/lit/ - Literature

Can be a short story, or an entire novel. Although, I think we ALL know, her short stories are where it's at.

The kind that shows things from a great distance. Very little, if any, dialogue. Instead of a chapter covering a few hours, or even a few days, it covers months or years. Maybe a few time jumps. Lots of information-rich writing, very dense. Examples include One Hundred Years of Solitude, Daughter of Fortune, and The Birthday Party (Panoz Karnezis).

I would love more books written in this style, but it is rarely employed. Why not? Is there a name for it?

Paul Torday - The Girl On The Landing.

Seems to be kind of general reading, may be (slightly) pulpy, but I dunno. only £2.99. Very modern, 2009, I think. Anyone read this? Also what blind buys have you done recently?

>>3063581

I think this girl is beautiful.

Kane and Abel - Jeffrey Archer
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
3 other really cheap books

Oh God. I actually want to read KAA a lot, and would pay full price for it (rather than £1.50, which is how much they're selling it for), but the others look...eh. They're all £2 though. Vanity Fair looks alright, but then I'll have to pick 3 garbage books from the Wordsworth Classics range. Which should I get? I thought I might try reading Jack London, i.e. White Fang.

What does ART mean to you? What's it about that intrigues you?

What is the most superior art?

You can't post the same name twice (or three times).

Plot - Isaac Asimov
Characters - Margaret Atwood
Prose - Salinger

Remember Fountains of Wayne, or La Roux, or Tatu? Yeah, me neither.

He wrote one great book: 2666. It was very good in almost every way, and I've got a lot of enjoyment out of it. So far, so good. He also wrote pretty average stuff like Amulet and Last Evenings on Earth, and complete crap like Monsieur Pain and The Skating Rink. What's his problem? To be fair, it's not so much hackery from the author, more from his publishers, who want to squeeze every last dollar out of his corpse. It's like David Foster Wallace, nothing is too low! I saw a book that was the last interview done with Bolano. It wasn't a special interview, it just happened to be the last one. To say nothing of how his short stories are divied up, with about 250 pages of stories in each collection, when they could be more robust.

Fucking Roberto Bolano.

JD Salinger
Orson Scott Card
Isaac Asimov
Margaret Atwood
Richard Yates
Jonathan Franzen
David Foster Wallace
Mario Vargas Llosa
Roberto Bolano
Haruki Makumari
Kazuo Ishirugo
Isabel Allende

All good and great authors. I don't know how to feel about this, though. I OFTEN feel I read the same people too much, but I get nervous when reading new novelists. Many of them I don't like, and never read again.

Who comprises your main core of reading? Or do you prefer to read lots of different writers?What do you think of my own core?

John Updike is mediocre, although not terrible. If you want middle-class awesomeness, read either Richard Yates or Jonathan Franzen. I've only read Rabbit, Run, but thought it was meh.

I'm starting to really like this guy. I remember reading Valis about 18 months ago, and despite low expectations, I thought it was fairly good. I saw The Adjustment Bureau recently and enjoyed it. I'm reading The Man In The High Castle, and think this might be his best work I've read yet, although I'm only partway through. Only love for this troubled but talented man?

JOnathan Strange and Mr NOrrell - Susanne Clark. 1,006 pages in my trade paperback edition. It was probably the only very long book I'm going to read this year.

Warning: green text.

> fairly big reader
> meet girl
> try and get her interested in books
> fail
> try and at least get her into video games
> fail
> be friends with her quietly for several years
> go on with my life, such as it is

Franny and Zooey - JD Salinger

One of my top 20 books.

>implying this is acceptable for someone over 10

I was thinking about reading it, too.