/lit/ - Literature

I'm Sunhawk.

Oh man, /lit/ was right about this, it's a hard book. Not just the prose, but the sheer length of it. I admit, the prose isn't actually that tough, only about as hard as Wallace or Llosa, i.e. hard but not really hard. But the thing is so long, and there are quite a few boring sections. Things are quite interesting at the moment, though, which Wyatt and the art dealer. For now, I'm gonna keep going.

Last three:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay - Michael Chabon
The Wind Through The Keyhole - Stephen King
The Angel Esmeralda - Don DeLillo

Currently reading: The Rules of Civility - Amor Towles

Next 3:

Desperation - Stephen King
The Book of Summers - some woman
This is How You Lose Her - Junot Diaz (reread)

OMG, who's the 'most serious' reader in here? Now, this is cover2cover, fiction, and don't lie, we'll know about it. Well.

I'd say almost 350 for me now. Getting towards extremely well read, rather than 'just' very well read (but the standards of Joe Shmo in the street, and his delightful friend Joanne Shmo).

I'm reading about 40 pages a day, it's such a struggle. How did this shit ever get published? The prose is annoying, with too much dialogue, it's too choppy, sometimes a big word is unnecessarily used, plus too many adverbs. As for content, I sort of like the comic and Jewish stuff, but the escapism parts are dull. Plus, the two eponymous characters are Gary Stus.

Does this get any better?

I don't know why I did this, but it was better written than I remember it being.

>And when he came to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out.

[stupid opinion about book from beginning of thread]

[request for other opinions on book]

[power rankings to compare book needlessly to other books by the same author]

[closing comment, regurgitating what has already been said]

In Waterstones, where I either window or actually shop, once a week.

>hand him the 3 books I'm buying
>"You always buy a lot of interesting books"
>mfw people in shops remember me, and think I have decent taste
>books are mostly Hispanic
>we talk about our shared love of Mario Vargas Llosa, and how awesome The Feast of the Goat and The War of the End of the World are

Wow. I like talking to the Waterstones staff, but I didn't realise they knew me on sight. He also thought my purchases (Love in the Time of Cholera, Sunset Park, Labyrinths) were cool. I felt kind of pleased when I walked home.

I've read In The Country Of Last Things, The City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room, and although they were all fairly enjoyable, and certainly original, I was very annoyed at their horrible shortness. I'd like to read something by him, but AT LEAST 300 pages, if not more. I think his later works are longer, but I'm not sure. Please also give a brief description of the book.

On an unrelated note, the cookies on my computer all got deleted, so I had to make a new tripcode, I guess. Don't worry, it's still me (lol).

I know, another faggot topic by Sunhawk. Sorry about that. But there are a few things that bug me about this board, and I want to talk about them a bit. Hey.

1. Whenever someone posts asking whether 1984 or The Great Gatsby etc. are good, everybody here says that it's entry-level shit that everyone read in high school. No. Not everybody is American, and I read very few of the 'big' American novels during my time at British secondary school. I later chose to read 1984, TGG, Dorian Gray, and so on. Don't assume we're all Americans, or even that all American students are assigned the same things, I suppose.

2. There are other genres than sci-fi and fantasy. On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with sci-fi and fantasy.

3. Stop hating on tripfags. This has been discussed back and force on many boards, and I think it's clear there's nothing wrong with being 'known' on a message board, when you're still pretty much anonymous anyway. Why complain about it? I don't think tripfags are 'ruining' /lit/, at least not many of them.

4. Stop hating on people for what they do or don't read.

Most of the books they give you at school are pretty bad, anyway.

Here's what I think, for what it's worth (not much). In no particular order.

1. David Foster Wallace
2. GRR Martin
3. Franz Kafka
4. Thomas Pynchon
5. Terry Pratchet
6. Ayn Rand
7. Haruki Murakami

Funny. I thought I would have 10 or 20 names, but that's all I could think of.

I used to buy individually, then for a couple of years I bought batches of 4 or 5, now I'm trying to buy in batches of 10 each time, with the intention of them lasting me for a month or slightly more.

This is my opinion...

The Time-Traveller's Wife
Under The Dome
The Feast of the Goat
House of Leaves
Ender's Shadow
Shadow of the Giant
Shadow of the Hegemon
The Delivery Man
2666
Last Evenings on Earth
Freedom
The Corrections
Oryx and Crake
The Year of the Flood
The Robber Bride
Song of Susannah
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Kafka on the Shore

Like I said, all just my opinion. Some are good, some very good, some great.

Just fucking got done with it. Good prose, great plot, great characters. Who else has read it?

Although some of my fave novels are 150 or 200 pages or whatever, I dislike short novels on principle. if you enjoy something, you want it to last as long as possible, right? Then again, there's something to be said for taking out all the filler. Bottom line: short novels are fine, but if you can make the book a fair bit longer without lowering the page-by-page quality, that's great.

Started reading his books last year, tore through 9 of them. Think I'm gonna read his other 5 or so books this year....obviously not the untranslated ones, though. His prose is mediocre, but I like everything else.

I've read these...

2666
The Savage Detectives
Amulet
Gravity's Rainbow
The Crying of Lot 49
V
Vineland
House of Leaves
Richard Yates
Infinite Jest
Girl With Curious Hair
The Broom of the System

What next, /lit/? Maybe something else by Bolano? Or another novel by Pynchon?

I'm having an argument with some individuals on another forum about this. Is he postmodern, or not? 2666, The Savage Detectives, etc.

I'm partway through RIchard Yates, and it reads like it was written by someone with brain damage. I admit, it's quite good, though. It feels a bit like Vonnegut. Thanks for making me aware of its existence, /lit/?

BEST

The Robber Bride
The Blind Assassin
Lady Oracle
Wilderness Tips
Oryx and Crake
The Year of the Flood
Moral Disorder
Cat's Eye
Alias Grace
Surfacing
Bodily Harm
The Handmaid's Tale
Life Before Man

WORST

It's strange, her magnum opus is The Handmaid's Tale, but I hated it. Meh. The Robber Bride and The Blind Assassin are her at her best, and are alos long enough to really get into. Orxy and Crake is alright, but starts off REALLY badly, as do some of her novels.

In no order...

Flannery o'Connor
Margaret Atwood
JD Salinger
Isaac Asimov
Stephen King (lol)
Isabel Allende (also lol)
Huraki Marukami
Victor Hugo
Ayn Rand (lolol)
Margaret Mitchell

I dunno, it's the impression I get. Even the DFW fanboys aren't talking about it much, and when they do, they don't seem excited. Is it because it's 'only' 500 pages, rather than 1,100, and so can't be an epic? I'm not sure. I'm sort of looking forward to it myself, then again, I'm not THAT into DFW.

Goal: to read 100 fiction books (novels, short story collections, etc) this year. For the last 2 years, I've successfully done a 52 book challenge each year. I already have about 15 books planned, and there are 5 I am going to buy tomorrow. Who's behind me in this?