Expanding the RV Life

Before the 1900's, a primary way to educate the top tier for a life of politics and leadership as befitting their status in life was the Great Books. These writings, often many writings within a "great book," span a period of some 2,500 years as written by the best thinkers of their time, dealing with all the issues we struggle with today.

In a world overwhelmed by tv and often by a need to escape from tv, stress and civilization, there is slowly a movement to recover the Great Books. Despite what we were told, the books were written for the common man and become easier to read the more you read.

This is a way to add more to the rv experience as well. Not only traveling physically, but traveling through time via the minds of the writers. Putting aside the tv and the novels and the how to do it books and the next best things for something a bit more intraspective.

Not as deep as your post, but we have 3 tv's in our 29' trailer. Really?

I read two books on our last 4 nite outing last month. I'm still thinking about one of them and how it ended up.

Never heard of the Great Books, but I love to read nevertheless. A lot of the CG's we stay at have their little libraries, and I love looking them over to see the inventory.  Can't bring myself to read fiction, and found a great book on the Pacific war that I could not put down. That being said,,, even the non-fiction is only as good as the memory of the person writing it or being interviewed.

I don't understand the reluctance to read fiction. At a minimum, a good writer provides insight to his philosophy of life and why he believes that way. In many instances, you also are provided thoughtful insights as to why the future may develop in a particular way as well as useful facts about areas outside your area of expertise. And you still get the story!

Ernie

Ernie n Tara said:

I don't understand the reluctance to read fiction. At a minimum, a good writer provides insight to his philosophy of life and why he believes that way. In many instances, you also are provided thoughtful insights as to why the future may develop in a particular way as well as useful facts about areas outside your area of expertise. And you still get the story!

Ernie

Click to expand...

I totally agree.

The Great Books...

Which books are you considering in this generality? 

I realize this is a movable target from one subjective viewpoint to another. 

Go to this site and you will get more than you want to know about the "Great Books"!

/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_books[url]

Best of all, the vast majority of them either have no copyright or an expired copyright. You can download the complete books free at Project Gutenberg. See https://www.gutenberg.org/

Joel

Maybe the underlying point of the thread on one level is a counter to the move to tvs. Certainly, a lot of the newer rvs employ a focus around the tv.

A slim volume called the Great Conversation, if one is lucky enough to get ahold of it, basically serves at a minimum as in introduction to the Great Books as a series of writings compiled together and a discussion of approaches to reading this compilation.

We learn that they were abandoned as a primary education source, to our great disservice. They are very different from either fiction or non-fiction, neither of which do I put aside, but rather I do seek to expand awareness of these lost, so to speak, materials.

Even if only one person in this forum rediscovers them, that will be a great payback for what I am getting from them. Of course, we are use to quick sells jobs as we are often impatient, but each person will or will not find their way to them and through them.

I choose to accept the 10 year reading plan as my way through them and have also pulled together a list of the Great Eastern Books to read as well. There are a couple of the writings within the books that I won't read as a personal decision.

Either one is curious or one is not curious, and that is how it should be. I doubt few would follow me getting my RV Service Technician and RV Inspector training before I purchased my rv and that is that as well.

Today I had a pretty good discussion with my wife. I'm amazed how quickly she is getting on board and is able to connect the dots so easily as to what we should be looking at. Hopefully next year we will go to Alaska for five months, if it all works out.

Give me any old Louis La Amour or a good old John Wayne movie to spend my afternoons with. I've been to college, read books I didn't enjoy and now I am at the age where I would rather be entertained. Great Books...

Checked oout the list, have read a number of them, but way in minority.  Great thing about it, if you get to read them all you can become a liberal arts professor or be head barista in a Starbucks, trying to engage customers and dissing them when they don't.

As a graduate of a traditional Liberal Arts university (though with a BS), I have read at least pieces of most of the Greeks and Romans, and a number of the more modern works 1800 and on). I am woefully ignorant of the scientific writings (though I trained as a scientist), and pretty much anything from 200-1700. I have had it on my radar screen to revisit the great works beginning after I retire. Going back into the heady intellectualism of my undergraduate years would be wonderful! Thanks to the OP for reminding me.

That's the amazing thing about a library...how many different kinds of books there are for whatever interests you.

And that is the amazing thing about rvs is how many different kinds of rvs there are for all the different ways people want to use them and what they want out of their rv experience. I was out visiting with a national rv rental group today and I could not get over the large number and variety of rvs at their location and the demand from people who just simply want to rent an rv for a vacation.

I thought it would really be a lot of fun helping people live their dreams.

And then I wondered how many customers treat those rental rvs as if they were worried about the next dreamer renting that rv?

I've read LLA. Like watching tv. I agree with you that we all  have our mental limits and you should stay within them OM.

PancakeBill...sorry you are having such a rough time engaging people in conversations...maybe you should stick to the menu.

My conversations tend to be , we don't have coffee, we are a bookstore.  Fries with that?  ;-)

I have no problem mixing current technology with old world reading. I currently have about 600 ebooks stored on my smartphone, tablet, and notebook, including many of the "Great Book" classics. The three devices are synchronized so I can be reading on one device, and when I stop, I can pick up right where I left off on any of the other devices. Very handy when waiting in some office for an appointment.

Sounds like you are top of you game NY_Dutch.

First owner of an RV was Caesar of Rome. Did you know that Caesar generally slept in his chariots or litters, employing even his rest in pursuit of action. However, one difference being a soldier attended behind as he went with his sword drawn.