> When he was growing up, Spartz said, his parents made him read “four short biographies of successful people every single day. Imagine for a second what happens to your brain when you’re twelve and this is how you’re spending your time.”
I'd be interested in seeing his list of recommended books. (It's difficult to find good biographies that are also concise.)
"On a weight-lifting bench, [Emerson's father] had arranged a two-foot stack of the “short biographies of successful people” that I had heard about from Emerson. They turned out to be extremely short: a single-sided page each, photocopied from a newspaper called Investor’s Business Daily."
Who was making the joke? The reporter lying to make the subject look bad? The subjects staging something to make themselves look bad?
I am very curious, I use that same journalistic technique in my writing. You don't editorialize, you report the subjects statements and report the facts and readers can see for themselves when the subject has said something foolish or dishonest.
I'm a bit concerned that this isn't a good tactic to use. A major theme of that article was the juxtaposition of the "Change the world", "He's a great guy" statements of the subject and the actual actions being only concerned with attention and money.
I'd be interested in seeing his list of recommended books. (It's difficult to find good biographies that are also concise.)