I read 72 books. Sorry I lied in the
title. That's right.
In 2018 I read 72 books
here in my garage and this is all my
knowledge
And the other dead means 28 year old man
discovers books is a thing.
It's the end of the year and I wanted to make a sort
of summary and talk about some of my favorite books that
I read this year. And I also wanted to make this book to
hopefully inspire you guys or more people in general to read
as well. The percentage of teenagers that read for fun
is at an all time low.
Let's change that. Oh yeah.
The reason why I started reading was
because I made actually
a New Year's resolution so I thought OK well maybe
this could. You guys can take the same resolution. Maybe
you guys have the same problem as I had which is that
I kind of have a problem with finishing
things. Sounds a bit weird but
generally as soon as things get a little
difficult I get bored and I move on to something
else and this could be for even silly stuff like.
Playing a video game. If it gets boring at some
point I don't really care to finish and I'll just buy a new
game or move on to something else or whether it's a hobby
project as soon as it gets a little boring.
I generally don't finish it so I.
I miss that feeling I'm finishing
something I missed that gratifying feeling though you
know even if it wasn't the most fun.
I still am glad I went through with it. I'm so glad
that I can move onto the next thing. Preachy
moment incoming and NG in case hasn't been preachy
enough so far I think especially with social media as
well we should literally never has an end
to it. It's just something that keeps going and going and going and
going. I wanted to have that feeling so I said by my new
year's resolution was going to be that no matter what I do I'm going to
finish it. And I didn't have books in mind at all.
It just sort of became a coincidence that I decided
OK I'll read a book and I'm leaving if I don't like it.
I don't care. I'm just going to finishing it. Finish it. So
I start off with reading sci fi and to be fair
I didn't really enjoyed that much. I'm so glad I
read it and I knew I wanted to read something
different next. And I really enjoyed that and they just sort of
came and moved on and on and on and here I am
later and I'm so happy. I'm so glad I made
this decision.
One of the major discoveries for me this year was
discovering my favorite author which I talked a lot about
on this channel which is Yukio me Shima.
Didn't know anything about this author when I read him which I
think really added to the effect for me so I almost don't want
to talk about him because discovering him as was
equally as fun almost or really added to the
experience for me. I tweeted out on Twitter
asking if there was any recommendations for Japanese
authors because I enjoyed reading them more Academy
and at air really expect much of it. I thought Yukio was a
female name. I thought it was a female author because
when I read this elite fell from grace I could see I just felt sewing
could completely merge into the main character's mind
which is something I never really experienced before with literature even
though this character this young boy very special to
say the least I was. I was there I
was into it and I felt like I got a window into that
time and period when this was written. And
that really is why I was so
drawn to his literature afterwards studying the book
learning about Yukio emission man's life
you certainly learn more about the meaning the
symbolism and the ideas that motivated
his work which makes it even more interesting.
So I think that's why for me you mission man had
such an impact this year and also reading more about his
nonfiction work like Sun and steel for example.
That was his way of living he he wanted to
reintroduce the samurai way of living into
Japan and a lot of his book reflects that
idea on the shift that
Japan went through during the Meiji period. Shortly
after the Second World War I hate to say this but
the point is he wrote sun and steel which it was for a
magazine and he was an avid body lifter
weightlifting which is not your typical I
guess rider hobby.
Because he believed in sun and steel which is
his take on the old an old samurai saying the
flower and the sword. That's oversimplifying it
but basically it was his idea that
samurai should spend just as much time
writing poetry as they spend time
practicing with their sword and missing
my felt like. Japan had forgotten about their
steel or the sword of Japan. And
especially during the westernisation of Japan. A
lot of his work like runaway horses.
Is technology in the Temple of Dawn. They will
reflect this this shift.
He was also obsessed with the idea of dying
young and he really dramatic size. And
Mishima was supposed to win the Nobel Prize he was
supposed to be one of the first winners. This sort of became
an essay I don't know why I didn't mean sorry I just. I
like talking about male Schmidt. He was a poet.
It is very interesting. He was supposed to win the Nobel
Prize but he was kind of a misunderstood character and
still is fairly young to receive such an award.
So he he got snob. Then he went to one
of his peers. Instead. And
I think twice as even he was supposed to win the Nobel Prize. It
was sort of taken back. He's still young. We
don't really know who he is yet. So when he
gets older it will probably get the award. But
for people I know by Miss Sharma he never made it that far to
verify it. Fascinating author. His life is
equally as fascinating as his work so that has been one of
my favorite things that I discovered this year. Just reading his books
I absolutely loved it. I read his technology.
I read someone who is I guess more weird
stuff. His short stories
so much great work from him that I just I feel
I enjoy every page that I read. The second thing that I
really enjoyed discovering this year which is
something that I never thought I would say which is Buddhism.
That's right everybody. I think a lot of people
can benefit from the critics not from a religious
thing from but just I think if you embrace
Buddhism as a philosophy there's so much to learn
especially for me. I think with the ideas around
self. Control and
why you should indulge in self-destructive behavior that is
something that I really benefited from and it's something that I
never really was taught so I'm really glad I read this
book I picked it up on a complete win and the sun came out of
nowhere and I'm getting blasted like an inferno.
Jesus Christ. I find it interesting because a lot of its
ideas on why you shouldn't indulge in self-destructive
behavior sort of correlates to another book
that I read. I've talked about before which is
Man's Search for Meaning by Victor you Frankl who
is a Holocaust survivor. He survived I think two or three
concentration camps and he made the
observation that people that you
know started smoking or did these self-destructive
things on the camps avoid the people that had
kind of given up on on in general and
these were the people that would soon after.
Obviously not for everyone but would pass away because they
they lost their meaning there they lost their their grip
I guess you could say you know here I am
privileged little sweet boy.
Why should I do these self-destructive things. What's the
meaning for me to do that. And Frankel says
as well that you should live your life as if you've already
make made your mistakes as if you already
lived it and made all your mistakes because that changes
your approach to life in a meaningful way. And this
connects a lot to the ideas in my opinion around
reincarnation which sounds really weird for me to say but
it gives you a positive meaning and outlook on
life in my opinion. Regardless if you embrace the
religious and spiritual aspect of it
and regardless if you believe in that or not I
think is irrelevant or at least actually it is
relevant but it doesn't really change anything and doesn't
change the outcome.
I guess you could say if you have a meaning for something you can go through
any suffering in Buddhism treats life as
suffering. This became very weird.
Always my final point. Life sucks. I want to tell us and
touch upon that dystopian which I could
because I think that's something that a lot of people like to start off
reading. Myself included one of the earliest
books that I read this year was brave new world
written by Aldous Huxley. I loved this one especially because
it's a good mixture of comedy and intentional or not
I don't know. And that is how grim it
gets as well how dark it is. We should really delivers
this impactful meaning behind it. I don't want to go too
much into it sorry. But the main reason I'm bringing this up is
because a lot of you guys are recommending
this book to me which is Fahrenheit
451 which is another dystopia which
depicts a future where people won't read books.
They have the same idea generally but I think
these are two great examples of this one has a great
elevator pitch this one dozen but this one has so much
more impactful meaning behind it. This just sounds to
me like the rambling of an angry
old man. This is the one that's going to get a movie adapted to
it. I think Lily sings is even acting in it
so it's gonna be great.
Golly golly
Phoebe and government controlled information
verses information in the media today. I
say pretty identical. Just go on any social media Web
site and you'll see that there's two sides to every story and everyone you
literally just sound like a crybaby and an idiot which you are.
Lately things it's so bad. This book is so terrible
I think it's a perfect example of a book that's the
moral is the core center of the
of the novel. Which just
makes it so goddamn boring in my opinion the beauty your
fiction is when you have characters that are
interesting and the story that really grips
you in a way that. The ideas behind
it isn't as transparent and they have so much more
impact in my opinion. This is so
rambling so poorly written. It
blows my mind that this is what gets recommended.
Don't read this one. There's so many better dystopias out there.
Whenever you goal as well the top rated
books on the online and you see
see what's popular there are a lot of it is a self-help
book which is fine. Obviously they have a purpose and
there's a lot to learn from that as well. But I would really
emphasize that reading fiction read fiction
there's really no better way to to get the meaning behind
something in my opinion instead of just getting it
spoon fed to you. And I hope that
more people get into reading fiction as well and don't
just read non-fiction because I
know I have a lot of younger guys watching me and I know
younger guys generally tend to strayed more towards
nonfiction instead of fiction.
But you're missing out okay. Did you get scared.
Extremely dark in here. God damn it. I think that's all I
wanted to say. I could probably ramble on a lot more.
Thank you for listening so far. I again I
really hope this inspires more of you to read as well.
Because I had a lot of fun this year and I also would
recommend to start small. And
also maybe set a goal for yourself. I think
instead of reading 50 pages and then or 300
pages and stopping. It's better to just read
something small like 10 pages a day. That's
a banner if you were consistent with it at
least then stopping and I think you'll find that you'll
get into it quicker than you think. Obviously if you're not
used to reading which I was in at the time it's a
little harder to get into.
But once you do it's great
it's really fun. If this video gets
5000 likes I will give
away my favorite book of the year
which is the cat in the hat.
Now they spoke. I'm thinking about doing a whole
series about. It's
goddamn genius.