/lit/ - Literature

Oprah reading list, HOOOOOOOOOOO

I think when you get a large enough group of readers together, the rankings will trend in that direction.

They're not called "mass appeal" books for nothing.

>find people with similar taste to yours
>mitebcool

Hey, at least the list includes The Hunger Games. That kinda balances out Twilight. I mean, I prefer my kids read The Hunger Games to Twilight. I let them read both because I'm not a Nazi but The Hunger Games actually has good messages for kids to absorb.

>>2217224
Oprah recommended much better books than this

>she's read William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, Carson McCullers, Leo Tolstoy, John Steinbeck, Toni Morrison, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez

>You've read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Less Than Zero, and 3/4 of 1984

>>2217224
no doubt there's some influence there, but the main thing we see reflected in this list is the taste of average minds. it's the nature of the blel curve.

>>2217253
Gabo is utter shit. Even Thompson is better tha him.

Really? Because I looked up their Best Books of the 20th Century list and it wasn't quite like that one ...

>>2217276
>reddit
>/co/
explains a lot about this board.

>>2217281

Are my tastes too plebeian for you, good sir?

>>2217281

You're why people think this board is shit ...

>>2217276
They're all here

>best books EVER
>chosen by people who lived less than 17 years on this planet

If you actually look at the star ratings, you'll notice the ones on that list are fairly low and AREN'T ordered by ratings. So I don't know what that's supposed to show, how popular the books are by vote?

>>2217287
>>2217283

I actually think this board is shit because of people like you and the fag who keeps spamming anal cannon.

Goodreads is a great tool actually, really handy for keeping track of what you read, comparing prices and editions for certain books, etc etc. Sure, the community is largely 17 year old girls as you can tell by the lists but who gives a fuck about them? Also, I think capsguy has a goodreads account you could add him if you need a friend.

I'm not going to lie to you guys, I did read the Hunger Games trilogy and enjoyed it. Sorry. I-I'll go now... if you want.

>>2217380
Please.

http://www.goodreads[dot]com/user/show/5442945-caracalla

A lot of trips have accounts. 3rd probably has the best...

>>2217276
>>2217276
I bet most of the people whose data went into that list haven't read anything outside of school.

>>2217400
Flattered, but I don't see it.

Goodreads can be used effectively and if you ignore the sidebar advert dross it's a good tool for managing your reading and keeping a schedule. The public eye on your habits can be helpful for getting the reading done. Some purists might argue that reading should be done for its own merit but if you procrastinate or get distracted easily (as I do) you need every tool you can get to help you back into the books.

The new functions for recommended books are a bit sloppy (and belie heavy investments by science fiction and graphic novel readers) but I've found a few books I have every intention of reading through it.

Some consensus in /lit/ I've been seeing over the months (if not explicitly articulated) is trying to work towards finding revisionist classics that might enrich more than the big names scholasticism currently has. Dare I say it's our responsibility to find the alternatives. If you aren't watching book review blogs or aggregates for this kind of stuff it would hardly hurt to get a few friends on goodreads to keep new ideas flowing in for things to read into.

http://www.goodreads(durf)com/user/show/3658703-3rd

Hunger games trilogy blows so much flaming dick its unbelievable.

>>2217427
>>2217400
I used to think you guys were cool, but now that I know your book opinions condensed to a scale from one to five, I don't think you're cool any more.

>>2217472
Joke's on you nerd I was never cool.

>>2217489
i don't get it

>>2217489
Hi 3th

>>2217253
>I've only read half

i am a worthless pile of excrement

>>2217253
I haven't read any of 1984. I saw the Apple commercial, what more do I need to know?

>>2217216
not that I would've made a Goodreads account anyway, but..

>>2217247
The hunger games is absolute shit for a book.

>start a goodreads account
>intentionally downvote shit like hunger games and malazan even though I haven't read it because I don't want that kind of shit recommended to me just because I read speculative fiction
>recommends:
>wheel of time
>mistborn
>pendragon
>my motherfucking face when

>>2218763
>have bad taste
>get mad when it recommends bad books

>>2218763
i would try adding book

it probably works better with a lot of data for you, rather than through your efforts to artificially skew its profile of you

I have built up a good list of books to look for in second hand book shops by following reviews that showed similar tastes to my own. It is useful having the list on my phone and not linked to an online store.

My only problem with good reads are the number of books not on there. I have about a hundred books (most shit, some mind blowing) that are not listed. Also I can't help but get competitive with over number of books read. sometimes it is hard knowing how easy it is to be petty and pathetic

I recommend signing up for Librarything and listening to School Of Seven Bells. :D]

Good luck!

>>2218763

But Malazan is actually good.

According to Amazon's average customer reviews, the best 44 books in the whole world are... all Harry Potter

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_pg_4?rh=n%3A266239&page=4&sort=reviewrank_authority&ie=
UTF8&qid=1322547052

>>2219000
you must be into rarer texts than me

i've found some pretty obscure stuff on there, although if it's an old edition of mine, then they may not have that

try searching with the isbn if nothing else. i think they have their databse linked up with e-retailers, so they potentially have everything that amazon, etc. has

>>2217253
I've read the authors mentioned and all the books mentioned except Carson McCullers. Who the fuck?!!

>>2219030
Not really, I was saddened to see that most of the books on my shelf had the penguIn stamp of approval. Those aside the books I can't find are by well known authors if you're australian or books I picked up while working in a remainder book shop; books less than 5 years old with guardian and new York times reviews on back. Tried all the different avenues for searching with no result.

>>2219072
Name some of the titles so we can check.

>>2217276
>Anne frank
>Good
Pick one.

>>2219076
it's fair not to judge her by the same standards as a professional, career author

>>2219076
Anne Frankly I don't River Dance

>>2218763
Yeah, the recommendation system had to be that god awful shit system from Amazon. Add one novel that just happens to feature gay protagonists and every fucking suggestion under contemporary fiction is now a homoerotica book.

>>2217276
>>2217283
kill yourself

>>2219074
Now I feel embarrassed. Double checked a couple and there they were. These are a couple I still couldn't find. It appears to be more obscure publishing houses that are hard to find.

Ten articulate men - John Stephens
Subtopia - a.l. McCann

However credibility be damned!

>>2219104
Those two are on there also.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3089291-ten-articulate-men
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2731836-subtopia

Trying searching by ISBN instead.

>>2219106
Thank you for prooving my uselessness. I thought it was strange for some of the books not to be there.

>>2219104

Cheers for the recommendation. Subtopia sounds quite interesting.

Any Australian books you'd recommend that aren't the usual Miles Franklin winners?

I'm making my way through the Oz lit chart (making up for a rather Euro-centric secondary education) with a few deviations off the beaten track but I'd be interested if you knew some more names that I might not.

>>2219115
It's cool. I add a lot of books that are somewhat obscure and Goodreads always has them, so I thought something might be going wrong on your end when you search.

>>2219118
it might be some weird programming issue too

my guess is they have some kind of deal with retailers where they can link to their shit, and basically can look at their book databases. it's possible that they can't 'migrate' a new book over from amazon or whomever, into goodreads, unless you provide an isbn. in other words, if you're the first person on goodreads to read such-and-such, then there might be some hurdles to getting them to find such-and-such.

but i am speaking out of my ass ... sage for speculation

>>2219117
Unfortunately I didn't really like subtopia soooooo much angst

Couple of good Aussie books... Death of a river guide(can't remember author) and head games(nick earls) and to show my own vice anything by frank moorhouse. These might be a bit obvious and you might already have read them but other, less widely read Aussie authors are too expensive to speculate upon. Sad but true

>>2219123
I also have suspicions regarding preferential listing of recommended reading

>>2219139

I'll keep that in mind with Subtopia.

Haven't read any Flanagan (that's who you're thinking) or Moorhouse (Forty-Seventeen is on the chart, though I'd already had that on my list since I read some review in The Age) but I've noted down Head Games. Thanks.

>Too expensive to speculate on.

That's what inter-library (especially uni) loans are for! Though seeing as you worked in remainders that might not work. Then again the NLA's Trove has helped me on a number of occasions...

Actually if you're on Goodreads, you should join /lit/'s group (http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/29373._lit_).). I personally wouldn't mine perusing your read shelf.

...fuck that sounds dirty in my head.

>use site
>rate harry potter pretty well
>realise i dont want to read more books like harry potter

CURSE MY HONEST HEART!

>>2219186
>mfw you havn't read/rated enough novels outside of the hp series, so as to get a richer set of recs

>>2219194

>mfw i have rated a whole bunch of shit
>i just realised i didn't want more harry potter level reading
>like i said before
>idiot

>>2219009
this

>>2219195
wasn't realizing that

the comment i was replying to suggests that they haven't built up a broad enough spectrum of books, for the positive HP ratings not to be important

Goodreads is nice but it has some flaws, it's currently recommending me a play on the grounds that I've read a collection in which it was included

only 2 people on /lit/ have goodreads accounts?

>>2221088

Look in the /lit/ group and you'll see more: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/29373._lit_