommend the first of them all: Herodotus’ Histories, which is also called Herodotus’s Nine Books of History. It deals with the war between persians and Greek, in the 5th century BC.
There is a story in it that I love. Perhaps, you have heard of Croesus. “Rich as Croesus”. This Croesus was king of the kingdom of Lydia, in what is now Turkey. He was the last king of a lineage, which started like this: Croesu’s great-grandfather was steward to the king of Lydia. Butler. That king was married to a beautiful woman. She was so proud that she wanted everyone, all the time, to tell her how beautiful her wife was, and how lucky she was to have her.
One fine day, he was chatting with his butler. As almost always, how beautiful his wife was. And he talked and talked… As the butler did not pay much attention to him, he challenged him: “you don’t believe me how good my wife is; you must see her naked ”.
Of course the butler was shocked, and scared. But, the king insisted. How do you resist that he can order to kill you? And I almost ordered this: to hide in the queen’s spacious rooms, to see her behind the curtains when she came out of bathing. To avoid trouble, the butler agreed. But, but, the queen saw it. The next day, she sent for him. And she put this in front of him: “You have seen me naked, me, the queen. That insult will cost you your life. But, I know my husband has ordered it. So choose: either you kill the king and marry me, or I am calling an executioner right now. “
And later…
Read!
