/lit/ - Literature

88 so far. goal is 100. i did most of my reading in the last two months though, lots of novellas and poetry books.

>>19076326
Do light novels count?

>>19076326
I read books, but I don't count them because that'd make me feel insecure.

post total page count
i only have 3,145

>>19076392
14733

Only read 20
My goal was 30
I don’t think I’m gonna make it

68 books
>>19076392
21,191

>>19076446
there are lots of books that are like 50 pages each. you could read ten of those in a day if you tried.

>>19076326
I don't keep count.

>>19076326
95

>>19076332
>poetry books
recommend some

>>19076665
I think I read about 20 poetry books but most of them I hated. The ones I really enjoyed were:

100 Selected Poems - e.e. cummings
Dancing in Odessa - Ilya Kaminsky
Teaching my Mother How to Give Birth - Warsan Shire
A Thousand Mornings - Oliver Mary

I also really loved Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard. That is prose, really, but it is written like prose-poetry.

I've read 12 books which is twice as many as I read in 2020. I'm also working through some tomes namely the bible and herodotus. Some books I dropped. Unfortunately I read slowly and get distracted easily.

I think today will be the day that I tick it off. I got to 66 in each of the last two years so this one will be a decent jump.

>>19076392
23,655

>>19076326
2666 really slowed me down.

>>19076326
This has been one of the worst years of reading in a long time. I kinda feel being locked up has made everything harder and studying and working leaves mi with less free time. I think I've read around 40-50 books so far, plus a lot of stand alone stories and poems. Reading Ulysses has taken up most of my reading time last month.

>>19077073
That's still respectable tho. I'm afraid of Ulysses.

>>19077092
Yeah but I feel I would have read a lot more in a normal year though, specially because I'm kinda forced to read a lot for school as a literature student.
> I'm afraid of Ulysses.
Yeah I was too, but I told myself that I couldn't just tell myself "I'll read it next summer" for ever. I'm an ESL and I'm reading it in the original, if I can do it you can do it. I'm currently halfway and only two chapters were really difficult. The rest of the book hasn't been easy, it still requires you being focused and everything, but they're not that inaccesible and when you acquire momentum it becomes really fun.
Try and read the first part of the book, it's around 60 pages. If you can finish it you should be able to finish the rest of the book.

I'm at 14/20 so still on-track except 11 of those are LN volumes

>>19076326
All of Plato and all of Aristotle.

>>19077122
What LN series?

>>19077121
It's been in stasis in my stack for awhile, books sneaking around it, but I'll get it done. Has to be something to it and must be worthwhile. Good luck on your goal.

>>19076326
aside from 3-4 other books, I've only read the Bible these past 5 years and I have no regrets at all.

>>19077143
there was a woman that memorised the whole bible in 3 years

>>19077158
That's good on her. I hope she actually learned something from it rather than just memorizing it.

>>19077143
good luck with your readings too anon. Hope you can get to Ulysses soon.

>>19077171
I don't see how you couldn't gain from memorisation. Even if you couldn't distill what you know into teachings or simple lessons, or you had no profound insight, you would still gain by virtue of having beauty on call. That's enough.

>>19077189
I can recite the entire script of Aliens.

>>19077189
>That's enough.
Words are empty without proper action behind them. Jesus Himself said
>these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me
It's not about what you know in regards to the Bible, but how you apply it to your life that makes all the difference.

I am at 37, rn reading Bleeding Edge and this is probably the best book I've read this year. It's hard work though.

I started the Bible in June. I'm now at Sirach.

>>19076326
Doing alright so far. Managed to not turn it into a chore.

>>19076461
yes, but that's not the point. you should read what you want and like instead of just trying to get the number bigger.

>>19076326
12 which was my goal, im reading another rn

>>19076326
I'm at 22 which means I'm on track for about 29 which is an above average year for me. However, that's not a goal for me so I'm indifferent to it.

>>19076326
Read sixty so far.
My goal was only a book a week or thereabouts so, I’ll keep on going til the end of the year.
I tell ya, I have even replaced much of my previous downtime with reading and I’m not looking back.

>>19076326
5/25 so far this year so I fail.
I have several I've had on the backburner for awhile which I can quickly knock off plus I'm actively reading several others right now so by New Year's I'll probably have around 8-10 finished.

>>19076326
56% at 26 books
i'm working on it

>>19076338
No.

Literate prisoners at Alcatraz read around 65 works of serious literature, often meaning things like Hegel and Nietzsche, a year. These are men that had nothing to do at all, but spend a few hours in a recreation yard on the weekend and the rest of the time was spent locked in a tiny cell with nothing but books.

If you are approaching those numbers or claim to exceed them, I think you are either exaggerating or skimming.

>>19076326
36/40, on track to reach 48 for the year.

>>19076326
15/40 lol, 6,205 pages. i went a few months without reading anything

>Books read in 2021
Breath - James Nestor
The Terminal List - Jack Carr
Goodbye Things - Fumio Sasaki
Jack Reacher The Killing Floor - Lee Child
The Obstacle is the way - Ryan Holiday
Orphan X 3 Hell Bent - Gregg Hurwitz
Walking - Erling Kagge
Jack Reacher Try Dying - Lee Child
5am Club - Robin Sharma
Cosmopolis - Don Delillo
Slowness - Milan Kundera
Silence - Don Delillo
The Informers - BEE
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More - Roald Dahl
Brain Rules for Aging Well - John Medina
American Psycho - BEE
Love - Leo Buscaglia
A simple plan - Scott Smith
Lanzarote - Michel Houllebecq

Best one was Slowness by Milan Kundera. Best Non-fiction was Brain Rules for aging well

This year I've only read 4,715 pages. I feel really ashamed. Are all the people who are able to read so much completely mentally stable? I swear about half of every week I'm unable to read because off moodiness, listlessness, irritability, inability to focus, brain fog, looping thoughts, absent mindedness (and low mood of course), and it's all cyclical and caused by nothing. I sit down and I just cannot read. And then other days I'm completely fine and breeze through and enjoy it all. I just want to be able to read. Are the people in this thread who are able to read consistently just mentally stable? And now I feel short of breath and a weight upon my chest thinking about how little I've read.

>>19076326
started 5
got through 0

>>19076326

7. Just 7 so far.

-House of God
-Melancholy of Resistance
-Coraline
-2 short story collections by Lord Dunsany
-Something wicked this way comes
-Diary of a country Doctor

>Books Read in 2021 (so far)
House of Leaves
Picture of Dorian Gray
No Country for Old Men
Of Mice and Men
Notes from Underground

I set a goal for thirty books, but I read just two, "Meditations" and "Liftoff". I just hope I'll be able to read eight more by the end of the year, probably Carl Sagan's and Stephen Hawking's works

I started reading seriously for the first time in June, and have increased my pace greatly since starting in the last month. I have read 16 books at the moment

>>19076326
4 or 5. I dont remember and I dont keep track of them.
Ive lowered the count a lot because I started reading non fiction and Im stuck with the bible...

I stopped using GoodReads because I have too many anthologies which I don't want to read cover-to-cover just to tick off as technically completed. So instead I just looked at my shelf and pulled off all the books I remember reading this year and made a stack of it. Might have missed one or two.

Confessions, Blood Meridian, Dante, the Milton, Ovid, and Chaucer were all rereads, and I did not read the full Milton or Melville poetry, just the main works I got them for, those being: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes; and Clarel, respectively. I also read Blood Meridian and Pilgrim's Progress each twice in a row.

No bully pls

I usually aim for 30 books so I'm almost on schedule. I read a lot more in the second half of the year though, so I usually read closer to 40 a year.

>>19079271
>Thebaid
>Jerusalem delivered
Based

>>19078174
cope

11 books, the most i read ever in a year. Will kick it up next year

>>19076326
I don't count how many books I read because my life isn't a videogame but I'll say around 20-30

What I've read so far:
>Humiliated and Insulted - Dostoyevsky
Good, but far worse than Dosto's other books.
>Hero of Our Time - Lermontov
I liked this way more than I expected to.
>The 3 Body Problem - Cixin
The beginning was great, but the ending was kinda lame. I'll read the other books, but I'm not that excited.
>Ressurection - Tolstoy
Amazing.
>3 Sisters - Chekhov
Good, but not my favorite thing from Chekhov.
>Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
Reread it. It's great.
>Sketches from a Hunter's Album - __
Still my favorite read of the year so far. Comfy as hell.
>The Days of the Turbins - Bulgakov
Good, but didn't like it as much as his other stuff.
>Auto da Compadecida - Suassuna
No idea if there is an English translation. Extremely funny.
>A Peoples Tragedy - Figes
No complaints. Very interesting and comprehensive book. I'll probably rear Carr next.
>Queen of Spades and other stories - Pushkin
My first Pushkin. It's good. I wish I could read the full The Moor of Peter the Great.
>Boris Godunov - ___
My second Pushkin. Also good. Doesn't work as a play, though, only as a movie: too many settings.
>Stories of Mr. Keuner - Brecht
Didn't got half of them.
>The Caucasian Chalk-Circle - ___
Really, really good.
>Life of Galilei - ___
Almost as good.
>The Capitan's Daughter - Pushkin
My favorite Pushkin so far.
>Red Star - Bogdanov
Read it mostly for historical reasons. Better than I expected, but not totally "good".
>First Story of the World - Mussa
Pure autism. Really great. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone, though.
>2 Travels to Brazil - Staden
It's a travel book from the 16th century, from a guy that got captured by cannibals. Way better than I expected.
>Kafka on the Shore - Murakami
My first Murakami. Very annoying book.
>1000 Cranes - Kawabata
Great.
>Patriotism - Mishima
I unironically prefered the movie.
>Omon Ra - Pelevin
Extremely funny.
>First Love - Turgenev
Comfy.
>Lysistrata - Aristophanes
Dick jokes all around.
>Mr. President - Asturias
Amazing.
>It's hard to be a God - Strugatskys
The Strugatskys might be my favorite Sci-fi writers right now.

Currently reading:
>Petersburg - Bely
>The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism - Weber
>Theory of the Romance - Lukács
>Paradiso - Lezama Lima

>>19079436
I missed to mention three books:
>The Triumph of Death - D'Annunzio
1/4 of it is great, 1/4 is good, 1/2 is extremely boring.
>The Sophist - Plato
It had been a while since I last read Plato, I didn't "got" it until the halfway point, and then had to go back almost to the beginning and reread it.
>The Coming of the 3rd Reich - Richard Evans
Maybe I already knew enough about the nazis, because I didn't feel like I got a lot out of it.

>>19076326
I just got into reading this year, only read like 3 books. Next year I want to read at least 12 books.
Read about 1,082 pages.

>>19079687
Which 3 books?

>>19079687
i also only read 3 books so far this year

>>19076326
I read 7 books this year
I've been busy

>>19079717
The broom of the system
the sailor who fell from grace with the sea
finders keepers [inb4 kinda cringe]
And am currently reading Little Scratch

>>19078236
where do I see this

>>19078174
>he doesn't get paid to listen to audiobooks 8 hours a day
look at this loser.

>>19079271
>buyfag
thanks for supporting the industry.

>>19076326
Exactly 50, though I'm just a few days off from finishing a 900 page book to make it 51. Goal by end of the year is 60.

>>19079436
>Petersburg - Bely
Nabokov loved this one. Never read it though.

>>19079898
>finders keepers
You can't read highbrow all the time. I like to break up the heavy with pulp as well

>>19080258
It's really good. I'm about 1/3rd of the way through. Not as weird as I expected (granted that I'm used to some extremely weird Latin American stuff): it has some surreal descriptions and bizarre punctuation and flow, but, surprisingly, the plot itself is quite engaging and not that hard to follow.
I strongly recommend it. Just try to find an edition with a lot of footnotes, because they are necessary for most people (I'm not reading it in English, so I can't help you there)

>>19080567
>I'm used to some extremely weird Latin American stuff
like what?

>>19076392
7,220 over 35 books. Goal is 50 but I'm being lazy.

>>19076326
I've read 4 so far, currently in the process of reading another 4. 12 is my goal but I plan on finishing 3-5 in the next month and if I can keep up that pace then I'll expand my goal to 25 by the end of December and then set my goal for 100 for 2022. I would have read more but I didn't really start reading until the middle of the year and had trouble concentrating.

>>19076332

>Poetry books

Ok.


Also whoever reads for numbers is a faggot and is not going to make it.

ITT: /lit/ once again proves it almost never reads

>>19081056
well, in my original list you can already see Paradiso. Mr. President is also a bit out there, but not too much.
If I had to recommend one, it would be Obscene Bird of the Night, by Donoso.

86 books or 25,023 pages. I've been working my ass off this summer while working on Greek too. What the hell are you guys doing?

i don't come here very often, but what the fuck is this? do you people really turn the books you read into numbers to feel good/bad about yourselves? that's literally the opposite of i'd ever want literature to mean to me...

>>19082037
Maybe there's some website that does it for you. It's a real mystery.

>>19080075
I went to profile, then "your 2020 year in books" then I changed the url to 2021, no idea if there is a better way to get to it

>>19080075
My books>reading stats

I wasn't counting for the beginning of this year but I think I'm at 8-10 for this year. For the last 3 weeks I've read 3 books so if I can keep it up I'll finish 14 more books before the year's up

>>19076326
17, on my 18th right now(Brave New World). Work and other stuff has made it harder to do consistently but hey, I try and find time.

>>19076332
>>19076338
>>19076353
>>19076392
>>19076446

What are you anons currently reading?

>>19076891
Red pill me on poetry. What am I trying to get out of it when I'm reading? Am I trying to find a narrative or does it not matter at all? I've just never ever ever been compelled to read poetry

>>19082387
I'm the first poster. Earlier i finished reading My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec. I liked it a lot. Currently I am re-reading and making notes on From Where We Dream by Robert Olen Butler, which is a book on how to write.

>>19082393
That's a whole other thread. I don't even know where to start.

>>19082393
In case I wasn't clear, you should make a new thread for this question. Or ask in an existing poetry thread if there is an appropriate one currently. I'll keep an eye out for the thread.

>>19082435
>My Two Worlds is a novel by the Argentine writer Sergio Chejfec. The book follows a first-person narrator as he takes a walk through an unnamed Brazilian city

Interesting. Is it as chill as it sounds? What should I expect from this book?

>>19082453
>What should I expect from this book?

A short read. An established writer in his middle age who enjoys walking, and makes plans to, and does, walk in a park in the city he has visited to give a lecture, or something. Lots of digressions, memories and fantasies, insecurities, some moments that are quite funny, and good clear prose. No plot though to speak of.

>>19082445
Did just that. The thread's up if you wanna jump in

>>19082464
It's originally in Spanish, right? I'll give it a try

>>19076596
Based. Neither do I. Keeping count of how many books you've read to post about on an imageboard for cambodian thimble enthusiasts is one of the most autistically pseud things you could ever imagine.

>>19082483
Yes, though I read the English translation, which was a fine book. I imagine the Spanish is an equally excellent read. It's on zlib too, of course.

>>19076326

Got seasonal depression plus covid lockdown, and I was way too depressed to read for half the year :(

What is the purpose of reading more than thirty books if you cannot writing down its benefits, understand its purposes, or retrieve its contents? I frankly believe that anyone who reads more than fifty books in a year is wasting his time. Anyway, I read 17 books, and my goal is 20.

>>19076326
I'm at 52/55, and my school books along will put me at 59, I'm halfway through two other books, and I plan to get around to at least three other leisure reads before the year end.

>>19076392
0

>>19077122
Doesn't count.

>>19078174
The selection of books I have access to is far better than Alcatraz' shit library stack of Hegel volumes.

>>19077122
Have you considered finding a new board since you're not actually interested in literature, but merely the aesthetic identity of it, thus being a pseud?

>>19083470
Oh found the page

>>19081895
I'm a retard, I didn't see your list. All good choices though. It's great Donoso has finally gotten reissued in Spanish. I really have no excuse anymore to not read Obscene Bird of the Night. I just asked cause I'm also into weird Latin American stuff too.

>>19083557
No worries. Do you have any recommendation?

>>19083576
You've read Elizondo yet? Farabeuf is a must read and is one of the best novels to have come out during its century. If you want to feel really uncomfortable read Diamela Eltit —she's one of the few authors who have made me feel I didn't get most of what they were trying to say. Can't say I like her but she's interesting. Felisberto Hernández is another kind of weirdness, he's sort of light surrealist and also one of my favorite writers. Silvina Ocampo is sort of similar to him, if you do get to like him.
Are you from Latin America? If you're into marginal writers you could look for los raros –a name taken from a Darío book– of your country.

>>19076326
10, fuck philosophy.

I've read 10 books this year.

>>19076326
I've read 15 books this year (started this year in February). I have to finish TBK and a lot of Dostoevsky so it'll be close to like 18 books.

The Tartar Steppe
Heart of Darkness / Youth / End of the Tether
Do Androids Dream
Dune Messiah
Illiad
Odyssee
Moby Dick
Don Quixote 1&2
White Nights
Notes from Underground
The Idiot
some collected short stories by Gogol
So 13 in total
Considering i only really started again in June i'm pretty ok with this

>>19083647
ok, that "do you have any recs" really payed off
>You've read Elizondo yet? Farabeuf is a must read and is one of the best novels to have come out during its century.
Never heard of him. I'll definitively check it out.
>If you want to feel really uncomfortable read Diamela Eltit —she's one of the few authors who have made me feel I didn't get most of what they were trying to say.
Never heard of her either. I'll also check it out.
>Can't say I like her but she's interesting. Felisberto Hernández is another kind of weirdness, he's sort of light surrealist and also one of my favorite writers. Silvina Ocampo is sort of similar to him, if you do get to like him.
Those two I've at lasts heard of. I had the short stories collections La Furia and El Caballo Perdido in my To Read for a long time, but always skipped them for something else.
>Are you from Latin America? If you're into marginal writers you could look for los raros –a name taken from a Darío book– of your country
Technically yes, but from Brazil. This was very useful, thank you.

>>19076326
Ellul took a long time but then again I put a lot of effort into understanding him. Currently reading The Naked Ape and then will go back to Ellul for The Technological Bluff.

I'm a pretty slow reader overall. 20 pages an hour is good for me, idk how some manage 60 or 100. Must be reading children's books or not retaining any info.

Doing worse than last year, but hope to read around 50.

>>19076326
I pledged 20 books and I've now completed 22.

>>19076392
5,863

350 pages left with TBK

goal was 50, i fell behind a little

34, i don't have a goal, that's silly

Not counting books I've re-read, I'm at thirty-six this year.
>>19076392
Again, not counting books I've re-read or am currently reading I'm somewhere around 11,001.