/lit/ - Literature

Milkman by Anna Burns. I quite liked it.

>>19891196
Why dont you tell us what you think are good books from the past 15 years

>>19891196
Between Two Fires. I loved it. I'm not religious at all, but it made me wish I was.

>>19891196
Is a book good because it is new?

Eggplant. It was surprisingly good.

>>19891196
I read an autobiography about a guy's life in prison.

>>19891228
Is a book good because it is old?

>>19891242
Yes

>>19891253
>pretentiousness: an exaggerated sense of one's importance that shows itself in the making of excessive or unjustified claims

>>19891196

>>19891196
The Pale King
>2008 was 14 years ago

>>19891263
>old books are bad because they are and new books are good because they are. I will make radically polarizing and demeaning judgements of others that put me above them without first explaining my reasonings
pretentiousness: an exaggerated sense of one's importance that shows itself in the making of excessive or unjustified claims

>>19891242
Have I insisted that a book be old?

Why must we fight all the time? It's all so unproductive and ugly.

>>19891313
I'm now realizing this thread is probably b8

I just finished reading my own book which was published through a top tier press just last month. I wish I was pretentious. Instead I'm just depressed.

>>19891196
The most recent book I read was Last Night: Stories by James Salter, which was published in 2005, so I just miss your cut-off. It’s a great short story collection. I think the author is at the height of his powers in the short form in this book, although I liked a 2-3 of the stories in his first collection a ton, the stories in Last Night were, on average, of a much greater quality. I love his writing style and how economical he is with his words while still allowing for beautiful flourishes of metaphor and detail here and there. I really liked the story “Comet” which is about a man and a woman on their wedding day, and the titular story, which comes last. It is about a man with a terminally ill wife who helps her commit suicide.

Besides the classic staples of /lit/, like Pynchon, DeLillo, and McCarthy, I think he’s my favorite near contemporary author. And he’s different, less postmodern than them, more realistic and down to earth in his subjects.

>>19891224
seconded. This book was such a surprise, in a good way. I loved the way it dealt with theological topics and captured the fevered imagination of the middle ages.

>>19891224
>>19891350
Looks interesting ty chaps

>>19891313
Shut up fgt

>>19891196
Joe Abercrombie 1st law trilogy, quite good as modern fantasy goes.

Future Christ by Laruelle

>>19891196
“Days by Moonlight” by Andre Alexis

>>19891196
Emmanuel Carrere - Limonov
is the only good recent book I remember reading

>>19891242
It's good because it's food. You wouldn't understand, woman

>>19891196
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Lovely book.

Currently reading picrel from 2009.

>>19891196
shoplifting from American Apparel but that shit sucked. Inherent Vice prior to that

>>19891242
It's good because it stood the test of time

>The Growth Delusion
>Empty Planet
>The New Map
>The Accidental Superpower
>Absent Superpower
>Disunited Nations
Also OP, ur a fag, people don't just read old books because they're high prestige, though some do, many bad old books got forgotten so what we have now is the ones that passed history's filter, and thank god for it. Nowadays the sea of garbage we produce, preserved digitally in all it's triteness, never subject to the natural selection of history

the last book i read written in the past 15 years was in 2019. it was knausgard's My struggle book 2. If /lit/ is anything like me, I was forced to read a lot of contemp lit in undergrad. that's around the same time i got into reading the classics in my own free time and the difference in quality was obvious. i just dont think the creative genius is focused on writing fiction in 2022

>>19891581
Hubert Dreyfus is based but have never heard of this one. How is it?

>>19891631
Very pretentious post, even though I broadly agree. You're not proving OP incorrect.

I really didn't like how he purposefully structured the book to make it hard to read. Also I came to realize how tiring it is to read a 600 page rant.

>>19891196
Dawn of Everything - Graber

>>19891657
It was a fucking metal gear quote

>>19891690
Sorry, don't mind me then

>mfw reading "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" is more pretentious than reading Laszlo Krasznahorkai's "Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens" because muh 15 years

>>19891631
>all that Zeihan
What did you think? I think his analysis is insightful but he ignores too many non-geographic and demographic factors for his conclusions to be very reliable. He nailed it with Russia, though, which was surprising. I considered that evidence against his conclusions until the last few months.

>>19891581
>>19891649
Seconding this, what did you think? I'm trying to read the classics before I read about the classics, but it's slow going and sometimes I feel like taking shortcuts.

Pachinko by Min lee Han Bok Sun or someone.

The Expanse series lol

>>19891326
Who cares. Y'all listing some good books for me to read

>>19891755
I always keep in mind that Ziehan is paid to tell american boomers that everything is gonna be ok, absolutely bang on with Russia, but off by a mile on China, dude needs to read some history and realise the history of the Chinese people is the history of their government, more history and culture in general. He's mostly right on energy, especially about the availability of alternatives on a technical basis. Also he assumes, that the trends of the last 40 years are gonna stay, and that the world since WWII is normal in anyway socially not just politically

>>19891407
I hope you enjoy it!

>>19891812
I actually think he's closest to right on China. They're hopelessly positioned geographically and extremely vulnerable to ocean based trade disruption, and any disruption in trade will pretty much immediately result in famines and the collapse of the communist regime. Otherwise I agree with you on all points. I'll be interested to see what his next book says.

Agonie des Eros by the bunghole man

>>19891196
name 1 good book that was written in the last 15 years

To some extent, books that are still in discourse that older than say 15 years (or 50, or 100...) have undergone a sifting process. That doesn't mean they're all good, they might just be in fashion or shilled for some reason, but it's easier to see the cultural landmarks. Grabbing a book from 2021, could be diamond or could be garbage. That has a certain excitement in itself, for sure. But I don't blame anyone that lets the dust settle for a few decades then tries to make a judicious pick about what to read.

I read old books because I'm in college and they won't let me read new books

>>19892388
Anon you're in college not captivity. What do you mean "they won't let you" read new books?

>>19891649
>>19891755
Pretty good so far. The core idea seems to be that today, we have no external source of meaning to order our lives. Somewhere, starting with Descartes, we lost that, and even sincerely religious people today do not believe the way the medievals did that God has ordered everyone's life. There's a great opening chapter about DFW (even compares him to eat, pray love, kek) and living in the moment.

We then start with the Greeks and talk about the Homeric idea of the gods as external forces that draw greatness out of you (their idea of a flow state or being in the zone). The proper response is awe and gratitude for the sacred.

Now we're talking about Aeschylus as Plato as proto-monothiests, as the Greeks try to reconcile the multifaceted gods of Homer into a single, coherent vision. Haven't gotten to the chapters on Dante and Melville yet, but it seems promising.

I don't expect life changing insight, but so far really interesting take on how the western world view changed between different paradigms.

Let Them Look West by Marty Phillips

How retarded do you have to be to think the best books must be written in the extremely recent past?

I read The Invented Part by Fresan. Very good book, highly recommend

>>19892478
Ah, definitely sounds like I should read it after the classics then. Dreyfus clearly has an argument he's making and using the classics as evidence, and I don't want to bias myself more than I already have. Thanks for the post, I'll keep the book in mind for later.

if anyone know of contemporary writers who write in the style of late Henry James or Melville lmk