/lit/ - Literature

Favourite non-YA "booktubers?"
My three favourite are:
The Book Chemist
Oldenword Books
Better Than Food

I've read a lot of "literary" authors and big, classic books. But I've never read Shakespeare. I want to get started, but was put off by someone's saying, "Reading Shakespeare is wrong." Is it valid to read the plays in and of themselves? I want to start with Dream because I'm most interested in that. Yet it does feel silly just reading what are essentially stage directions.

I'm struggling with something. After reading Diogenes and other Cynics, as well as Cioran, I really couldn't give a shit about other frameworks, concepts or systems other than the one which says, "Ideas are stupid. Just live." Both of these authors despised the idea of having a mission, an ideal, and regarded sophistry as a waste of time. This makes it very difficult to find the right book. To be honest, all I care about is nature, dogs, music and art. Sure, there are ideas behind those, but it's the visceral aesthetic appreciation I enjoy. I've been searching for my next book for days now and I keep discarding them. More and more I'm trying to avoid the neurotic thinking side of myself and to just shrug things off.

Might anyone suggest books that have as their theme the lives of artists of people of the arts in general? Some books I've enjoyed in this vein were The Gutenberg Revolution, Pliny's Natural History selection (particularly the art section), Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts, and various medieval art text books which feature the lives of artists. I'm not an artist myself so I'm not really looking for anything discussing techniques. I'm just interested in the personal details.

I have a problem. I can't seem to find books I want to read that are modern. See, I like a certain romantic and high style, but also one that is laced with optimism. I mainly read fantastical fiction in the vein of Dunsany and Macdonald, as well as people like Mirrlees. This is my main interest, but my reading is much more varied than that: everything from Dostoevsky to Camus to Sabato to Maupassant to Jackson. Although I'd say I like a lot of stories and styles, I'm really not interested in modern fiction. In fact, this year I've been getting more and more into older works of fantasy and making it a point to go back to more romantic or archaic styles. Something feels wrong about that though, like I'm betraying my own time and hiding from what life is actually like. I looked just now and pretty much all of my book choices from last year and this year are from the every early 1900s or the mid-1800s.

This is getting muddled already, so I'll just say that I'm more a fan of strange but ethereal and beautiful fantasy writing, e.g. The King of Elfland's Daughter. You just don't get that today. Even when I go darker, like Clark Ashton Smith, he still had a very moving and painterly style. I really couldn't give a shit about Thomas Ligotti's edgy modern style with his cigares and whores. It's just not for me. I'm more an ally of Tolkien and Eddison. As I said, I have read darker works, but all of these are still from the 19th century or early 20th and they have a certain melancholy quality to them.

Can anyone suggest a book that is like a modern day Dunsany? I want to read books by people from my own time, but to be honest I don't think I've ever read anything beyond 1960.

Hey. Let's start a critique thread. Prose and verse welcome. Thanks. Here's a very short story inspired by Dunsany/Macdonald.

https://pastebin.com/1wuCm8Mf

Age and nationality guessed by favourite books. Just for fun. No hostility please.

>King of Elfland by Lord Dunsany
>In the Land of Time and other Fantasy Stories by Lord Dunsany
>Gormenghast by Peake
>Pliny's Natural History
>Hunger by Hamsun
>Iliad of Homer
>Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
>The Plague by Camus
>The Complete Fairy Tales by George Macdonald

have a genuine problem and don't know what to do. I got a kindle in 2018 and have read more than I ever did before, but I've been having trouble with aesthetic preferences. I feel like I might have made a mistake. Despite the fact that I've read 60+ books since then, I feel regret that I read some really important books on kindle, like c&p, the iliad, gormenghast trilogy, etc. The problem is that I like old things and antique aesthetics and I also think that there's something to be said for books as objects. I've begun to feel like I might have ruined my experience of such books. Sigh. If I go back to physical books then I concede that I've been reading in a subpar way. Sometimes I feel like it's only the text that matters and that there are many, many advantages to reading on kindle, but then I'm overrided by the idea that kindle seems like a lesser experience in many ways. Idk what to do. It's annoying me. I feel like I just want to read everything I've already read but in paperback/hardcover so that I can get this problem behind me, but that would take so long to do.

/lit/, I've only spoken English my entire life but am interested in learning another language, primarily for reading native prose. I started Russian, but a Romanian speaker told me it's much too difficult. Any ideas what I could do? French is apparently a good one to start with, but I honestly don't read that much french lit.

Gutenberg should be a worldwide hero.

Amid plebshit quizzes, I found this legit thing. 156 questions, all proper literature, e.g. Pessoa, Balzac, etc. I got 40%. Average is 33%. I imagine some of you guys will score very highly. Enjoy.
Don't want to link so check out 'Can you name the authors by their images?' on Sporcle by Drinkboron. Report back. Ps. some images are broken.

Hey. Hope you're all doing well. Would just like to ask if anyone here is willing to read the first chapter of my novella? I could read something in return. It would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks