Reading fiction has a long-lasting effect on your brain. While previous scientific knowledge on reading’s impact was limited to how reading makes a definite, but temporary, impression on our brains, new research shows that when people read a novel, they also experience what’s been called “embodied semantics” for days after they finish reading.

What this means is that the reader is not merely empathizing with the protagonist during the reading process. In fact, the reader’s brain is stimulated to such an extent that brain regions associated with the actual activities the protagonist is described as performing are activated in the reader. These findings suggest for the first time that the act of reading creates mental experiences at a deeper level than previously thought.

The researchers at Emory University found that when the person reads about a specific action, their language-processing brain area mirrors that activity as if the person was experiencing it themselves. In other words, if someone reads a story in which the main character goes for a jog or plays tennis, the reader’s brain activity shows that those neuron connections associated with those activities are turned on. Reading a novel, concluded the researchers, in essence merges protagonist and reader to such a deep level that that the reader actually experiences the protagonist’s adventures.

What the reader processes on paper is actually felt at physical level — a finding that comes to reinforce previous research on how reading improves skills that have to do with understanding and sympathizing with others. A page-turner that involves you in a story has multiple effects. It lets you experience worlds and adventures otherwise inaccessible, and it also draws you in mentally and emotionally so that you’re “co-starring” in the book.

Fiction, and literature more generally, sometimes don’t lend themselves to speed reading, due to this in-depth experience. But would it be possible to experience the same amount of connectivity with non-fiction content? The answer is that it’s highly unlikely. Non-fiction content is in general simply factual and informative, free of emotion, action, and conflict. Fiction, including poetry and literature, is created with the aim of stimulating both visceral and intellectual responses from the reader.

Use your speed reading skills for non-fiction, and that will leave you more free time to experience embodied semantics by reading good literature at a comfortable pace. Literature is one type of content better enjoyed at a slow reading pace.

Have you ever tried to speed read a poem or novel?

by Dan Bloom

Martin Scorsese plans to shoot his new movie “Silence” in Taiwan rather than in Japan, after seeing what Taiwanese-American director Ang Lee was able to accomplish there with Oscar-winner “Life of Pi.” In fact, with more and more Hollywood films shooting parts of their films in Taipei and other scenic spots around the island nation, some people have taken to calling the evolving cinema world of Taiwan as “Tollywood.”

Although the Scorsese film is based on an obscure 1966 Japanese novel that tells the story of a hapless Jesuit missionary trying in vain to introduce Christianity to Buddhist and Shinto Japan in the 1600s, Scorsese has already scouted locations in Taiwan after getting a welcoming greenlight from Lee.

Scorsese and a small production team visited Taiwan this month on an eight-day trip to scout locations for the movie. They visited Taipei, Taichung and Hualien in their search for potential film locations for the movie, which is based on a Japanese novel set in Japan. Scorsese feels the Taiwan location will be less stressful and more colorful than shooting the period piece in the real Japan of today, since Taiwan still contains architecture and village scenes from the Japanese Colonial Period (1895 – 1945) when Japan ruled the island with a colonial mindset.

Taipei Film Commission director Jennifer Jao told local media that Scorsese “likes Taiwan very much” and plans to be back on location in the summer to shoot the film.

“We hope that the film will be shot entirely in Taiwan,” Jao told a reporter for Apple Daily, adding that the commission will provide crew, some cast members, film equipment, transportation services and media assistance to Scorsese and his team during filming.

According to media reports, actors signed up to be in the film include Liam Neeson (”Taken”), Andrew Garfield (”The Amazing Spider-Man”), Ken Watanabe (”Inception”) and Adam Driver (”J. Edgar” and ”Lincoln”).

The 71-year-old director and his crew went undiscovered in Taiwan during their February visit as they scouted locations, but when a customer at a Hualien recognized the director, the entertainment media had a field day snappinmg photos and writing stories.

Prior to touching down in Taipei, Scorsese had been in Tokyo to promote “The Wolf of Wall Street” along with stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill by his side.

While “Silence” will be shot in Taiwan, the movie will be released as a Japanese-language film with Japanese dialog dubbed in in post-production, according to sources.

Garfield and Watanabe have already been cast in the movie, the sources said.

Scorsese went to Cannes last year to try to sell “Silence” — a personal pet project still in development after 24 years of gestation — to foreign buyers, and he’s ready to roll on the project he started in 1989.

Taipei City and the surrounding countryside will serve as the principal photography locations and Taiwanese film officials, already happy with the global publicity that native son Lee’s ”Life of Pi” brought in, are more than welcoming to Scorsese’s plans, according to local media here.

While Taiwan is not Japan, Taiwan was a colony of Japan for 50 years and much of the country still retains many areas and buildings that look like they belong right in the middle of old Tokyo.

Scorsese apparently got the idea to shoot the movie in Taiwan after personally conferring with Lee and getting his personal recommendation. Scorsese said Lee recommended that he seriously consider thinking about shooting “Silence” in Taiwan when the two men
chatted after attending a screening Scorsese’s ”Hugo” three years ago.

Lee was in the middle of filming “Life of Pi” at the time and had nothing but good things to say about the crews and government officials he was working with in his native land. Scorsese listened, and after “Pi” won an Oscar for Lee in early 2013, he made his decision to film in Taiwan, too.

The Japanese novelist Endo (1923 – 1996) was a minority Catholic in a Buddhist and Shinto nation and “Silence” — titled ”Chin-mo-ku” in Japanese — tells the tale of a Jesuit missionary who faced severe prejudice and persecution at that time in Japan’s history. The novel, which  won the 1966 Tanizaki Prize in Tokyo but was never read much outside Japan, is partly written as a letter by a foreign missionary who questions and yet revels in  the existence of a Christian God.

Critics in Japan have said that the theme of ”a silent God” who supports a Jesuit in adversity was greatly influenced by the Endo’s own personal experience of religious discrimination in Japan.

Scorsese, who is Catholic himself, has long been fascinated by the Christian religious impulse and vocation, as seen in his 1988 Paul Schrader-scripted ”The Last Temptation of Christ,” is no stranger to arguing with God. “Christ” was based on the Greek writer Nikos
Kazantzakis’s 1960 novel which spoke of the life of Christ in human terms rather than traditional divine terms.

So expect “Silence” to continue Scorsese’s dialog with God, hidden or not.

1) Talking About BALANCE

2) Spiral Reading

3) What’s Inside That Police Box?

4) Math Lovers Promote Reading

5) No Edges for a Bookcase

 6) Mini Staircase Library

7) Puzzled Bookcase

By Abby Marks Beale of  www.revitupreading.com

Think about your reading education. If you are like most, you haven’t had any reading training since elementary school yet your reading workload has certainly become more challenging and plentiful since then. Some people figure out how to manage it better than others.

The more challenged readers think some or all of these thoughts: “I’m a slow reader”, “I get sleepy when I read”, “I don’t easily understand what I read and I am frustrated”, “I feel like I waste my time when I read”, “I have a hard time concentrating when I read”, and/or “I have a hard time remembering what I read.” All of these negative thoughts reflect passive approaches to reading while people who learn speed reading strategies have more positive thoughts and are more active in their reading process.

Active readers use a variety of specific mindful and conscious reading strategies that force them to gain focus through an increase in reading speed. This increased focus allows for improved comprehension which results in stronger retention.

The active reading strategies are really simple to learn but are NOT widely taught in schools. Simple things like using one’s hands or card to read with or expanding one’s peripheral vision can be easily learned.

Some people think that if they learn speed reading they will have to read everything fast. This is a fallacy. Learning speed reading gives you speed choices that you mindfully decide upon whenever you sit down to read. It means you may speed up over familiar material and slow down over unfamiliar. It may mean you can will be able to read faster when you are sitting at a desk or table and slower when in bed. You ultimately have more control over your reading than ever before.

Look online for speed reading courses and software to learn more about this great skill set!

By Barry Baines

Do you consider yourself to be a victim of your history or do you prefer instead to be Master of your Destiny?  I wonder if you have considered that before because the choice is yours and yours alone.  You get to write the script and you get to act out the play. http://www.the-secret-of-mindpower-and-nlp.com/Determining-your-destiny.html

Some people you know may have had a bit of a raw deal in childhood but have got over it and gone on to great things. Equally, others have had a good start but failed to make the most of it and floundered later on. 

Whatever happens is down to us, not someone else.  Our past is no longer a reality. Whatever happened took place then.  All we have now is our own imperfect memory of it.  Neither is the future real.  It exists only in our imagination and is based on our past memories.

Many of the great names and geniuses in history have suffered great deprivation, sadness and sometimes very short lives. 

Consider Leonardo da Vinci whose mother was just a humble peasant girl.

Isaac Newton’s father died three months before he was born, and Isaac was so small as a baby that he could fit into a two-pint pot.  His stepfather despised him.

Marie Curie’s husband died in a road traffic accident when her children were nine and two years old.  Confucius’s father died when he was three.  Robbie Burns, the great Scottish poet, was raised in poverty, had irregular schooling and died at 37.  Charles Dickens’ family was sent to live in a debtor’s prison because of his father’s bankruptcy and Charles was sent to work in a blacking factory.  Mozart died in poverty at 35.  Oscar Wilde was persecuted because of his sexual orientation, sent to prison and died at 46.

Abraham Lincoln and Rembrandt each suffered the loss of three children, whilst Lincoln and Gandhi were each assassinated by opponents of their political beliefs.

If you wish for a modern day example, consider Oprah Winfrey.  You could hardly have a worse start in life than Oprah.  She is now successful beyond belief and loved and admired the world over.

The common thread that runs through the lives of all these great people is that whatever deprivation they suffered, they educated themselves one way or another.  They each lived rather than passed their time.

Life is taking place now.  So live in the moment.  Enjoy the moment.  By all means plan for the future. 

Take advantage of the present moment to enhance your skills and widen your knowledge.  For example, teach yourself to read at high speed.  Just imagine how much more you can learn and comprehend in a much shorter space of time if you do that.  Get in the fast lane and enjoy the ride! 

by Dan Bloom

A Nevil Shute-like novel about climate change could change the world and possibly even change the political climate that makes acting on climate issues so difficult. And not just a novel with the power of 1957’s “On the Beach,” but a novel that would be turned into a movie as well.

Think about it: What if there was, just imagine this for a moment or two, a ”Nevil Shute Literary Award for Climate-Themed Novels” that was offering a US$1 million purse for a powerful climate-themed novel written by any novelist, female or male, in any country and in any language.

First of all, people would ask: Where are you going to get the money for this prize, to the tune of US$1,000,000? One can imagine the organizers answering: ”We are actively canvassing wealthy individuals who made their money in tech and other media industries to provide seed money for this award, including the founders of PayPal, Ebay, Telsa and others. The money will come. If you build it, they will come.”

The said prize organizers might add:”At this point in human history, a novel that explores the human and emotional implications and ramifications of global warming and climate change in a wake up call and alarm bell kind of way will go a long way towards awakening humanity to the issues facing the world in the 21st century.”

They might even add: “What Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel ”ON THE BEACH” did for public awareness worldwide of nuclear war and nuclear winter issues is what the The Nevil Shute Literary Award for Climate-Themed Novels is all about. We are looking for that person or persons who want to write this kind of wake up call novel set in any country they wish to set it, or in a series of nations, and set in the present or near future.”

By naming this prize after the famous novel by Nevil Shute, the organizing committee probably wants to honor Australia and Mr Shute while at the same time issuing a global call for such a novel. Who
will write it? Stay tuned.

Someone is most likely writing an early draft of her novel right now, his novel, their novel. Outlining it, writing a first chapter or so, putting it through its paces as it morphs from a mere idea and vision into a full-fledged novel, expansive and highly readable. And with a warning to the world embedded in its pages.

”Sometimes, fiction is the best way to win friends and influence people — H. G. Wells’ ”The Time Machine” and George Orwell’s classic, ”1984” come to mind,” climate novelist John Atcheson told me. ”Each provoked a visceral reaction that galvanized the culture around it, changing forever the way issues such as class and totalitarianism were perceived. Shute’s ‘On the Beach’ made the
consequences of nuclear war real, and therefore, unthinkable.”

”In a scientifically illiterate culture such as ours, these kinds of myth-based meta-narratives may be the best way to communicate complex scientific issues like climate change,” he added. “Myths, as Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell revealed, are not necessarily false, nor are they automatically at odds with science. At their best, they provide another way of viscerally experiencing a truth.”’

”A spate of novels and movies that feature climate change as either an overt part of the story-line, or an implicit backdrop against which mythical heroes strive may be creating the critical mass for a cultural awakening that allows climate change to be perceived at that pre-rational level — the kind of limbic awareness that motivates change,” he said. “Or so we can hope.”

CLI FI CENTRAL: ‘Cli-fi’ – a new literary genre
http://pcillu101.blogspot.com/

Self-confidence is critical to success in all walks of life. So many of us are deterred from doing what we really want to do because we do not possess that self-confidence.

We listen far too much to that little voice in the back of our mind that likes to keep us in our comfort zone: “I wouldn’t be any good at that”. Or “I don’t think I’d really like it”. “It is quite beyond my experience”. Or, perhaps the unkindest cut of all: “Well, I’m really too old to learn now.”

All that, of course, is nonsense. But it gives us a reason not to try; it gives us a reason not to push our boundaries; it gives us a reason to stay firmly in our comfort zone where, we think, no harm may befall us.

So how do we start to build that self-confidence that we need to underpin all our efforts? Firstly, we consider what are our true values. We establish those by seeing where we spend our money. We examine our personal space and how we regularly fill it. We consider how we spend the majority of our time.

You see, no matter what we may say, we always have enough money to spend on those things we regard as important to us. We always have enough time for those matters we regard as most important. And we always clutter our personal space with things that are important to us.

Once we have decided what is truly important to us, we move on to consider our goals. What do we really want to do with our lives? Whatever goals we set ourselves need to be congruent with our highest values or we will not stick to them. So decide what they are, work on a plan for achieving them and follow the plan until you reach your objective.

It may well be that in order to achieve what you want in life, you will have to take on board, and learn, large amounts of information. That is where 7 Speed Reading comes in. By following this course you will find that you will be able to read many times faster and increase your comprehension.

Learning to read at speed has enabled me, and many others I know, to absorb vast amounts of information in a short time. And when you can do that, your self-confidence is greatly increased and your chances of success moves forward in leaps and bounds.
http://www.the-secret-of-mindpower-and-nlp.com/