/lit/ - Literature

>>16305832
I just finished the Odyssey, and now I will either start with the greek plays or Hesiod, or maybe I'll read Herodotus. Not sure yet. I'm also thinking of starting Borges' Labyrinths.
>worst book
>Book of five rings
Why?

I tried to read Dune, but its so fucking incomprehensible and boring. Yeah it's "imaginative", but it's absolutely impenetrable

>>16305832
The only book I gave up on is Fellowship of the Rings

>>16305832
If this is all you read in a year you should really tone down using /lit/

>>16305886
Dune is fucking impenetrable? Are you dyslexic by any ahcnace?

>>16305994
I've read many classics and technical manuals, I read ten pages a night and have done so for years. Post your own and your physique while you're at it.

>>16306713
>the fundamental dick-contest nature of /lit/ (and 4chan by extension) is revealed once again

>>16305832
I only gave myself a number of books requirement, so far I'm holding up fine. Finished my 38th book out of 60 last night, if I speed up a bit I should finish as planned.

>>16306736
Ah, forgot to say

>best book
Hard to say, the Illiad was absolutely baller, the Odyssey only marginally less good.
>worst book
The subtle art of not giving a fuck wasn't very substantial, but for a self-help book it is more than decent.

>>16305832
>best book
Confessions of a mask
>worst book
A history of western philosohpy by Russell. Don't fall for this meme like I did.

>>16305876
I just didn't care for it. I felt like the metaphysical musing was drastically inferior to people like Marcus Aurelius or Plato/Aristotle.

>best novel
Life: A user's manual
>worst novel
An Area of darkness (which isn't really bad)
>best poetry (excluding rereads)
The songs of Maldoror
>worst poetry
Paroles (Jacques Prévert - still some very enjoyable poems inside)
>best non-fiction
Heraclitus' fragments
>worst non-fiction
Esthétiques sur Carpaccio (Michel Serres rank very high amongst the worst snobbish, yet pseudish writers)

>>16306713
>I read ten pages a night
But that means that you probably spend more time shitposting about books than actually reading them. Not to mention more than half of what you read is either technical stuff unrelated to /lit/, memes, or lightweight genre fiction. And the classics you have listed are mostly things one is expected to read in highschool. I am really not trying to flex or be demeaning here, I am just genuinely curious. I would expect everyone who comes to a book forum to like literature enough as to read more than 10 proper books a year.

I'm trying to look for some good Gothic, horror, mystery books but I'm so picky it's hard to "just read a book" unless it has some merit to it. I just read Dorian Grey and now I'm on the fence as to what to read next. The book...left me pretty unhinged for a couple days. Can't say whether or not I liked it but it left a strange taste in my mouth.

So far so good, my goal is 10 books this year and I'm reading my ninth one rn.

>best book
1984
>worst book
One hundred years of solitude

Full list: 1984, The sign of four, The metamorphosis, One hundred years of solitude, Notes from underground, Blade Runner, Anna Karenina, Chess story, Don Quixote (reading)

New Years resolution was to read Ada by the end of the year, but I have yet to do that. Outside of that, I’ve crushed a lot of the books I wanted to this year.

The big undertaking I’ve given myself recently was reading Women and Men by Joseph McElroy, and I’m 720 pages in now. It’s excellent and really unlike anything else I’ve ever read (even Gravity’s Rainbow and Ulysses, to which it is most frequently compared), but it’s incredibly difficult and only getting denser as it goes on, which is not encouraging considering I still have nearly 600 pages left. I recommend it, though, if you’re looking for a serious mountain to climb and can get your hands on the new Dzanc paperback edition (I have absolutely no fucking clue how anyone managed to read this thing in the previous editions with teensy-tiny type, not to mention the weight of the fucking thing).

>>16307659
>Blade Runner
As in the Alan e nourse book? It any good? Or do you mean Dick's novel

>>16307659
From the number and the books you're reading, I guess you're just beginning to read (or picking it up again). Good on you anon! Good choices too, if you liked Chess story, check out other works by Zweig: he's really great and it's never a hard read.

>>16306982
What did you think of the Tin Drum? I read it a few months ago and thought it was totally forgettable and uninteresting for the entire 600 page run.

>>16306713
>I read ten pages a night
>bragging about this
if you’re not a retard this will take you 10-15 minutes at most, you should be reading for at least an hour.

>>16307656
The Monk is pretty good.

>>16308259
>get home tired at end of day
>difficult to focus
Not him but work can kill you and leave you with no desire to read. 10 pages every day is good if you're busy

2020 is the first year I've kept a list of the books I've read, so I guess I'll post it. This is since January 1st, in order of when I started reading each book (which is also roughly the order in which I finished them, with a few exceptions)

1. Life is Elsewhere, Milan Kundera
2. The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin
3. Capital is Dead, McKenzie Wark
4. About Writing, Samuel Delany
5. The City and The City, China Mieville
6. Capital Vol. I, Karl Marx
7. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
8. Republic, Plato (reread)
9. The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro
10. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
11. A Legacy of Spies, John le Carre
12. Self-Discovery, Vladimir Savchenko
13. Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag
14. Houskeeping, Marilynne Robinson
15. Underland, Robert Macfarlane
16. The Yid, Peter Goldberg
17. Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, Umberto Eco
18. An Outline of Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud
19. Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
20. Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
21. The Lover, Margeurite Duras
22. Pere Goriot, Honore de Balzac
23. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
24. A Perfect Spy, John le Carre
25. Kindred, Octavia Butler
26. The Jewels of Aptor, Samuel Delany
27. Embassytown, China Mieville
28. Normal People, Sally Rooney
29. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Richard Rorty
30. Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster
31. The Tunnel, William Gass
32. Tenth of December, George Saunders
33. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny

>best book
Gravity's Rainbow or The Tunnel

>worst book
Capital is Dead was underwhelming, and I had more or less forgotten about it after finishing Capital Vol. I

In the middle of Lord of Light at the moment.

For reference, I finished my undergraduate degree in May and have been unemployed since then.

>>16308236
Pretty much the same. Not really bad, but not really good either. There's a few effective jokes here and there, and some ideas are really pleasing and creative but overall, it's really bland.

>>16307659
Worst book “100 years of solitude”

Filtered. Come back to it in 15 years when you’re ready

>>16305886
>I tried to read Dune, but its so fucking incomprehensible and boring. Yeah it's "imaginative", but it's absolutely impenetrable
Is this bait? How on Earth is Dune impenetrable? You’re acting like it’s some esoteric philosophical treatise. It’s just a simple science fiction novel?

>>16305832
I started reading again at the start of lockdown after many years of not reading outside of school (I used to read loads and loads of young adult in primary school) and I read:
>Edith Hamilton‘s Mythology
>The Iliad
>Herodotus’ Histories
>Bryan Magee’s The Story of Philosophy
>No Longer Human
>Brave New World
>Dune
>Notes from the Underground
>Stoner
>The Brothers Karamazov (my favourite book of all time as of now)
>Siddhartha
I’ve also read the First Philosophers and basically all of Plato (halfway through Laws at the moment), and lots of modern political philosophy (Locke’s Second Treatise, Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality, Mill’s On Liberty, ISAIF, Capitalist Realism etc).

I’m also currently halfway through Blood Meridian and I am enjoying it, despite the fact that I’m taking it a lot slower than I have other books - the at-times obscure prose and violent, depraved subject matter can be a bit draining.

All in all I’m really glad I got properly back into reading this year, and hopefully I’ll keep the hobby up for the foreseeable future.

>>16308440
yeah dune is written at like a third grade level lol

>>16305994
>>16306729
>>16307573
>>16308259
>Hurrrr you don't even read as much as I do. Hahha fag
Holy cringe.

>>16305832
I only have the basic of idea of stuff I want to read at some point. No list of "read this this year". Might do that next year
Goal is 25 books and to read more sci fi (since I read a bunch of history/epic poetry last year) while still getting some of those in too. Have read 22 thus far, and have read several that i put on the back burner last year.
Finally finished up Thucydides and threw in another unmade movie script to read.

Best novel
Toss up between foundation and empire and the silmarillion

Worst overall book
Count Zero aka neuromancers sequel. Absolute trash. I skimmed/skipped half the book. How Gibson is a renowned sci fi writer is beyond me. You don't have to be good to do fiction but man he sucks

>>16306843
Makes sense but it wasn't supposed to be a book on metaphysical musing. It's supposed to teach you the stances and movements of effective sword fighting. I'd have to revisit it because it's been a while but if I remember correctly the five elemental stances line up well with the five metaphysical elements.

And anyhow, to draw a useful connection is up to you

>>16306982
Completely based taste, good to see an actual reader here

I've been rereading a lot of stuff this year but so far my favorites are Imperium, the Unnecessary war by Pat Buchanan, and I'll say Seneca in general because I already feel like reading him again. My least favorite is the Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer. I could forgive some of the unargued liberal assumptions but he loses me completely when he starts arguing that governments are wrong to favor its own citizens. It's very sloppy.

>>16309056

haha cuck

I really can't pick the best book I've read this year, I've read a lot that I've really enjoyed. But a general top 5 would be:
>Gallic War, Butchers Crossing, Mason & Dixon, In the Blind, Blood Meridian

The worst book I've read so far is handa down Saunders Pastoralia.

>>16307573
IDK what you want from me, I work full time and have a whole ass life. In highschool I was in AP English and read tons of books but circled back for old classics.
>>16308259
an hour a night? No. An hour about every three days.

>>16308767
>soijak posts
>from a guy who only reads 10 pages a day
Pottery

>>16309741
it was someone else. You're kind of a sad guy huh?

>>16308259
if you spend a minute a page for beowulf, you are a fucking retard speedreader.

>>16308259
Well, actually so far I'm averaging 36 pages a night across several dense pieces of literature. I'm an adult with a job too so I don't have the time that highschoolers have to pretend to be productive by reading good literature.

>>16306982
Is this an e-reader, desktop app or something? I'm new here and noticed a lot of people posting screenshots like this. I'd like to give it a try.

>>16309741
>Still unironically bragging about how much he reads

>>16310065
>moor cock
Haven’t you had enough?

Started quite late.

Started quite late.

>>16308767
i believe it was aimed not at the volume, but at the the frequency of "meme"-ish works.

>>16306982
How is Vita Nuova? Read the Divine Comedy earlier this year and want more Dante

>>16305832
I might be a brainlet but I’m really struggling to remember the books I’ve read this year. If you asked me about any one of them id remember it but it’s weird to just be able to recall a list of all 30 or so.
>best
White Noise maybe
>worst
Little Fires Everywhere. My sisters pick for family book club.

>>16307886
Nah I meant Dick's novel

>>16308158
Thanks buddy, I'm trying to improve my reading habits, so I joined lit + set a yearly challenge + bought an ereader; all three things are helpful so far

>>16305886
imagine getting filtered by dune not gonna make it

I finished reading the Bible so achieved my New Year’s resolution and currently starting with the Greeks. It’s been hard due to working everyday, but I hope to finish pic related by the end of the year.

>>16308430
I mean, the line up is quite strong, so idk

I found the story uninteresting, and the characters plain/linear, I felt bored quite a lot while reading it

>>16308767
yes if you fail to read 50 books a year and can't speak latin you should be banned from /lit/

>>16310882
Baity baity

>>16305832
>are you reading everything you said you would this year.
I have read "white fragility" about 7 times. Im hoping if i read it enough i will believe in what she is saying and actually be accepted by my peers.
I give up, i will join the group think if it means the touch of another human.

>>16308551
>>16310208
Lurk moar

>best
Difficult.. Probably The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, but maybe also Extinction or Austerlitz

>worst
People of the Abyss (but I still quite liked it)

Just started Moby Dick

>>16308551
Did you eat and sleep?

>>16311054
no im serious learn latin or get off this board

>>16310619
I can't give a very grounded opinion on it because I read a translation and poetry is very tricky to translate and much is lost in the process. Just know that I was pretty disappointed. It's a very short read anyway so you should give it a try but don't expect to find the same thing you found in the Divine Comedy.

It is perfectly fine to call people out if they barely engage in a hobby yet spend time talking about it online. Fuck off. If you don't read, you don't like books, retards. Your opinion is worthless and you are here not because of any valid book-related reason but because you are pathetic, talentless midwit who has failed to find passion in life, is only reading because of an impulse (muh books make me smarter so I will read 10 pages a day as a chore) and should kill himself. Either read more or get the fuck off my board.
If you think this is elitist go back to r***it.

I've gone down some different paths to what I was expecting but it's been good fun

>Best
Buddenbrooks, although there are a number of worthy contenders
>Worst
Therese Raquin, it felt like all the bad things about Zola novels without any of the good things.

>>16305941

I'm also reading Fellowship at the moment. I've never been into fantasy, but I'm reading it at the suggestion of a friend who enjoys it. I'm really struggling to understand the appeal. I get why a snob like me wouldn't enjoy it -- simplistic and often childish prose, repetitive descriptions, clunky exposition, no interiority, and while it's fascinating from a worldbuilding standpoint, it pales as literature when compared to all the mythology and romances from which it draws inspiration -- but I don't get why genre fans and normies enjoy it, since it's also tremendously boring. Just walking and hills and songs. I'm about halfway through and it's the most unengaging thing I've ever read.

>>16312249
Gigigabased, this is exactly my experience with T***ien

>>16305832

Hello fellow /lit/ software engineer

>>16305832
Reading my 27th book for this year, my goal was 30 this year, decided to just read whenever I felt like it instead of trying to reach 50 books like last year. Have enjoyed myself a lot more this time around.

Best so far this year: Augustus, Suttree, The obscene bird of night, Life and times of Michael K and Blindness.

Worst so far this year: The sun also rises, Farewell to arms, White fragility and Betrayed by Rita Hayworth.

Flashman was a truly unexpected find and deserves a special mention.

>>16313265
what did you think of the tartar steppe? it was one of my favourite book when I was a teenager and I partially blame it for my very pessimistic outlook on life

>>16313315
Didn't much care for it, to be perfectly honest. I didn't dislike it by any means, don't get me wrong, but I found it quite underwhelming after all the hype here. I don't regret reading it, but I won't be giving it a second read, let's put it that way. Why'd you like it so much?

Oh, forgot to mention 'Posthumous memoirs of Bras Cubas' among my favorites for this year.

Went from not reading at all for years, to falling in love with ereaders. So I went in with a goal of 0, and I've read 24 books so far this year - most just from the last 2 months.

>>16313331
I read it when I was 12 so I have no idea if i’d still find it so great nowadays. But I identified a lot with the narrator, being myself quite imaginative, idealistic and with the “I’m right” symptom. The novel hit hard because of its nihilistic nature and its hopeless conclusion. It must have been the first novel I read like this. Even in Camus or Sartre there is some kind of hope, but I can remember crying myself to sleep after reading this. I read all of Buzzati afterward and it’s not very hopeful either. For this, i still hold it dear.

>>16305832
I read whatever I feel like reading, so far I've read these books. Today I'll finish The Golden Ball and Other Stories, and hopefully I'll finish the fucking Space Trilogy in a few days.

>>16313265
I really enjoyed flashman but only got to the third novel, it started to get a bit repetitive

Spent most of the year reading Hegel's Logic, now catching up with the rest of the stuff I wanted to read.

Best non-fic this year: Schelling's essay on human freedom

Best fic: Ferdydurke was incredibly based

>>16305832
Clean code is actuall pretty good to have simple rules for well structured software

>>16313414
I think I would've viewed it differently had I read it when I was a bit younger, but at this point it feels like one has already accepted that greatness won't be coming this way. I'm fine with that. If you liked it that much back then, I think you should give it a second read and see if it still holds up, especially considering the very theme/nature of the book.

>>16313476
As you can see I haven't read them in order (either chronological or as they're published) and I try to get a few books inbetween each new read. Might still read one more (Royal Flash) this year, then take a small break from the series. Of the ones you've read, which one did you like the most?

I have a really tough time deciding between the ones I've read so far.

>>16313487
>Pride and Prejudice: 2 stars
>every other shitty philosophy book for pretentious losers who'll never amount to anything 4-5 stars
This is /lit/ in a nutshell, this pic. "People" like you are the reason this board stinks.

>>16313516
But I rated most of the philosophy books under 4 stars, anon. I go by the default gr ratings which is why you might be confused:

1 star - "Didn't like it"
2 star - "It was ok"
3 star - "Liked it"
4 star - "Really liked it"
5 star - "A favorite"

>>16313566
Jane Austen is a top 20 writer of all time (and by far the top woman). Saying "it was OK" is indicative of a severe blindness to character, societal forces, and the formation of personal identity. Fight me, bitch.

>>16314097
by far the top woman? you must be joking?
I get it, you probably read a lot of Austen as a child and it left a deep impression on you. She is a comfy writer, I'm glad you enjoy her.

>>16314097
Stop being a simp. She's an important writer and she's worth reading but she's not levitating above the rest of us. Her works aren't sacrosanct. Her books can be a slog to get through because she doesn't know how to tell a story beyond having 2 or 3 characters sitting on a couch and having a conversation, this barring the occasional times she radically mixes things up by having 2 or 3 characters walk in a park or ride in a coach while having that conversation.

>>16314144
I never read her before my 20s and this is not even a controversial opinion. The only other woman with so much traction in educated literary circles is Virginia Woolf.
I get it, you probably read a lot of 4chan shitposts as a teen and it left a deep impression on you. It is a funny board, I am glad you are enjoying it here.
I really don't mean to be a dick here even if I may across as if I was, so I will go ahead and be a good fag and recommend you take a look at Nabokov's Lectures on Literature. He really gets into the meat of what makes Austen so good even if he frames it in a way which disregards what she was trying to do as immature. Great starting point.

>>16314256
>simp
Stopped reading it here, opinion discarded. It is called a fucking white knight, go back to r***it, you trend chasing subhuman.

>>16314329
both Mary Evans and Charlotte Brontë are better than Austen.

>I really don't mean to be a dick here
yes you did, from the beginning. But that's fine, its 4chan.

But who cares who is the best female writer? I'm not a woman, so it doesn't concern me to rank authors by sex since I'm not in any desperate need of role models to affirm my identity. As another anon said, Austen is 99% dialogue which is rarely clever, interesting, or beautiful, but sometimes funny. It's essentially genre fiction. When you compare it to other literature of the time you can see how shallow it is

>>16314397
Not him but Austen's psychological portraits of her characters are very, very good.

>>16310744
A shame. I read some of Nourses short stories this year. Guy was a doctor who wrote sci fi on the side and as a result most are medical related. Blade runner sounds cool (it's about an organ smuggler) but only a couple of his stories that I read were above meh so im not sure if it's worth seeking out.
Why the title of his book was lifted for the film adaptation of do androids dream of electric sheep I don't know

>>16314397
>you can see how shallow it is
Anon, you have no idea what you are talking about, so either read some scholarship on the 6 books, or shut up, also this >>16314411
And overall, 4chan (the forum of literature-hating faggots who talk about books based on their meme potential rather than quality) has very obviously twisted your world-view. Let me guess, you like Sterne, Pynchon, the whole gang of epic poets and Melville, no?

>>16313506
I'll probably do that. Maybe look at Buzzati's short stories, some of them are quite funny.

>>16311936
All right thanks. I was certainly hoping for something more Comedy-esque so maybe I'll hold off on it for now

>>16316197
What are you looking for exactly? This may be a long stretch but now that I think of it, Life: a user’s manual is kind of similar in some of its aspect, maybe the Decameron too.

>>16316788
Those certainly look interesting. My main interests in the Comedy were the interlocking structure of the poem, deep allegory, the grand imagery (mostly in regards to Roman imperial imagery and people), and especially in Paradiso the meanderings into theological discussion. The whole poem just had so much of everything, with Dante diving into all manner of subjects within the grand narrative, and I enjoyed that somewhat freewheeling approach that at the same time came together into something bigger.
Anyways what I want is kind of nebulous for sure but your recommendations look like they could scratch the itch.

>>16308259
How do you appreciate good prose or laugh at the occasional funny piece of dialogue when you're speed reading through everything a page a minute like some autistic bugman so you can brag about the quantity of text you didn't comprehend on /lit/?

>>16317593
>I enjoyed that somewhat freewheeling approach that at the same time came together into something bigger
I think you'll definitely find this in Perec's novel, though the "something bigger" is less explicit than in the Comedy. Have you read Paradise Lost? it could do for the grand imagery and theological discussion. Anyway, you won't find all of this in the Vita Nuova.

>>16305832
>Are you reading everything you said you would this year, anon?
No

>>16305832
Book of Five rings is great if you actually train in combat arts that live spar. But you have to be fairly intermediate level to get anything out of it.

>>16311506
I read on average probably 50 pages a day. So yeah I had plenty of time to eat and sleep lol

>>16305876
>I just finished the Odyssey, and now I will either start with the greek plays or Hesiod, or maybe I'll read Herodotus.
Based anon