Reading Interview Episode 2: Amy Ratsara

Reading Interview Episode 2: Amy Ratsara

Jan 18, 2018 | Interviews

This is the second episode of the Reading Interview Series, where I chat with bookworms, avid readers and learners, to unpack their reading habits and philosophy.

 

 

In this episode I chat with Amy Ratsara. She is an attorney in the state of Michigan, who is a good friend. We love to talk about books and podcasts we like. One of the main reasons I want to interview her is her background in history and law, and we talk a lot about reading history in this conversation. For those of you who are thinking about or currently attending law school, she has some great tips on reading case laws and preparing for class. Hope you’ll enjoy this episode. As usual, all the books and links mentioned in the interview can be found below.

 

Connect with Amy on Twitter and Instagram: @amyratsara

2. Reading Interview Series: Amy Ratsara

Mentioned Books, Authors, Podcasts, and Links

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Living History by Hillary Clinton
Madam Secretary by Madeleine Albright
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel
The Path of Loneliness by Elisabeth Elliot
House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Feedly RSS reader
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Skipping Christmas by John Grisham
Hidden Christmas by Timothy Keller
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas
Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
The Desire of Ages by Ellen White
The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller
American girl books
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
 
 
 
Minute Markers:
Childhood reading [1:08]
How her reading changed as she grew older [4:16]
Discovering her love of history [12:00]
Why history is important and inexhaustible [15:41]
How she picks books and resources now [21:00]
Good audiobooks she listened to recently [23:27]
Continual learning in law [26:26]
Reading tips for law students, how to annotate passages [30:15]
Applying the reading tips for general reading [36:31]
How to learn the historiography of a topic [37:25]
Debates on how history is popularized [40:20]
Bias in biographies [43:43]
Methods to select books to buy/borrow/purge [46:48]
What she’s reading right now [51:37]
Resources for people who want to start learning about American History [53:55]
How 2017 impacted her reading habits [57:15]
How to keep learning [1:00:39]
 
 

 

 

Attributions

 
 

 

*Amazon Product links on this blog are Amazon Affiliate links, which means that each time you purchase something through those links, I get a small commission without you paying any extra. Of course you don’t have to use them, but if you want to chip-in towards content creation for this blog, I’d really appreciate it!

 

Reading Interview Episode 1: Justin Kim

Reading Interview Episode 1: Justin Kim

Sep 22, 2016 | Interviews

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Reading Interview Series, where I chat with bookworms, avid readers and learners, to unpack their reading habits and philosophy.

 

My first guest is Justin Kim. Justin Kim is a public speaker and minister for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. His official title is Assistant Director of Sabbath School and Personal Ministries at the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Church, as well as the Editor of Collegiate Quarterly, a religious publication for young adults. He graduated from a Roman Catholic high school, a Jewish-sponsored university, and has dialogued with many denominations.

 

In this conversation, we talked about how he digests books, how he uses audiobooks, reading in first and second languages, parenting and reading, reading for students and graduate students, how he finds time to read, using emotion as a tool for learning, and much more. I enjoyed it tremendously and I hope you will too.

Visit Justin’s Blog, beforethink.org. Connect on Twitter: @justinkimjk

1. Reading Interview Series: Justin Kim

Mentioned Books, Authors, and Links
Encyclopedia of Britannica
The Bible
Ellen G. White
The Big Five
John Stott
Philip K. Dick
J. R. R. Tolkien
Curious George
 
 

 

 
Minute Markers:
Current work at the General Conference of  Seventh-day Adventist Church [1:53]
People’s behavior towards digital vs. print publications [4:42]
How he started reading and loving to read [7:00]
On collecting series [8:40]
How the genres he reads change over time [10:29]
Learning reading and writing skills in college [12:12]
On the book, How to Read a Book, and the multiple ways to read a book [14:57]
Whether he reads cover to cover [18:45]
Reading in first and second languages [19:27]
The types of books he reads now [23:04]
How to improve the mind’s life: reading 7 types of books [23:50]
What he is reading right now [25:34]
How he finds titles to read [26:24]
Books vs. ebooks [28:20]
On audiobooks [30:29]
The power of narratives [32:40]
How many books he goes through per month [33:33]
How he remembers what he read [34:53]
On lending books to other people [38:11]
On using public libraries and borrowing audiobooks [40:19]
How he arranges his bookshelves [43:47]
What he reads for entertainment [47:53]
The relationship between science fiction and systematic theology [48:47]
How he finds time to read [53:02]
Parenting and reading [55:23]
Selecting children’s books [59:33]
Favorite children’s books [01:02:00]
What he wants to get better at in terms of reading [01:04:14]
Important skills for students and graduate students [01:05:45]
Books he would give to a younger version of himself [01:06:13]
What people should read [01:07:25]
 
 

 

 

Attributions

 
 

 

*Amazon Product links on this blog are Amazon Affiliate links, which means that each time you purchase something through those links, I get a small commission without you paying any extra. Of course you don’t have to use them, but if you want to chip-in towards content creation for this blog, I’d really appreciate it!

 

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