5 ms·

This isn't my whole approach or anything (it builds on a really good education) but I find my continuous, lifelong learning of things I want in my soul to know

This isn't my whole approach or anything (it builds on a really good education) but I find my continuous, lifelong learning of things I want in my soul to know about has reached a stable, always-improving habit by having a few stacks of the right books in reach in the right places. On my toilet is a stack of dual-language books; German and Old English, Latin, French and Spanish, Ancient Greek, Japanese, as well as Shapiro's Introduction to Number Theory. Lots of Dover editions. Wittgenstein. Next to my desk (on the second desk) there's always an open math book or two (Knuth Vol. 1 and From Frege to Gödel right now), as well as a few open notebooks. By my bedside, a few works of great literature and philosophy (right now Rawls, Joyce, Homer). In reach of the couch a variety of books on art history. By the reading chair, well... lots of books. I read, skip about, get stuck, forget things, but every day I dip into these little piles for a few minutes here, maybe an hour there if I'm lucky. One thing I never care about anymore is finishing. My mind can grow a bit more, most of the time.

ivan_ah 5y ago
> On my toilet is a stack of dual-language books; [...] What are those? Is this a book that has the same text in two languages side by side? I'd be very interested to see an example of such a book because I recently translated the one of my math books from English[1] to French[2] and I was thinking of releasing a bilingual edition too. [1] https://nobsmath.com/ https://nobsmath.com/ [2] https://nobsmath.com/fr/ https://nobsmath.com/fr/
- pfkurtz 5y ago
  That is exactly what they are, a book with original on the left, English on the right. The publisher Dover makes a whole series across several languages, and it's not too hard to find Greek and Latin classics. Recently I see more specialty publishers moving into the space. There's also interlinear dual language books, with a very literal but you-do-some-grammatical work translation of each word below. For weird biographical reasons all of the philosopher Wittgenstein's books are published with German-English on facing pages. https://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-languages-and-linguistics-dual-language--dictionaries--other.html https://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-languages-and...

ivan_ah 5y ago

> On my toilet is a stack of dual-language books; [...] What are those? Is this a book that has the same text in two languages side by side? I'd be very interested to see an example of such a book because I recently translated the one of my math books from English[1] to French[2] and I was thinking of releasing a bilingual edition too. [1] https://nobsmath.com/ https://nobsmath.com/ [2] https://nobsmath.com/fr/ https://nobsmath.com/fr/

pfkurtz 5y ago
That is exactly what they are, a book with original on the left, English on the right. The publisher Dover makes a whole series across several languages, and it's not too hard to find Greek and Latin classics. Recently I see more specialty publishers moving into the space. There's also interlinear dual language books, with a very literal but you-do-some-grammatical work translation of each word below. For weird biographical reasons all of the philosopher Wittgenstein's books are published with German-English on facing pages. https://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-languages-and-linguistics-dual-language--dictionaries--other.html https://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-languages-and...