One approach that I often do, is to go to fivebooks.com when an any random subject or topic strikes me and then try to read the books their interviewees have recommended on that topic. I have found many interesting books in this way.
Like their lists about the Spanish Civil war lead me to 'Forging of a Rebel' by Arturo Barea.
Another source is to look into famous/interesting peoples reading lists. Many famous people including Gandhi, Tolstoy and others kept lists of all books that they read.
One striking thing about reading biographies is that real people are seldom "chosen ones". That's a literature and movie trope.
https://shaungallagher.pressbin.com/blog/obituary-rot.html
> An unfortunate side effect of this move to digital-only obits will likely only become apparent a few decades from now, and it will likely frustrate the next few generations of genealogists hunting for records of early 21st century ancestors.
> Print newspapers were well suited for both the distribution and preservation of obituaries. Distribution isn’t a problem for digital obituaries, and in many ways the web is better than print in this respect. But when it comes to preservation, there are many factors that make digital obits in their current state particularly susceptible to rot.
However in certain aspects of preservation of History (for example if deemed high value at a national level) we should also expect national archives to duplicate the effort to preserve this and other information with historic value.
It is much harder to doctor hard copies of newspapers or books. You can burn them, but altering them is a complicated challenge, and someone may own another copy of the originals.
With digital records, the temptation is stronger because the editing is easier, and other "unofficial" copies that diverge from the officially archived version may be declared to be fake/misinformation etc.
IDK if this counts as landslide in the American sense. I mostly heard that expression used for results of European elections.
Edit: instant downvote, didn't even take a minute from the original posting! Wow.
Sheesh, people, don't be so sensitive about political topics. The fact that Trump got 312 electoral votes to Harris' 226 is just that, a fact. It does not reflect any subjective attitudes or preferences of anyone taking part in this discussion, wisdom or idiocy of current White House policies etc.
However, I am sensitive about shoe-horning political talking points into a conversation.
Personally, I am more to the right than to the left, but I don't enjoy the clusterfuck of the current administration at all, doubly so because our local security (a small NATO member which used to be subjugated to Moscow) has been thrown into total uncertainty.
Out of 538 votes, in 2024, Trump had 312; in 2020, Biden had 306, just a few less, and Trump had 304 in 2016, only 8 less than his "landslide". In 2012, Obama had 332 and in 2008, he had 365. Clinton had 370 and 379. I wouldn't call any of those landslides though.
GHW Bush had 426 which is quite a lot, but Reagan before him had 489 and then 525. Those are landslides.
Nixon got 301 the first time, which is just a win; but he got 520 in his second term. That was a landslide.
I would draw a line in the sand at 90% of the electoral vote is a landslide, and anything less is puffery. Ranked by percentage of electors, Trump's "landslide" is only 44 out of 60. That's the saddest landslide ever. 58% of electors is a clear and undebatable win, but it's not a landslide and it's not a mandate, or even a large margin. It might be an indictment of the Democratic Party or some other lesser hyperbole though.
It was 312 vs 226 votes, including seven swing states, and got the popular vote. I guess to make ourselves feel better we’ll just say an extremely thin margin. But as long as it’s with a nod and wink; kind of like saying that alligators also fly, just extremely, extremely low.
Mind I can get behind the genealogy argument, yet feel that our post-life records being accessible by default is not an assumption we can make unilaterally.
The historical record is important and we don't know what will be useful to future generations.
Take Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms as an example. It briefly recounts the multiple legal proceedings that the Roman Catholic Church brought against a humble Italian Renaissance-era miller who spread strange, heretical ideas about the cosmos (involving the cheese that was apparently the moon's substance and the worms that ate it). Ginzburg draws on Church records, including the man's own written defense, and builds a fascinating picture of his mental world, intellect, and disposition.
If I remember correctly, these small, cloudy windows into the Early Modern past even let Ginzburg identify likely traces of pre-Christian, or folk, traditions largely hidden from the written record.
This is a funny example, I suppose, because in all likelihood the miller would have been tickled to know that his ideas survived and found an audience not just despite but because of Church persecution.
Still, his case nicely illustrates the importance and unpredictable value of the historical record.
Newspaper's used to have strong local coverage and a collection of vignettes into the outside world. The way the author uses the obituaries is the way I used to use the newspapers. Getting multiple newspapers (and magazines) from all over the world was a fixture for New York City creative offices pre-internet.
None of those are guaranteed to be around in 50 years, but hopefully it helps a little.
My father unexpectedly passed away a few years ago so this stuff is especially close to my heart.
I’ve learned a lot from lives of others so think this is wonderful advice for finding gems and remembering the normal goodness that exists in this world.
This is a good distinction.
I make it a point to hang with folks from vastly different backgrounds from me.
I can get some very good (and bad) ideas from them.
A guy keeps going to the newsagent: he scans the headlines and then leaves.
The newsagent sees him do this a few days in a row and finds it to be strange behaviour, so one day he asks him:
“Comrade, what are you doing? Can I help you?”
“Thank you comrade, but I’m only interested in the obituaries.”
“But comrade, the obituaries are at the back!”
“Not the ones I am looking for, comrade!”
It has acquired a certain acuity in today’s America where the leaders are a series of unpopular men approaching their eighties.
There is a widespread “Is He Dead Yet?” meme that’s the contemporary direct equivalent of the Soviet joke.
Max Planck
The whole piece would be begging the question were there a question. It's a statement of faith.
Back in the day, we would read a biography or at least the damn Wikipedia article.
gwern•8h ago
Maybe wait until you have at least 1 anecdote, anywhere in the history of the world, of major creativity from reading an obituary, before recommending it?
hammock•7h ago
Obits are mini bios, but better than living bios, and more accessible than bestselling bios that make you think you have to be Rockefeller or Lincoln
flufluflufluffy•7h ago
crazygringo•5h ago
kenjackson•5h ago
PhearTheCeal•4h ago
from https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/items/a8357c0b-1e41-4eff-8ad1-fe3b...
reading the obits might fall under "cultural exposure".
gwern•4h ago
As opposed to OP. Which adduces so little evidence for the claim about reading obituaries that a rando like me could actually write a more persuasive argument for the benefits of reading obituaries (because I at least wrote one thing tenuously inspired by reading an obituary the other month: https://gwern.net/traffic-lights ).
Even the most shameless periodical usually tries for at least 3 anecdotes, no matter how dubious and strained, before declaring it the hot new trend or It Is Known fact.
* One of Sawyer's research topics, as it happens.
kenjackson•4h ago
jerf•3h ago
We, since I will gladly agree with the criticism and add myself to that side, are asking for one example of the supposedly creativity-inducing action to have even perhaps tangentially produced some sort of creative insight.
As an example I would submit that the simple advice of "take a walk/shower" has much better attestation for prompting creativity than "read the obituaries". It hardly seems like a stretch to ask the author to provide even a single example of this achieving something.
codingdave•7h ago
crazygringo•5h ago
almostgotcaught•7h ago
crazygringo•5h ago