/lit/ - Literature

What is the opening line to your novel anon, how do you get your reader invested with that first sentence ?

Nansen saw the monks of the eastern and western halls fighting over a baby cat. He seized the cat and said, "If any of you can say a word of Zen, you can spare the cat. Otherwise I will kill it." No one could answer. So Nansen cut the cat in two .

That evening Joshu returned and Nansen told him what had happened. Joshu thereupon took off his sandals and, placing them on his head, walked away. Nansen said, "If only you had been there, you could have saved the cat."

describe this image in your best prose? what does it say about our society?

Can one classic be objectively better than another classic?
Numerous books have been written throughout history and most of them were lost. If there weren't some discernible quality to the classics, they wouldn't have survived. Maybe you don't get what a classic is classic for, but someone else does, so you can't objectively claim a classic as bad.
Do you agree?

Why was this year so special?
>Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith killed on this year
>Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels met on this year
>Marx wrote the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts on this year
>Friedrich Nietzsche was born on this year
>William Miller predicted Jesus would come on this year
>Ellen G. White said Jesus began the investigative judgment on this year
>The Bab announced himself on this year
>Abdul Baha, son of Bahaullah, born on this year
>Max Stirner wrote the Ego and Its Own on this year

Are we really living in the best of times? I recently read ISAIF and couldn't agree more with Uncle Ted, we got to destroy the System!

What am I in for? Should I read it as part of Mahabharata or reading it byself would be fine?

I would say Cicero, Cato, P. Manlius, you know, the best ones. But I would love it if someone said they like Nero or Brutus or some crazy shit like that.

I once read a quote about the love "winners" claim from the gods, and the love "losers" claim from Cato, which I liked.

What’s your favorite book on chess?

>anti war books

Thoughts?

Happy weekend /lit/izens. Suggest some great non-fiction books you've read. Better if they're on a diverse range of subjects.
.
Here are my recommendations:

-The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson

-Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

-The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer

Happy weekend /lit/izens. Suggest some great non-fiction books you've read
.
Here are my recommendations:

-The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson

-Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

-The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer

I've always been very interested in the way food, and the way we eat together shape our behavior and culture and vice versa.

For instance did you know that in old times children were made to stand at the table and were not allowed to speak? Nowadays we invite children to sit down with us and dine as our equals, this is indicative of a paradigm shift in our culture.

Any recommended reading on food history?
Pic related is, in my opinion, the quintessential researcher on the role coffeehouses played in shaping the way we view gender roles in post-restoration England, Brian Cowan.
Kind of an arcane subject I know but surprisingly interesting, I actually think he posts here but I can't confirm.

is there anything it can't do?

Has 21st century literature produced a writer greater than LD?

Would you date an analytic?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSdf8NZrL3c

>A writer of books for boys. Certainly better than Conrad. Has at least a voice of his own. Nothing I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Loathe his works about bells, balls, and bulls.

Was Nabokov right about Hemingway?

I have ascended.