Annie Kapur

Now we move closer to Part 50, and then, our milestone at Part 60. I want to say how much fun I have had so far writing these pieces for you to read. I hope that you have gotten some good reading material and had some fun too, reading a few funny and strange cases of my encounters with books. I believe that books are the most important things in the world because they contain information, stories, and so much more. It doesn’t even matter on the book; you could be reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales or you could be reading a textbook for your medical degree finals exam, the point is that you’re using a book and you now have a connection with it that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. The importance of having a connection with a book is to gain the knowledge that the book unlocks, and also to trade and treasure your books along with friends who appreciate books as much as you do.

Shot of Love is the 21st Studio Album by Bob Dylan, yes, but it is also of prime importance as marking the end of the Born-Again Christian/Gospel Era with the third album in the series. Beginning with "Slow Train Coming", this series built up with the album Saved, in which contained the song "In the Garden" that Marc Bolan of T-Rex called a brilliantly written and beautiful song. However, normally it is cited that Shot of Love is the better album of the three despite being released last.

After the success of the albums The Times They Are A-Changin' and The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan had really made a name for himself as the singer of the protest song or the bard of the 60s. He then went on to create this severely underrated masterpiece. Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) was the guitar-strumming, nasal-singing, poetic-balance that met the previous albums with a slightly less serious sound and yet, has some songs on it that are considered a few of Bob Dylan’s greatest masterpieces. This is also where Bob Dylan experiments with sounds that he’ll revisit on Bringing it All Back Home (1965). I mean just listen to the song “Black Crow Blues” from Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) and then listen to the songs “On the Road Again” and “Outlaw Blues” from Bringing it All Back Home (1965). I mean the latter songs may be electric, but they have the same basic bluesy concept. What I’m going to do in this article is explain to you five things about the album Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) that I love in celebration of its birthday. I feel like sometimes this album is overlooked because of the success of Freewheelin’ and the iconic status of The Times They Are a-Changin’. But it is the first album that really begins the myth of the ever-changing Bob Dylan and here are the five things I’ve chosen to go through today.

We’re now on part 47 of our journey, and as I have recently stated—I’ve found a bunch of new stuff to talk about. At the moment I’m just trying to figure out what to talk about first, and I think I may have a good idea here with a book I recently read on a train called, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Now, we see the similarities. I know I’ve spoken about why I don’t like this book before, but recently, after going over it one more time, I’ve found a few more things wrong with the book that I’d like to bring to light.

Now that we've discussed philosophy in Part 45, we're going to discuss another topic briefly for part 46. I think that there are many people who overlook this topic purely for the reason of "it is hard to read". These books are historical records and books depicting history. This isn't historical fiction—this is historical non-fiction. People believe that if they can't read these books as quickly as they read normal ones then they're not worth reading. The truth is that these books aren't about speed (then again, no book is about speed), but these books aren't about how quickly you can read them—the best thing about these books is how absorbed you can become in the history of what you're reading.

We are now approaching the milestone of fifty, and then, we'll probably have a celebration post at sixty. But for now, I want to talk about our topic today without further introduction. Believe it or not, I have recently found some new things to talk about, much to your dismay. Since we recently talked about the importance of reading biographical and autobiographical texts, I think it would be important to talk about why it is important to read philosophy—though we may not all like studying it at university because the lecturer used to actually put us to sleep and it was like five flights of stairs just to get to the damn "MA Western Philosophical Tradition Class" that they used to just fall asleep in anyway (Yes, my experiences haven't been all that great)—but to read, philosophy is pretty brilliant.