Andjhostet

Yeah I realize now that my comment was a tad more aggressive than it was meant to be. I think there’s some value in Day’s stuff. He gives some interesting perspective and analysis on Tolkien. You just need to remember to take nothing of his as fact.

Nothing David Day writes should be given any credibility. He made stuff up, like, all the time. Treat it as fan fiction.

This and Homage are his two best imo. His fiction is a little too on the nose and heavy handed.

It’s literally the most basic and textbook form of allegory you can find in literature. There’s absolutely no depth to it at all.

Orwell paraded as a socialist which is why he knew who were true leftists and who weren’t. Dude was a narc of the highest order, and a traitor to the cause any way you look at it.

Which is true in real life too so I don’t see the issue. Think of climate activists and how they’re treated in the US. Or those supporting socialist policies like right to housing or food. They are treated as an absolute joke, just for wanting to do the right thing at the expense of those in power.

If I had to pick a character who does the right thing more often than anyone, it’s probably Hermione.

Ok there’s a bit here I disagree with.

1. I feel like one of the messages I got out of HP is that chosen family means more than given family. Such as when Harry gets sweater from Mrs Weasley and nothing from Dursleys

2. Just because slavery exists in the story, doesn’t mean it’s treated positively. There’s an entire revolutionary movement for them in one of the books and Hermione is active in it. And Hermione is often a pretty safe moral compass.

3. No defense of the Goblins, this one is pretty bad.

4. Again, just because this idea exists doesn’t mean it’s supported. In fact, the bad guys are the ones always supporting it so it’s pretty clearly a villainous idea.

Your arguments remind me of the illiterate folk who claim that Lolita supports pedophilia when the opposite is true. Just because something is present in a story doesn’t mean it’s presented as a good thing, or something worth supporting.

For the record, I do not support JKR and kind of wish HP would fade into obscurity, even if it was a defining moment of my childhood/generation.

I’m only allowed one shelf dedicated to TBR. It has helped a lot.

Check out Blackshirts and Reds, by Michael Parenti. It’s an amazing book about the history of the relationship/battle between fascism and communism in the world over the 20th century (spoiler alert, fascism won).

Use your finger to follow along! It sounds childish, but there’s a reason children do it, because it’s an easy way to boost comprehension and reading speed.

I also use audiobooks to listen while I read, for particularly challenging stuff.

Besides that, just practice. If something is too hard, ease into it with something a little easier. Reading is just like any other skill, you have to practice it and get better. Try harder and harder things to train your muscles.

He was paid to tank Twitter.

This seems absolutely absurd to me. Some of my favorite books of all time took a good 20 or so pages to get into. In fact, I don’t know if there’s any book I’ve been hooked from the first sentence.