Hi,
I was wondering if you guys were reading any good books while studying for the LSAT? I wanted to know if any of you could recommend any? It's make RC easier for me :)
1
Hi,
I was wondering if you guys were reading any good books while studying for the LSAT? I wanted to know if any of you could recommend any? It's make RC easier for me :)
30 comments
Told the librarian that i was preparing for the LSAT and needed a novel that would kick my ass, one extremely complex and riddled with referential phrasing. She recommended author Thomas Pynchon. Cracked "Against the Day". I couldnt get out of the 1st chapter without a dictionary and a venn diagram.
Ch. 2 1st par
"As they came in low over the Stockyards, the smell found them, the smell and the uproar of flesh learning its mortality- like the dark conjugate of some daylit fiction they had flown here, as appeared increasingly likely, to help promote. Somewhere down there was the White City promised in the Columbian Exposition brochures, somewhere among the tall smokestacks unceasingly vomiting black grease-smoke, the effluvia of butchery unremitting, into which the buildings of the leagues of city lying downwind retreated, like children into sleep which bringeth not reprieve from the day. In the Stockyards, workers coming off shift, overwhelmingly of the Roman faith, able to detach from earth and blood for a few precious seconds, looked up at the airship in wonder, imagining a detachment of not necessarily helpful angels."
Its pretty killer
Thank you :) reading 1 book per week just got exciting LOL
@mariesutton291 Looks interesting! One of my closest friend in undergrad was Hmong and where I went to school, let's just say, nobody knew what a Hmong was lol. I learned so much about her culture.
Just read the reviews online for it. I'll def be requesting it when I go back to the library in 2 weeks.
Thanks Dillon!
Thanks Nathan!
I'll be looking into both books.
@igbodoe249 thank you. I added it to my cart. I might have to wait until after the LSAT for this book as well. After reading the reviews o.O haha but Ive heard my boss mention how college and law school are completely different. In undergrad, as a double major, she never had to study and she managed to get by with a 3.8. Once she started law school, her GPA suffered. She didn't know how to study. Since she was not used to it. She said it's something that nobody knows how to prepare for until you're in law school and you learn along the way, if you don't have a great studying method.
@jwarre26131 that 2nd paragraph actually grabbed my attention. I want to know more! It's over a 1000 pages. That won't be read in a week. & according to the reviews it looks as if I'll have to sit next a notebook to write down all of the words that I'm not sure what exactly they mean in the context they're being used and browsing through an encyclopedia. Which seems like something I'll be reading after the LSAT. Thanks!
http://www.amazon.com/One-Turbulent-Story-Harvard-School/dp/0143119028
One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School
"A wonderful book...it should be read by anyone who has ever contemplated going to law school. Or anyone who has ever worried about being human." -The New York Times
It was a year of terrors and triumphs, of depressions and elations, of compulsive work, pitiless competition, and, finally, mass hysteria. It was Scott Turow's first year at the oldest, biggest, most esteemed center of legal education in the United States. Turow's experiences at Harvard Law School, where freshmen are dubbed One Ls, parallel those of first-year law students everywhere. His gripping account of this critical, formative year in the life of a lawyer is as suspenseful, said The New York Times, as "the most absorbing of thrillers."
@n8turley Mine too! But it looks like a great book!
@n8turley have you read The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano?
@n8turley Thanks I did look at that link. Seems like something I'd enjoy reading. Hopefully my library will have a copy if not I'll just order one.
I feel that reading books on various topics will be beneficial overall, not just for the LSAT. I tried to get a sci-fiction book and that was just... blah. I couldn't do it. Science related RC passages aren't the best for me so instead I just read articles online on Scientific American. Still not the best approach but it's better than nothing. Reading makes me feel relaxed lol so when I don't feel motivated to study I pull out my books and read.
OOOOOO then I have so many recommendations! :) (I'm more of a fiction reader than non-fiction)
Fiction (mostly dystopians/magical realism):
- Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami -- if you haven't read anything by him)
- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Haruki Murakami)
- Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
- Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood)
- Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood)
- Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
- One Hundred Year of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Non-Fiction
- The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion)
- Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Carol Dweck)
- Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell)
- David and Goliath (Malcolm Gladwell)
- Thinking Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman)
These are my favorites but there is obviously a skew in fiction genre because dystopian novels are my favorite. If there's a particular genre you'd want to see more of, I'd be happy to indulge more.
@n8turley Turley and @morganschumann943 -- Wow! Now I really have to get stuck into 1Q84. You've intrigued me with your posts. More to come...
I remember as a teenager reading Siddhartha by Herman Hesse for the first time, and then the second, and then the third... That book hit me deep as a youngster. Now in my middle years I relate strongly to Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. Going to law school fits with that theme ;-)
I just picked up The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down... good so far!
@morganschumann943 I'm a Murakami fan too! "A Wild Sheep Chase" is one of my all-time favorites. I've been saving his three-book 1Q84 till after the LSAT. I'll get on and start it now to help me get over my weird post-LSAT blues!
Dillon, I'm totally going to look into that one once I'm done my current one!
I don't read a lot of thrillers and biographies/autobiographies (though I've heard good things about Patti Smith's autobiography).
For metafiction, I'd recommend:
Anything and everything by Vonnegut (emphasis on Slaughterhouse-Five)
Infinite Jest (it's a BEAST)
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
NW by Zadie Smith (she also just came out with a book called 'Z' that's more recent)
I'd also reemphasize Kafka on the Shore and Handmaid's Tale, given your preferences. :)
Nice. Thank you!!! I'll be sure to look these up!
Off the top of my head I would say that I enjoy reading books about Crime/Detective, Legend, Metafiction, Realistic fiction, Suspense/Thriller, Biography/Autobiography, etc.
Fiction/Non-Fiction... Anything really. I've been reading books from the NY Times Best Seller List.
I recommend Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer and A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley. These books helped me better understand how people learn and how memory works.
@igbodoe249 - without giving too much away, does it have a good ending? Cuz if it doesn't, I don't want someone to convince me that I shouldn't go to law school. I hear it all day every day.
@igbodoe249 Not yet - it's sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read!
@mariesutton291 I read 1Q84 last year - when you get through it, let me know what you think of it. @igbodoe249 you should also consider something by Hari Kunzru. His "Gods Without Men" was fantastic: http://goo.gl/DC3jal
Ah, I'm so jealous you haven't read it! I wish I could re-read it as if it was my first time reading it. You'll have a blast! :D