/lit/ - Literature

The God of Small Things - some dude
The Feel of an Ending - Julian Barnes

I kinda wanna read Ending, but because of the shortness, it would have to be VERY good, page by page. Like, F&Z good.

As for the other, tell me a little about it. I flipped through it the other day, and it seemed like an enjoyable bildungsroman, but I'm not sure.

Great Tier

The Wastelands

Good Tier

The Stand
Song of Susannah
TDOTT
Needful Things
Full Dark, No Stars

Decent Tier

Wizard and Glass
Under The Dome
Carrie

Bad Tier

The Gunslinger
Dark Tower VII
IT
Wolves of the Calla

Here.

Franny and Zooey - 6 times
The Birthday Party - 4 times
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - 8 times
Foundation - about 10 times
Foundation and Empire - about 6 or 7 times
Second Foundation - about 12 times (my favourite novel)

Especially if the characters don't cross-interract much, which leads to about 15 different plots? Consider this question in the context of postmodernism, if it matters.

Have you ever visited that portion of Erin's plot that offers its sympathetic soil for the minute survey and scrutinous examination of those in political power, whose decision has wisely been the means before now of converting the stern and prejudiced, and reaching the hand of slight aid to share its strength in augmenting its agricultural richness?

Another section:

She tried hard to keep herself a stranger to her poor old father's slight income by the use of the finest production of steel, whose blunt edge eyed the reely covering with marked greed, and offered its sharp dart to faultless fabrics of flaxen fineness.

...are there in your town / city?

3. A Waterstones, a single-outlet store, and a charity bookshop (lol). Later is pretty good, middle is alright, last is bad. TBQH, none are as good as Amazon.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and my first Jeeves novel by PG Wodehouse, I forget which one. I got them today at Waterstones. Which one should I read first?

Leviathan – Paul Auster (decent)
The Books of Illusions – Paul Auster (good)
The Bonesetter’s Daughter – Amy Tan (good)
Dubliners – James Joyce (bad)
The Brooklyn Follies – Paul Auster (okay)
The Music of Chance – Paul Auster (okay)
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (bad)
Full Dark, No Stars – Stephen King (decent)
One Day – David Nicholls (decent)
White Teeth - Zadie Smith (didn't finish)

Most of the books I bought recently have been enjoyable.

Just say the name of a book, and we'll talk about it. Any book at all, any genre, any writer, any time period.

BEST

The Feast of the Goat
The War of the End of the World
The Bad Girl
The Way to Paradise
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Death in the Andes
The Green House
Conversation in the Cathedral

WORST

This dude is all over the place, he drunkenly staggers about the literary spectrum from amazing to awful. Is he ill, does he have something wrong with him?

The Sands of Mars – Arthur C Clarke
Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
Black Rain - Ibuse Masuji
Brazzaville Beach – William Boyd
The Green House - Mario Vargas Llosa
Let The Right One In - John Ajvide Lindqvist
Lady Chatterly’s Lover – D H Lawrence
Amrita – Banana Yoshimoto
Against The Day – Thomas Pynchon

All partially read, but not finished, whether it be 20 pages, 100 pages, or 800 pages (Against The Day). Which should I resume reading first?To be honest, I'm not too hot on any of them, hence the slush pile, but still. I'm leaning towards Against The Day.

...which writer do you think is the most plausible, and least plausible, with the bizarreness of their works? Thomas Pynchon, DFW, Roberto Bolano.

I'd say Pynchon is the least believable, DFW is somewhere inbetween, the Bolano is pretty realistic. That's why I like Bolano and DFW, because their stuff is strange but could actually happen, even in the present day. Pynchon sometimes (but not always) goes too far, and it just get ridiculous.

Thoughts on this?