MarkFord
How to Speak Intelligently About Everything That Matters identifies and explains important ideas you’re likely to encounter in conversations with powerful people, wealthy people, political people, social people, and—most of all—smart and interesting people.
Think of it as a “cheat sheet” to the most important ideas—ideas that can explain, elucidate, and enrich your life.
After reading the book, you will:
- Feel confident discussing Adam Smith and his contribution to our current understanding of economics.
- Be able to explain how the “dead parrot” speech in Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a wonderful modern example of the ancient figure of speech known as commoratio.
- Be able to distinguish the differences between high comedy, low comedy, and farce.
- Understand the meaning of memento mori and know why you should care about it.
- Explain why a young Thomas Kyd beheads rats in the movie Shakespeare in Love.
- Know why you shouldn’t be intimidated by textual criticism, exegesis, and hermeneutics.
- Be familiar with famous people you’d previously never heard of, such as Alisa Zinov′yevna Rosenbaum (Ayn Rand) and François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire).
- Know the difference between blank and free verse.
- Understand how Steven King’s Carrie is a modern example of the epistolary novel.