What Have You Learnt from Books?

[Kylie]

I'm currently reading A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (his first novel containing Sherlock Holmes) in which he delves into the lives of Mormons in Utah in the mid 1800s.

 

A group of Mormons called the Danite Band was referenced, and I decided to look them up on Wikipedia to learn a bit more about them.

 

This lead to me to the realisation that some of the characters I had just been reading about were real-life people, one of whom was Brigham Young, an important figure in Mormonism. So I looked him up as well and one thing led to another and I found out that one of his 56 children was none other than the sci-fi novelist Orson Scott Card!

 

I love finding out little bits of trivia like this! Reading takes me to so many new places and encourages me to further my knowledge in so many different areas.

 

So I'm wondering what everyone else has learnt from reading? Have you been inspired to further study? Have you found out interesting facts relating to the book you've been reading, or the author who wrote it? For instance, I also found out that Conan Doyle wrote this book when he was 27 years old, the same age as me.

 

Or, more generally, what life lessons have you learnt (and which books did you learn them from)?

[Kell]

While reading The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld, I checked out a little info on Freud, Jung and a whole bunch of incidences mentioned in the plot and discovered that while some of the timelines had been jigged about, a fair bit was actually based on factual events! Not only was it a fascinating read, but the info I then gathered afterwards was also mindbogglingly intresting.

[honestfi]

Well researched books, or books based around the writer's experiences in a given profession or hobby are the only books I can truthfully say I really enjoy.

 

I am a mine of useless information and love books which add to this store. Mike Ripley's Angel series and the two non-Angels, The Legend of Hereward the Wake, and Boudica and the Lost Roman are FULL of snippets of information from almost any subject you can imagine - but mostly historical. Also, as a word of warning, Ripley does...erhem...stretch the truth a little so you are never too sure whether it is correct or not - it's the way with him to wind up the readership. I love it actually. It's usually mostly true.....

 

Crime fiction ain't just cops and robbers, you can learn how MI5 works, international spy consortiums, drug trafficking, politics, stock exchange mechanisms, and although this is the type of stuff I would have said 20 years ago, no way, I'm dozing off just thinking about it, there is such talent in the genre that keeps you gripped AND interested in the story lines.

 

Only non fiction has got me wanting to delve into any subject in any meaningful way. Anything on late 19th Dynasty Egyptian (the Akenhaten/Tut era). Despite the fact I do like historical fiction, particularly based around the years 1066-circa 1300, I have never had the urge to research this seriously.

[Raven]

Or, more generally, what life lessons have you learnt (and which books did you learn them from)?

 

Not to read Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code).

[Michelle]

I blogged about this once, on the Picador Blog.. http://www.panmacmillan.com/Picador/ManageBlog.aspx?Author=Michelle%20Moore

[chesilbeach]

Although it wasn't a particularly well written book, I did learn a lot about leprosy in Victoria Hislop's The Island. I don't have much interest in history, and most of my knowledge comes from having to watch Time Team while my partner has it on the television, but I'd always assumed that leprosy was a medieval disease, and didn't realise it was still prevalent in the twentieth century.

[Talisman]

Gosh where do I begin .. I have learnt so much from books oevr the years on so many different things.

 

I have learnt about different countries and cultures from travel and history books, about new ways of cooking and eating from cookery books, about conspiracy theories and alternative views of history from various books, differing views about differing religions and belief systems, about so many other things, from both fiction and non fiction (mostly it has to be said non fiction - fiction tends to make me think and question rather than learn).

 

One of the most important things that I have learnt from books is also of course how to get published and how to publicise your work once you have achieved that.

[SueK]

As Talisman says, gosh where to begin.

 

It was Ellis Peter's books on Brother Cadfael that got me into (obsessed even;)) on that period of history between King Stephen and his cousin Empress Mathilda and from those books I went onto read such a lot of books around the same era and learnt an awful lot. It led me to attend history classes at Birkbeck College as well.

 

Victorian mysteries got me interested in Sherlock Holmes and a whole new genre of books (love Study in Scarlet Kylie, the middle part documenting the Mormons was such interesting reading).

 

Reading Dr Zhivago got me into pre and post Revolution Russia and I was hungry for more stuff of that ilk.

 

I could go on ........

[Vanwa]

The authors: Terry Pratchett (Discworld), Terry Goodkind (Sword of Truth), Terry Brooks (Shannara), JRR Tolkien (all works published to date) and Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials). The lesson: that there is no limit to the human imagination.

 

I have taken lessons from other authors as well.

 

Tolstoy's Anna Karenina has taught me that

even if you love someone to the depths of your soul, and they feel the same, if its not meant to be, it can only end tragically.

 

 

And there is even a lesson to be taken from Austen's Emma: before you give advice to someone, even if in the kindest and best-intended manner, be as certain as possible that even if your advice is generally correct, that the advice is correct for the person which is receiving it.

[Kylie]

While reading The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld, I checked out a little info on Freud, Jung and a whole bunch of incidences mentioned in the plot and discovered that while some of the timelines had been jigged about, a fair bit was actually based on factual events!

 

Well this is excellent news, because I have this one on my TBR pile!

 

And there is even a lesson to be taken from Austen's Emma: before you give advice to someone, even if in the kindest and best-intended manner, be as certain as possible that even if your advice is generally correct, that the advice is correct for the person which is receiving it.

 

Good point!

 

Interesting article, Michelle! Thanks for the link.

[frankie]

I would have to think more thoroughly to really come up with an answer to this, but from your post Kylie I remembered when we had to read Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow. There were some characters whom I took merely as fictitious background characters, but when we talked this book in class the teacher picked up certain names and told us that these are the names of real people and he gave us their biographies. It was really interesting to see how Doctorow had incorporated these people in his book. There were names such as Harry Houdini, Evelyn Nesbit, Harry Kendall Thaw, Stanford White, and Robert E. Peary.

 

Which reminds me that I've been dying to reread this book for ages (as well as the other lit books)...

[Weave]

I have learned a lot from Haruki Murakami books about the japanese culture, you look up one thing, which leads to something else, its interesting stuff.

 

I also read a book about the Salem Witch Trials, which was based on actual people, I found it very interesting and learned a lot.

[sirinrob]

i often find myself researching something thats mentioned in a book. Recent example is history of Roumania, since thats where Hanna comes from in 'The Reader' by schlink. It has proved rather complex , but interesting.

[Echo]

Besides just about all my life lessons, I've learned so much from books! But I think the book from which I learned the most is Randy Shilts's And the Band Played On. Well, first of all, it's non-fiction, so it's obviously full of facts. But it revealed things about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic that I had never known (being only a small child back then), and it had a profound effect on my life.

 

But any book that explores an interesting historic event or person, or a culture, nation, or ethnic group, teaches me something. I'll often do my own research into the subject and find out more.

[Adam]

I have learned a lot from books. If I read a book based on an interesting topic, I will often look it up. In some special books there are also some life lessons thrown into them, which makes the read very rewarding.

[green]

Just finished Destroyer Of Worlds by Mark Chadbourn which is a fantasy novel featuring legends,magic,dragons and existence itself. Stonehenge is quite prominent,but it's sister-site Woodhenge is mentioned too,which I didn't know existed! It's just over a mile north-east of the stone circle and was originally a circle of wooden poles,and there are now markers indicating where these were positioned. Excavations later revealed a child's skull from thousands of years ago split in two and it's assumed Woodhenge was another circular sacrificial site. I thought Chadbourn was making it up at first! :lol:

[funrun]

bibliography have taught me life is difficult for some and to keep trying

and to never give up:lol:

[Nicola]

If I read a book based on an interesting topic, I will often look it up.

 

Same here. Recent books that have made me investigate the topic further include:

 

The Other Boleyn Girl & The Boleyn Inheritance by Phillipa Gregory which is about Tudor England and King Henry VIII's quest to find a wife that will give him an heir to the throne.

 

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice which mentions Marie Antoinette, French Society in the 1700's and the French Revolution.

 

I'd normally never research a topic like this of my own will :D

[frankie]

Nicola hahaa, I can send you my Brit History underlined notes from AD to whenever from my Brit History course

[Nicola]

:lol:

 

That sounds like a lot of reading Miss Frankie!

[frankie]

:lol:That sounds like a lot of reading Miss Frankie!

 

Yep yep!! It definitely felt like it before the exam

[Kylie]

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice which mentions Marie Antoinette, French Society in the 1700's and the French Revolution.

 

I've also been inspired to look up more on the French Revolution, but from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I really want to read Anne Rice one day.

 

I've also been inspired to look up various historical events mentioned in Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (the Great Fire of Smyrna) and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (the Great Depression and the migration of hundreds of thousands of people to California in search of a new life).

[Anika]

I've learned so much from reading, especially as I prefer 18th-19th century authors. Get a history lesson along with a good story. Can't beat that!

 

And my reading has a sort of snowball-effect. If I like the author I try to read their biography--if there is one, or I'll look them up on the internet. Then I research a bit more the time the story takes place or will read something mentioned in the book or connected to it. (Political events, social turmoil, etc.)

 

Some writers quote a lot of Latin or use poetical references, which I like to look up too.

 

Then are times when I just want to grab a good old P. G. Wodehouse and enjoy reading something fun that isn't going to be too taxing......so I guess you could say, reading also teaches me how to relax.