READING CLUBS FOR EVERY ONE

searching the net I found that there are intereting site for reading clubs, there are reading clubs for children such as     http://www.summerreadingclub.slq.qld.gov.au/archive/src08_09/for_parents/reading_clubs_for_adults
well this site also includes other links for more reading clubs, but the one that I found one that could be for our group and may be we can join in,   http://onlinebookclub.org/  what I read about this site is that offer a wide range of book reviews and books that we can disccusss it, also it offers the  book of the month program according to this site, It's free and it's simple.Every month members of the forum vote for a book of the month, then  it`s read it and discuss it together.I found very interestting.

Here’s what this site has to offer:  http://www.bookcrossing.com/
Join hundreds of thousands of active BookCrossers daily in our many forums to discuss
your favorite authors, characters and books in every genre throughout history right up
through current releases.

The conquest of happiness

By Bertrand Russell

Review

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970). Was Philosopher, mathematician, pacifist, prolific letter writer, known intellectual figures of author and columnist, Bertrand Russell was one of the most influential and widely the twentieth century. In 1950 he was awarded the Noble Prize for Literature in 1950 for his extensive contributions to world literature and for his "rationality and humanity, as a fearless champion of free speech and free thought in the West."

The conquest of happiness is a book that was publicated in 1930 and is about an analysis clear and pleasant about the facts that make us unhappy and the ones that make us happy and is not a book about self-help even though it seems by the name. Russell that was a great mind explains the subject of the book in a ironic way, he is splendid in the most part of his thoughts.

It’s difficult to make a selection of phrases or words to be emphasized because almost all the text deserved to be underline. For Russell one the reasons of happiness consist in the high expectations that we have in our lives. It means that not every day can be full of intense and exciting moments that make us feel totally happy or in joy . At this point is very important that education of children to be ready from infant to this reality. As Russell himself says

“The capacity to endure a more or less monotonous life is one which should be acquired in childhood. Modern parents are greatly to blame in this respect; they provide their children with far too many passive amusements, such as shows and good things to eat, and they do not realize the importance to a child of having one day like another, except, of course, for

Somewhat rare occasions.”

Russell talks us about a happiness that is outside, and the best recipe is not make harm to any body and try to have occupations that fill our time and stimulate to make things better, he says “The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”

Bertrand Russell also writes about things that cause unhappiness and as the author himself explains having no outside cause, are all the more upset since they seem to have no solution. Russell proposes answers for the everyday happiness that every human being is bound to suffer. His chapters include Envy (the greatest of human passions, according to him), Persecution Mani , Family, Work, and so on. A few things in the book must be taken with a grain of salt; however, I fell that on the whole Russell hits the nail on the head and offers us a work that is part philosophy, part psychology, and very effective in doing what it proposes. The second part of the book contains chapters that explain the cause of happiness, and how one can attain it. chapters like, Is happiness still possible?, Zest, Affection, The family, Work, Impersonal interests, Effort and resignation, The happy man, this chapter give us a perspective of how can we reach happiness and the different meanings of this word for the people, Russell explains how in healthy life must have a equilibrium between different activities in order to give a balance to a our health, incomes, study, work, and religion . In the end, the book is a bit more about human nature, and realizing that a book that was written so long ago is incredibly current- he truth that human nature never changes, Russell talks about the happy man is the one who can live in a objective way and certain things are indispensable to the happiness of most men, but these are simple things: food and shelter, health, love, successful work.

The happy man is the man who does not suffer from either of these failures of unity, whose personality is neither divided against itself nor pitted against the world

This book can help us to think and open the eyes to things that may be we don´t stopped to think, in order to eliminate those obstacles, almost the time imposed in every one , that stop us from being really happy

The Conquest of Happiness

well it`s  a book that I  read a long time ago but I read it again

the conquest of happiness it`s a book written by Bertrand Russell a mathematician and  philosopher in this book  Bertrand Russell gives to know his opinion about what is the meaning of happiness for him and compares his concepts with others concepts, through the book he describes the diferents types of happiness and the way to reach it  

what is reading in English/Spanish/French for me

well, the reading in inglish for me some times is good experience , because  I can understand what the writer is trying  to say, I like  when I undertand a good book , but some times  I find words that I don't undertand and I have to search for its meaning,  some time I can`t find in the dictionary, so  I have to search for that word in internet.

And the reading in  spanish  is more fluid because of course, it's my mother tongue

and reading in french is dificcutl because i'm new in this language, so I read for lear vocabulary and grammar

silences

an art that ask question

simmetries

we seem symmetrical. two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs, but we are not. something is always dominating

dancers on a plain

on a plane? an airplane?

it´s  smoothness

KNIFE, SPOON, FORK

A secular trinity-knife, spoon, fork.
No hierarchy.

Yes, it's a good definition because  it represents  the real concept of how to be neutral to a religion, the knife,spoon,fork 
 

THE FORK

There’s a hesitation about the fork. You hold own the food with the fork in your left hand while you cut it with the knife held in your right. Then -if you’re not only right-handed but also American- you put down the knife, then transfer the fork to your right hand an send the speared morsel up to your mouth.

Grownups throw knives. Children throw spoons. Nobody (I think) would throw a fork. It may be four-thirds of a toy trident, but it can’t be thrown as one. It wouldn’t arrive, spear like, tines first.

The weight is in the handle.

The fork as emblem -emblem of the real. Jasper Johns, explaining something about “my general development so far” said: “That is to say, I find it more interesting to use a real fork as a painting than it is to use a painting as a real fork”.

What would a fork that isn’t real look like?

The fork is the youngest of the three great eating utensils. The Last Supper was set with knives and spoons only. No forks either at the wedding feast in Cana.

It made its appearance when the knife and spoon were well established. Invented in Italy, thought a foppish pretension when it arrived in England in the early seventeenth century: a set of gold “Italian forkes” presented to Elizabeth I by the Venetian ambassador were put on display at Westminster; she never used them.

The introduction of that vital implement, for a long time despised as effete, enabled people to distance themselves from the eating process by avoiding manual contact with the food.

The principle of fastidiousness. New forms of distance, new forms of delicacy.

New rules of finicky behavior at table proliferated. People were expected to manipulate an increasingly complicated battery of utensils.

It seemed hard, setting up and keeping this distance.

Now we take forks for granted.

THE SPOON

The spoon seems to belong in the mouth.

The spoon is not quite grownup in the way the knife and fork are.

It doesn’t menace. It isn’t a tamed weapon.

The spoon is the utensil of childhood, the friendliest utensil. The spoon is childlike. Yum-yum. Scoop me up, pour me in. Like a cradle, a shovel, a hand cupped. Doesn’t cut or pierce or impale. It accepts. Round, curved. Can’t stick you. Don’t trust your child with a knife or a fork, but how can a spoon harm? The spoon is itself a child.

The world is full of pleasures. One has only to be where one is. Here. Now.

Give me my spoon, my big spoon, and I’ll eat the world. A metal spoon is an afterthought. While a wooden knife is less of knife, a wooden spoon isn’t less of a spoon. It’s just fine.

“Spooning”: embracing, kissing, petting. Lovers in bed fit together in sleep like spoons.

To bring about a music “that will be part of the noises of the environment, will take them into consideration. I think of it as melodious, softening the noises of the knives and forks, not dominating them, not imposing itself,” wrote John Cage, quoting Erik Satie.

What happened to the spoons? Don’t spoons make noises, too?

Softer noises.

And music. Music is made with two spoons (not with two forks, two knives).

Spoon music.

THE KNIFE

See.Passing it to you   - you asked for it - I proffer it by the handle, keeping the blade pointed at my self.
The blade is pointing at me