/lit/ - Literature

What are some surprising cases of important authors not having read classic authors?

For example
>Dante didn't read Homer
>Augustine may have not read Plato
>Nietzsche hasn't read much if any Kant

>ITT: post books you liked very much but never saw posted on /lit/

I'll start : The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino.
I talked about it a couple of times on /lit/, but no one ever replied and I've not seen it posted by someone else.
The book is about a Viscount who is cut in half by a canon ball during battle. Surgeons stitch him up, but only one half of him comes back to his land to rule. The book is frankly hilarious, I don't want to spoil it, but I've had several genuine laughs out of it, it's very candid, the prose is very simple, all in all it can easily be read to children (if you have some around), but will be enjoyable even if you're an adult.

We are currently at 54 ballots and 138 nominated books.

Howdy howdy book-brothers. It's that time once again for a monthly poll.
For those of you new to the poll, this is a monthly poll collecting /lit/'s favorite reads of the past month. Poems, plays, novels, essays, virtually any work makes for a valid vote as long as it was something you read in the past month of September.
However, as a reminder, duplicate ballots or spam ballots (ballots where each slot is occupied by the same book) will not be counted in the final tally.
At the end of this week, the ballots will be tallied up and a new chart will be published. Keeping with tradition, one half will be dedicated to those works most-read by /lit/izens, the other half will be a gallery of lesser-known or underappreciated works which were nominated by anons.

You can use the links below to vote, I can't wait to see what you've all been reading! I hope you all had a nice September, autumn will be finally falling now. Happy Reading!


https://forms.gle/UBn1BW3wswUawzUW9
>https://forms.gle/UBn1BW3wswUawzUW9
https://forms.gle/UBn1BW3wswUawzUW9
>https://forms.gle/UBn1BW3wswUawzUW9

We are currently at 40 ballots and 113 nominated books.

Howdy howdy book-brothers. It's that time once again for a monthly poll.
For those of you new to the poll, this is a monthly poll collecting /lit/'s favorite reads of the past month. Poems, plays, novels, essays, virtually any work makes for a valid vote as long as it was something you read in the past month of September.
However, as a reminder, duplicate ballots or spam ballots (ballots where each slot is occupied by the same book) will not be counted in the final tally.
At the end of this week, the ballots will be tallied up and a new chart will be published. Keeping with tradition, one half will be dedicated to those works most-read by /lit/izens, the other half will be a gallery of lesser-known or underappreciated works which were nominated by anons.

You can use the links below to vote, I can't wait to see what you've all been reading! I hope you all had a nice September, autumn will be finally falling now. Happy Reading!


https://forms.gle/UBn1BW3wswUawzUW9
>https://forms.gle/UBn1BW3wswUawzUW9
https://forms.gle/UBn1BW3wswUawzUW9
>https://forms.gle/UBn1BW3wswUawzUW9

Currently at 22 ballots and 64 nominated books.

Howdy howdy book-brothers. It's that time once again for a monthly poll.
For those of you new to the poll, this is a monthly poll collecting /lit/'s favorite reads of the past month. Poems, plays, novels, essays, virtually any work makes for a valid vote as long as it was something you read in the past month of September.
However, as a reminder, duplicate ballots or spam ballots (ballots where each slot is occupied by the same book) will not be counted in the final tally.
At the end of this week, the ballots will be tallied up and a new chart will be published. Keeping with tradition, one half will be dedicated to those works most-read by /lit/izens, the other half will be a gallery of lesser-known or underappreciated works which were nominated by anons.

You can use the links below to vote, I can't wait to see what you've all been reading! I hope you all had a nice September, autumn will be finally falling now. Happy Reading!

https://forms.gle/wnu6owTVdRnE1ULXA
>https://forms.gle/wnu6owTVdRnE1ULXA
https://forms.gle/wnu6owTVdRnE1ULXA
>https://forms.gle/wnu6owTVdRnE1ULXA

Howdy howdy book-brothers. It's that time once again for a monthly poll.
For those of you new to the poll, this is a monthly poll collecting /lit/'s favorite reads of the past month. Poems, plays, novels, essays, virtually any work makes for a valid vote as long as it was something you read in the past month of September.
However, as a reminder, duplicate ballots or spam ballots (ballots where each slot is occupied by the same book) will not be counted in the final tally.
At the end of this week, the ballots will be tallied up and a new chart will be published. Keeping with tradition, one half will be dedicated to those works most-read by /lit/izens, the other half will be a gallery of lesser-known or underappreciated works which were nominated by anons.

You can use the links below to vote, I can't wait to see what you've all been reading! I hope you all had a nice September, autumn will be finally falling now. Happy Reading!

https://forms.gle/wnu6owTVdRnE1ULXA
>https://forms.gle/wnu6owTVdRnE1ULXA
https://forms.gle/wnu6owTVdRnE1ULXA
>https://forms.gle/wnu6owTVdRnE1ULXA

Technically I have only finished 3 books so far this year, but I am most of the way through a 2000 page book and halfway through a 1000 page book. So that should count for something

Good evening /lit/. Yesterday we lost the great voice of Lawrence Ferlinghetti at the age of 101. I'll be honest with you fellas, I didn't know he was still alive until I found he had passed, yet it's always a sad day when an artist moves on. I also found out through his passing that he owned a book shop in California which I hope I may be able to visit one day. But alas! I'm getting distracted, it is reading time after all and I must read you a poem before bed, so tonight I have decided to read to you a poem of Ferlinghetti's which he wrote about my own home town, so with further adieu:

New York - Albany

God I had forgotten how
the Hudson burns
in indian autumn
Saugerties
Coxsackie
fall away through
all those trees
The leaves die turning
falling fallen
falling into loam of dark
yellow into death
Disappearing
falling fallen falling
those 'pestilence-stricken multitudes'
blown all blasted
They are hurting them
with wood rakes
They are raking them
in great hills
They are burning them
the leaves curl burning
the curled smoke gives up
to eternity
Never
never the same leaf turn again
the same leaves burn
In a red field
a white stallion stands
and pees his oblivion
upon those leaves
washing my bus window
only now blacked out
by a covered bridge
we flash through
only once
No roundtrip ticket
never returning the youth years fallen
away back then
Under the Linden trees in Boston Common
Trees think through these woods of years
They flame forever
with those thoughts I did not see eternity
the other night
but now in burning
turning day
Every bush burns
Love licks
all down
All gone
In the red end
Small nuts fall
Mine too.


Good night friends, and sleep well.

"If you're too open minded; your brains will fall out." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

>>17634893
There's not a whole lot of choice.
Loeb Classical Library has bilingual editions with text/translation on facing pages. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library and I Tatti Renaissance Library are Loeb spin-offs for medieval/Renaissance, mostly Latin. There's also a Sanskrit one I think but I forgot the name.

Oxford Classical Texts, Cambridge Classical Texts, and the Bibliotheca Teubneriana publish the "serious" critical editions in the original Latin/Greek only.

There's a few other minor series like the Oxford Medieval Texts, but they are generally unaffordable. Various other university publishers put out some series, mostly translations though.

A Belgian publisher called Brepols has some relevant series, including some good early Christian Latin, but they're mostly marketed to institutions, so again, unaffordable.

Otherwise I'm not aware of any other major classics publishers around nowadays (happy to learn of some though).

Good evening /lit/. It's been a long time since I read to you, but no need to worry, I am back and it's now time to read you a poem before bed.
Yesterday was Edna St. Vincent Millay's birthday, so let's make an homage to her tonight. She was one of the most influential and powerful poets of the twentieth century in America, and she is one of my personal favorites. Tonight I will read to you a series of her poems.

Time Does Not Bring Relief - Edna St. Vincent Millay
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.”

Love is Not All

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Sonnet XLIII

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.


Good night friends, and sleep well.

Good evening /lit/. A few days ago it was Carl Sandburg's birthday, so I'll be reading you one of his poem's tonight before bed.

Under the Harvest Moon - Carl Sandburg

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with littles hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.


Good night friends, and sleep well.

>>17162236
I can't name a single good book that follows that structure. Go to the /lit/ top 100 books and see if any of them follow it.

Merry Christmas my friends! What could I read to you before bed on such a night, but the classic tale of a visit from St Nick.

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a luster of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”