file photo by ArtChick
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, There’s no secret to how to get smarter. You read a lot it’s that simple .There’s a whole host of people who have excelled , from Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to Richard Branson and Barack Obama, who will tell you the same thing. In the old days it was often said you can tell the second you enter a room if anyone there has ever read a book before.
But if building your brainpower is that straightforward, why don’t more people do it? For the same reason that we fail to do lots of worthy but less urgent self-improvement projects , we think we are all really busy.
But are we really? A new article by Charles Chu of site Better Humans raises some eyebrows by people who claim they simply don’t have enough time to feed their intellect with books.According to the author the simple math that proves you do have enough time to read. Chu tells the story of how reading 200 hundred books a year (yes, 200!) for the past several years has helped him turn his life around, reconsider his career, and become much happier.
The math is simple , according to Chu the average American reads 200 to 400 words per minute. A Typical nonfiction books have about 50,000 words.
Now, all we need are some quick calculations:
200 books x 50,000 words/book = 10 million words
10 million words/400 wpm = 25,000 minutes
25,000 minutes/60 = 417 hours
That’s all there is to it. To read 200 books, simply spend 417 hours a year reading!
You say you don’t have time take a look at what the average American spends on social media and TV in a year:
608 hours on social media
1,642 hours on TV
If those hours were spent reading instead, you could be reading more than 1,000 books a year!
The Ridgewood blog would like to challenge our readers and all residents to read as many books as possible for 2018 ! Lets build a smarter Village and perhaps a smarter New Jersey !
For those who don’t know where to start ,the Ridgewood library is full of suggestions and many librarians have made recommendation lists for residents .
The Ridgewood Public Library is located at
125 N Maple Ave
Ridgewood, New Jersey
Call (201) 670-5600
Also the Ridgewood Library has wonderful book discussion clubs that will motivate and inspire.
This Blog should be read by all Ridgewood residents who are interested in their community. It is exceptionally informative and thought provoking.
The clique of cool kids that run this blog, take its photos and write many of its screeds hate the library. So no, we won’t be going there.
Thinking about reading Charles A. Coulombe’s “Puritan’s Empire: A Catholic Perspective on American History”.
Product description:
History is the key to understanding men-whether as nations, families, or individuals. For Catholics, history has an even higher purpose beside. For them, history is the unfolding of God’s Will in time, and the attempts of men either to conform themselves to or to resist that Will. But American Catholic historians have generally refrained from exploring their own national history with these principles, preferring instead to adopt the analysis of their non-Catholic colleagues, save when looking at purely Catholic topics (and sometimes not then). It is vital then, for Catholics, especially young Catholics, to have a good and proper understanding of their country’s history. To exercise their patriotism, they must work for the conversion of the United States; to do this effectively, they must understand the forces and events which brought forth not only the religion of Americanism and the country itself, but also the sort of Catholicism which, in 300 years, failed so dismally to bring this conversion about. This book attempts to reinterpret the better known episodes of our history in accordance with the Faith, and to point up lesser-known details which will give factual proof of the truth of this reinterpretation.
Great piece! I accept the challenge.
“The clique of cool kids that run this blog, take its photos and write many of its screeds hate the library.”
That’s not true. What we hate is the waste of tax resources being spent on upgrading what is already a spectacular facility.
never been with the “cool kids “
I am down for it but we really need a much bigger library so we can read more, much more. And we also need a PAC so when we get tired reading we go to a RW Friends of Music concerto. Please also add a garage so we can park our SUVs while we do these noble chores.
I like to review the Bill Gates reading list. Comes out twice a year.
Netflix had a good 3-part series on Gates’ brain. He reads 150 pages an hour with a 90% retention rate.
Read the Village budget if you want pertinent information. Then brace yourself for the sequel entitled $95 million schools bond. Now that’s an education.
“Netflix had a good 3-part series on Gates’ brain. He reads 150 pages an hour with a 90% retention rate.”
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Establish the Mythos…. he’ll probably have the ability to read minds by the time this story is told by our great grandchildren…
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