/lit/ - Literature

Decribe your outlook / attitudes with FOUR BOOKS
--- TWO FICTION AND TWO NON-FICTION.

>i.e. what books did you connect with the most when reading them on an intellectual / comedic / sociological / philosophical / emotional level.

You can add explanations or not. I'm doing this so we can find out what kind of people are on /lit/ and if we can find any interesting books in the process.

FICTION
>Flann O'Brien - At Swim-Two-Birds
I'm Irish, so the sense of humour clicked with me, and I read it when I was quite poor in college (it's free to attend in Ireland, so anyone from any class background can go) and it described my life at that point in tim.
>James Joyce - Ulysses
Before the accusations of pretentiousness - I don't see myself as some grand thinker. As I said, I'm Irish, and it was a bizarre experience reading Ulysses living in Dublin over 100 years later, but feeling as if it could've been written yesterday. When asked about the surrealism in his novels Joyce said that if you wanted to hear real surrealism, just listen in to a conversation in any Dublin pub. I spent much of my time in Dublin in working-class pubs and early-houses frequented by older people and it felt like a window to a past that's ending, due to the Celtic tiger and its legacy. The humour and weirdness of the book felt very familiar and it felt like reading the journal of an eccentric uncle you get along very well with. I can connect intellectually and emotionally to all sorts of novels, but Ulysses was something I lived in for weeks and months. I've re-read it. I don't pretend to get all the references and allusions, but I still love it. Also, I would never admit in public that it's one of my favourite books, as I would sound like a pretentious twat.

NON-FICTION
>George Orwell - Down and Out in Paris and London
It's a bleaker picture of expat life. I am an expat, and while it's not the drudgery that Orwell experienced here, expat life is certainly not Lord Byron-esque. I also agree with Orwell in most things, apart from the tendencies towards jingoism and creeping-conservatism you can see in his work sometimes.
>Antonio Gramsci - Selections from the Prison Notebooks
It's hard to believe one guy wrote this. His level of insight is overwhelmingly impressive. I would give both testicles to be able to think like him.