/lit/ - Literature

I meant to read infinite Jest in 2011. But I never did. I will in 2012. That's the only goal. I know I won't be able to beat this year's quantity (127) so I think I will settle for larger works

As a high school drop-out, my goal is to read all of the works of Joyce, Orwell, Rand, Shakespeare, Nietzsche, and Marx.

From there I figure I'll have the ability to deduce who to read next.

I'm going for contemporary lit myself (stuff from 2000ish and onwards). I'm planning to read one for every two miscellaneous books I read, which should work out at around fifteen come the end of the year.

My goal is to finally read Gravity's Rainbow, to get around to my copy of The Pale King, and to relish some Americana once I've moved back from the UK to the USA.

I'm going to read "In Search of Lost Time." Every fucking word of it.

>>2284037
Read 100 books, mostly older stuff; more philosophy.

>>2284050
>high school dropout
>reading Joyce
>allusions, allusions everywhere

>mfw this guy thinks that nietzsche, marx, rand, and joyce will make him smart, but he won't get anything out of them except for a fucked up sense of smug self-righteousness.

Right on, brother.

It's the bigger books that I'm aiming to get through in 2012.

I didn't feel like tackling too many this year. About the only "serious" big books I got through this year were The Pale King (550 pages approx) and The Savage Detectives (600 pages-ish).

So next year I've got sitting around The Doll (Prus), The War of the End of the World (Vargas Llosa), Life and Fate (Grossman), The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas), Hopscotch (Cortazar), The Devils (Dostoevsky), all waiting to be read.

Those are the ones I'm going to focus on amongst the shorter works. Maybe aim for an Infinite Christmas if I'm not too burnt out on larger books by this time next year.

>>2284107
>implications, implications everywhere

I think someone is putting words in my mouth.
I just want to read great works. I want to have my mind opened to new ideas. I think you might be projecting. Why do you read, sir?

On a final note, fuck the American public education system. I figured out how full of bullshit it was at 12. Are you still unaware?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkPvSCq5ZXk&feature=related

Yeah, I plan on reading 50 books next year. The past couple years I've managed around 25-30, but I'm trying to become better read.

I want to finish Ulysses, The Odyssey, Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, , Paradise Lost, The Aeneid, Metamorphoses and The Brothers Karamazov before starting University in September

My mane rezolooshun iz too ejukayt the wurld abaot kut speling and introjoos lengwij rufawrm throo inturnut kommyoonettys. Reed Kliffurd if intrasted.

>>2284209
You need to practice your version of English. I still have to use context clues at times.

Also, phonics is slow and cumbersome. Wouldn't a better system be an entirely new alphabet?

>edjookayt
Just an example of your failings.

>>2284107
>you can't comprehend these bookz, they're dun 4 smart ppl liek me
I'm happy you found a way to feel better about yourself.

>>2284076
I'm with this guy.

Trying to read more contemporary fiction. I'm focusing on more recent releases though. Primarily the last 3 or 4 years. I've got a pile of 30 or so that i've accumulated and I'd like to work though it.

In fact, my main goal should simply be to whittle down that "To-be-Read" pile that's heaped up. I probably have 50 titles that I've either half-assed or haven't started. Christ, that's turribul

>>2284218
Maybee yoo see mee as a faelyur nao bot wun day I wil bee lawded as an inovaytur of modurn lengwijz.

>>2284229
>inohvaytor

You're bad at your own language.

>>2284230
I am a jeenyus maed to bee a purrayeahh jew too irralavant soshul konvenshuns. Wun day I will be rememburd fawr my kontribyooshun to litturasy and too hyoomannity in jenral.

>>2284037

i dont partake in such faggotry. reading is not who i am, its what i do.

>>2284230
>>2284218

He is also a trol, trying to mimik me (i.e. "language reform anon").

>>2284237
No yoor a troal mimmikking mee. Wy duzunt anywun taek me seriusly? No wundur I hayt peepul.

>>2284037

I plan on reeding som of those on my to reed list. http://emilkirkegaard.dk/reading_page.html

I plan on reeching book 110 by the end of 2012. Wether i make that depends upon how many pointles exams i hav to waste time on, and wich books i choos to reed. Som take alot les time than others to reed. Kurently reeding Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Thinking about reeding Steven Pinker next, but im not sure. I usualy just start reeding the first book that springs to mind and is on the list (somtimes not eeven on the list).

>>2284237

please get a tripcode so I can filter you.

>>2284245
"som" should be "sum"
"eeven" should be "eevin"

Your system is flawed

>>2284245

Stawp fukking trying to koppy mai speling. Yoo are too intelektyooly shallenjd to get it ryet.

>>2284269
Language reform anon is nice.

What is your goal with mimicking him?

Why don't they like you LRA?

Ayem lengwij rufawrm anon. That other gy iz an impawstur.

>>2284275

I hav many traits peeple dislike:
- imodesty (to modern xtian standards, i side with Aristotle on this mater),
- nonstandard spelings (obviusly),
- misanthropy,
- eugeniks,
- IQ reserch,
- distate for kontinental filosofy.

Probably a few mor things that make them dislike me.

>>2284292
You forgot to add one:
>Becos I am a kompleet pillok

I just need to read more in general. I was lazy in 2011.
I've also resolved to read Finnegans Wake at some point, not necessarily in 2012.

>>2284042
127 books?

What do you do?

>>2284292
In Aristotle's time you would be one of the lower forms of slave.

>>2284292
People dislike you because you're a troll

I like your trolling style though, seems to work well for this board.

I want to branch out of fiction into stuff like political philosophy and memoirs and stuff.

You actually mentioned two of mine OP - to read more contemporary literature and to read more female authors. I already have a ton of things lined up for both, as I've been working on it for a while.

Not planning on any doorstoppers yet, but I think I might try to read more of the books off the 100 Novellas chart I haven't read.

I also plan to read more authors from countries I haven't read anything from yet. Picked up a set of Albanian short stories for that reason, and I'll also be trying to check out Estonia, Slovenia, and a whole bunch of the Middle Asian and African countries. I want to try and have read at least one book from 100 different countries by the end of the year.

I'm also hoping I will read some of the big names I've been overlooking for some reason - Borges, Cortazar, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Fitzgerald, etc.

And overall, I'm hoping to read another 150 books. A lot of goals, but more than anything, I'm hoping to read a ton of things I love and find even more favorites than I found this year.

>>2284332

"One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument" (from UrbanDictionary.com)

I rarely do that, and i jeneraly beleev in the things i rite about.

>>2284385
>2011
>believes in IQ research
girlslaughing.jpg

>>2284446
it's whoreslaughing.jpg

>>2284332
This guy is fucking hilarious. The asinine, overbearing answers to his posts always put a smile on my face.

Just to read more in general.

I've only really ever read Computer Science text-books that I've needed for College and University.

I've recently discovered that I really enjoy fiction, too. Not too good at deciding what I like yet. I read SO slowly too. Hopefully I can get better though.

100 books would be a good goal. Only made it to 90 so far this year and won't finish ten in three days.

I'm going to try to avoid reading translations for the most part this year to experience the best English prose. Might try to get some doorstoppers out of the way (maybe the Recognitions or the Sot-Weed Factor)

>danish guy able to make /lit/ froth at mouth just by spelling slightly differently

stay mad, friends.

i unironically think language reform anon is a good poster. is he even a troll? i don't think so. he's rad.

anyway, my only resolution is to keep reading more and writing more. but it's my constant resolution at pretty much any given time, so. nothing new.

my goal is to write my own book

Honestly, we should probably just get rid of extraneous letters like "g" and "c". Can't see why we haven't already. Nobody uses them anymore - why delay the inevitable?

>>2284529

Never.

goatse.cx

bamp

>Read more female authors
HAHAHAHAHAHA.

I'm starting a PhD program in the Fall, so my reading goal is split: 1) Read some more of the works I feel I should be familiar with before starting the program. 2) Read some more of the works I've had backlogged, since the program is going to cut into my time significantly, so I wouldn't be very free to read extra stuff. A bit between the two, I plan to read more Heidegger.

>>2285436
This.

After you've exhausted all of Virginia Woolf's novels, there's not much left.

To double my physical collection of books

I'm not trying to read X number of novels in 2012, like I usually do. I'm going to try and read poetry and non-fiction. I'm also going to try and find cheaper ways to get books, like independent sellers on Amazon, and the library.


>>2284462

It's actually laughingwhores.jpg

How does one manage to read 100+ books?

A book per week. So 52 books in total. As I am fairly new to book, I think I'm going to tackle a lot of classics first.

I'm going to try and read more classic novels, and more of the books I've purchased yet failed to read this year. My goal I suppose would be 50-75 books this year.

>>2284037

I'd like to shoot for two book a month in 2012. I will have read 15 this year (just finishing Taleb's "The Black Swan"); work kept me too busy to read more. This year I finally read "One Hundred Years of Solitude", which has been sitting in the unread pile for fifteen years.

Pic related; punched Marquez in the eye, LOL. (Read TWATENTW this year too.)

>>2285877

>reading Black Swan
>hasn't figured out that you're supposed to reread books

>>2285889
>>2284037

Que?

To clear my to-read list by the end of 2012. Maybe write some fiction as well.

>>2285533

With reckless disregard.

All I know is I have a $200 B&N gift card, shit's gonna be off the hook.

>>2287273
whatchu gonna buy with that?

My resolutions are:
- Read 100 books. At least 10 of them non fiction.
- Read at least 5 books in Spanish.
- Start seriously reading through the "Western Canon". I will start with some Shakespeare. This is probably a three year project if I read one or two books for this a month along with all the other stuff interspersed.

I'm going to read a bunch of contemporary trash and god dammit, I'm going to enjoy it

Try to read as much as possible. I'm going to be busy the first half of the year, so I'll have to work double the second half.

I have exactly 100 books on my to-read. I want to clear out at least 52 in 2012.

Maybe get a job too.

I just started reading /lit/ this week after reading Less Than Zero, so I guess its to read more than one book a year.

How is it even possible to read 100+ books?

>>2287761

It's only 2 books a week. As long as they're modern books (read: fairly easy going), it's not that hard.

Infinite Jest and Finnegan's Wake.

Let's fucking do this, /lit/.

this was my resolution last year, too

>>2287822
With Infinite Jest, I suggest you set up a timetable. "I will read X pages per day" or "I will read for Y hour(s) every day." This way, you can also allow yourself time to read other books without letting IJ fall by the wayside.

I had a teacher who was a big Joyce fan. After teaching A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, she urged me to read Ulysses on my own and cautioned by that I should only read Finnegan's Wake if I can do so in a class with a professor taking me through it.

I personally have yet to find a class at my university that teaches it, so I empathize with you if you rule that one out. A better option, in my opinion, is to read this thoroughly annotated edition: http://finwake.com/

The drawback to that is - if you're like me and don't like reading novels on a screen (or on printer-paper) - is that it's not printed in the form of a book. The only remaining option I know would be to tackle it by reading A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake by Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson simultaneously.


I do confess that I'm giving you this advice as someone who has not read Finnegan's Wake (but does love Joyce).

>>2287840
I've never tried the timetable idea, since I'm just really bad at sticking to a schedule in general, but that's something I need to get better at in order to, y'know, exist as a functioning member of society, so this might be a good place to start

As for that annotated finnegan's wake, I think I'm going to give that a try; I've done computer screen reading in the past, and while it's not my preferred format, I can manage it, especially when I break it into smaller chunks.

Thanks a billion for the tips, these seem like they could really help. Pic related, it's you.

>>2287858
No problem, bud. I myself have been meaning to get around to that annotated version of Finnegan's Wake. Eventually...

Oh, yeah. My resolution: read some of the shorter books on my prospective reading list in bookstores without buying them to prolong wallet-life a bit.

I've got to finish the Bible. I'm a good way through (NT finished, Torah finished, Writings finished) but there's still a lot of the OT to read. And then the Apocrypha.

I haven't read a Faulkner novel yet, only some short stories. Not sure if I should start with The Sound and the Fury (I heard it's quite challenging) or if I should go with Absalom, Absalom!

I really should read all of Borges stories.

I want to pull off something like 30 novels. I typically read a lot of older. longer works so I don't think I can beat that given my current workload. I also want to get through all of Joyce's novels without having my brain explode.

Personally, I want to get some short stories published and a novel at least completed... applying to a difficult MFA (or possibly PhD) program in a year and need some more scholarly achievements.

bump

A friend of mine did a year of Nothin' But Female Authors a while back. It sounds appealing to me but realistically I know my dumb ass would be unable to resist some shit by a bedicked writer I picked up from a used bookstore near the end of February. Still, it does *sound* great - maybe tap into the female-authored portion of the chest-achingly wonderful high school lit canon and do Their Eyes Were Watching God in January, Middlemarch in December, and a great year-long literary Lilith Fair of undiscovered ladybooks in between

>>2290156
I think I may try to do a Month of Female Authors or something. I could never confine myself to any one reading condition for a whole year like that though.

>>2290188
The Month Of... template sounds like a great kind of book club thing for /lit/ to do

>>2290213
I think book clubs are silly. Everyone should read what they're interested in.

>>2290223
I agree, but I can sort of empathize with the desire to join a book club - and this is the reason. If a movie is classified as a bestseller, you're pretty much guaranteed to have several friends that have seen it. If a book is a bestseller, you're likely to find it at a bookstore - and that's about it. The vast majority of the stuff I read is stuff where I don't know anyone else that's read it - and I think that's generally true of anyone who reads books other than Twilight, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games, and Tucker Max.

But I still ultimately agree with you: I like to be in charge of what I read.

I have only read one book written in the past 10 years and would like to change that. Issue is that I am accustomed to reading what are generally considered the best novels of the past 300 years and that any current fiction, despite being good will just disappoint me. Any recommendations? My favourite authors ae Thomas Hardy, DH Lawrence and Henry James.