/lit/ - Literature

Be sure to include your thoughts and opinions on each book. Otherwise it's just bragging.

>>8560379
>42
>Mein Kampf, Decline of the West, Art of the Deal
>truck driver

>>8560391
How was Decline of the West? Also, do you do long haul? My uncle was a truck driver and he did some crazy ass routes in northern Canada.

>24

>Cosmic Trigger by RAW: I think he's an hack; >republic by plato: i think i don't get it;
>hilarotragoedia by giorgio manganelli: a fascinating and oniric faux treatise about the acceptance of death

>dentistry student and pseud

35
The Tailor of Panama
The Hunter by Richard Stark
Gibbon's Decline and Fall

Database Administrator

22
The Other Side of the Mountain, Genesis, The Trouble With Being Born
Unemployed

>21

>Augustus, Autobiography of Red, Invisible Cities

>Carpenter/Mathematics Student

>>8560391
is this satire?

I feel like this is satire, why would he just happen to have read such prominent books so recently?

>>8560438
>he
did you just assume my gender?

>>8560379
>21
>Ulysses - James Joyce
A lot of it went straight over my head, but by the end I felt very close to Bloom and the last four chapters were very emotional.
>Schachnovelle (The Royal Game) - Stefan Zweig
Very entertaining read, but some horrible writing near the end kinda ruined it.
>Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges
Pretty much what I expected. Lots of interesting ideas and parables, but some of the stories were the same metafictional wankery that's so pervasive in PoMo.
>Student (English)

>>8560379
>21
>The Unseen (Balestrini), The Loser (Bernhard), Murphy (Beckett
>student: history major / lit & interdisciplinary studies/social theory double minor

the books were very good but i wan2 die but i spent all my money so i cant get a motel room or the materials necessary baka

>20
>Dune, Dao te Ching, the ego and it's own.
>student majoring in English

>>8560416
Anything but DB2, I'll even take 12c

>20
>Histories - Herodotus
Pretty entertaining, despite some of the digressions being not very agile or relevant. Some genuinely funny moments too.
>En el estado - Juan Benet
Benet's prose is always enjoyable, but this one novel managed to dazzle and tire me with tons of namedropping and dank references.
>El alcalde de Zalamea/La vida es sueño - Calderón de la Barca.
Fucking great, my first Calderón and already want to read more. Would thank suggestions.
>History student

>22
>Genki(japanese text book, i'm studying abroad rn)
>A Contract With God(taking an American graphic novels class)
>Pale Fire

>literary criticism graduate student

taking a year off to study in Japan. Only taking 1 regular class+2x Japanese language classes and a Japanese culture class/seminar.

>>8560462
what did you think of Tao te Ching?

>age
22
>Last three books
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
100 Years of Solitude
Heart of Darkness (re-read)
>occupation
Head of Data Analysis/Entreprenurial Projects (did well in an internship with a fast growing small business)

>27
>Roadside picnic, LOTR, Storm of Steel
>IT

>>8560521
Did you like Brief Interviews? I loved it, especially the "Growing to think like an adult, husband with a sex addiction" bit.

>22
>Ulysses, Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus
>English/Finance undergrad, writer

>22
>Waiting fo Godot,The Merchant of Venice, Richard III
>Student, majoring in English Literature, writing my dissertation

>>8560513
>Study in Japan
How much is it? Do you like it? How's dat nip pussi?

>27
>Purity, Deadeye Dick, Kafka on the Shore
>maintenance man/student

>24
>Brodie's Report - Borges, The Birth of Tragedy - Nietzsche, The Fellowship of the Ring - Tolkein
>Student (philosophy undergraduate)

>>8560436
>>Carpenter
Sounds comfy.

33

Clash of Kings
Quantum Break: Zero State
Departure

Business administrator

>20
>White Noise
>The Names
>End Zone

>Double major, English and Economics

Been storming through Delilo's works for class, I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on him and/or his works.

Also, what advice to you have for someone who finally feels like they're starting to come into their own as a reader?

34

Mythology - hamilton
The forever war - halderman
The stars my destination - bester

Superintendent of construction

>>8560379
>translating the title

>>8560379

>27
>Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe
>Shipwrecks by Akira Yoshimura
>A Collection of Haiku by Matsuo Basho

on a big Japanese kick

>I sell skateboards

>>8560379
18
Midlands, U.K.

Our Mutual Friend - enjoyed it and really am getting to love Dicken's sentimental tone. However it seems like as a writer he rarely approaches sorrow and tragedy for this reason. Can anyone recommend some real dark almost tragic Dickens? (Should I have just read Bleak House?)

Villette - A Brontë novel with an open-end that still feels conclusive - a great example of their work if you want to avoid overt romanticism and the dreaded moors (though not to say there isn't any courting). It's a shame the Brontës seem to get absolutely no mention on /lit/ (Then again neither do any Victorian novels.)

Dracula - This weirdly reminded me of a heist film - did anyone else get this vibe? A great gothic novel, though I prefer Frankenstein.

>>8560379

>20
>Bartleby, On War, The Idiot
>Finance Major, also work in the university library uploading old academic journals to a database

>>8560379
22
Enkheiridion, De vita beata, On the road
Phillosophy

>>8560545
I'm about halfway through! I'm enjoying it, but DFW's writing style doesn't entirely work for me. He goes on past the point being made sometimes.

27
Cleaner
Great expectations
Foundation
Epictetus discourses and selected writings

>>8560521
Whyd you reread HoD? I reread it as well because of Achebe's essay and I have to say I think he is correct on all accounts about the social context of the novel, tho I strongly disagree that any of what he identifies takes away from the value of the book. If anything the perspective of an unapologetic colonial is more valuable, and the novel itself is still beautifully written.

>19
>Naked Lunch, Suttree, Philadelphia Fire (by John Edgar Wideman, fantastic and experimental novel, would recommend)
>Writing/Philosophy student

>23
>EE student

>measuring the world
kind of amusing, like watching a sappy movie on a serious subject

>confederacy of dunces
one of the best things I've ever read. I cannot believe I didn't pick it up sooner.

>the three body problem
entertaining biopic of the chinese cultural revolution. its only like 10% sci-fi.

23

The Essential Schopenhauer
Symbols of Transformation, Carl Jung
History of Greek Art

Student, Architecture

>>8560978
>Haiku and skateboards
You seem like a cool dude.

22

The Confusions of Young Torless by Robert Musil
Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence
Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

Student: Joint B.A. in Classical Studies and History

>>8561133
hail fellow EE student. but im 20. it gets better right?

>The Knight by Gene Wolfe
>The Sound of Waves
>confessions of a Mask

>>8561147
is studying architecture really as cool as I think it is? seems like the most patrician field of study to be H.... but not sure if u could ever get a stable job

>>8561088

What was your opinion on the discourses?

>24
>Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5
Not really my kind of genre but he shows an interesting perspective on war and deep and often funny satirical insights of nazi germany. The detailed part of the bombardment of Dresden gave me feels man.
>Erich Fromm - The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
Pretty based approach on why humans kill each other
>Simone de Beauvoir - Sitte und Sexus der Frau
Fuck women
>student Cultural Studies

>>8560379
19
moby dick
the use and abuse of art
the first philosophers: presocratics & sophists
audio engineer

>>8560379
25
white noise, doors of perception, digging up mother
lab technician for dental

>>8561194
I hope you already have no friends or gf as there is no way to keep up a social life at this point.

>>8560379

>21
>Myths from Mesopotamia, 1177BC, Dune
>Classics Major

it's good fun desu

>22
>The Aeneid, Notes from the underground, Nicomachean Ethics
>student, Civil Engineer

>>8560379
>27

>Hard Times by Dickens
>A Terrace in Rome by Pascal Quignard
>Prose Edda

>TA, test rater

>>8560379
>20

>great gabtsy (re reading had a slow week and enjoyed it more even the 2nd time),a portrait of an artist as a young man, also been devouring short stories of isacc clark and checkov

>student, music technology, history and philosophy

>inb4 pleb

>>8560445
ulysesses is a weird one, im irish and i attempted to read it when i was 15/16 didnt get it.

spent a year in dublin for college picked it up when i was 18 and i think i got some of the points and ideas. i atleast finished it and felt something afterwards.

i dunno though.

>>8561528
i agree with all of virginia woolf's criticisms of james joyce.
dubliners is a wonderful novel but the majority of his work is vastly overrated.

>17

>Frege: Philosophy of Language
> The Tunnel, Gass
> The Making of Americans, Stein

>Senior, hopefully going to major in Art History though

>19
>Iran: A People Interrupted (Hamid Dabashi)
>The Brothers Karamazov (re-read, apparently a better translation)
>À Rebours (Huysmans)
>Farsi language student/complete pseud

Iran: a people... is very good, the author fills it with smart allusions to Iranian cinema and poetry and it's readable, comprehensive and informative, only occasionally he flips his shit and says butthurt stuff like "an obscure Pakistani novelist named Salman Rushdie...was lauded by bourgeois Euro-American literati to cover for their endemic racism and Islamophobia". The guy's a postmodern wingnut but a damn good writer.

The new Karamazov translation (Volkhonsky) is better than the previous one I read, better prose and detailed historical footnotes.

À Rebours is like proto-Proust and reminds me a little of really detailed descriptions of day-to-day experience found in Sartre's Nausea. Fans of Baudelaire or Mallarmé should read it.

>>8561540
i think its ovverated just because it was so breakout.

no modernist novel has gotten the acclaim when it was first released as ulsyses did.

its like when you go to watch 2001. its overrated a bit shit and weird and dont make no sense and seems hamfisted or just doesent give you anything to even begin interpenetrating it, try hard and just not too stellar when compared to the well of work that has been made since, that has borrowed ideas from this break out ideas and expressions and just did it better.

>>8560379
>22
>Revolutionary Road / King Leary / Plato's Apology

First was unexpectedly good, perhaps a bit repetitive but suits my interests and came across sincerely.

King Leary was aight. Pretty simple, pretty short, nothing impressive but it was funny and entertaining.

Apology was interesting but requires a lot of historical context to fully appreciate.

>>8560415
>The Republic.
Taking a class on it right now. The title is actually a popularized mistranslation from Cicero, its more accurately translated as "The Constitution".

Its Socarate's ideal value systems, laws, orders, etc. His magnum Opus.

>23
>The Fountainhead
I read this one 6-7 years ago, and i found it amazing. After all this time its not really amazing at all. Fucking Dominique, the absolute emo, hates everything, does nothing.

>The Brothers Karamazov
It was not as good as C&P, still i would like to read the continuations if Dosto didn't die.

>The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
Some of the cases were interesting, neurology made some progress between the years though.
>Medical Doctor

>27
>Propaganda, Bernays; Lolita & Despair, Nabakov
>NEET

25
King in yellow, the blade itself, sword of destiny
Artist

>>8560379
>21
>In search of lost time volume 4, The three musketeers, The Republic
>Architecture student

>>8560661
The Birth of Tragedy - Nietzsche

My man, just finished it as well.

>24
>The World as Will and Representation
>Confederacy of Dunces
>The Glass Bead Game
>physics grad student

?????
In what order should I read these: Atomized by Houellebecq, Beyond Good and Evil, Discipline and Punish
?????

>22
>The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, The New York Trilogy, Steppenwolf
>Major in industrial design, dropped out a few months ago

>27

On China
The Kingdom by the Sea
Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty

Trading desk back office

>>8560379
>23
>The myth of the Andalusian paradise, Migration and Health, Shit magnet
>doctoral psych (Psy.D)

>>8560379
26

Edward Gibbon Wakefield in New Zealand (history)
Jimmy Joyce: Verse+Prose extracts
Earliest English Poems

Student (Accounting [Ifuckinghateit])

>>8562992
Read beyond good and evil last

>>8561540
>dubliners is a wonderful novel

>>8560379

>21
>The Master and Margarita, A Country Doctors Notebook,The Talented Mr Ripley
>Student who is pretty close to full blown alcoholism, majoring in psychology (kill me)

>>8563016
>Student who is pretty close to full blown alcoholism, majoring in psychology (kill me)
Do it now. Already half way through my dissertation and I'm genuinely going to kill myself. I miss undergrad, as shitty was it was. I was just like you and still am. I've had alcoholic hepatitis 3 times, 2 alcohol induced seizures, and two drug arrests.

>>8563022

>tfw when going to grad school or med school
>tfw in undergrad as research assistant studying cures to psychological erectile dysfunction

I hate my life. I fucking hate it. Schopenhauer was right about everything. I wish I could just buy crates of alcohol and spend the rest of my life inside my apartment with my rabbit.

>>8563016
>>8563022
just bee urselfs lads

>>8563032

Tried that, it got me nowhere. It would be better if I were not born. Time to read the World as Will and Representation.

>>8563026
>>tfw when going to grad school or med school
If you can manage to salvage enough hard science credit hours and enough physics knowledge to pass the MCAT, go to med school. DO NOT GO TO GRAD SCHOOL. I got into a doctoral program right after undergrad for psych. I've been stuck the last year spending hours every fucking day researching and writing robotic line after line about how high fat diets without tryptophan affect the mesolimbic system in mice. I'm on the precipice of suicide.

>>8563042

>med school

Yeah I have like no hard sciences. I have psychology statistical data analysis so some math there, 2 geology courses, and some basic bio. No chem, no physics. I dropped out of high school due to shit family. I don't even know how I managed to get into a top 40 university. Went to a CC for a year and a half and then transferred but was not expecting to get in. I might just hire a tutor to teach me chem and physics outside of university. I live in Canada and most med schools here don't even have hard science pre requisites (but require the MCAT) it's pretty interesting. We'll see. I would much rather go to med school. In an ideal world I would just be a regular physician. I feel like psychology and even psychiatry are full of complete hacks I wish I could have majored in astronomy.

>>8563054
You can always go to a carribean med school, they take almost anyone. I know the one in san juan takes students with a 2.4 GPA. I wish thats what I would've done. I was originally a premed student at Berkley but pussied out freshman year because of the math prerequisites and switched to psych. Did well, did clinical work, did well on the GREs, despite my drug addiction. Got into a good Psyd program. Slowly learned writing a dissertation is fucking awful. Realized I hated people too much to ever become a good clinical psychologist, but I was already too deep in the mud pit. You might be too. Even with a good MCAT score most med schools weigh your hard science credits pretty heavily.
You dug yourself into the exact same hole I dug myself into.

>>8563082

>You dug yourself into the exact same hole I dug myself into.

Damn. Fuck me. I've done my research though on Canadian med schools. Some don't weigh your science credits at all particularly schools like McMaster which don't even require any science courses or science sections of the MCAT only CARS. But they are fucking hard to get into. You are probably right and I am fucked. I might need to look at over seas schools. I don't fucking give a shit about money. If I could be a doctor in another country making like 50k I would be happier. I need something to dedicate my life to. I have an EU citizenship for what that's worth.

>27
>The Old Man and the Sea, Utopia, Investigations of a Dog
>Design Engineer

>>8563102
If you have the money, go to a carribean med school, they call them last chance medical schools for a reason. Theyre easy to get into, but not easy to graduate from. They expect you to know the hard sciences, so roll with the punches. Then get your MD. I dont know how it works in Canada but you can get your MD and residnetal yeats in the carribean and then simply take a few tests in the US to get licensed to practice. You'll be the laughing stock of whatever medical community youre surrounded with, but hey it's better than having your brains splattered all over your living room like a Jackson Pollack painting because you had to spend 4 years of your life writing a 150 page piece of peer reviewed trash that will be relegated to the ash tray of academia.

>>8560940
How did you find Forever War? It is honestly the one book that got me into reading sci fi but I've never been able to find anything that replicates how good it is.

>>8563117

>it's better than having your brains splattered all over your living room like a Jackson Pollack painting because you had to spend 4 years of your life writing a 150 page piece of peer reviewed trash that will be relegated to the ash tray of academia.

kek

Nearly choked on my gin laughing. I took a modern art elective once. What a stupid fucking waste of time that was.

But we'll see what happens. I think if I go to med school outside of Canada it will be Ireland or anywhere in Europe pretty much. One MD told me that if I decide to pursue medicine stay the fuck away from the Caribbean. Definitely need to stop being a pussy and start tackling the hard sciences though. I think that's my only shot at avoiding a self inflicted gun shot wound.

>>8560379
>19
>The Order of Things, Metamorphoses, Molloy Trilogy
>Student, majoring in EECS, work at a library

>>8563149

>Work at a library

You must have some fun stories to share. Any weird/interesting experiences? I don't work at a library but at 9pm when the library in downtown here was closing (massive building with multiple floors) I distinctly remember at like 8:57 PM as I was going down the escalator some faggot dressed in a black clock (with the hood on his head) carrying around some stupid HP Lovecraft book was lurking around the bookshelves with absolutely no intention to leave. I imagine the librarians had to deal with that bullshit.

>>8560379
>33
>Different Seasons (SK), Imajica (Clive Barker), Brothers K
>Manager at chemical company

>>8563149
Sorry, not Metamorphoses - Meditations. I started reading Metamorphoses but decided I should probably brush up on my mythology before I dive in further.

>>8563157

fuck cloak I'm drunk sorry

>>8563157
Well right now I work a lot with just filing and stuff, but when I first started working I dealt with people here more. I see many homeless people hanging out here, but I also see some students and the occasional character. Oh also a surprising number of people try to steal books. I can't really think of anything super interesting but for a while there were a group of overweight feminists that would come in here and sit and this table and pretend to be intellectuals and the shit they would say was just laughable.

Age;
>20

Last 3 books:
>War of the worlds by H.G.Wells
>Tragedy of Man by Imre Madách
>Canterbury tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Occupation:
Majoring in History and Literature
Becoming a teacher.

>24
>Born To Run, The Alchemist, Things Fall Apart
>Project Manager for a construction company

>33
>carson mccullers - the heart is a lonely hunter
i loved it, all the characters were great and i enjoyed how sad and lonely it was
>venedikt yerofeev - moscow stations
i loved it, it's basically just a very funny russian alcoholic getting progressively drunker and drunker and rambling on about shit
>dimitri verhulst - madame verona comes down the hill
i loved it, it's a really nice and touching story told elegantly and it made my cry at one point
>mid level anonymous administrative drone

18
Myth of sisyphus, introduction into cryptography, chaos cryptography.
Video game development I know it's shit but i will change pathways i just didn't do well in maths to be able to get on anything better

>>8563273
>venedikt yerofeev - moscow stations
Wow, someone non-slavic has read it.
>it's basically just a very funny russian alcoholic getting progressively drunker and drunker and rambling on about shit
It's basically russian version of the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

>21
>the trial by kafka, disgrace by jm coetzee, the soft machine by burroughs
>student, geography major

>19
>the sorrows of young werther, the man who fell to earth (gonna see Lazarus in London soon) and beware of pity
>uni - biochemistry

>>8560379
>25
>The Idiot, The Myth of Sypphiliphusus, Crime and Punishment
>Student, Chemical Engineering

20, 21 in a week
Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy by Bernard Williams, Der Zauberberg by Thomas Mann, How to Read a Film by James Monaco
Philosophy Major

>>8560379
>27
>"So, anyway...", "Different Seasons", "I Sing The Body Electric!"
>For simplicity's sake I'll say warehouse worker

>>8563131
I'm in the middle of the road on it. The ending was lackluster. And just like halderman estimated, i didn't pick up on the vietnam allegory. I would recommend.

>>8560444

kek

>Age
21
>Last 3 books
Poetry and Truth - Goethe
Corazon tan blanco - Javier Marias
Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
>Majoring
Industrial engineering

24

A Frolic of His Own
Travesty
Sweeney Astray

Law Student

24

A Philosophy of Suicide.
Tao Te Ching: Translation and Commentary.
Tsurezuregusa.

Student, Philosophy.

>23
>butchers crossing, the long ships, the anatomy of fascism
>information specialist

>>8564015
What translation of Tao Te Ching

>>8563636
You might like Marko Kloos' Frontlines series.

>>8564037
Michael LaFargue

>22
>Crying of lot 49, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Aquae Iasae: Recent Discoveries Of Roman Remains In The Region Of Varaždinske Toplice
>Bookkeeping / Art history and Philosophy student

>>8564075
>Elements of the Philosophy of Right
hegel?
what did you think if it?

>>8564077
Yep, Hegel. Not as unreadeble as most people say. I was intimidated when I first started to read it since I only read Phenomenology before and that one went waaaay over my head. It turned out to be pretty readable if I am in a right mood. I am not saying I understood everything in it correctly but it was not that hard.

I enjoyed it for what it was. I thought it was a far better read than some other political philosophy books like Leviathan ( which I found to be mostly just batshit insanse).

>23
>The Black Jacobins, The Sellout, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of of China
>traveling salesman

>>8560415

YOU MISSPELLED IT

>>8560379
>18
>A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Feels like I didn't understand it very well, will revisit once I've read some more.
>The Metamorphosis
Loved it in all ways, everything about it was great.
>Casino Royale
... Eh. This is the fifth or so Bond Book I've ever read, and no matter what order you read them in, they get progressively worse as you become familiar with them.

>Last year of HS, grades too bad to get into a respectable uni

>>8562804
Is King in yellow good?

>>8564130

I found it very interesting but I've only very recently got into literature, I'm not sure why it's classified as horror, but I enjoyed reading it

>>8564130
>>Last year of HS, grades too bad to get into a respectable uni
Then go to an unrespectable university or a local community college. You won't have a name dropper to put on your resume or to BS people with BUT you will get a better opportunity to educate yourself at less cost. Then, if you apply yourself and improve your grades in the first two years you may then be able to transfer to and graduate from a more "respectable uni". The world loves a loser in the opening act who struggles to get better and wins in the final act.

21

War for the Hell of it: A Fighter Pilot's View of Vietnam - Ed Cobleigh - Liked it, as expected, some run-throughs of missions. Writes on his experiences, thoughts, and women during his time over Vietnam.

Cartas de la Conquista de Mexico - Hernán Cortes - Pretty fucking cool, but it's all propaganda on his end to the King. Really nice read for the old spanish, and interesting to see his thoughts on the native americans.

The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - William Sloane - Makes you respect Napoleon. Dragged his family and name to glory, fell because of overreach and exhaustion.

Student - Finance

>23
>The Guns of August, Nostromo, The Wendigo
>Firefighter

19

Hamlet - Shakespeare

Best book by Shakespeare of all I have read so far which are: King Lear, Macbeth and The Tempest

The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe

Felt kind of overrated, didn't really like it to be honest, but I like the format of being written through letters and you "seeing" the time passing.

Seminar XI - Lacan

Hard as fuck, but I'm interested on studying repetition so will have to re-read it many times.

Student, Psychology.

>>8560379
>30
>I know why the caged bird sings.
>The great shark hunt.
>A brief history of time.
NEET Civil Engineering Grad.

>>8560379
>>Age
22
>>Last 3 books you read
the bell jar, siddhartha, 1984
the last ones I attempted but couldn't finish
brave new world, nausea, moby dick
>>Current occupation (if "Student", specify major)
I am a fucking leeching worm and I don't have a job and am not in school and I am a complete recluse which has been forgotten by society. Take a big bite out of my steaming shit.

>18
>No Country for Old Men, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing
>Mechanical Engineering student

I'm sick of McCarthy for awhile, I'm currently reading The Trial.

>>8564380
Just saw the 'give opinions so here goes.
>Interesting to read a book that is so vehemently anti white racist, with a protagonist that simultaniously hates people for hating her just because she is black and looks down on people poorer than her and literally ignores what is happening to asians because 'why should she care about them, they aren't black'. Unless this was an attempt to communicate her childishness at the time it is outstanding hypocrisy.

>interesting but basically a collection of writings about how fucked up stuff can get when you take a load of drugs and have an expense account to cover your bad decisions. Some parts were hilarious.

>I did physics in school so I got 75% of it and it was interesting but lets not forget it was deliberately aimed at the average person so you can hardly pat yourself on the back for not getting totally lost.

>22
>The Concept of Anxiety, Fear and Trembling and Journey to the End of the night (reread)

I think Kierkgaard has made me a good Catholic again.

>college dropout, working at Abercrombie & Fitch for min wage.

>>8564390
Didn't realize we were supposed to give opinions either

>No Country was good. It was a fun light read that I burned through in a day. Made me go back to the bookstore the next day to get the only other two McCarthy books they had.

>AtPH was much more substantial than than NCfOM, but I still enjoyed it although I don't think it was very remarkable.

>I was really excited to read The Crossing but I ended up really disliking it. I don't know if the success of AtPH went to McCarthys head, but every fucking side-character they met had the same pseudo-religious pontificating voice and I got really fucking sick of it. I suppose it wasn't bad when things actually happened and I was listening to some random jerkoff blabbering about God and man nature for 10 straight pages.

>21
>How to Read a Book, Mere Christianity, The Catcher in the Rye
>mech eng student

>>8561194
At my uni our school of arc gives you a job after and when you get your masters but yeah, say goodbye to your social life.

>>8563500
What did you think of The Trial? It's supposed to be funny right? Because that caught me off guard when I started.

>21

>The Great Gatsby
Although it's an incrdily interesting view on 1920's New York, I can't imagine the 20's being so wild and party/alcohol driven.
>Lolita
What the fuck is wrong with the MC? "OH, but this 'nymphet' seduced me!" so says every pedo ever.
>On the Road
Loved it, I can imagine myself doing cross-country trips, just not hitch-hiking, roads aren't exactly the safest to hitch-hike where I live.

>Student (Translation and Interpretation - English/Portuguese)

>>8564456
>What the fuck is wrong with the MC?
> so says every pedo ever.
That is literally the point of the book.

>19
>The Aeneid, Paradife Loft, currently reading The Recognitions
>Physics major

19
The Iliad, Khlebnikov poems, Hart Crane poems
Math major

21
Don Quixote, The Communist Manifesto, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations
Part timing at Tesco.

>>8564482
Forgot opinions
>The Aeneid was legitimately amazing, one of my favorite books now. Seemed like Virgil took my favorite parts of the Iliad and the Odyssey
>Paradise Lost was just beautiful. I wish there was a religious text that was this well-written for me to believe in.
>The Recognitions has some great writing and characters (everyone on /lit/ probably feels uncomfortably similar to Otto to some degree) but I feel like a good bit of the occult references are going over my head. Most of the art-world related stuff I generally understand, but the Talmuddic/pagan/gnostic/ancient Christian cult stuff is beyond me.
>I tried to start a thread to find background the other day but the only helpful response was that williamgaddis.org site, which usually does little more than list the obscure book he pulls something from, and I can't go through the dozens that Gaddis used for research just to understand references

24
Storm of Steel, Cicero: Ancient Classics for English Readers, Orthodoxy (Chesterton)
Exterminator

I fell for the meme and got a degree in computer science. Just fuck my shit up.

>>8560379
22
Less than zero, Anna Karenina, Cold comfort farm
Military musician served 5 years

>>8564556
There's nothing wrong with cs unless you just stagnate with it and become a bearded redditor IT guy who thinks having a stem degree makes him a genius. Just use programming as a creativity outlet, you'll eventually catch a break if you're good.

>19

>Walden
I expected more honestly, in the end it didn't hype me to go /out/ and live in a forest any more than I was before I read it. It was a comfy read tho.
>Mysteries by Knut Hamsun
amazing, it reminded me of Twin Peaks
>Moby-Dick
I wanted to read that book for so long and it didn't dissapoint me at all. Tha atmosphere and how it pulls you into the world and story amazing.

>Experimental biology

>>8560516
not him but I read it a while back with commentaries (not english) and I really liked it. The commentaries helped a lot with interpretation but I think I kind of got into Taosim since reading it as so mamy things from that book resinated with me.

Currently reading Steppenwolf as Siddhartha was already borrowed. It's pretty good so far

>>8564580
>creativity outlet
What a revolting phrase.

20
Mrs. Dalloway, Pale Fire and Stoner
English major

20
The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Student, degree is essentially maths/computer science/finance.

>>8564634
Pale Fire was definitely my favorite out of these three, and probably my favorite book that I have read. Dalloway turned me on to Woolf. Stoner further deepened my passion for English studies, while also complicating my understanding of it.

>>8564622
>amazing, it reminded me of Twin Peaks
SOLD

30

The Greek Myths (Robert Graves)
The City and the Stars (Arthur C. Clarke)
Metamorphoses (Ovid)

I'm a janitor at a textile factory

26
>Nikolai Gogol (by Nabokov)
>The Name of the Rose
>Gravity's Rainbow
NEET, going to be a meteorological officer next month. I'm going to miss my NEET reading time a lot.

>18
>History major currently
>Henry V, The Idiot
>Balkan Ghosts

24
Stoner, Moby Dick, The Dispossessed
I think about Ahab and Starbuck's exchange in The Quarter Deck constantly.
Graduate student, Aquaculture science

>22

>The Marriage of Sticks: Pretty darn good.
>Breakfast of Champions: Very fun read, not the most substantial
>Infinite Jest: Certainly an admirable accomplishment. A few great scenes and pieces of writing. A lot of it ran too long and contained too much overly long, masturbatory prose.

>Customer Service Associate at a library, so basically just a librarian.

>>8560438
Come on man, everyone else in this thread has a book in their three that is talked about daily here.

>20
>The Republic (Plato), Das Kapital, Songs of Innocence and Experience
>Student, majoring Mathematics

The Republic is either really dumb or I am
Kapital was cool and I got some good learns from it but it drags very often and you are subjected to pages and pages of repetitively evil things factory owners did which takes a while to get through
Songs was just lovely

>>8565880
I read one of Kaplan's other books, Soldiers of God. Was pretty good. I appreciate the detail he goes into.

>>8565915
Yes, I very much enjoyed Balkan Ghosts. it's really engaging. I will give that one a try too.

That said, don't do a Clinton from the book. I lived in Belgrade ~10 years, and I want to emphasize that this is a very romantic view of Balkan life. It's a literary work not a historical one.

>>8560379
>22
>Hagakure, Ride the tiger, Flatland
>Sort of a Projectionist, though calling myself one is an insult to the trade.

>Starting Out With Java: From Control Structures Through Objects
I really loved the part where the main character didn't die because the story couldn't go on without him. It's by this guy named Tony Gaddis if anyone's interested.

21 Y.O.
The Road - Mccarthy
Kafka on the Shore - Murakami
The Conspiracy of the Human Race - Ligotti

Major: Industrial Design Engineering

>>8560379
>26
>Meditations on First Philosophy, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Dubliners
>Programming/Analytics

>25
>The Myth of Sisyphus -- Camus
> Ham on Rye -- Bukowski
> Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas -- Machado de Assis

>>8564472
The prose alone in Lolita makes up for the messed up pedo vibes.

>22
>Chilly Scenes of Winter, Ben Lerner's Angle of Yaw, Exile and the Kingdom
>line cook

>>8560379
24
Spring Snow, Pan, War and War
Architecture student

>>8560379
>22
>2666, Roberto Bolaño
Hilarious, disgusting, fatalistic, poignant. Approaching the universal
>Temptation of St. Antony, Gustave Flaubert
Nothing even beginning to resemble Bovary. Really interesting
>Gödel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter
What the fuck

>English Major, private nurse/assistant for quadriplegic ex-lawyer literature aficionado

>>8560438
>everyone reads mein kampf because we are all neo-nazis here

>>>/pol/

>>8563294
>letting anonymous autists determine your life course
You are at the inception of a new art form you self-deprecating cunt, steer it in the right direction

>>8563523
Be careful on your birthday. Eat a large meal before you go out drinking. Make sure you trust your friends; if you don't have any, even better

>>8564307
>The Wendigo
?

>>8564397
>>interesting but basically a collection of writings about how fucked up stuff can get when you take a load of drugs and have an expense account to cover your bad decisions. Some parts were hilarious.
Stupid

>>8560379
>19
>the Karamazov brothers, Paradise Lost, The strange case of doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
>student in English litterature

>>8560379
>30
>Offshore by Petros Markaris, Markesinis and Deakin's Tort Law, Gramsci's exceptions from the prison notebooks
>Tort/Labour lawyer

>>8565882
>Aquaculture science
Sounds cool. What does it entail? And what kind of professions are there?

>tfw the only Sociologist here

>>8566306
not >>8565882
aquaculture is literaly the cultivation of schools of fish in an enclosed enviroment be it in a pool or confined with nets in the sea. While the produce is cheaper than the wild fish out in the sea (or the rivers) it is usualy of lower quality, also the larger the aqua cultures the dodgier the standards (i.e. the shit that they feed the shit plus the various scandals like the Thai slavery ring in shrimp aquacultures)

>24
>Demons, The Savage Mind, Demon (Poem by Lermontov)
>Communication Liaison Specialist

>>8566196
How's the Gramsci book?

>>8566348
Hmm interesting, thanks!

>31
>The Glass Bead Game, Madrapour, On the Road
> NEET

>27
>Murphy by Beckett, Austerlitz by Sebald, Against Nature by Huysmans
>primary school teacher

My students hate me, and the loathing is reciprocal.

>21
>Guns germs and steel, paradise lost, the idiot.
>Studying medicine

>>8566462
>Guns germs and steel,

>>8566465
What about it?

>34
>Hunger, Zodiac, the Castle
>NEET

>>8566348
Slander! You're describing the dark ages. Aquaculture has improved massively since then, and will continue to improve.
>>8566306
The major disciplines involved in the field are engineering (of tank systems), biology of every type, basic chemistry, and business/finance if you want to go that route. Most people who study where I do are hired out by a commercial aquaculture company before they graduate.

>>8566379
Very interesting! Especialy part 2 where he compares Machiavelli's Prince with the contemporary political mechanisms (e.g. the concept of the political party, social masses, continuity and tradition and the theorem of fixed proportions) climate of the 1920's as well a comparison of the philosophy of 'praxis' in both Marx and Machiavelli. I also liked his views on what he called 'fordism' and how he analyses the problematics of the financial autarky of industry in a pre Breton Woods world where the hard capital and production was king.

21

>The House of the Sleeping Beauties
>Holy Sonnets
>"Les Onze" by Michon

Student (Humanities)

>>8565893
>The Republic is either really dumb or I am
probably you
but better start with dialogues

>>8565861
good books
except by clarke

what do you think of ovid?

>>8560379
>21
>Heart of Darkness, The Symposium, Zhuangzi
>Lit major with minors in Japanese and linguistics, ""barista"" ar Starbucks

Heart of Darkness was alright. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I could never look past Conrad's treatment of the Africans in his text. A few moments of great prose and interesting philosophical moments, but I could just never fully get invested. Kurtz was a fucking neat character though.

The Symposium got some chuckles out of me. Easily the funniest and most enjoyable Platonic dialogue I've read so far. Socrates is a fucking dick.

Zhuangzi was really cool. Some surprising connections with relativism, and I can see how the book has been so influential on Asian religion/philosophy and literature.

Right now I'm reading Waiting for the Barbarians by Coetzee. From my understanding a lot of critics blasted him for not explicitly writing about South Africa, but I think the namelessness gives it a very surreal, haunting vibe. Great read so far.

>>8565893
What did you find dumb about The Republic?

>>8560379

>23
>Homage to catalonia
>Under fire: the story of a squad
>The festival of insignificance (shitty)

Unemployed.

>>8565974
>Java
Learn a real language instead of that non-free shit. C is a good place to start.

>>8566982
>C is a good place to start

>>8566984
I would have suggested Assembly, but you're too dumb for that.

>>8566911
Is that mandrake in the image?

>>8565928
My friend is touring through Eastern Europe right now, and he had to leave Belgrade early. Honestly hated it.

>>8567002
I'm surprised. Tourists normally love Belgrade in the summer. Did he not visit the boats?

>>8567000
Probably

>>8560379
>19
>TLP, A history of language, The antichrist.
I am rereading White Nights rigth now -because this girl I am falling in love with loves this book and deeply relates to Nastenka for some reason and the book -unfortunately- reminds me of our situation.-
>Linguistics

25

Underworld (pretty good but a lot of it was shit too)
IJ (I read 300 pages and have come to understand that it is, truly, meme trash)
The Quiet American (I have like 30 pages left but this has been very good and it's short length has been a welcome relief after the last shit I've read. I find Vietnam a fascinating subject and Greene's thoughts on the country and American involvement are especially interesting given that he was mostly right. This book has made me want to read his other works as well, he seems like a pretty normal and unpretentious guy desu)

I am an office bitch but I also go to grad school

>21
>Currents of Space, The Silmarillion, The Time Machine
>Psychology student

The first was pretty good, but i'm an Asimov fan, so i might be biased; the second was alright, the way Melkor was defeated felt like a big ass Deus Ex Machina; and the third was comfy, though not that gret.

Currently ready Brave New World and listening to The Forever War, can't form an opinion on either of them yet.

>>8567084
Just started the Forever War, liking it so far. I've always been partial to military-based fiction, though.