Tag: Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone

Five Books That Changed My Life

Posted May 21, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Top 5 / 0 Comments

As most of you may know, I never use to be much of a reader; it was only last year that I decided to discipline myself to read more. So I thought I might as well share with you five books that really had strong effects on me and my views on life.

Markheim – This short story by Robert Louis Stevenson is definitely my favourite of his works I’ve read so far. The concept is amazing, but I won’t give you any spoilers.
Slaughterhouse-Five – And so it goes…nothing could have prepared me for a book like this. It’s unique in its style and left me pondering it for months after reading it.
Wuthering Heights – I know one reader that would be happy to see this on my list. The reason it does grace this list is the simple fact, that it defied all expectations. I went into this book thinking I knew what the story was about, but it shattered every expectation and left me with a dark and beautiful tale.
Frankenstein – It is apparent that this book has changed my life. I’ve mentioned it before in reference to pop culture and even a Smashing Pumpkins song. This book is simply a brilliant book on very real social issues.
Hey! Nietzsche! Leave them kids alone! – This book is the reason this blog exists. Craig Schuftan opened my eyes to a world I didn’t know by providing some interesting connections between the Romantic Period and today’s music scene.

Question Tuesday: What Is Your Reading History?

Posted May 8, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Question Tuesday / 0 Comments

Welcome to a new section from my blog which I like to call Question Tuesday; each Tuesday I’ll be asking a question relating to reading and book blogging. I have a lot of questions already I want to cover but I want to leave it open for others to ask me questions as well via comments or via twitter. The first question I’m going to cover is my reading history.

While my parents go through phrases of reading a lot and not reading at all (depending on how busy they are), I was never much of a reader when I was young. I think I would read a book a year, and only because I was told I needed to read. It wasn’t till 3 years ago that I started reading (a lot). It all started with a radio segment (The Culture Club on Triple J) where they drew similarities from songs currently on high rotation with poets (mostly from the romantic era). This started my love for reading; the gateway books were Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone! by Craig Schuftan (the author was responsible for The Culture Club) and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Now I’m playing catch up; trying to read all the classics as well as newer book. I’ve set myself a goal of reading at least 100 books a year in the hope that sooner or later I might actually be caught up.

Five Books That Changed My Life

Posted April 12, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature / 0 Comments

Markheim – This short story by Robert Louis Stevenson is definitely my favourite of his works I’ve read so far. The concept is amazing, but I won’t give you any spoilers.
Slaughterhouse-Five – And so it goes…nothing could have prepared me for a book like this. It’s unique in its style and left me pondering it for months after reading it.
Wuthering Heights – I know one reader that would be happy to see this on my list. The reason it does grace this list is the simple fact, that it defied all expectations. I went into this book thinking I knew what the story was about, but it shattered every expectation and left me with a dark and beautiful tale.
Frankenstein – It is apparent that this book has changed my life. I’ve mentioned it before in reference to pop culture and even a Smashing Pumpkins song. This book is simply a brilliant book on very real social issues.
Hey! Nietzsche! Leave them kids alone! – This book is the reason this blog exists. Craig Schuftan opened my eyes to a world I didn’t know by providing some interesting connections between the Romantic Period and today’s music scene.

Disarm – a Modern Frankenstein story

Posted January 22, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Culture / 0 Comments

Billy Corgan from The Smashing Pumpkins wrote the song Disarm about a fantasy of cutting his parents limbs off. Because he hated them, he hated the fact they brought him into this world which is full of hate and all he wants, is to be loved.

“It’s about chopping off somebody’s arms.. The reason I wrote Disarm was because, I didn’t have the guts to kill my parents, so I thought I’d get back at them through song. And rather then have an angry, angry, angry violent song I’d thought I’d write something beautiful and make them realize what tender feelings I have in my heart, and make them feel really bad for treating me like shit. Disarm’s hard to talk about because people will say to me ‘I listen to that song and I can’t figure out what it’s about.’ It’s like about things that are beyond words. I think you can conjure up images and put together phrases, but it’s a feeling beyond words and for me it has a lot to do with like a sense of loss. Being an adult and looking back and romanticizing a childhood that never happened or went by so quickly in a naive state that you miss it.” — Billy Corgan on Disarm

Does this sound familiar?

Well it defiantly does to me, my all time favourite book is “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley which is an amazing story written in two view points. Dr. Victor Frankenstein created a monster and being scared of his creation abandoned it. Monster Frankenstein was a lost soul, with nothing the desire to be loved, yet his creator abandoned him and society feared and wanted to destroy him.

At the very end of the book when asked to justify his actions Monster Frankenstein said something like; “I do this because I feel too much, I was brought into this world with the desire to love and denied it at every turn”

Both Billy Corgan and Monster Frankenstein both wanted to be love but life and society seemed to give them violent thoughts. Billy Corgan expressed his dark thoughts via writing a song but Monster Frankenstein didn’t know how to handle these thoughts.

Support Knowledge Lost and my reading habits, If you wish to get a copy of Frankensteinor the Smashing Pumpkins album which featured Disarm; Siamese Dream do so here.

2009 Wrap Up

Posted December 31, 2009 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature / 0 Comments

I set myself the goal to read 12 books in the year, seemed like a perfect place to start. Especially for someone that is trying to convert into an avid reader. I achieved my goal, and I found some beautiful treasures. Also for those people that don’t count graphic novels, novellas or short stories in the 12, I did read 12 novels as well as a graphic novel, novella & short story.

You must be away that I never really was a reader in my childhood so this is probably as many books as I’ve read in my life previously. Biggest highlight of the year was Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, it is now my security blanket (so to speak); I carry it with me where ever I go, in one form or another. I also know own a beautiful leather-bound copy of the book as well as a paperback (for reading) copy of the book. It is now my measuring stick to every other book I read. In Non Fiction I can’t go past Hey! Nietzsche! Leave them kids alone!: The Romantic Movement, Rock & Roll, And The End Of Civilisation As We Know It, this has started a new found passion in all things Culture and Romantic which lead to this blog.

As for my life time reading goals by completing all the books on the 1001 books to read before you die & Modern Library 100 Best Novels list, I have now read 8 of the 1001 and 2 of the 100. Some extremely interesting books on these lists like; Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death & Nineteen Eighty-Four. Out of all the books on the list of 1001 books to read before you die I was only disappointed in one (American Psycho) but that was possibly due to the fact that the movie is very similar and the book offered nothing new to the story. If I read the book before seeing the movie I’m sure I would have enjoyed it a lot more. Watchmen took a lot of effort to really get into, it was a great story I just felt I struggled at times. Another book that I struggled to get through was Dracula, the story was good but it seemed to drag on and on at times, it could have cut a few sections and still worked.

Hey! Nietzsche! Leave them kids alone!: The Romantic Movement, Rock & Roll, And The End Of Civilisation As We Know It

Posted July 1, 2009 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Non-Fiction / 0 Comments

Hey! Nietzsche! Leave them kids alone!: The Romantic Movement, Rock & Roll, And The End Of Civilisation As We Know It by Craig Schuftan is a non fiction book on the links between The Romantic Movement and Modern Rock music. I absolutely loved this book, it took me 6 months to read because of all the research I did along with it. But I now have a new found obsession with the Romantic Movement and have been reading a lot of great poems from the period.

This book is on the top of my Non Fiction List.