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The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class
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Product Description
Millions of Americans keep bedside books of prayer and meditative reflection—collections of daily passages to stimulate spiritual thought and advancement. The Intellectual Devotional is a secular version of the same—a collection of 365 short lessons that will inspire and invigorate the reader every day of the year. Each daily digest of wisdom is drawn from one of seven fields of knowledge: history, literature, philosophy, mathematics and science, religion, fine arts, and music.
Impress your friends by explaining Plato’s Cave Allegory, pepper your cocktail party conversation with opera terms, and unlock the mystery of how batteries work. Daily readings range from important passages in literature to basic principles of physics, from pivotal events in history to images of famous paintings with accompanying analysis. The book’s goal is to refresh knowledge we’ve forgotten, make new discoveries, and exercise modes of thinking that are ordinarily neglected once our school days are behind us. Offering an escape from the daily grind to contemplate higher things, The Intellectual Devotional is a great way to awaken in the morning or to revitalize one’s mind before retiring in the evening.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #1321 in Books
- Published on: 2006-10-03
- Released on: 2006-10-03
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 375 pages
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
DAVID S. KIDDER is an entrepreneur with a wide range of technology and marketing experience. Kidder and his companies have appeared in articles in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and other publications. He lives in Westchester, New York, with his wife Johanna, their new baby, Jack, and Bella, their charismatic dog.
NOAH D. OPPENHEIM, a producer of NBC’s Today show, has extensive experience in television and print journalism. He has produced and reported for Scarborough Country and Hardball with Chris Matthews, and his writing has appeared in Esquire, the Wall Street Journal, Men’s Health, and the Weekly Standard. He lives in New York City with his wife Allison.
Customer Reviews
If you forgot everything you learned in college, you'll forget thi accumulation of of glib answers even faster.
First of all this is a b-o-r i-n-g book. It's a drag to read. The superficial information provided in the book will provide you with a wealth of facts to fool people into thiking that you are extremely knowledgeabe when you are not. If you hang out at cocktail parties this will help your image with the wealthy inebriated. You might even get someone to start an affair with you. In the end though they'd find out that you know next to nothing about everything. That may not bother the "cultured" members of the social elite if you are able to be sufficiently glib and keep moving the conversation to various subjects quickly. Cultured people read and think deeply and savour the beauty of music, the natural world, art and literature. They enjoy discovering new writers or ones that may be largely forgotten. They may prefer to sit under a tree in a park or in their backyard and think and watch the world around them. They often enjoy meandering through the world of ideas and reading and thinking about new ideas or experiences, but if you're determined to impress others with shallow knowledge to score points with your friends and weazle yourself into the "cultured class," this is the book for you. Be prepared though for a boring and tedious read that won't leave you any wiser.
But Is It Accurate?
I am enjoying the Intellectual Devotional, though I am troubled when I come across screaming errors like "Marie Antoinette said 'Let them eat cake.'" I can't imagine any serious historian would miss this error, so how qualified were the editors? And if the information is wrong, what is the point of the book?
Interesting Book
I enjoy this book very much. Yes, there are some factual errors, but I haven't read a non-fiction book yet that hasn't had errors. I think that despite some of the typographical errors, and some facts that are a bit questionable, I'm better of reading it and having exposure to a vast array of subjects, than not, and it has certainly been enjoyable.
