/lit/ - Literature

>>11604294
bump

>>7398056
I read it nearly four years ago and remember enjoying it, but I can't remember much about why, other than that it was as comforting as books about books tend to be. Especially when all I had back then was /lit/ for book conversation.

I just reread the preface and didn't find it abysmal, though. She doesn't have that disgusting pretentiousness that Nancy Pearl has for all those "Book Lust" series; I can't stand them. Fadiman just seems to love reading and grew up in a family of literature types surrounded by books.

You made me want to go through it again--I remember liking the "My Odd Shelf" essay:

"It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner. George Orwell's Odd Shelf held a collection of bound sets of ladies' magazines from the 1860s, which he liked to read in his bathtub. Philip Larkin had an especially capacious Odd Shelf crammed with pornography, with an emphasis on spanking. Vice Admiral James Stockdale, having heard that Frederick the Great had never embarked on a campaign without his copy of The Encheiridion, brought to Vietnam the complete works of Epictetus, whose Stoic philosophy was to sustain him through eight years as a prisoner of war." Relatable anecdotes about books interspersed with literary trivia, a look at how a life surrounded by family who weren't functionally illiterate might be.

If you didn't want to read Fadiman, but still liked the idea of this kind of personal-essays-about-books, you might try to see if Michael Dirda is more your type. He's my favorite for the "genre".

All the time.

In fact, it's one of my favorite genres.

>>6155841
From the wiki.

This is less intensive than >>6157700, but might still help you.

>>6124431
I checked that thread out.

Only a few lists and filled with shitposters.

These newfags these days don't know what content is.

>>6120902

>>6097097
My favorite is Mark van Doren.

Two PDFs of his articles, "This Decade" (on the literature of the 20s) and "The Good Teacher" (not literary criticism, but he was mostly known for his teaching).

>a.pomf.se/qfuqro.pdf
>a.pomf.se/lgallx.pdf

Also really enjoy Guy Davenport, Walter Benjamin, Gass and Brodsky.

>>6056601
There's one that you might like, it's not really a "bestiary," but a book of essays on various (non)-animals and society--it's not really a science book, it's not just facts or moralizing on ecology. I've only picked out animals I like from it, but the quality of his thought was worth it.

>The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary by Caspar Henderson
>http://a.pomf.se/ooynso.pdf

just going to re-recommend Guy Davenport and Lin Yutang off the chart in case you missed them~

Also, though he's not so contemporary (died the same day Robin Williams did), if you have any interest in Eastern literature, Simon Leys does great personal essays spanning his whole life and interests as a Sinologist. He does much more than just literature-related interests--I particularly liked his essays out of The Hall of Uselessness on academia.

Comparative literature.

Yes, I have a job.

>>5310817
I'm doing comparative literature - it's certainly not something to round out another discipline. You'll usually need reading knowledge of three foreign languages. I'm sure your uni requires one for your BA anyway. Have you thought which you'll be taking?

It looks like you'll have plenty of people there to mentor you. I saw a lot into British and Shakespeare. Make sure to actually talk to your profs often.

Anyway, my biggest suggestion would be to read a ton of secondary literature in addition to whatever you're studying in whichever classes. You have Nabokov in the OP - check out his Lectures on Literature if you haven't yet.

Here's a chart of Books About Books I made, if you're taking recs for anything.

>tfw simon leys died the same day as robin williams and no one wanted to talk about the former

How about just more books, but those that are about books?

Guaranteed better than Goodreads and Amazon reviews.