/lit/ - Literature

>>18141337
the quran

>>18141468
how?

>>18141337
Growing Up Hard

>>18141337
Wordbooks, encyclopedia, math basics.
And ofc entertainment.
You can burn the rest with no regret.

>>18141337
All of Shakespeare.

>>18141337

The Stranger changed my life

>>18141516
>>18141504
how?

Candide. It taught me that there's no point in getting upset at the injustices of the world. I might as well keep my head down and mind my own business.

World as Will and Representation and Dubliners

>>18141337
the motley fool investment guide

Ecclesiastes

Culture of Critique by Dr. Kevin MacDonald

>>18141337
Gravitys Rainbow - the mainstream is a lie, lay down your arms and live your own life

America Pastoral - if you can't control it don't get so worked up about it

America Psycho - eat fuck kill

Moby Dick - there comes a time for great adventure

Ulysses - fuck gimps

>>18141504
>>18141516
>>18141486

>>18143569
Bateman didn't kill anyone, brainlet.

>>18141337
Genealogy of Morals

The very hungry caterpillar. Taught me you gotta eat to turn into a butterfly.

>>18141337
Platform Sutra and Diamond Sutra. Nothing has made me see more clearly for such a long time.

>>18143569
>eat fuck kill
That's what you took away from American Psycho...?

I. Ishmael by Quinn (needed this to snap me out of myself when I was a teen. I'm not saying it's a classic but wew did this book do a number on me, must respect that).

II. All of Kafka's works. Felt good to know that someone else was able to express the soul-crushing bureaucratic structure that we live in, where the center of power is elusive and yet demanding. Even reading his letters are still a cerebral experience for me.

III. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I've posted about this before. This book helped me actually conceive of what science is to myself and how "progress" actually works. I recognize the books flaws and limitations but it was great to read this, and personally challenge it within myself, during and after college, so as to de-mystify this great edifice that is science.

IV. Notes from the Underground. Reading this was a very personal experience in my life. Was going through something at the time, was at the library, needed something to read, chose this book from random from the title alone if you can believe it, finished it in one 8-hour sitting. I still reflect on this experience and how incredible it was to read a book that felt like I myself had written it in my own voice? Very existential experience. Shifted my perspective on things a bit. Also, great introduction to the behemoth that is Russian Literature.

V. The School by Donald Barthelme. Short story. There is one line in there that hit me harder than nearly anything I've ever read. There is something divine about the simplicity of this story.

VI. Flowers for Algernon. Read this with my (then) girlfriend and we had powerful conversations on the nature of intelligence itself. Twas interesting for the scenarios she was presenting to me with respect to children. A very illuminating work to me. Loved this one.

VII. The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. Helped me make sense of my stupid, shit American worldview and the relative failure of the liberal arts education.

VIII. Rites and Symbols of Initiation by Mircea Eliade. Helped me make sense of something very personal in my life with respect to feeling like a child in what is supposed to be considered an adult society.

IX. Don Quixote. The absolute greatest novel I've ever read that made me realize what you can do with art, Art, itself, and in a single work. The most meta experience reading this book.

X. The Bible & The Quran.

Bonus: Meditations, Aurelius + a book I have on a collection of pre-socratic writers and their collected fragments. We are derivative peons compared to their thinking.

These books in particular have been good to me.

>>18141337
How to win friends and influwnce people
I keep shilling it here without success

>>18141337
Also there is a thunderbolta iaaue in which hawkeye riaks himaelf to save the group from heecules. Than people ask him how he did it and he says "it ia easy when you know what to do, you ahould juat do it before there is time to think and change your mind"

>>18143693
>>18143590
What's the problem niggers

>>18143729
>IX. Don Quixote. The absolute greatest novel I've ever read that made me realize what you can do with art, Art, itself, and in a single work. The most meta experience reading this book.
I whole-heartedly agree.

>>18143840
You're a double-digit IQ that thought Bateman was actually a killer.

>>18144083
I recognize the unreliable narrator aspect of the book pseud

>>18143729
Bigger QRD on point III, please?

mein kampf

>>18144083
Bateman is a soulless loser. If you think his lifestyle is admirable then you're retarded.

>>18142299
Could you elaborate on how Dubliners benefited you?

>>18145065
I agree, his soulless lifestyle is what encourages his violent delusions.

>>18143729
great list, thanks

>>18143729
>X. The Bible & The Quran.

to me, the essence of the Quran is about telling believers to get over themselves and the bullshit of their ancestors, and meditate over what the one God is. It approaches the question like a teacher, addressing the hypothetical points (can I do what I want while doing the motions of the religion, can more than one God share the same world, etc) one by one. The problem to me is that it's less topical in its layout, which is a bit of a hindrance.

>>18143729
>>18143913
What is this meme that Don Quixote is some fucking classic or thought-provoking book? It's literally the first Monte Cristo - that's it.

Moby Dick but for different reasons than this guy >>18143569 it just helped me realize i'm gay

>>18141337
Daodejing helped me be a bit more chill

>>18141337
The memoir of a person I look up to. It's such a goldmine of insight into the field he's talking about. I've had conversations with him via e-mail and there's an intimidating language barrier but this man is probably the person I care about the most in the world. He's old and I haven't pestered him in a long time because I think he finds me annoying, but I often wonder if he's well.

>>18145136
Specifically The Dead
It was the first book I read that made me see that literature could be a true art form rather than cheap entertainment (keep in mind that up until then I had read basically nothing but Stephen King) and it made me want to find more of the "Art," thus the start of my dive into REAL literature

>>18141337
All of them

Meditations by Descartes
I genuinely think every young person would be better off for reading it.

Really tho

>>18141337
The Bible

>>18148266
Why?

>>18146560
Leave this board and consider killing your self.

>>18146560
Anon I...

God Emperor of Dune

>>18141337
The Odessey and the Iliad

>>18143569
>Ulysses - fuck gimps
What?

>>18141337
New Testament

>>18146810
Second. Also Zhuang Zhi.
>>18141337
Plato's Phaedo. The Upanishads.

Basically they helped me realise I shouldn't be so attached to life. It all goes back in the box at the end of the day.

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by proletarian icon Eric Hoffer is one of the most essential guides to political theory ever written. It makes everything you hear on the news seem like it is all unfolding according to plan. It is a work of sublime intellect and scholarly insight.

>>18149169
Oh The Analects is really good too.

>I have yet to met a man whose desire to build up his moral power (De, also written as Te, is a key concept in Chinese philosophy, usually translated "inherent character; inner power; integrity" in Taoism, "moral character; virtue; morality" in Confucianism and other contexts, and "quality; virtue" or "merit; virtuous deeds" in Chinese Buddhism-) was as strong as his sexual desire.
Book IX, 17.

>>18148289
It’s a book that teaches you to challenge your own beliefs and assumptions about the world, and really engaging with its arguments would make anyone a more thoughtful person.

>>18141337
The Bible - Teaches you about the fundamental nature of God who created reality and how to live accordingly.
The Catholic Catechism - All of the Catholic Church's theology boiled down into a digestible single volume.
Aesop's Fables - You will learn more life lessons in 5 minutes of reading this than in 5 hours of most other books.
Marcus Aurelius' Meditations - How to moderate your emotions for a better life.
The dialogues of Plato, as well as Plato's Republic which I consider to be his magnum opus. - Teaches how to think philosophically about the greatest problems in life.
Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life and Beyond Order - Teaches the psychological and physiological necessities of order and how to confront the chaos of everyday life.
Eusebius' Church History, and Josephus' Antiquities & Wars - Fundamentally reshaped the way that I understood and looked at history, especially the history of Western thought.

>>18143729
based and effortpilled

>>18146555
That's why any self-respecting man who doesn't think he was born yesterday would never accept it.