/lit/ - Literature

I recently got back into reading after stopping for a few years. This board feels…different, to put it lightly

where did these guys go? we need more of them on here

>>18692825
pic related.

Also when I was 18 in a skype group some guy linked a mega upload file to 2000 classic literature kindle epubs

>>12286330

I was searching for opinions on audiobooks and some of the potential disadvantages of listening compared to reading, and what I found was shocking. There's a whole audiobook culture... these people put on an audiobook at 1.5x speed while cooking, posting on Twitter and finishing off that presentation for work, and then have the audacity to see any criticism of this as "pretentious snobbery".

1. The myth of multitasking. People today are "soooo busy" (and proud of it) that they can't possibly sit down for a couple of hours and read, so they multitask. What they don't realise is that if you're doing three things at once, you are only devoting a third of your attention to each task. Multitasking ensures that you remain mediocre at everything.

2. Reading is an active exercise; listening is passive, no matter how hard you try. This is why reading comprehension and information retention is lower when listening. When you listen to an audiobook, you miss out on a ton of things on a reader would pick up on via visual engagement.

3. Most books aren't supposed to be read. There are literally audiobooks on econometrics, neuroscience and other technical subject. I don't know what's worse, that, or the fact that somebody is listening to some dense philosophical text and thinking he has any understanding of the topics at hand.

4. Having ADD (shit attention span) isn't an excuse to avoid reading. If you can't read more than one sentence without pulling out your phone and checking your Instagram feed, what makes you think you have the ability to listen to someone? Surely that requires an even greater focus. How about trying to overcome your problems?

There will come a time when so few actually read books, that books will be written specifically with audiobooks in mind, further diluting the quality of the last medium in which anything of value is still published.

I add everyone here, can you guys add me back?
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/40444534-anmol

all too late I have become completely disillusioned with the art world, from institutions and academics to the artists themselves, on the whole the arts are hollow and masturbatory and pathetic displays of wealth. taste is neither divinely inspired nor spontaneously generated, it is taught, and the only ones with the capacity to learn are the leisure classes. even good artists are born and bred into it like anything else. the internet has only made it worse. the hipster hyperconsumerism encouraged in places like /lit/ makes me feel ill. all under the guise of nonconformism and so on
what are the best written takedowns of the arts and what are some books which can help me sort this out and move on

So, I've decided I am going to live the literary lifestyle meme for a while, I have been traveling around for a few months and am going now to a city that I find beautiful and sort of different and cheap and intend to stay there a few months to dedicate some time to writing, maybe busk to try to get money for food and alcohol, etc.

I intend to be away from social media and messaging people and whatnot during that time, but intend to read and watch stuff online that I like and would somehow help my writing (either by knowledge or inspiration) and I'd like to ask for a bunch of random recommendations.

1) Is there anything (like magazines, blogs, youtube channels, websites, literally anything) that usually has stuff about either literary fiction or writing that is actually good and would be good to follow? ,

2) Any good arcticles or classes or anything related that is available online and you personally like and would recommend? (Maybe a recorded university class, articles or books about literature (or criticism, or even about "literary movements") or writing that you think are "must see/read"). Specially if it is about contenporary literature.

3) I find that most of the stuff I feel compelled to write about is related to how I see things in our current society, how people idealize social status (in social media or with the idea of being good at something for the sake of the "coolness") or how media influences people's tastes or what social circles consider good or not. Somewhat hard to explain this briefly, but if you recall any book that touches on any of this (or anything really, even philosophy or psychology articles) please recommend me it as well.

>>10254751
does it give you a boner wasting your money on an intellectual midget whose "philosophy" boils to a vulgarization of jung for plebs mixed with some self-help bullshit for people with daddy issues?

>>10249221
> he can talk about epistemology and a priori synthetic expressions but he cannot solve a quadratic equation
t. absolute state of /lit/ pseud

> be a midget
> drop out of college
> tfw you'll never live the literary lifestyle

since the very first time I read a serious book I always pictured my future self as some sort of accomplished intellectual with an irresistible sex appeal who would have spent his jazzy evenings instructing inquisitive qt girls about the greeks.
but the fact of the matter is that i'm just a 5'7'' midget who will never score any pussy and an literary education is meaningless if you don't a degree to give it some degree of legitimacy.

tl;dr: if you cannot live the literary lifestyle, is there a point in reading books?

>>9626616
My counter-proposal is that we all spam anime reaction faces