/lit/ - Literature

>>3984937
This is the only answer.

Moran's ruminations on and description of things never fail to delight.

On the U.S. side, there's Louis C.K. (his admitted overexposure doesn't lessen his act), Mike Birbiglia (he is truly the Rembrandt of awkwardness), Maria Bamford, etc.

Rogan and Stanhope are just awful though, and I hate how they seem to be the main inspiration of the unfunny fucks with whom I have an acquaintance who aspire to becoming stand-up comics. Rollins is just so overly angsty but occasionally has glimmers of genuine funniness; it's too bad it always stems from a feeling of superiority over someone else though.

Hicks was unforgivable. At least Carlin remembered to tell a joke once in a while and only really got bad towards the end when he didn't give a fuck.

I pretty much can't stand any comedian who just yells constantly.

The Interesting Narrative by Olaudah Equiano. It was indeed interesting.

>>3864275
Has a white person ever written a book without explicitly mentioning white people?

James Baldwin fits the bill: Giovanni's Room is just about gay people.

Lately it's been the New Yorker's fiction blog, the NYRB, TLS, The Millions, and Harriet (Poetry Foundation).

>>3602531
I was considering subscribing to the Paris Review but they don't really have a worthwhile student discount. My university got it for a long time, so I'd just read it in the library, but it appears I was the only one ever making use of it, because I haven't seen the new issue in its place.

I liked the fiction pieces in the last two issues, though the poetry can be a bit spotty. I've looked back at some (terribly-bound) archival issues at my uni and some of the stories are downright awful, and the poetry tryhard nonsense.

>>3576886
>Is it bad if Bernard Black is my role model
Not at all. Bernard Black is a fine role model.

Have you seen any of Moran's stand up? I don't think Bernard is an act.

What journal, OP? Are we talking Ploughshares/Tin House/etc. tier? When? What piece?

>>3544920
>Everybody's mad jelly in this thread.

I don't think anyone's denying that. I am myself quite jelly of this lady. Her abilities are intimidating and make me feel bad (particularly since I've had some papers to write and haven't written anything in days), and she's attractive to boot.

What's more, has anyone taken it upon themselves to learn ancient Greek i.e. the language?

>>3496351
This, I mean honestly people. I don't even care when/why this devolved into /pol/ but cut it out, I'm trying to get my dick wet with a literary qt3.14.

>>3450697
Okay, limp-wrist, occasionally champagne-drenched liberalness, but you can't say The Guardian is beneath Vice.

I liked Vice's travel guides but they're writing on the whole turns the snark factor well past tolerable. For some reason I find Vice's UK site more readable than the US one, which is like Tao Lin-lite.

>>3414446
For a little while I had a copy of The Old Man and the Sea in the breast pocket of my jacket because I forgot to take it out after I was finished reading it. Too bad it's not thick enough to stop a bullet or anything, that way when you get shot you can pull it out and say "Pain means nothing to a man" with a stoic facial expression.

>ctrl+f "Wordpad"
>0 of 0

You are all babies.

There's an older book, called "Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular" by Rust Hills, that I rather like.

The Making of a Story: The Norton Guide to Creative Writing is a more authoritative text, but I'm not sure if it gets bogged down in the examples/excerpt passages.

>>3004932
You know, I've tried to read Barry in the past but he seems much funnier in person than in his writing. I just can't vouch for someone who says "boogers" so nonchalantly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/23/haruki-murakami-nobel-prize-literature

Can't they just give it to Pynchon already?

>>2932860
That usually happens when people realize a B.S. alone in computer science equals shitty cubicle job, and math is fucking nothing.

Physics, well, I think most would concede that not everyone's cut out for that.


I'm doing journalism at uni, so I write constantly but with regards to readings for class, I usually skim over or just outright ignore most to allow for more leisure reading (which I consider my formal reading, you know what Twain said and all). I still suffer the occasional crisis of conscience when job prospects come up, but I'm content with focusing on writing as it seems that quite literally nobody can write well anymore, your STEM majors in particular.

I don't have it out for STEM majors (I was considering doing CS), but STEMs seem to have it out for everyone else.

>>2737872


I discovered the book when I was in 3rd grade, read it, and was like, wow, Malcolm is clearly just a stand-in for Crichton himself.

And that was the day I became /lit/.

I've been reading like a motherfucker since I was very young. Of course then, as is the case with most small boys, I was all about dinosaurs and science and the like, and so mostly concerned myself with nonfiction. I even had a sort of "lab" in my basement back then, where I remember building a telegraph and shit.

My love of fiction didn't come till much later, I can't even quite remember exactly when and with what book, though my guess is with The Great Gatsby, of which a tattered copy I found in my gym locker in like 8th grade, read, and the raged 'cos the last five pages were missing. I had to ask my English teacher for a copy from the storeroom, since most schools in the U.S. have TGG as compulsory reading in 9th grade.

I had my first big break in writing in 5th or 6th grade, I believe. For a personal narrative assignment, most wrote about a vacation to an exotic place or a competitive sporting event or something; I stretched a particularly surreal trip to an Eckerd to buy a gallon of milk into a two page epic. It was a hit.


I played video games and shit once in a while, but I was never terribly good at them. Even now, I fucking hate playing CoD with friend. (I also hate when people actually refer to it as "cod").

If women didn't have a ladyboner whilst reading this, they'd say it was awful. Shit's circumstantial, yo.

>>2579534
I already behave like Bernard Black which is a problem on its own. That type of behavior doesn't work with the people i know. At all.
They gut butthurt way to easily.

My stand-up is pure literature.

>>2523873
I should think not.

1. Jesus
2. Maria Bamford

>this is the only appropriate list

>>2503778
I sometimes think, "Nah, it's 2012. Nobody does that anymore."

How utterly fucking wrong I often am.

>>2503785
>implying predestination isn't a Puritan conspiracy

>>2483116
And you sir, possess atrocious prose skills.