/lit/ - Literature

There is absolutely no way you could retain or understand anything from those books reading at that pace. Luckily most of them are shit.

>>21464301
A week for The Little Prince just doesn't seem enough.

>>21464301
bruh...

This is the next CEO of Twitter, everyone

reminder Lex has never had sex

Doubt he'll read Kara Bros in a week. If he does it either didn't affect him in which case it's pointless and or he didn't comprehend and just broke its back.

>>21464331
It's not particularly dense or hard to read. Just (reasonably) long.

Lexbros...

>>21464345
That wasn't the point

>>21464319
He's right unless you just read to tick it off the list.

You call these books, I call them toilet paper.

>>21464349
Keeek
When he's right he's right

>>21464295
>dune in a week
>a week for animal farm
the list is fine but his timing is off.

>>21464353
If it takes you a week to read and "absorb" high school level reading you will get absolutely raped in college (Lex claims to be an MIT researcher btw).

>>21464295
I don't understand. "[T]he leading public intellectual" hasn't read most of these already? Or is he re-reading them? This list is very high school.

>a book a week
What does this shit even mean? I'm a voracious reader and one book a week isn't feasible. Is he only reading short books?

>>21464295
I read almost all of those in highschool, Man's Search for Meaning and Sapiens are the only exceptions.

>>21464295
>I'm gonna read Dune in one week
Oh fuck off Lex

>>21464364
This is such a farce, yes you're very smart, you read Brothers Karamazov in a week and understood everything and you were doing pushups the entire time, all very elementary.

>>21464349
He is def not above it.

>>21464369
Yes. Some of these are even novellas, like the Kafka. I read 1984 in one sitting.

>>21464349

>>21464301
A week for Brothers Karamazov? Nigga is trippin.

>>21464349

Taleb destroying pseudo- intellectuals again. The list is embarrassing, maybe appropriate for a 19 years old guy who has not read anything before college.

>>21464349
Based Arab

Realistically, what is the balance? I can spend months reading a difficult book but then I get completely mogged by these people reading 50-100 a year. Then there's the SEP/wikipedia/secondary source skimmers that might be getting way more knowledge just by reading summaries. All of these options seem to have problems though

>>21464375
The first is a fairy tale—
best not read,
once there is hair draping one's head,
—from the jewels, wrapping around the sceptre.
For the story's intent,
is to cast a spectre,
of which intrigue and deceit is his bent,
to beguile its prey, the child of gentiles,
and make them penitent—lament,
a shocking farce, fable,
of which,
only the Sons of Cain,
are able

>this nigga needs a week to read 1984, Art of War and The Little Prince
>but also thinks he's going to read Brothers Karamazov and Dune in same time

>>21464295
He needs to get laid

>>21464295
>>21464418
This dude is 40 years old lol

>>21464349
Doesn't he consider Wolfram a genius? And Wolfram was on the podcast multiple times.

>>21464414
100 pages a day, whats the problem? I'm doing that right now actually.

>>21464523
Not all of us are NEETs anon

>>21464529
not my fault you are a subhuman poorfag that has to work 12 hours per day to make a living

>>21464529
my favorite character so far is the smerdyakov guy but ik dostoevesky is a christcuck with the god psyop sigh

>once the truth is revealed you will be ashamed of your words and deeds

>>21464295
jfc

>>21464514
Wolfram will go to anyone who calls him smart. If you are starting a podcast, give him a call.

>start on monday, done by sunday
fucking weirdo

>>21464542
He's right desu, they're kind of meme authors in "the meta" but I wouldn't call them basic.

>>21464542
Why doesn't this clown read something new then?

>>21464556
To be honest, you could ask the same about typical /lit/ poster.

>>21464542
People didn't make fun of him for including dosto, they made fun of him for believing he could read BK in a week. To me, this just confirms he hasn't read the books

>>21464574
>People didn't make fun of him for including dosto
They should have.

>>21464574
When I was in high school I've read Anna Karenina in about two hours while taking notes because I realized I had to return it that day. I was amazed at myself how much I retained from this, which shows anything is possible when you are properly motivated. That said, I don't think he'll find that motivation.

>>21464596
That is literally impossible.

>>21464572
But I am. They’re just as mute.

>>21464349
lel

>>21464596
Sure bratan, 800+ pages in two hours. Don't we all know it.

>>21464605
Maybe it's possible by skimming and skipping Levin's parts. But you can just read the wikipedia article at this point.

>>21464295
This guy has as much personality as a bag of sand - why is he popular again?

>>21464295
too much fiction what a child minded faggot

>>21464605
>>21464613
Adrenalin, and it's not really that difficult text. It may have a lot of words, but it doesn't feel as dense as some other works.

>>21464596
This is beyond Harold Bloom level bullshitting

>>21464630
>the adrenaline to read an 800 page book in 2 hours is summoned forth by a teen who realised he had to return it to the library that day

Absolute lel. Take your cluster-b mental illness elsewhere

>>21464625
>"Russian-American"

>>21464295
Who the hell is Lex Fridman?

>>21464349
Lmao

>>21464349
>Taleb actually btfos someone
Modernity is r slurred to hell.

>>21464390
On closer inspection I see many of these ar pretty short desu, but not at all. The guy is a walking meme

>>21464704
A nobody.

>>21464542
Don't Mock his list, bros.

>>21464743

>>21464542
>finally admits he already read most of the books
Kek, all the midwit faggots defending him in the threads that got nuked.

>>21464295
what a retard. you could read most of those in one or two day

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M9HgzXVVo6E

>>21464542
The only thing Americans aspire to is talking like this.

>>21464295
Lex Fridman is an irredeemably uninteresting person so to compensate he puts on a fraudulent persona of being a gentle, stoic genius who works at MIT (not true) and can read 1000 page books in a week (he won’t)

>>21464704
i'm not sure but he seems to be some famous high school kid

>>21464776
Why do men nowadays want to be stoic and act like le sigma male meme

>>21464625
He occasionally has an interesting guest on.

Also, considering that he's already read most (if not all of these books), it seems completely doable for him to read those longer titles in a week. I assume he's going to be reading other things besides these as well (scientific journals, whitepapers, etc.) so it's not unreasonable for him to have shorter titles on this list.

>>21464802
Hello Lex

What's wrong with reading a book and starting the next one whenever you finish the previous, instead of racing towards an arbitrary deadline?

>>21464743
got me chuckling

>>21464776
every time i try to watch his podcast, i'm turned off by how boring and inarticulate he is. he seems like he hasn't slept for two days before the show and needs a nap lmao. no clue how he got so popular.

>>21464776
Apparently this list is comprised of books that he has already read so he clearly compiled it just to flaunt to everyone how literate and intellectual he is for reading high school level books. Typical STEMcel

>>21464806
If you have a goal and no deadline, then you're a lot less likely to get whatever it is done.
Posting these things publicly is also motivational. Imagine how much shit you would get if you say you're going to read Animal Farm in a week and you don't actually do it.

>>21464815
If he doesn't do it he can just post and say that he did.

>>21464295
this is the list they make middle schoolers pick from to decide their summer literacy project.

>>21464542
>>21464295
>Guy reads books
>triggers other guys who read books

>>21464815
>If you have a goal and no deadline, then you're a lot less likely to get whatever it is done.
Musings From the Wage Cage, by Anon

>>21464295
I hate how there are like 200 books you're allowed to talk about and every list and recommendation is some combination of the same books.

>>21464929
The other books just aren't very good. Yes, I've taken into account that your personal, contrarian favorites use purple prose in place of authentic poignancy. No, that doesn't make them worth mentioning outside of meme discussions on /lit/.

>>21464301
Most messages can be summarized in two lines.
Understanding the message of a book is different from "remembering evocative parts of the book so you can recite them from memory and look cultured".

>>21464704
It's called google, retard.

>>21464968
those glasses are awful

>>21464295
So many of these are things I would just expect anyone with a degree to have read at some point.
How do you even get through high school without needing to read one of the dystopian novels at some point?

>>21464774
Feels bad man. It really does.

>>21464349
This is a funny, albeit rather rude, thing to say. A happy and virtuous person does not belittle his brothers, he loves them.

>>21464704
A filthy jew

>>21465047
>A happy and virtuous person
that Arab is super closeted

>>21464295

Very basic bitch

>>21464349

>>21465098
He's sad because he can't bee himself? That's awful. How can I speak to him, maybe all he needs is a loving embrace and an attentive ear. I'm so overloaded on love, I need to share it before it kills me.

>>21465112
It's a unique quality of this man to say correct and good things in the most embarrassing way possible.

>>21464295
>leading public intellectual.
he's a glorified podcaster/yootoober

>>21464295
how has he never read any of those before? lol half that list is high school stuff.

>>21465126
I think he just wants to fuck that boy.

>>21465149
see
>>21464542

>>21465153
so he's a midwit who's original plan was to pretend to actually read a book a week to engage with twitter followers before being called out. now he's read most of them, but would like to reread the profound pieces like animal farm again. lol. i doubt this retard reads any of these books and just posts banal bits he'll grab from cliffnotes or wikipedia each week.

>>21464295
If it's his first time reading these books, quite disappointing

so cringe

>>21464295
Can someone actually explain to me what's wrong with reading, or re-visiting, classics such as these? Especially because when Lex seems to be encouraging his large fanbase to do the same.

>>21465112
indirectly blew out juden pederstein too rofl, what a champ. I think he was wrong on the vax but I still respect Taleb on some level. I mean his guys won in Afghanistan.

>>21465098
>>21464437
Imbecile!

>>21465249
whats the point?

>>21465272
>What's the point of reading fundamental classics?
Peak /lit/

>>21465277
>sapiens
>1984
>hitchhiker
>frankenstein
>fight club
>player of games
etc
why waste your time with this stuff

>>21465281
Let's hear your pseud recommendations that wouldn't be a waste of time

>>21465285
what i have/am reading this month
cioran - pe culmile disperarii
- the trouble with being born
marie lousie von franz - individuation in fairy tales
baudrillard - the consumer society myths and structures

>>21464349
Does Taleb do anything else aside from passively aggresively insulting other peoples inteligence without never explicitly stating why they are not smart and never providing proof that he is smart?
His only shtick seems to be snarky remarks to sustain a fabricated status of smart man without no real proof of him being smart.
> YOU TRULY BELIEVE IN IQ!?
> I CAN'T EVEN!
But with other words.

>>21465257
>his guys won in Afghanistan.
someone should post this to twitter

>>21464295
>This is the reading list of the leading public intellectual.
I'm so sorry for your culture. Do you want flowers, or a donation to a charity to prevent late adolescent idiocy in the male?

>>21465277
the point is his list contains a mix of highschoolcore shit (honestly most of the list), pseud shit, and completely mainstream recommendations that you would find here or on reddit without digging. He's probably lying about having read them already to cover his ass when people lit him up.
An actually intelligent person making a list like this will invariably end up with some slightly more obscure, controversial or oddball shit. Also actually intelligent people don't set a pace like this, you are not going to read 1984 and Brothers Karamazov at the same pace, period.

>>21464295
>random propped up zog bot
>intellectual
lol

>>21465281
I mean I would say 1984 is an essential read for everyone. But if you’ve graduated college (at least in an English speaking country) and haven’t already read it then you’ve probably already failed intellectually. The other books are not really worth the time, except maybe Frankenstein.

>>21465313
The guy is a programmer, a computer scientist apparently. So of course he's not going to have a reading list beyond the highschoolcore.

This is probably his first time reading any of these books.

If this is really a "leading public intellectual" then God BLess America

>>21464295
>Here's a list of smart people books that I'm gonna consoom in a short amount of time just so I could say I did it and show people I did it

This man is trapped in a mental prison

i haven't seen /lit/izens this upset about a book list since DFW's

>>21464418
Clearly he doesn't read a lot of books. But if you want to be well read then you have to start somewhere so there's nothing wrong with him reading anything on that list. The problem is him turning it into some retarded "challenge" where he has to compelling himself to get through the books on a time limit, effectively sacrificing comprehension for speed and defeating the point of reading a book in the first place. It's the middest of midwit takes to think that you "get good" at reading by force feeding literature to yourself as fast as possible in lieu of actually understanding and appreciating what you read.

>>21465321
>all of these garbage books are worthless, except for this one garbage book that I like

>>21465330
So are millions of other tiktok vat grown drones.

>>21465341
yes, you are the special one!

bot and shill thread, herbed. embarrassing if youre human commenting on this

>>21464295
It's impossible to read The Brothers Karamazov in a week unless you don't have a job.

>>21465321
He has read all of these books. He's just posting this stupid list to seem smart for having read them and lying about being able to re-read all of them once a week.

>>21465336
a week is indeed too little to grasp all of the intricacies of Fight Club
you should carefully ponder on each passage for at least an hour

>>21465348
if you don't have a job you can read The Brothers Karamazov in a day

>>21464295
How the fuck are you a PHD without reading middle school literary assignments like Frankenstein?

>>21465359
have ur dad on the faculty

>>21464295
I really don't see the big deal. Some of the books are usually read in highschool like 1984 and Animal Farm, but I guess it's better late than never. If someone wants to read the classics I'm not going to give them shit for not having already read them. I also don't know who this guy is, maybe it's funnier if you know who he is.

>>21464301
Are you a nigga?

Everyone’s hating and it’s understandable, but at least he’s promoting books. There’s already a lot of anti-intellectualism in his sphere of the internet with Tate and Kanye garbage. So it’s good to see someone promoting reading instead of telling people that they should only spend time on things that earn them money. Besides, it could be much worse. He could be recommending complete YA bullshit but instead it’s just highschool-syllabus classics for the most part.

>>21465313
"Highschoolcore shit" just means basic. Are basics not worth revisiting, or reading at all if you've never read them?
>An actually intelligent person making a list like this will invariably end up with some slightly more obscure, controversial or oddball shit.
I read Lex's list just as encouraging people to read the basics, since they are a good starting point. A million followers will be more interested in reading well-known books than obscure stuff
>Also actually intelligent people don't set a pace like this, you are not going to read 1984 and Brothers Karamazov at the same pace, period.
This is fair. I have no idea what he was thinking with this

>>21465374
This is true but he’s doing it for a cynical reason so it defeats the purpose. No one is going to feasibly read one book every week.

>>21464295
>publicly outing yourself as an adult who hasn't read any of those books
embarrassing
at the very least you should have been forced to read a few of those in school

>>21465340
1984 is significant in understanding modern culture and popular references. The other books, not as much. They are still entertaining, just not really that important otherwise. Is 1984 the peak of literary sophistication? Absolutely not. Should everyone read it so that they don’t call dumb bullshit on the internet 1984? Yes, imo.

>>21465313
>his list contains a mix of highschoolcore shit (honestly most of the list)
it's not most of the list, 100% of the list is high school shit, except for the 1 elementary school book

>>21465381
>No one is going to feasibly read one book every week.
except for, you know, people who like reading or people who have basic self-discipline

>>21465391
I took AP English throughout high school and none of these books were a part of our curriculum

>>21465406
Most people are employed and are not able to read The Brothers Karamazov in a week. Either you're a shill for Lex or retarded if you can't comprehend that. This list of books would be OK if it was for an entire year but he made it for every week because he wants to impress people with how fast he claims to read without taking into consideration the time of others

>>21465410
so did i but many of them were

>>21465414
a week per book is not fast at all, especially if you are reading entry-level garbage like that
it is completely feasible to read 100 pages of basic entry-level fiction after work if you actually want to but most people just can't be bothered
stop promoting ignorance and laziness

>>21464542
I hate this faggot’s fake little proverbs at the end of the stupid things he does.
There is absolutely nothing to gain from listening to this cardboard talking head

>>21465410
I read 1984, Brave New World, Animal Farm, Old Man and The Sea, and Frankenstein in high school from what I remember, and I took both APs. That’s really surprising to me. What did you read instead?

>>21465257
this picture was before the weightloss btw

>>21465047
>does not belittle his [peers], he loves them
Spare the whip, spoil the money changer

>>21464596
Kill all speed readers and posturing morons

>>21464743
Why specifically Issue 21 of Nintendo Power?

>>21465451
Christ was impatient. A man will cry out when you burn his soul with the love he has so long gone for want of, and he shall cry far louder and longer than from an insulated lashing.

>>21465455
https://archive.org/details/NintendoPower1988-2004/Nintendo%20Power%20Issue%20021%20%28February%201991%29/

Unremarkable issue desu

>>21465344
That's what my momma used to say.

>>21464364
Lex is a stemfag, he likely never had to read in college. In all my years of university I was never assigned a book because my AP english credits covered the credits.

>>21464295
Yet another addition to the portfolio of Lex Fridman being a pretentious STEMcel who gets a pass for his arrogance because he pretends to be a nice guy. The guy is delusional. Glad Kanye called him out.

>>21465506
dont see putin appearing on this dudes podcast

>im reading a book a week
brothers karamazovs is like 1800000 characters long, while metamorphosis is one evening novel

>>21465445
Gatsby, Huck Finn, Catcher in the Rye, Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, Shakespeare, and The Crucible were the classics that we read. Other readings were lesser known, handpicked stuff by the teacher

>leading public intellectual

a lot of you are just skipping over The Little Prince.....probably because you don't know your children's books

>>21465539
Adults conducting vicious critical attacks on childrens' books in text and context is admirable. Yes I do know we're talking about Fridman, but at least on this point I'm willing to extend the benefit of the doubt. I mean I read Ruth last night and only masturbated twice.

>>21464349

>>21465566

>>21465566
>sending emails by mentioning affiliation with MIT
Such a fraud kek

>>21465005
>disdaining afro-americano-carribiana culture
Condemnable and ignorant.

>>21464295
>Mossad podcaster
>tells people to read 90% NPC-tier tourist lit
Figures

>>21465112
Why has he become so annoying and whiny?

>>21464606
Fine, I'll answer. Because there are about ~500 books total truly worth reading, the rest is shit or rehash of said books. There, now fuck off, I'm not reading your feminist power fantasy #74893759 this year.

>>21465566
lol, negreanu? wtf is he getting involved for? fun poker player and a skilled reader of a man, but he's clearly out of his depth here. i wonder who drove him to say something.

>>21465566
I always thought it fishy that he claims affiliation with MIT but is not on faculty but a "scientist"

>>21465600
Hm. Seems like you're just like the cat ladies who read their same Daniel Steele novels until the day they die from where I'm standing.

>>21464369
I read a book a week on average but I generally read histories and biographies. I've sustained this pace for a few years now. For instance, last year I read biographies of every US president until HW and most of the founding fathers. I still had time to read bios on churchill, george iii, augustus, julius caesar, oppenheimer. I also read the first 3 books in the book of the new sun, first 3 of stormlight archive, first 3 of red rising. I don't really consider any of these intellectually challenging though.

>>21465571
>yeah man, it's just all love. Nothing but love. Loving Lex. Not a hateful bone in his body. What a great and genuine guy.

This dude really really needs therapy because his life revolves entirely around posturing

>>21465612
>the ideas that shaped us as a society is just like danielle steel
Sounds like you got filtered mate

I hadn't even heard of this guy two months ago. Now I see him talking with Elon Musk on Twitter, interviewing massive figures, and /lit/ debating over his reading list. What gives?

>>21465617
When I was young I knew a disabled woman whose husband was a cross-dresser who had a fetish for mannequins. He felt very bad when he had to sell one of his mannequins in order to pay rent. Which is to say that his mannequins were more genuinely human than Lex. His mannequins were *capable* of posturing.

>>21465619
The ideas that shaped our society have little to do with that apparent list of 500 books. They're just what remains of history and it's not even guaranteed to be good.
In short, it's not any better than trashlit in a literary sense.

>>21465635
No, it's really not. Hugo's philosophy, for example, literally shaped our collective moral standing of today. His "last day of condemned man" was literally used to pursuit the change of the laws. His thoughts (which were provoking at the time) are the de facto standard today, no longer even doubted.
To make sure, I'm not talking about Fridman's list, I don't give a fuck about him and his list is gifted elementary school student material, except TBK.

>>21465613
stormlight archive has two books
the "third book of the stormlight archive" is when sanderson decided to go full moral preaching and isn't canonical to the series

>>21465651
Yeah, Oathbringer was nearly unbearable. Shallan is one of the worst characters I've read.

>>21464295
Why should I give a shit about Fridman? He's an absolute nobody. Never heard of him until a few days ago.

>>21465676
the algorithms say you should

>/lit/ can't refute this

It's a fine list. Yes it's high school lit class core but who gives a fuck.

What's far more cringe is Nassim and other posters trying to posture as superior intellectuals. For some reason discussing books brings out the absolute worst insecurities in people.

>>21465725
>>/lit/ can't refute this
I dunk on all reading lists; and, on all commandments about proper methods of reading.

I shit inside your father. And he pays me for the privilege.

>>21464295
I already feel better about myself
>>21465725
I don't care enough about the unsophisticated

>>21464301
Most of the books on this list can be read in a day, anon...and a lot of them are very simple. The only novels here that would take a bit to digest are Frankenstein and Karamazov

>>21464542
>>21465725
>Why aren't you being nice to me :(
These people are manchildren. They choose books based off of generic top 100 books list and then whine when people call them out on it. I'm not asking them to choose only obscure books. I'm saying it would be nice for them to actually make an effort in their choice of books.

>>21465571
i can feel the seethe

>>21465802
>Noooooo you can't read popular classics!

>>21465786
If you've actually done an arts degree most of these would take a couple of months and five rereadings to fully digest. But fridman isn't going to fully digest is he? He's going to shit out 90% of the nutrients. I guess what I'm saying is that if 90% of the nutrients are shat out then perhaps you could attach someone's mouth to your anus and feed them your shit.

>>21465725
Dunking is essential. You are mistaken

>>21465802

>reading whatever you want
wow what an uneducated pleb, read some classics!

>reading classics
how unoriginal, expand outside generic top 100 lists!

Can't please anyone.

>>21465849
>Can't please anyone.
To quote the bard, "Don't want no small dick man."

>>21465839
I've read Frankenstein multiple times for my degree and wrote three papers on it. I know how long it takes to fully digest. But you really don't even need to do that much just to get a good idea of what Shelley is saying. Given that Frankenstein is the most complicated book on the list by a wide margin, the others really shouldn't take long at all. It's not list of difficult books. I had to read some of those for middle school English classes

>>21465812
>>21465849
Ah yes, those famous classical authors Chuck Palahniuk, Douglas Adams, and Frank Hebert. Give me a fucking break. Where's Montaigne, Keats, or even Goethe? None of those I just mentioned are obscure authors yet are far more worth reading than everybody on that list. All three have far more to say about the human condition than Orwell and Camus.

>>21465872
lol of course you think Frankenstein is the most complex if you had to make up 3 essays of nonsense on it.

>>21465933

That is your subjective, personal, opinion. Plus, where did he state that the purpose of his list is to best capture the nature human spirit? Your just projecting your own goals onto this.

>>21465957
>That is your subjective, personal, opinion.
it isn't though

>>21465725
i'll dunk on any retard i see fit. this is a pr move and the shithead obviously felt the need to clarify, in order to sound educated and not some gigantic phony(MIT lol), that he has read some of these books multiple times but wants to revisit the profoundness of metamorphosis and animal farm; fucking middle school/early high school books. spoiler: he won't read any of them. he's being astroturfed(gee i wonder what about him could be the reason) and this is all for appearances.

>>21465974
Saying something doesn't make it so.
Tough break.

>>21465725

>>21465945
>he doesn't think Frankenstein is the most complex book on this list
>despite the fact that it's the most taught book across all colleges/universities by a massive margin
Be honest, you haven't actually read any of the novels on this list, have you?

>>21465377
>le greater good!

>>21465297
This bothers me too. His "succint explanation" is implied and I don't know what he's implying, Not a very good argument is it.

>>21465603
negreanu is in this sphere of names of online discourse and he knows how to play the social media engagement game. asking a question under a viral tweet is good enough for engagement under his account. once you learn this you see it all over twitter

the list represents literature as an object of consumption
its not about the books but their sign value

>>21466060
What is there other than sign value?

>>21466066
use value

>>21465957
The fact of the matter is that the list is made by a midwit. Why you're so adamant on defending it I have no idea. Going back to my initial post. I don't care that he's going back to reading some of the basics. Honestly Hesse and Dostoevsky are good choices. I feel he should've branched out a bit more.
>That is your subjective, personal, opinion.
If you honestly think Palahniuk, Adams, and Hebert deserve "classic" status you are genuinely braindead and shouldn't be posting period.
>where did he state that the purpose of his list is to best capture the nature human spirit?
If Fridman really wanted to get into reading he would want to broaden his horizons past shit like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Animal Farm.

>calling people NEETs for a book a week
>mfw 60 books read this year, no audiobooks

>>21466071
>broaden his horizons
What're some books you'd recommend for that? I'm always looking for new shit and as silly as it sounds I don't always want to be reading what everyone else is

>>21466079
what do you read normally?

>how do I let people know I'm a real MIT scientist™?
>I'll read science fiction, it has science in the name just like me, MIT scientist Lex!
>how do I let people know I'm intellectual royalty despite being shorter than Joe Rogan?
>I'll read the little prince, I loved it as a child when I was the same height as now!

>>21466079
nta, but my natural tendency led me to:
Wise Blood
Wuthering Heights
Journals and Papers of Kirkegaard
The Elementary Particles
A Confession by Tolstoy
On the Nature of Things
The Little Prince

>>21466009
This is an anonymous forum wtf good is it to you to believe or deny what I read. 4 I haven’t read on that list if you must know, and Frankenstein isn’t that amazing, just good.

>>21465437
Not the anon you were talking to but I think he raises a fair point in that, by reading a book a week, they'll eventually all blend into one another. I did that shit in high school when I had nothing better to do and I literally can't even remember half of the books I read, let alone the basic plot of them. Shotgunning something like Karamazov in a week is insane and it'll get lost among all the other books. Hell, I cant even remember Fight Club (besides the book ending) outside the movie and I read it in less than a week

>Podcaster curates a follow-along reading list that can be accessible the his trillion listeners, who likely have little reading experience anyway
>/lit/ is surprised that is is entry-level tier literature

>>21466085
anything, really. A mix of some of /lit/'s top pics and random shit I find like Insomniac Dreams. I like Pynchon but I've only read 2 of his books, ditto for Nabokov. I don't really have a set "style" that I go for outside of whatever may interest me being 21.

Some of my favorites this year were Farewell to arms, Mishima's Sailor and Malcolm X's book, for example. I'm currently reading Small Sacrifices by Ann Rule as a kind of easy going book before I get another Pynchon or something

I've read a lot of these and I enjoyed most of them. I'd add down and out in Paris and London that one is really cozy

>>21466079
La Rochefoucauld's Maxims, Focque's Undine, Musset's The Confessions of a Child of the Century, Cellini's Autobiography, Sterne's Tristram Shandy, and Novalis' Hymns to the Night were some of the most works that impacted me the most and broadened my thinking.

>>21466119
some stuff i liked

archetypes and collective unconscious (jung)
quiet flows the don (sholokhov)
simulacra and simulation + the consumer society (baudrillard)
the trouble with being born (cioran)
puer aeternus (m.l von franz)
(im 19,we are close..)

>player of games
That's my favorite sci-fi series. Was very sad when the author died suddenly, shortly after he released his last book. I'm a little disappointed /sffg/ doesn't talk about it more.

>Jung, Von Franz, Cioran, Mishima, Lucretius
I fucking love you anons

>>21464367
For you and all of those saying that this is high school level lectures....Then what do you read? Or what do you consider more advanced? Genuinely asking

>>21466205
Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit

>>21464295
what about this?

>>21466169
How did you get into philosophy, or at least being able to read it comfortably? I get filtered by philosophy so easily even when it's not even the main focus like Confessions of a Mask or Crime and Punishment. It just doesn't make sense to me so i usually stick to easier reads like pynchon or something

>>21464451
>SEP/wikipedia/secondary source skimmers that might be getting way more knowledge just by reading summaries
No, they're pseuds who memorize a bunch of "wacky facts" but can't hold a conversation about anything. I work with a guy who is "into eastern philosophy/mysticism" but has never read a single book about it, just Wikipedia.

>>21466229
what're the essential Poe short stories? I have his collected works but I think it'd be better to go through the must reads instead of killing myself trying to go through them sequentially by the book

>>21466236
started with plato, lots of plato

>>21466205
IJ, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime

>>21466245
Also, On Naïve and
Sentimental Poetry

>>21465257
Is Taleb GOMAD-pilled?

>>21464295
I don't get it, beginners list of popular books aside, I'm certain he's referenced BNW, 1984, hitchhikers, brothers Karamazov, dune, Palahniuk, and a few others like he's read them already, especially dostoyevsky who he claims is his favorite.
And now he's making a list where 90% are books he's supposed to have read. Was he faking it until now? Did he sparknotes evetything? Is this a reread?

>>21466241
The Tell-Tale Heart, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, The Black Cat, The Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Premature Burial, and my personal favorite Hop-Frog. As for poetry, read The Raven, Annabel Lee, The City in the Sea, and The Conqueror Worm.

>>21465313
You are retarded. These books are being read in highschool because they are important, not because they are basic.

>>21466285
Yeah bro, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is sooo important, such a profound book. It really speaks to the human condition

>>21464295
I went through a phase where I tried to gamify my goodreads count by going through lists of the shortest "classics"

>>21466285
>important things aren't basic
>basic things aren't important
>the chief purpose of pedagogy isn't producing a self-improving system

Teachers select them because they're basic firstly, because they allow people an entry into reading that they otherwise lack. Secondarily teachers are interested in whatever their hegemonic apparatus dictates is important.

Can you imagine teaching BNW for 50 years to 17 year olds? This hell awaits you in secondary education, if you're lucky, and you get the terminal classes of gifted students.

>>21465603
Maybe because he was on Lex' podcast.

>>21466300
You mean ungifted

Wait isn't it similar to /lit/'s top 100? Why are you guys shitting on him?
I see some self loathing going on here.
Or is it because he posted the list.

>>21464743
kek

>>21466312
No. You get to teach BNW in the gifted class. Ungifted terminal classes are works marketed as "young adult" rather than merely being young adult like BNW.

>>21466292
And I don't think it's often read in high school, but what's the problem with reading some books just for fun? You are such pseuds, you probably don't even know basic calculus or formal logic and try to dunk on someone who is a full time engineer and still reads fairly decent books.

>>21466335
BNW is "young adult."

>>21466337
you might as well watch tv

>>21466341
It is marketed as canon though. That's why the adverbal descriptive was used above.

>>21464295
Isn't this r/books top 100 books?

>>21466205
Many of those books are frequently assigned reading in high school english classes. Which they shouldn't be. What life experience does a 15-year-old have to reflect upon as they read something like Animal Farm or Brave New World? It's like the curriculum is designed to kill the love of literature in students by giving them things to read 10 years too early. I don't know why that's so common in american english classes but it's retarded.

>>21466337
No, but it's often read by high schoolers which amounts to the same.
Imagine thinking that fucking calculus is the mark of an intellectual lmao
And you have the audacity to call others pseuds, pathetic.

>>21466355
>Imagine thinking that fucking calculus is the mark of an intellectual
t. never been outside, never spoke to the average person

>>21466362
How I wish that were true...

>>21466355
You are biased because you probably have a job involving literature or you have a fairly easy job and reading is your main hobby.
Working in AI research involves long hours, a lot of hard work and a lot of math. Not everyone has the time to read every obscure book, that's the same concept as division of labour, reading is not the only intellectual endeavour. Lex tries to be a well rounded person, can you say you are as well rounded as he is, if you know zero math?
And while something like Animal Farm is often read in high school, it was never a book aimed at children. It is a book written by an adult, serious writer for other serious, adult readers.

>>21466383
alri lex

>>21466355
I saw a Caltech professor reacting to this post on twitter saying shit like "Fridman probably doesn't know what the cosine of an angle is"

>>21464743
I would honestly find him far more endearing and respectable if this was his list.

>>21466383
Yeah bro, working in a factory is so /lit/ and working 7-day weeks leaves me with so much free time
There's so much projection in this post I'm not even sure how to respond. Suffice it to say that I know a fair bit of STEM and humanities and I'm not paid to do either.

>>21466409
We truly live in the end times.

Yes, Fridman is a fraud sent by Mossad to replace Joe Rogan, but the reaction to this list just proves how insufferable lit nerds are
Humanities pseuds have been saying for years that "STEM people not knowing literature is why the fascists are winning", but apparently you're expected to have read every single 'classic' by age 25, and have spent at least 3 months 'digesting' each one, meanwhile they probably couldn't do basic high school maths
Their entire existence is devoted to looking down their nose at people, and trying to keep up appearances so that they don't feel like others are looking down their nose at them

>>21466433
You're projecting

>>21464369
>I'm a voracious reader and one book a week isn't feasible.
It is when you're a NEET. I don't know how many times I've read it but I can usually knock out The Lord of the Rings in three days. Similar amount of time for Dune and Catch-22, which altogether are probably the three longest books I've read. When I really get into something, I can't pull my attention away from it so it's a solid 14 or more hours of reading a day until I've finished the book.

>>21466433
No, it's only because this jewboy presents himself as an intellectual.
If this was stemlord #9254's reading list no one would care.

>>21465592
Honestly shocking to me how few people seem to think he's an intelligence plant

>>21466470
Why do you think that?

>>21466519
NTA but Lex kind of just popped up out of nowhere and amassed an enormous following despite not having any particular skills or talents that you would expect someone with such a large following to have. He gets so many influential and famous guests on his podcast despite just being some random guy with mediocre conversational skills, he espouses the "correct" CIA approved opinions and adheres to a very polite neoliberal worldview, and he's heavily shilled by the Twitter algorithm. You don't really get to reach an audience of millions without being CIA approved, because just think about it.

>>21464295
>only men writers

based

>>21466569
>despite just being some random guy with mediocre conversational skills
>mediocre
That's a generous description from what little I've seen of him.

>>21466569
His degrees are from a no-name university, claims to be at MIT but only very vaguely and not an instructor. Claims to have a day job while running a podcast with guests flying in from all around the world and is going to read a Brothers Karamazov every week.

>>21464349
I don’t know who this man is but he acts like an honorary woman

>>21464349
kek

>>21466668
I hate Twitter so much.

>>21466671
Seconded, what a terrible medium

>>21465571
He's such a fake ass bitch how can nobody see through his schtick. Everything he says is posturing for optics to be made out to be the virtuous loving good guy in the most hackneyed fashion possible right down to the new age platitudes of 'one love' bullshit.

He's a fraud, his background, his thesis, the way he talks and his entire success story with his podcast, nothing about him is authentic.

I'm glad more people are waking up to his bullshit.

is this real? I literally read more than half of those in high school.

>>21465566
DANIEL NO!

>>21466668

>>21466668
What a great start to the year

>>21464295
literally nothing wrong with the list
why are humanitiesfags pretending like people read books? less than .001% of the english-speaking population has read all those books.
And who gives a shit about "muh reason" to read? Missing the forest for the trees.
>>21464349
>>21465566
>doesn't make his point clear
>complains about strawmanning
dios mio... el poder del árabe
>>21466689
I don't see any reason to call Lex inauthentic. He oftentimes mentions that he works for MIT, sure, but that's literally true.
>>21464596
>t. doesn't stretch his legs

>>21464295
>the leading public intellectual
He's an interviewer. He became known for talking to people who are more interesting than he is.

>>21466671
I find it concerning that there are apparently a sizeable population of degenerate anons that actively use twitter and find these tweets to post

>>21464630
Did you read it in the original Russian, Lex?

>>21466718
Reading a book a week is retarded
You completely missed the point

>>21464743
There's no way he can get through Very Hungry Caterpillar in a week.

>>21464523
there's a lot in that book that's worth pausing and reflecting on. speedreading for completion's sake does it a disservice imo.

>>21466718
>literally nothing wrong with the list
it's programmatic, populist, and there are no themes connecting any of them. the books are good, but the list feels forced and unnatural. it's not how ordinary curious people approach books at all.
this would be a good list if it was a backlog you wrote in a .txt document about books you should read someday, not an actual schedule. what intelligent person schedules books on a weekly basis, anyway?

>>21465571
keyed move taking the high road. I don’t particularly like Lex—in fact, I dislike his podcast, but everybody who attacks a dude who never starts beef nor retaliates just looks evil

>>21465257
>his guys won in Afghanistan.

>>21465802
>*sees a list full of literary classics*
>generic top 100 books list
uhhhh... what is the western canon?

>>21466738
Speedreading is an amusingly stupid idea, it's a very pop culture idea of reading = smarter so just maximize words per second and after a few months boom you're a genius!
Try that with a physics textbook and see how that goes.

>>21466747
It is mean yes, but Lex isn't totally harmless, he's an influential "intellectual" that a lot of people look up to and learn from. To some extent Taleb is in fact doing a responsible thing by unveiling the charade.

>>21466668
This is better than pro wrestling

>>21466768
>It is mean yes, but Lex isn't totally harmless, he's an influential "intellectual" that a lot of people look up to and learn from
Bruh, he’s just a dude who host a podcast, and anyways, people look up to a lot of worse celebrities than Lex. It’s like Bill Nye or Neil Degrasse Tyson, they spark interest in STEM but nobody actually sees them as leading experts. I would like to hear you justify how Lex is harmings his audience by posting a list of books he is aiming to read.

>>21466804
You're probably going to be right since I literally know nothing about lex other than what's in this thread lol. If anything he seems to me like some jb peterson type that pseuds gather around funding his patreon and worshiping him. Also I find what taleb did very entertaining so I wanted to justify it.
Anyway, it's not like Lex didn't put himself out there, there's no rule against taleb owning him epicly, if he wants to call himself an intellectual then he should be free to be put under scrutiny.

>>21466769
But just as trashy.

>>21466839
I'm not an expert on Lex Fridman but I've seen a few of his podcasts. He doesn't even say much, I don't think he asks leading questions either and I don't think he calls himself an intellectual. Most of his guests aren't even controversial in the slightest, he has guys like Magnus Carlsen or the inventors of C++, Java and Python on his podcast. I have never read or heard a single controversial statement from the guy, if anything he is just a bit boring but imho absolutely harmless.

>>21464295
how old is this guy?
most of this is high school level reading

>>21466853
Yeah I mostly went with it because I like taleb.
Not very rational or enlightened I know. hating on stupid people is fun and feels good

>>21466241
I wish I knew but I just got this info from somewhere else.

>>21466877
40 lol

>>21466585
Yeah, He’s a bad interviewer with no charisma, it makes no sense that he would have “blown up” in popularity

>>21464308
A lifetime being generous.

>>21465295
>cioran - pe culmile disperarii
>- the trouble with being born
>marie lousie von franz - individuation in fairy tales
>baudrillard - the consumer society myths and structures
Why waste your time with this shit?

>>21465933
>Montaigne
>Goethe
Garbage
>Chuck Palahniuk, Douglas Adams, and Frank Hebert
Trash
>Orwell and Camus
Artists

>>21466747
I agree, Taleb is going full-on gossip girls in doing some idiotic twitter put-down. It's a book list. Not an amazing one, and very "entry level/high school english class", but if 30% of STEM fags read even that initial list it would be great for american literacy.

>>21466738
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/magazine/nabokov-on-dostoyevsky.html

>>21465249
they should have already read these in high school

>>21464645
Bloom may have been telling the truth. I don't read nearly as much as Bloom, nor as consistently, have been polluted by computers, television, and the like, yet was able to read nearly 400 pages for a history class at around 100 pages an hour. With enough natural talent and consistency, it isn't inconceivable for someone to reach 1000 pages an hour.

>>21467045
lmao

>>21466292
Yeah. That's correct.
I'm glad you agree.

>>21467063
Fridman published a shitty reading schedule that will probably motivate some of his viewers to read more, which is good.
Taleb simply explained why he wouldn't want to be a guest on his podcast (despite being invited multiple times) by quoting that list.

I see nothing wrong with either.

>>21465849
Must be bait but really there are so many classic and good books outside of top 100 lists that are deserving of attention. Which makes this posturing all the more infuriating. Just look at Bloom's Western Canon list:
sonic.net/~rteeter/grtbloom.html

>>21466853
>or the inventors of C++
Just the one: Bjarne Stroustrup. Or maybe you were thinking of Unix and C, in which case it would be Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, respectively. I don't watch lex's podcast but computer science is my wheelhouse. They're both wonderful brains to pick, for the record:
https://youtu.be/EY6q5dv_B-o

>>21466759
>Douglas Adams
>Isaac Asimov
>Arthur C Clarke
>Victor Frankel
>Yuval Harari
>Ian Banks
>Frank Herbert
>Chuck Palahniuk
>Western Canon

>>21465725
nope midwit against the wall

>>21467106
Mmmmm, it's the pithiness of it: "I would never allow myself to be interviewed by this guy who makes a list of books I think is beneath me". There's an arrogance to it that bends towards stupidity.

>>21464301
>There is absolutely no way you could retain or understand anything from those books reading at that pace. Luckily most of them are shit.
There are sometimes reasons for a person to read large quantities of content, rather than just reading and rereading the same work repeatedly for a better understanding of that work.
Certain “themes” in literature, are only understood by either a large section of literature from a specific time frame, or reading a “specific” sector of literature as that “sector” progresses over time.
The “themes” cannot be grasped by reading a single work.
The same is somewhat true of other “art” forms, such as movies, TV shows, music, etc.

>>21467173
I don't know what insanity you guys keep harping on: what book requires more than a week to read? Book a week seems like a pretty comfy pace so long as you have an interest in the books you're reading.

>>21467173
this might be true, but it is irrelevant in the context of Fridman's list because there seems to be an absence of such a theme (or any theme for that matter). if he put something like 3-4 great cyberpunk novels in a row or something like that which actually interests him, i'd be fine with it.

>>21466229
Imagine reading all that just to end with the okonkwo yam bongo dongo book

>>21466383
I just quit a job where I cut 0.2gs off lymph nodes and put them into tubes all day yet I can still do calculus and read better books than fucking animal farm.

>>21466969
>americans not even once 40 year olds with high school reading level

>>21467184
>>21467232
There are plot elements, symbology, names, etc., that get used in multiple novels and short stories, etc.
In any one work, these just seem like necessary, but random choices.
If you read a lot, you realize the choices aren’t random, and were very specifically chosen or used.
The names of characters in ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ are a good example.
Thomas Harris and his novels are another good example.

>>21465506
>>21465571
I wish The Last Psychiatrist were still around so he could dab on this guy

>>21467291
>The names of characters in ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ are a good example.
please, do tell