Canonical · Craft & Focus · Magazine essay
How to Enjoy the Classics
Steve Allen · 1980
"Classics feel unreadable because people approach them as assignments to survive rather than books to be read on their own terms — with context, patience, and a willingness to keep going past the slow opening."
Steve Allen hated Moby Dick in school. He came back to it as an adult, on his own schedule, and found a book he genuinely loved.
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How to Improve Your Vocabulary
"Vocabulary grows fastest not from memorizing word lists but from context first (guessing a word's meaning from how it's used), then verifying with a real dictionary, then tracing the word back to its root."
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