/lit/ - Literature

The Holy Bible.
It's perfect. I highly recommend it.

Quo Vadis by Sienkievicz.
Just can't finish it. Probably because it's a love story and I thought it would be much more than that.

Sort of cool but sort of outdated but sort of gets a pass time traveling with horrible romantic subplot that gets too much attention in the story.

The End of Eternity.

>>13266052
>The Holy Bible

The series was good but the book is so much better.

>>13266052
Shame we cannot contact the Author anymore

>State by State: a collection of 50 short stories each featuring a different American state.
I couldn't make it through the whole thing, just skipped around and read about states I was familiar with. For such a large subject matter, the book came off as self indulgent and narcissistic. It's a portrait of America written by East Coast, Elite Jews and Wasps. You could viscerally tell how much many of the authors resented Americans who live outside of Manhattan. I was very disappointed by the book

>>13266119
You can talk to the holyghost writer anytime, though. :^)

>>13266122
The Northwest Angle is rightful Canadian clay, you Paul Bunyan jerkoff.

>>13266124
Anyway, it was hell of a reading.

>>13266043
'Barks and Purrs' by Colette
dialogues between a cat and a dog
it's very simple, perfect when you just have 5 minutes to read here and there
the characters are better than I expected
just like the prose
it still kinda lacks substance but it does the job and I will definitely read more Colette

>>13266138
Sounds like fun. Is it a long read?

Currently reading "Dark Age America" by John Michael Greer. Not to far in yet but defiantly more interesting then the usual we are all going to die in 10 years environmentalists.

Last book I read was pic related. No further comment needed.

Letters from a Stoic. Engaging read, but whenever he starts talking about common petty everyday events in his life it makes me sad that I’ll never be a Roman citizen with everything that title entails. Talk about feeling being born in the wrong generation... try millennia

>>13266251
it's short enough, each dialogue is around 10-15 pages and it seems that the english translation was made after the first edition which only has 7 dialogues.

>>13266043
Finished Democracy at Work by Richard Wolff
Gone Back to finish off Inseparable by Emma Donoghue
The latter gives a brief description of all the lesbian related literature going back as far as antiquities. It’s of course all tragic. No one getting out of it without suicide, getting murdered or simply switching off and being straight (or turning male!) in order to marry them off, until the twentieth century (save for Sade’s little psychopath). But so many authors have been interested in this subject it’s a wonder why more aren’t so aware of it. Well, I’m enjoying it.

>>13266052
>perfect
>riddled with contradictions
I’m sure

>>13266138
Interesting

>>13266755
>it’s a wonder why more aren’t so aware of it
No, it isn't.
Lesbianism has just fetish appeal.

>>13266768
Filthy Christian

>>13266043
The Kama Sutra
There's not only talk about sex: it gives you tips about how to get a decent wife, and how could be a chad

>>13266043
Last one: The Children of Hurin (second time reading it)
Current book: The Fall of Gondolin

>>13266948
The Silmarillion is my all-time favourite.

>>13266964
Good taste. I will read it again in a few weeks.

>>13266969
There was a time when I was reading it over and over again. It's just too good.

Touched with Fire, a study into the link between manic-depression and creativity. I'm just reading up on the condition in order to get a better grip on my situation.

I'm reading Gardens of the Moon. Some friends recommended it to me for its plot and complexity. While it's delivering on both those fronts (about seventy percent finished with the book atm) there are a couple of things that seem off.
First of all, the characters appear extremely wooden, for want of a better word. Nobody seems to feel anything too strongly and everything feels as though it's being said in a monotone. There are some truly epic scenes and some characters going through very emotionally shattering moments, but it's all delivered so flatly that it's underwhelming.
Secondly, something about the magic system seems a little arbitrary. It's not Harry Potter levels of bad, but sometimes it feels as though the author keeps inventing magical rules that weren't previously established. I guess what makes it worse is that rather than leave everything vaguely defined and let the readers' autism fill in the blanks to make something consistent (like Martin did with Ice and Fire), Erikson goes to lengths to try and explain why stuff happened the way it did, but half the time this only opens up more questions.
Anyway, good book, read if you like fantasy literature though the hype seems a little unfounded.

>>13266110
Is this the same Dan Simmons who wrote Hyperion? That was a thoroughly enjoyable book.

>>13267018
Yup.
Didn't get my hands on Hyperion yet (this is my first book by him), but the Terror is pretty damn enjoyable.

Great book

last book, Jonathan Wild by Fielding. Fielding was an inimitable genius, and this work was no little proof of it.

currently reading the vicar of wakefield, and i can't help feeling every page is loaded with irony. it's subtle, but it's definitely not something to be taken at face value. a very witty book. and somewhat bordering dark or gothic, i feel. just the minor traces of it.

>>13267036
I'll give it a shot. Read Hyperion, it's very much like an anthology set in the same universe and you get to sample so many genres all in one book without it feeling rushed or anything. Very nice desu.

>>13266110
I have it. A few months ago an anon on /int/ recommended it to me and I bought it right away.
The first half is really scary, but by the end of the book the monster isn't scary at all, like when they are marching and the thing was literally behind them all the time.
I want to read The Abominable.

Milkman

finished the vicar of wakefield.

Does mostly read count? If so Against Nature/Against The Grain by Joris-Karl Huysmans. It was a mostly mixed bag. I liked the concept of retreating from the world and some of Esseintes' musings. However, I didn't really care for a lot of the info dumps throughout the book. It would of been one of thing if I was invested in Esseintes, but I don't care what paintings and books he likes.

>>13266043
Jonas by Norwegian writer Jens Bjornebo. Scathing criticism of the modern western school system as well as criticism of postmodernism, all wrapped into a good narrative. He has a lot of commie views but from reading him its quite clear that he was an individual with an idiosyncratic thought process unlike modern brain washed leftists.

Its a great book, recommended if you can find him translated to English but I dont know how popular he is outside of Norway.

Last finished Murakami's Hear The Wind Sing/Pinball, the first half I felt was a little better than the last, but I liked both well enough - I'm excited to continue onto A Wild Sheep Chase and then reread Dance Dance Dance.

I'm also a little over halfway through Ian Banks' Consider Phlebas. Heard a lot of praise for the Culture series as a whole, and I can see why. This book in particular however is maybe a touch too heavy with the action scenes. I adore every single Drone that I've met so far.

>>13266110
Have been meaning to read this, might start it next.

Just read ‘No One Writes to the Colonel’ and didn’t much like it.

Short stories by Viktor Pelevin.

His caricatures of communism hit close to home some reason, even though I was born after the Warsaw Pact disbanded.
He's a really funny author.
The fact that he wrote a short story in the style of Chinese folk tales but with socialist officialese jargon is highly amusing and original. Same goes for the one where cavalrymen snort cocaine on the street while on duty during the Kerensky government's reign, trying to discuss Spengler.

I'm gonna read a few more, and maybe even shill out some cash for Omon Ra.

Max Weber, Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism
I assume that's the English title, at least. Its good enough, a short treatise but interesting. Would recommend.

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.

A man is left stranded on a destroyed spaceship. Another ship comes by, notices him, but doesn't pick him up. He then proceeds to escape and get his revenge on the ship that left him to die. Fast, pulpy, with a bit of cyberpunk thrown in.

I'm about to finish 1 Kings in the King James Bible. it's really a good read when they throw Jezebel out of a window and she breaks her neck

Dresden Files. About a wizard in Chicago. I think it’s pretty well written, doesn’t drown you in exposition. It’s a fluff read, and I don’t know what to make of the fact that the author always mentions the MC’s long legs.

Solaris by Lem. It's different tonally than any of his other works I've read so far. Feels like I'm reading a psychological horror book. I'm only 40 or so pages in.

Fresh Fruit;Broken Bodies
Study on the experiences of migrant workers and how their conditions effect their health. Pretty interesting stuff.
And Neuromancer. Smuttier than I expected, but a really fun read.

>>13267040
Amazing book. Good taste, anon!

>Last
The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It’s simple and I enjoyed it a lot actually. I expected it to be more philosophical but it’s more about personal relationships and moral dichotomies. Fun, easy read.
>Currents
Kokoro. I’m halfway the parents segment. This is my first japanese novel. I like the mood, it feels like a sunset. I expected something different but I’m enjoying it nonetheless.
Book of Disquiet. I honestly found it boring at first, but the more I read the more engaged I get. Sometimes though it gets too real, like if you removed the poetry or the metaphors I could have said the same in my darker moments of the day.

Zen at War by Brian Daizen Victoria

Stoner. Fucking great desu.

Just finished Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck and Crash by J.G. Ballard. I really liked Winter, one of my favorites by Steinbeck, but I'm not too sure on Crash. Finished it a few minutes ago so I may just need to sit on it for a while.

>>13269346
>I expected it to be more philosophical but it’s more about personal relationships and moral dichotomies. Fun, easy read.

it's literally an extended meditation on the eternal return (and dogs). read it again.

>>13269610
I don’t consider the eternal return something deeply philosophical

>>13266043
God Emperor of Dune, My interest in the series has declined ever since the first book in the series. Just something about omniscient characters doing literally nothing with their power bores me when reading

>>13266043
pantaleón y las visitadoras
some army guy has to provide the army with prostitutes, the prose is pretty fluid and the book is fun

The History and Science of the Manhattan Project, interesting book starting with the science predating fission up to post war thermonuclear weapons. Highly reccomend it

American Psycho
It's about a guy just living his life while mentally taking note of everything that everyone is wearing.

>>13268602
based

>>13266755
>>13266772
mmmmmmmm butterfly if I put on a dress will you make out with me?

Reading one and listening to the other.
>The Process by Franz Kafka
Not as good as I expected but not terrible either.

>Stories of your life and others by Ted Chiang
Have listened to the first two stories so far. Pretty good.

>>13268602
I really like the payoff scene in Pinball with the machine hall, although the book still feels a bit aimless. As for the Banks, I gave up on that one after straight up large scale action scene fatigue but later read Player of Games and had a great time with it. That one sets the scene much more carefully and has some real variation between small scale moments of peril and the inevitable big blowout.

>>13271371
> not loving best Kafka

I can kind of get being worn down by e.g The Castle, but you've got the most rewarding and the most finished book right there. The artist's apartment, the scene of the followers around the advocate's bed and the church scene are all so vivid and fantastical. Those are the biggest payoffs in his writing as far as I'm concerned.

>>13266043
Desolation Angels by Jack Kerouac

It's colorful, even though Kerouac likes to go on a rant about the void as an alcoholic's take of the meaning of life, but those kind of things never really managed to ruin a novel for me, not even the Buddhism.
It starts off with Jack lonely on a mountain. As he descends down to society it can be observed how the damn prose and mood slightly shifts depending on if he's hanging out with Burroughs or Ginsberg or Raphael. (William Carlos Williams makes an appearance too, he tells Kerouac "Keep writing like that.")

Also, it turns out, Kerouac doesn't give a shit about critics or whatever people have to say about him. He's just a drunk who's trying to figure life out for himself. He doesn't think that others should go on the road like he does. I've seen people asking the ones who like On The Road why don't they go "on the road" themselves. Well, because that's not the point of the damn book.

There is a short conversation with Raphael where Kerouac tells him that he doesn't like to be interviewed, Raphael says "then say to the reporter that you are currently interviewing yourself."

The parts about his mom are beautiful, but once he includes the death of his dad into it, it gets really sad. I loved the description of the time he was hanging around in his room, jobless, writing his first book while his mom was working in a shoe factory.

The parts with Cody are melancholic, because of the way Cody's (real) life ended. During the first third of the book Cody tells Kerouac "I don't want to crash. I just want to make money." I think Kerouac loves him exactly because of that, they both would like to leave that lifestyle but they never managed to do so.

Vathek by William Beckford.

Honestly, while I can recognize the importance of Vathek as a pioneering piece of gothic literature, It was horribly structured, being no more than a moralist fairy-tale under the guise of a gothic novel.

just finished reading the original Dune books.
always wanted to read it, but I wouldn't recommend it now that I had a go.
there were some weird jumps and gaps, but overall it's okay.
the last chapters seem a bit rushed, especially when the author takes so much time to describe a lot of details at the beginning.

before that I read I Am Legend; quite liked that one.
The end left me with this subtle feeling of dread.

older fiction is kinda nice compared to modern crap.
now it's time to look for the next book.

>>13266043
Bruce sterling "Schismatrix"

It is very good. Asks and answers a lot of question about existence in technologically advanced future. Starting from very tough idea that the only way to preserve your culture and identity from approaching technological singularity is to die. If you dont - welcome to the moral and cultural weightlessness in which everything is transient, everything changes faster than a person can realize it, everything leads to existential defeat.

>>13269206
>Dresden Files

The audiobooks are full acoustic kino.

Sade, philosophy in the bedroom

l-lewd

>>13271468
You're not wrong. It is very well written, I just had different expectations. I thout the books message would be on the level of 1984 or something similar.
I might still change my mind since I have not finished it yet.

Speed Limits - Mark Taylor
Bucolics - Maurice Manning

The former is a holistic look at how and why speed has become an exalted virtue of modern society (ties into protestantism, economics, general history of technology, etc), it's very fun but for some reason it's taken me like 3 months to get 2/3rds of the way through. I'd still recommend it as a general overview of the subject
The latter is a contemporary book of poems, about 70 I think, written from the PoV of a somewhat slow farmhand questioning the world and God's ("Boss's)" role. I'm not generally a fan of contemporary poetry (with exceptions ofc) but I'm really enjoying this one.

>>13268655
Which particular collection of short stories is this anon? Sounds interesting.

>Oblomov
I'm liking it a lot and I love the exchanges between several characters. I've laughed here and there giving the exaggeration of Oblomov's behaviour but it is a very charming book so far. Chapter ten in part two is probably my favourite so far.

previous: A World History McNeill, William Hardy
current: making a killing the unofficial story of the sandy hook massacre

The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware

I’m not exactly a practicing Christian but it’s pretty interesting to read nonetheless

>>13271852
Did he/you get permission to use this painting of Hari Seldon for the cover?

>>13272892
It's a small Hungarian anthology. But the stories themselves are called "Crystalworld" and "CCCP Taishou Chuan/Zhuan" (Depending on the "romanisation"

>last
Eon by Greg Bear. At first, it was fun exploration with a ticking clock, then the second half happens which is just shit.
>current
Carthage Must be Destroyed by Richard Miles. Enjoyable so far, learning a lot about a culture that is typically portrayed as faceless mooks by Roman sources.

>>13269234
That's exactly how it seemed to me. The movies portray it as a love story, Lem said it was about first contact, but it was one of the most terrifying things I've ever read.

Previous: East of Eden
Amazing book, I will admit this is the oldest book I've ever read seeing as I'm into more contemporary stuff but this was great, a very interesting morality tale with some great characters. Lee will forever be that nigga, I wish I had a friend like him.

Current read: Infinite Jest
I'm only to the first "Chapter", right after Hal gets taken away from the academy. The Foreword makes the book sound like an indictment of Social media and the rigid and distant way we associate with others so I'm very excited to dig into it.

>>13268935
How hard is it to comprehend? I am taking an exam in sociology in fall, and I've considered reading Weber. It is a high school level exam, so I really don't need to, but I suppose it will be more impressive and better for my understanding to get something straight from the source and not just surface level school books.

>>13273549
I don't think it's particularly difficult to comprehend, and I have no background in sociology in any way. It's also about 200 pages so you'll breeze through it pretty quickly.

The Iliad. Had a hard time with the language at first (Mine is written in old Norwegian - almost danish), but just got through the first song and I am really enjoying it.

Thanks, I'll see if I can get my hands on it in somehow. Cheers.

Player Piano by Vonnegut

Pretty shit. Vonnegut was cool when I was 15. Now he’s just annoying and cringeworthy. Completely lacking any of the subtlety or mystique that I enjoy in good literature. Made me feel dumber

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

It's a post-apocalyptic drama about a schizophrenic pilot who lives in a Colorado municipal airport at the base of the Rockies with a deranged gunman

The writing style reminds me of Kerouac's On the Road - Unabridged. It's really messy but the narrator's fucked in the head so it works well.

the woodlanders by thomas hardy
it's pretty good
good characters, comfy setting, nicely constructed plot. i feel like everything is going to turn out terribly for everyone

>>13266043
La philosophie dans le boudoir du marquis de sade
Sade is a great director of its imagination, but a bad philosopher

>>13266043
On section 2 of this, feel bad for Levin. Love Tolstoy's writing though.

>>13266043
Last book:
Tree: A Life Story by David Suzuki

talks about trees as being more complex than often portrayed, because they perform many of the functions and behaviors usually only attributed to higher organisms, just in subtle ways.

Not as tongue and cheek as I expected for the biography of a douglas-fir. Dude has a real reverence for nature and it shows. A lot of interesting stuff as he goes off on tangents on the formation of science as a method, the introduction of reductionism, macro and micro ecology, and so on. Book becomes a real downer in the final chapter as he basically asserts that we may have already gone too far in regards to deforestation and climate change. How, like a tree that's been invested with a fungus or parasites, it may take 100 years to die, but it will die. There is no coming back.

Current book:
After a lot of non-fiction, I'm in a fiction break, so: Perdido Street Station

Basically about an artist who's wrapped up doing a commission for a dangerous crime boss, and a rogue scientist who is doing sketchy as fuck research for whoever will foot the bill. A lot of weird world building, but I'm enjoying it so far. My third book from Mieville and I enjoy how whacky all the settings are.

Next Book:
I dunno, was gonna actually make a thread on this. Might be pic related?

>>13273219
>this is the oldest book I've ever
Certified midwit.

>>13266043
La Doble Vida de las Hadas by Santi Balmes
He's the lead singer of a Spanish pop-rock band, Love of Lesbian.
The book is a collection of short stories (bio-fiction) and prose. To me, the author adds fiction to personal stories in order to express all the different human emotions. Like Black Mirror but about feelings. I'm enjoying it thus far.

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
~60% through, so far great.

>>13274618
Castrop's dog will die.

>>13266755
Just fuck off back to r*ddit butterfly. Nobody wants you here. Also, stay the fuck off of /tv/ you stupid tranny cunt.

Reading Linux Device Driver 3 and Short Stories by Dostoevsky (just finished White Nights)

former is pretty hard to read

latter is pretty interesting, nice to know cucks existed for at least 200 years.

>>13274647
Haven’t been to /tv/ in over a decade.
Or do you mean eight chin? Is this Gayhole?

I just finished reading a farewell to arms. I didn't really enjoy it, but I felt the need to read at least one Hemingway book all the way through. The war scenes and the very end were interesting, but the rest of the book was about him eating cheese and telling a random woman he met how much he loved her.
Right before that I read house of leaves in a few days, it was wonderful. It gave me nightmares about footnotes and forshadowing that never went anywhere.

Now I'm trying to find another book to read before bed. I've bought a bunch recently but can't get past a few pages of any of them. I have shelves of books I haven't read and none of them have moved me in the first 20 pages enough to really keep going.

>>13274026
>Meme insults
Certified midwit.

This because I'm always willing to give John C. Wright a chance.

It's not high art but it is fun. Would rec the series to anyone interested in occult fiction that won't REEE about the Catholicism.

>>13275169

>>13266043
Last read:
Short Cuts - Raymond Carver

Selection of his stories that inspired Altman's flick. Some poignant, some sincerely sad middle-class American shit.

Presently reading:
Flags in the Dust - William Faulkner

Not Faulkner's best. It has fits and false starts but once it gets going, it gets going for a good while before the gas runs out. Young Bayard is a great character. So is Old Bayard and Aunt Jenny, but Young Bayard gets the glory of being the twin that lived only for PTSD to fuck him over.

>>13266755
>"riddled" with contradictions
the contradictions make it better
and they are not worded so clearly that they can be fully understood as contradictions
only revisions or clarifications

>>13274618
I have this but I'm not looking forward to reading it.

>>13266043
hyperion

top-10-scifi-classics.html

>>13266043
Stoner
Everything is going well right now, he found the love of his life, hes gotten married with her, he had sex with her finally(rape?), his classes are about to begin and Finch(?) just came home from the war. The only negative thing so far is his other friends death(forgot name). Anyways can't wait to see this go down hill from here.

The last book I read was The Stars and Their Spectra, by James Kaler.

I'm currently reading Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens and Arabia and the Arabs by Robert Hoyland.

The latter discusses Arabia and its inhabitants beginning in the Bronze Age and ending just before the time of Muhammad. I'm only 10% in, it is excellent for what it is. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it.

Our Mutual Friend is fantastic. The book begins with two figures, a father and a daughter, in a small boat on the river Thames in London. It turns out that he is a hunter of bodies in the river. He cleans them of whatever gold is in their pockets and then turns them over to the police. Well one of the bodies he finds happens to be a man who had arrived to claim his inheritance, which was contingent upon him marrying a certain girl. And so the poor servants of the wealthy man ended up getting the money, taking in the woman who was set to marry the son who had died. And it gets WAAAAY better. Funny, insightful, extremely interesting characters, biting social critiques; the book is amazing so far, and I'm just nearing the half-way point.

>>13266052
Legit question; is this a good book from a literary point of view? Not being religious myself, is it worth the read?

>>13276261
The prose for the King James Version is quite literally divine

Just finished "In Cold Blood" by Capote last night. It was my fist true crime book so I was kind of blown away in a sense. Thinking of starting "Never Let Me Go" by Ishiguro next.

>>13276267
Our dear monarch and sovereign sure knows how to pick them doesn't Xhe?

>>13276261
It's a document of documents and the answer to your question really depends on which books within you're looking at.

>>13266043
The last book I read was Gulliver's Travels because although I knew the story quite well, I don't actually know if I read it before. Of course, it was a blast, although Swift lost his nut with Book III. The stuff with the necromancy didn't fit the rest of the story at all.

Book IV > Book II > Book I > Book III


I am now currently on the third book of Pantagruel and I am not sure if I love Panurge for being a rapscallion or hate him for being a faggot.

The Waves
never before have a I read a book that started that strongly but then ended that weakly. the first 50 pages were exquisite, the middle 150 okay, and the last 50 utterly insufferable. I can hardly believe that last section even happened, I look back and it registers in my memory as a bad trip
fuck you, Virginia Woolf

Dune. Halfway through it and it took a while to get going but I'm really getting into it now.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

>>13266043
Just finished The Trial. Help me out, Anons, I thought Elsa was a prostitute, but a cursory Google search suggests she's just a girlfriend/lover. Am I retarded?

>Last
Der Steppenwolf; about a man named Harry who is basically a wizard.
>Current
Science of cooking and the art of eating well, by Artusi; a guide for common sense in the Italian kitchen, quite entertaining and informative, albeit obvious, so far.

The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe. Three sci-fi novellas collated into a single volume. Thoroughly enjoyed it altogether. Of the three, ‘A Story’ was my favourite. When Seven Girls Waving follows Sandwalker into the marsh, almost had me in tears.

>Last
Plato - The Republic
>Current
Collection of N. M. Karamzin
Never knew who he is just picked it random. Pretty good, he reminds me of Checkov a little.

Fire and Blood, GRRM

Last, Been down so long it looks like up to me - Richard Farina

I really liked the poetic style and overall it was probably one of the best reads I've ever had. The plot is sort of static until the final third but it really didn't matter that much because the writing was so appealing to me.

Currently reading The Rum Diary - hunter s thompson

enjoying it so far, has an enticing opening

>>13274618
This is one of my all time faves, have fun anon

>>13266063
I think that Sienkiewitcz is a great author to read when one is in their teens or childhood years. He's a Romantic, and his works are informed by his Polishness. I look forward to reading his trilogy, the one with one of the books being called the Deluge.. but he's best enjoyed when young and starry eyed. >>13267006
anon, if you want a reccommendation on bipolar: Strictly Bipolar by Darian Leader is my all time favorite. He's really insightful, which is more than I can say for most work son this disorder.
>>13267040
didn't enjoy this one that much, but then again I was in high school and I think some of it went over my head. should I try it again
in a year or two?
>>13269346
I found The Unbearable Lightness of Being to be a sublime read. I didn't get it all when I did read it a few years ago, but it's one of those few books that I remember keenly and fondly even now.
>>13270099
I hated that book so much because of those damn 3 page menial descriptions of clothing. He wasn't even that observant, it just came across like he was a living Dillards catalog.
Fuckin yuppies.

In any case, the last book I finished was the Kybalion. It was really engaging. I was already familiar iwht a lot of the concepts so it felt like a general review, but in any case it's not at all hard to follow and is certainly valuable, at least in my eyes, when it comes to understanding other philosophies. Master-key, indeed.
Right now I'm reading Introduction to Magic by Evola, among other things. Evola is a bit of a challenging read for me, since I haven't read much in italian in the past years. This is both an exercise in language review and learning, and I certainly enjoy the bits that deal with alchemy. I'm not pressuring myself to actually practice much because the timing is wrong, but it's a terrific book from an esoteric perspective. Why people latch onto Crowley when Evola is right there, I don't know.

last book: "The Leopard" by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
current book: Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

>>13270053
I have only read la ciudad y los perros.m, and very much enjoyed vargas llosa's critique of an oppresive institution on the psyche of the individual. Also, it reminded of shooting the shit with my friends as a teenager and getting into stupid fights.
Is this book as comfy?
>>13276607
Lol bro, now that i think about it the ending was kind of weak compared to the beginning. I guess it depends on the expectations one has of the novel.

>current
Readig absalom, absalom. Had the loan for three weeks, and it has taken me this long to only get about 100 pages read. I think i am becoming a brainlet npc, as I don't have much time to read but during lunch break, and it takes me like 20 mins to read 5 pages, when before i took me about 12.

>last
i also have grapes of wrath, but out it off because the chapters are long as fuck and (refer to previous paragraph) i'm becoming a brainlet npc.

Iain Banks's The Wasp Factory is a disturbing novel about a young protagonist with a quasi-religious proclivity for heinous acts. It relies somewhat on shock value and gruesome descriptions to stir the reader. Its "twist" is good, but not great. I believe that it would appeal to many readers who have graduated from YA but still crave accessible books with first-person narration.

>>13279611

I blasted through Unbearable Lightness not long ago and loved it. Found the way Kundera connected every part was done nicely. I especially liked the parts relating to Czech and Russian history. What else by Kundera is worth checking out? I