/lit/ - Literature

Choke didn't really captivate me. Maybe I missed something.

Youth by Conrad

Essays on European Literature, Ernst Robert Curtius

its cool

>>2447286
Are they his essays or just essays he put in a book?

The Magical Chorus by Solomon Volkov

No spoilers please, I am rooting for these "Communist" fellows.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Almost halfway through so far and I am really enjoying it. Very graphic sometimes

>>2447282
I'm liking it so far. It's definitely one of the funniest Palahnuik books I've read.

>>2447295
they're essays written by him

>>2447303
If you're a McCarthy fan you'll hate me for this, but I actually stopped reading The Road to read this. I don't know, it just seemed terribly difficult to follow. Maybe I'm just not smart enough for his style. Haha.

Beelzebub's tales to his grandson, by Gurdjieff. I have no idea what it's about, but it's certainly tripping my balls off.

i was reading bridget jones' diary (which is a hilarious book i don't give a hoot), but left it on the subway. i was burning through great expectations and left in front of the library.

now i'm just reading nothing because NOTHING.

>>2447319
Nah I understand. I am becoming a huge fan of his but his style just isnt for everyone.

>>2447303
I stopped halfway into All the Pretty Horses, it was good but I just stopped for some reason. That's all I've actually read by McCarthy, how about you?

>>2447306
Survivor had my favorite anti-hero, Haunted and Rant tie for my favorite

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

bite me

>>2447303
>>2447319
The Road is just sitting idly on my bookshelf as well. Honestly, I just had trouble caring.

>>2447340

about to start this.

am i in for a treat?

>>2447338
I just bought Haunted but haven't read it yet. I'm very excited to read Guts after what I've heard about it. Haha.

>>2447338
I have read the Road, No Country for Old Men, and now Blood Meridian. I am going to read the border trilogy later on this year(unless all the sudden BM decides to start seriously sucking all the sudden)

>>2447347
I'm only like 34 pages in.

but i dig it. it is very well written. he has a way with words i've never seen anyone match.

>>2447347
Yes

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.

It's about an English dude whose parents die early in his life and is raised by a Vicar (uncle I think) and his wife. He had a brief affair at 19 with some woman in her late 30's that got really awkward, and now it looks like he's rebelling against his guardians and heading off to Paris to engage in the bohemian lifestyle after a stint at accounting didn't work out too well. That's as far as I've gotten so far.

It's been a good read. The only other book I've read by the author was The Razor's Edge, which was also good, although it was a predecessor to the Beat Generation and had a little of that "India and Eastern philosophies are the savior of disaffected rich Western white guys!" attitude.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

by Edgar Allan Poe

Just finished rereading Cat's Cradle. Vonnegut.

On to Player Piano.

>>2447347

it was good, but I think Joyce is overrated due to pretentiousness among readers.

>>2447369
>2012
>still incorrectly using "pretentious"

>>2447372

My use was just fine. Don't be angry, it's only my opinion. If you genuinely love Joyce, more power to you.

>>2447369

What do Joyce fans have to do with the quality of his work?

Practical Ethics (3rd Edition) by Peter Singer

Just started Naked Lunch. So far it is a pretty hard read ,but after re-reading some parts I am starting to get a hang of his style.

>>2447385
No you didn't use it right at all.

>>2447428

>Style
>Implying not random drug induced ramblings, arranged at random, and talked up by a generation bent on justifying its own worldview.

The movie was surprisingly successful.

>>2447303
Nothing I've read recently comes even close to this, McCarthy is pure genius, I'm sure in about 30 years or so he will acquire his place in the western canon at the center of american literature, alongside Faulkner and Melville

>>2447369

I believe you should read more

>>2447447
It was successful because it had little to do with the book.

Fatherland by Robert Harris.

Takes place in 1964; almost 20 years after Germany has won World War 2. A Nazi police officer in Berlin discovers the dead body of a high ranking party official and begins to have suspicions about the events surrounding his death.

>>2447467
>>2447467
>>2447467
>>2447467

>>2447469
>>2447467
let me guess, its one of those holyhoax tales?

Reading A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe. It's about a twenty-seven-year-old English cramschool teacher with a dysfunctional marriage whose wife has just given birth to retarded son.

>>2447487

Holyhoax?
>look it up on google
>one of the first hits on urban dictionary
>first entry describes "holohoax" by explaining that the holocaust was mostly a myth and highly exaggerated
>1000 upvotes, 300 downvotes
>the rest of the entries describe "holohoax" by explaining that it's a term used by white supremecists to abbreviate their ridiculous belief about the holocaust
>heavily downvoted, all of them

Urban dictionary, I have discovered your dark secret...

>>2447495

I just read that last summer. The descriptions are sparse, so Oe doesn't really do himself any service by skipping out on establishing a mood that way, but he effectively portrays the trials of the protagonist and the decisions he makes by leading him on an odyssey of self-hate and disgust. That's really what the book is about. It's not about his family.

>>2447487
Um, no. It's like an alternate reality type story; you know, like a "what if the axis had won" type of thing. It's not really antisemitic or anything

>>2447467

reminds me of Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America" is it good?

>>2447660
I'm only about a hundred pages into it, but so far I like it. It was a New York Times bestseller for a while in the early 90s, so I'm assuming by the end it becomes entertaining.

>>2447635
The whole story is about the holocaust and the protagonist investigating it. As if the existence of a camp proves an intention to genocide.

>>2447660
>jew author whining about the evil anti-semites who don't like them ruining our society/country

pass

>>2447684
>urban dictionary contributor detected

>>2447695
nope

Weird, I just started reading Choke yesterday. Enjoying it so far, the chapters are so short i'm flying through it. Haven't read anything else by CP though, is his stuff good?

http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Applied-Modern-Life-Adjustment/dp/1111186634/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp
;qid=1330596665&sr=8-1

Antigone by Sophocles

Pretty sure almost everyone knows what it is. Woman defies the law of man to bury her brother's body. Shit hits the fan. Likely there will be a bodycount seeing as it's a Greek tragedy.

Haven't read in a long time now, just too busy for it. But I stopped in the middle of Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

The Odyssey by Homer.

I'm pretty sure most of you know what it's about, Odysseus has been at war and his journey home has been made troublesome by his behaviour, his son has gone looking for him and his wife is being harassed by suitors who want to marry her.

I'm just at Odysseus' retelling of his adventure so far, and to my surprise he's turning out to be a bit of a dick, he's cheated on his wife with at least two different women/goddesses and he was a bit of a douche to the cyclops and basically got himself into trouble. I can't imagine the Phaeacians are going to be as kind, since they're buds with Poseidon.

>>2447884
>he's turning out to be a bit of a dick, he's cheated on his wife

>projecting your tenuous contemporary values onto ancient Greek characters

do you really do this?

>>2447886
"Not cheating on your wife" is hardly a contemporary value.

Growth of the Soil

Eyah, Herregud!

>>2447890
cheating a good thing now, it's for "liberated" females

>>2447253
Reading Kafka - Metamorphosis and other stories.
Well, kinda reading it. I read up to the stoker, then I started getting assessments and so stopped reading. And now I just can't get back in the mood to read.

>>2447902
>Never cheat on girlfriend
>she cheats on me
>dump her
apparently I'm the bad guy for not giving her another chance.

Fuck contemporary society.
I miss the days when man can go out drinking all week, come home, smack his wife, force her to have sex, then go back out drinking.
My dad had it made.

2666 - Roberto Bolano

About 1/4 way through (currently part 2). Something to do with a secretive german writer, academics, europe, south america, one handed painters, I have no fucking clue where this book's going.

Think of a Number by John Verdon.

>Arriving in the mail over a period of weeks are taunting letters that end with a simple declaration, “Think of any number…picture it…now see how well I know your secrets.” Amazingly, those who comply find that the letter writer has predicted their random choice exactly. For Dave Gurney, just retired as the NYPD’s top homicide investigator and forging a new life with his wife, Madeleine, in upstate New York, the letters are oddities that begin as a diverting puzzle but quickly ignite a massive serial murder investigation.

So far... Dull, overwritten, filled with twists that one can easily postulate coherent answers to.
If this is the type of dreck that's taking the mainstream book charts by storm, I don't want to be normal.

I read all of Roth's books in Woody Allen's voice/cadence in my head. I can't help it.

I'm not sure what I should read, I really want to expand my vocabulary and literary techniques because I feel my writing lacks maturity and character

Currently reading Poison by Kielland, though, and occasionally plowing through Lovecraft's works

>>2448044
is every single book of his about the holyhoax?

>>2448044
I've read that recently. What do you think of it?

>>2448044

>>2448061
Ghost Writer's about Anne Frank possibly being (but not) alive, and he wants to fuck her

>>2448068
ridiculous
she died of typhus

Making my way through a bunch of books that I had on my to-read list since Christmas.

Currently reading Around the World in Eighty Days. Just finished reading 1984, The Sun Also Rises, and The Old Man and the Sea. Entry level shit.

Next up if The Count of Monte Cristo.

Pulp by Bukowski. Pretty good.

Johnathan Franzen's The Corrections

I read Freedom last year and enjoyed it most of the way. It could have definitely been shortened but I think in the end it was worth the time put into it.
Started Corrections yesterday and the beginning is nowhere near as strong as Freedom in my opinion but I will continue on.
Just finished reading The Sound and the Fury, it was as incredible as I have been told all my life. Quentin Compson is one of my favorite characters in literature as of now.

>>2448092
Freedom was shit.

I'm reading The Blade Itself :3

I am currently reading:

Roberto Bolaño - 2666
Fiodor Dostoyevsky - Notes from the Underground
Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
Mark Twain - A bunch of short stories (not the actual title)
Robert A. Heinlein - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Oahu Trails; Walks, strolls and treks on the capital Isle. - Kathy morey
Return of the bird tribes- Ken carey
Civilization; the west and the rest- Niall Ferguson
Profits of War; Lockheed Martin and the making of the Military-Industral complex

Fallout Equestria Project Horizons

>>2448045
A lack of maturity could be characteristic. Haha.

>>2448073
I've never read The Count of Monte Cristo, but I did recently pick up a copy after seeing the movie. Absolutely loved the film.

Reading this. Loving every page of it.

>>2448177
I like the cover, I know that feel. What's it about?

>>2448179

Book compiled of notes and random journal entries from a late author that were found in a large trunk after he died. Revolving around thoughts about the disparity of his daily life and the dreams he sought.

Also created fictional characters that he wrote through.

Sounds laborious but he had a very lyrical and soft style of writing. Basically if you're a shut-in who thinks too much you should read it. You'll get something out of it.

>>2447253

Yea, in my forensic anthropology class we're supposed to read "Shade it Black" by Jessica Goodell.

Haven't started it yet, but if anyone has, is it decent?

>>2447459
Funny thing is, you're serious.

Dammit. I'm not a shut-in, but I aspire to be. I sure as hell think too much. OK, I'll put it on my list. Thanks.
He's not the guy who killed himself because he was "tired of all the buttoning and unbuttoning", is he?

the year of the death or ricardo reis its pretty cool so far only about a 1/3 in

Just got this on my Kindle.

Good stuff.