/lit/ - Literature

It's a reasonable view of the commonly liked views here. It's not the images fault that idiots keep posting it on reddit.

>>8789924
It's the image's fault that it says "/lit/" on it. Also it's from 2014.

what's important

>>8789994

>>8789994
>slavs
>white

>>8789912
What a shit top 20

>>8789994
This is what happens when people too dumb to think learn ideology.

t. leftist

Yeah that's what I thought.

>>8790067
They aren't wrong though

>>8790067
>so far stuck up their own ass
>why won't they accept my shitty YA genre fiction!

normies begone, if you're not a NEET with all the time in the world to read 1000 page book after 1000 page book, you shouldn't be here.

>>8790067
>reddit's top 100
This gon' be good. Bets on what their top five is going to be?

Here's my hunch: if this happens, its going to be unusually elitist and high brow for them because they have a secret inferiority complex fueled by these charts.

>>8789994
Why the fuck do they care so much about this?

I highly doubt (I'm certain) that no one votes on the /lit/ top 100 lists taking into account race. At least I didn't. The Russians and many of the greatest authors just happen to be white men. Who the FUCK cares.

>Lists should be gender equal and take into account my ideology.

>>8790109
Slaughterhouse 5, 1984, Game of Thrones, something from a female author regardless of its objective ranking, Crime and Punishment

>>8790110
Non-white people care, apparently.

>>8790109
All I know is 1984 would be first

>>8790109
http://www.listchallenges.com/reddits-top-200-books

>>8790113
>something from a female author regardless of its objective ranking

The Handmaid's Tale, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, To Kill a Mockingbird, all right up there I imagine.

>>8790135
Oh yeah, forgot about that.

Also possibly Hitchhiker's Guide, and Ready Player One.

What's really important

>>8790160
>mainly males with particular personalities

what did xe mean by this?

also, called Atwood + Angelou kek >>8790135

>>8790160
>Zadie Smith.

>>8790131
>http://www.listchallenges.com/reddits-top-200-books
>Calvin and Hobbes before the first Dosto.

Are you fucking kidding me.

>>8790131
>Guns, Germs and Steel is the 17th best book ever written
I have no idea how anyone could believe this

>>8790131
The fucking USA constitution among the top 50 books ever cracked me up.

>>8790131
too many white dudes.

We're continually on the frontage of r/books and r/fantasy, that's what you get for making charts and other easily accessible information.

>>8789939
>2 fucking votes
why this list is a thing

>Reddit.

>>8790408
Welcome to literature were nobody reads the same things and everybody doesn't want to admit they read genre fiction.

>>8789994
>the pigment density in their skin does not conform to my prejudices
There's quite a mix in there. It's nothing groundbreaking, there are of course great authors off the beaten track, but it's not a particularly narrow list.

>>8790113
>objective ranking

no such thing

They get really upset that the one book they were made to read in high school and hated made the list

>>8790113
You do realize those are all (Except GoT) on the /lit/ list too though mate

>>8789994
>memelord with major depression
>French-Algerian Proto-Chad
>Russian, devout Christian
>recluse with maybe 2 pictures of him available
>man from 1500s Spain
But nah man who cares about that kinda diversity where the black women tho

>>8790214
>I have no idea how anyone could believe this
Implying most books don't rely on the bandwagon effect to spread. Quality only does so much.
A book that is well-known will most likely get more known and more known: a positive feedback loop.

As for this topic. Let's face it, deep down, /lit/ and Redditurds read similar books and might even be one and the same kind of pseud.

Hahahaha oh wow, best to not discuss any of this

Sage

>>8789912
Agreed. These charts are utter cancer and need to die.

>>8789912
>>8789939
At least use the new one

>>8790131
>http://www.listchallenges.com/reddits-top-200-books
>the whole harry potter series
kek

>>8789912
>1. Infinite Jest
wew lads

>>8790110
A lot of people on here don't even give black authors a chance because lol niggers but in general you're right, the best authors in western literature are mostly white.

>>8789994
reminder if you vote for any left leaning party in the western hemisphere you tacitly support this

>>8790576
>A lot of people on here don't even give black authors a chance because lol niggers
that's because literally 99% of black authors decide to write about slavery or how they feel oppressed. it's boring trash that no intellectual mind has time for

but w/e, higher testosterone leads to lower creativity so i'm not surprised these people are so devoid on ideas

>>8790586
>implying you've read any black authors

>>8790576
I generally don't care for black authors because everything I have read by them is about how bad it is to be black, which isn't as interesting or original now as it was decades ago.

>>8790499
Not in the top five.

>>8790593
Half the shit on our list is about how bad it is to be human.

>>8790135
>The Handmaid's Tale

that's a good book tho

>>8790499
/lit/ has been full of edgy teenagers and overweight neckbeard SJWs since its inception though, it's no surprise this board is so liberal and retarded in its rankings

>>8790599
not really but whatever, it's clear you want to feel oppressed when in reality black authors just suck and aren't very creative. I genuinely feel sorry for someone carrying such a large chip on their shoulder like that

>>8790607
Can you really not see that you're just irked that black authors don't write about your life?

Or rather, you can't convince yourself that black authors are writing about your life.

>>8790576
>why are there so many white authors in white countries

it's fucking hilarious really, it's like these people don't realise that they live in white countries, and until about 30 years ago the white % in western europe was 97% or above. It's as if they mass migrate to europe and expect us to change our history of literature to accommodate them?

Not that I'd expect a moment's critical thought coming from liberals and ethnic minorities, mind you...

>>8790611
No one here is irked but you, we just find it boring that they all write about the exact same experience of slavery or racism over and over again and provide nothing new or creative. What's so hard to understand about that?

>>8790614
>and until about 30 years ago the white % in western europe was 97% or above.
That's categorically false bro. Britain, France and Spain have had a lot of immigration from all over the world going back hundreds of years. That's what happens when you're relevant for longer than 5 minutes.

>>8790623
Because every black person's experience with racism is different. There is much more diversity in works by black authors than you give credit for.

Not to mention that if you are writing about a black person in America today, and your story doesn't touch on racism at all, you are writing fantasy. But any inclusion of incidental racism would be enough for you to dismiss it as unoriginal.

Meaning a black author is only worth reading if they write about white people, as if that's somehow more creative.

>>8790611
Kek kys, most black authors in the western world have essentially regurgitated the same themes continuously for decades now.

The best black authors are the ones from outside the western world at this point

>>8790637
erm, this just isn't true friend, the only one of these countries that falls into that category is Spain and we all know what happened to the muslim invaders there

These countries have certainly had migrations from WHITE ethnic groups going back hundreds of years, but non-white? No. Not in any significant number

>>8790623
>find it boring that they all write about the exact same experience of slavery or racism over and over again and provide nothing new or creative.
Aside from that being as important as anything else, it's also not the case. Read moar.

>>8790647
>the only one of these countries that falls into that category is Spain and we all know what happened to the muslim invaders there
Elizabeth I literally tried to kick out all the black people back in the 16th C (unsuccessfully) and a bunch came to France from colonies in the 18th and 19th C. Race wasn't as big a deal back then though, it's very much a post Darwin thing. Spain also had an empire along with immigration, it's not just Moores and shit.

>>8790657
>race wasn't as big a deal then, it's definitely a post-Darwin thing

What the fuck are you talking about? Jesus Christ are you kidding me anon

>>8790666
The predominant thing was man as a creation of God in the west, that underlies p much all historical politics between different peoples for most of the past 1000 years. It's not until the late 19th C we even have a vaguely modern conceot of culture or civilization.

>>8790641
>Meaning a black author is only worth reading if they write about white people,

So you admit here that slavery and racism are endemic characteristics for literally any black character. Thanks for proving my point

>Because every black person's experience with racism is different

List 5 examples of how their experiences of racism (note: not experiences of how the racism expresses itself) and its consequences are different. It shouldn't be too hard

>>8790534
It would be cool if we made one of these for Short stories / Plays / Novellas / Poetry

I know it's supposed to be "top 100 books" but all of these lists basically end up being "top 100 novels" every single time.

>>8790679
race wasn't an issue in Britain and France (well it was, for the Irish in the former) because non-whites didn't exist in Britain in any meaningful numbers up until the 60s, with France it's a similar situation until post-colonial immigration

>>8790576
>>8790586
truth. I haven't read a single black author that didn't talk about slavery or "the black experience."

Some of it was well written, but it's not very interesting to me. Happens to not matter to me either. Why read several black authors who say the same shit about anything when I could read several European authors with topics ranging from surrealism to existentialism.

To be fair, Alexandre Dumas is a good author who happens to be black and European while rarely touching upon the topic of slavery since he didn't have anything to do with it.

Reeeee. Why do normies keep fucking saying this and adding more stigma to classic books?

>I like reading classic literature.
>Heh, get a load of this pretentious pseud, is GoT and Harry Potter too good for you? Sorry i'm not on your level.

>>8790681
List 134 examples proving the opposite anon

>>8790604
it's not that bad anon.

>>8790696
They're just justifying their YA to themselves.

>>8790641
a black author can write about black characters. we're just tired of these characters experiencing the same shit.

>>8790681
Not every black >>8790689
>because non-whites didn't exist in Britain in any meaningful numbers up until the 60s
Again, that's false. I've provided examples tho, you're just repeating yourself.

The Irish thing is vastly more complicated as well, at first British monarchy was invited, then you had Cromwell which was religious war more than anything, then the independence movement really solodifies in the 19th C with the famine. You also see a transformation from religious discrimination to proper racism then. But even then there was a question over whether Ireland would become to Britain like Hungary to Austria.

>>8790688
we have a couple of those floating around. I'll post one or two of them for you.

>>8790688
there's more out there, these are just the ones i have saved.

>>8790681
Black kid is told he'll never amount to anything because he's black, anger turns it into self fulfilling prophecy

Black kid develops inferiority complex and is forever seeking approval of white 'superiors'

Black kid revels in minority status because it makes him feel like a special snowflake and gives him an excuse for anything he fails at

Upper middle class black kid is shielded from the worst of racism and as a result is painted as an Uncle Tom by some of his own race

Oppression gives black kid the perfect pretense to explore delusions of revolutionary grandeur.

>>8790704
but at the same time, they're not entirely wrong. /lit/ does have a lot of pretentious fags on it.

>>8790727
So you're reading African American authors or something? Even then there are a number that don't fit that. There's a massive amount of eximperialist lit tho.

>>8790713
>Again, that's false. I've provided examples tho, you're just repeating yourself.

No you haven't

>I have found evidence of over 360 African individuals living in these isles between 1500 and 1640
http://www.mirandakaufmann.com/blog/elizabeth-i-and-the-blackamoors-the-deportation-that-never-was

You perhaps need to stop watching BBC black history month anon, black people have no meaningful history in the UK up until the carribean immigration in the 60s

>>8790727
>Black kid is told he'll never amount to anything because he's black, anger turns it into self fulfilling prophecy
Where does this fantasy play out in America, current year? It's more like they're told "OK Jerome, if you attend all your highschool classes you can get a free diversity scholarship to any college in Americ-- oh no you robbed a store at gunpoint..."

>>8790716
I know, the wiki is full about them, I just think that it would be interesting to see /lit/'s favourite books outside of narrative.

I still don't understand how imgur is a community of its own right. How do people search things by topic of interest there? And literally why would you load up imgur as one of your websites of choice?

>>8790713
>Again, that's false.

It's really not, Anon.

>>8790722
Is there a reason why something like Gravity's Rainbow isnt on this list? Not complainging or anything, just curious, cause GR prolly the most surreal book ive ever read

The Black Population in Britain before the 1950s was estimated to be <0.1%.

>>8790781
The non-white population was probably less than 0.5% too, it really was negligible. I don't know why liberals have such hard time accepting these facts?

>>8790688
Check the wiki dumi

>>8790781
Interestingly enough, that was also the last time Britain did anything right.

Not saying correlation equals causation.

>>8790781
Isn't it still only <2%?

>>8790792
It is about 3% now

>>8790696
People that work in libraries and book stores are some of the absolute worst people to discuss literature with because of this attitude; they'll have read hundreds of literally who authors but you can't discuss Shakespeare with them.

>>8790534
>Jerusalem Alan Moore
>39
What the actual fuck /lit/, explain yourselves.

>>8790740
There's a few things wrong with what you're presenting, you didn't in fact look at the article being a chief one or what I said above.

>>8790792
3% probably 4.5-5% when you include mixed race, go to london and you'd think it is about 20% though

>>8790819
London is like less than 70% overall.

>>8790781
Source?

Can someone explain why The Great Gatsby is considered a great book? I just like the story, but why is it appreciated?

>>8790827
>In 1950 there were probably fewer than 20,000 non-white residents in Britain, almost all born overseas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_British#19th_century

So even if you assume all of those were black, that's 0.04% of the total British population in 1950

>>8790807
It was memed for a bit because of >muh comics man and its extreme length, then we discovered it was actually kind of good as well. For a certain type of taste, anyway - massive Blakefag myself.

>>8790833
Dude it has great right there in its title. just like great expectations and god is not great by thinkpiece wordsmith richard dawkins

>>8790740
He sounds like one of those guys who sees a Moorish-looking person in a Renaissance painting of a scene at Venetian commercial bank, and then concludes "Holy shit, black people were all over every country in pre-modern Europe!" It's the Black Athena approach to history.

>>8790834
>citing wikipedia
Anyone got an actual source?

>>8790851
>a Renaissance painting of a scene at Venetian commercial bank
That's oddly specific anon.

>>8790131
I thought it would be a disappointing reasonable list but it really is chock full of YA fiction, what the fuck

>>8790131
>guns germs and steel at #17

it's like these people are parodies of themselves

>>8789912

Holy shit. Could that list be any more pseudo? Except for maybe Blood Meridian.

>>8790835
Moore is just generally a unlikeable tryhard who peaked extremely early in his career and now subsides by writing rape fantasies and SJW tracts.

>>8790728
>Pretentious because its literature.

The 'pretentious' choices on here are only because this board is about people who like literary fiction, not genre fiction.

>>8790641
This has to be bait

>>8789912
why don't we make a /lit/ essentials list and stop doing this every year

>>8790786
But I don't want to discover short stories with such a list, I'm just curious of /lit/'s taste in other literary forms

>>8790771
It's postmodern. Hence, it's on the postmodernism list.

>>8790694
Yeah the first thing I thought of was Dumas and how great he is, but I can't think of another black author who writes "literature" instead of "black literature."

>>8789939
im glad I dont give a shit about what /lit/ likes, this place has horrible taste in books. Everything you guys read is pseudo intellectual garbage

>>8789939
Meditations only got 3 votes? You guys have such shit taste.

>>8791028
>>8790953

>>8791049
precisely.

>>8790131
>I read 22 books out of 200 from that list
>still Top 58%
What?

>>8790131
>http://www.listchallenges.com/reddits-top-200-books

LMFAO when Mein kampf beat out Gravity's Rainbow

>>8791049
Pushkin and Baldwin off the top of my head

>>8790131
>107
>The Turner Diaries

>>8789994
lel have black people written any classic lit at all?

>>8790534
>The Bible

>>8790463
yet if there were we can safely say most women wouldn't rank highly

>>8792294
no they have low iqs and the few with high iqs make racial politics their priority in art and so produce worthless trash

>>8792294
all the ancient egyptian books

>>8789999
Now read my book "selected unpublished tweets of a mexican panda express employee" in which I dismantle the patriarchy/books-that-are-too-hard-for-me-to-read-archy by sharing every single hollow thought that's ever fought to take root in the punishing desert climate of my "mind".

Also, I fucked Tao Lin once and this is the sole source of my fame!

Fuck Tao Lin for ever encouraging this braindead whore

>>8790131
>Open link
>"Hitchhiker's Guide--"
>Close page

>>8790592
>implying you've read any black authors without swiftly refuting his points with examples if this is in fact possible

You can tell who itt is Reddit by the fact that they're defending the retardation that is imgur comments.

>>8790611
I think you'd have to be a drooling retard (or maybe even a woman) to think people read books to learn about other people's lives

>>8790959
>Reading comprehension
>What is it?
Way to go with completely missing the point there bucko. One day when you gain the critical thinking skills of something above a brick we could continue this conversation.

>>8790788
it's allowing women in positions of power that destroyed them
>inb4 "the queen"

>>8790586
There is nothing wrong about writing about slavery and racism. The fact that it is so prevalent in the writings of African American writers is to be expected. However that is a separate thing from written works whose conception is to make real change in the world. It is the later I cannot stand in literature and I think it is the same for most of this board. This board loves the bible even though it contains slavery, but it is not merely, or only a work of social activity. It can be enjoyed purely aesthetically. The later conception of social change, in that it makes people desire things outside of the work itself is definitionally unaesthetic.

>>8790586
>>8790593
>>8790623
>"write what you know"
>fuck them for writing about what they know all black authors are the same

>>8790742
>>>/pol/

>>8792294
>who is james baldwin
>who is toni morrison
>who is ralph ellison
>who is chinua achebe

>>8793549
>>8793552
>>>/pol/

>>8793621
This list of four writers is perfectly compatible with the reality of low black iq

>>8791379
I've read 24 and I don't even fucking consider myself a reader
>top 53%

>>8793621
>>who is james baldwin
>>who is toni morrison
>>who is ralph ellison
>>who is chinua achebe
qood question

>>8789999
I'm OK with Ben Lerner.

>>8793621
If blacks are such great authors, why I haven't I read any of their books?

>>8790860
That was sort of the point my dude

>>8790131
Walden and Hamlet both appear twice.

>>8793687
If youre so smart why haven't I read any of yours?

sad thing is we're at the pinacle of human connectedness and we're still pushing meme charts.

>>8789994

Every time I see the words "white dudes" I feel a strong urge to burn a cross in someone's yard.

>>8790614
>expect us to change our history
>history is not a series of changes in a timeline

>>8794048
or maybe it's just you don't want your fairly tale "cultural history" you've cemented in the echo-chamber of /pol/ to be infringed

>>8794052
so basically europe has been this wonderful candyland for centuries and all of a sudden there is some outside force for the first time that has women shutting their windows and men searching frantically for their muskets.

it must be you just don't know shit about anything so go back to pol

>>8794052
/pol/ doesn't realize how postmodern it is in that respect. It's not an echo chamber, it's a safe space: What's important is that nobody says something that someone else would actively disagree with. So they fail to even have the coherent narrative of an echo chamber.

>>8793592
And I think you'd have to be a drooling retard to believe that any of the authors on our Top 100 are writing about your life any more than black authors.

Gonna go out on a limb and say the average anon has more in common with Toni Morrison than Dostoevsky or Cervantes.

>>8790584
Reminder that if a party takes part in the democratic shill, then they're not authentic leftists.

>>8789999
A poem by Mira Gonzalez was assigned reading for one of my seminars a couple of weeks ago. I thought her audience consisted of vice journalists and Lena Dunham, and suddenly I find out that there people who teach the public who take this shit seriously

I thought it was just a meme, but people actually consider this poetry. I wish I'd listened, /lit/

>>8789994
Make it stop

Ask people like this

>>8790131
The reading level of that list is unsurprisingly high school level.

>>8793611
same goes for all the D&D homos who write the same fantasy stories one-hundred times over.

You can have a few good stories around these topics, but too many authors are eager to get their name out there without adding anything new.

>>8793758
A game of thrones is also on the list by itself in addition to the whole SoIaF series...

>>8793611
>"write what you know"
>"despite many books being available on what im about to write i should write it anyways! its not like books are centered around new ideas or anything lol!

>>8794656
Well, I mean, it's not like that. You're right.

>>8790110
>I highly doubt (I'm certain) that no one votes on the /lit/ top 100 lists taking into account race.
I'm pretty sexist and racist to be desu. I would never vote for a non white or a non male.

>>8790648
Like what? What else is there to read besides muh oppression and muh raycism?

>>8789912
This.

>>8794772
Rich folk history, political thrillers, mysteries, quite a lot of magical realism type stuff, a lot of farming the land type stuff a bit like Hamsun I guess, and pretty much anything you could also find from any given white author. A lot of authors don't write in English though, most who are translated are good. And some do write in English so w/e.

>>8790131
>Hitchhiker's Guide
>1984
>Dune
>Vonnegut
holy shit this could only be worse if Ready Player one was up there

>>8794880
Anon, all of those are on the chart in the OP.

>>8790637
WTF are you talking about, fucking ignorant. Spain never had immigration until Franco's death. The immigration slightly started in the 80's, and it grew in the 90's and 00's before the crisis.

Puto retrasado.

>>8793924
A swiftly stung swelling bung.

>>8790109
The Martian

>>8794958
>Spain never had immigration until Franco's death.
You know Franco was relatively recent right?

>>8794063

Have you ever been on /pol/? Every thread is a huge shitstorm.

>>8795612
>Every thread is a huge shitstorm.
Yeah, nah. The most you'll get is a /v/ like response - some spergs will repeat the same shit over and over again at something they disagree with.

>>8793924
>I am unable to refute your point so I will instead insult your intelligence

>>8794063
>nobody says something that someone else would actively disagree with
>on /pol/
is this how redditors project things on 4chan (they don't like) to be?

>>8796269
So you think a redditor is pretending to not find /pol/ disagreeable because /pol/ is primarily about posting things for redditors to hate?

It's an idea, almost. I guess.

>>8794880
>>8794895
just goes to show that /lit/ is basically reddit when it comes to taste. half of the books in the OP shouldn't be on the list anyway

>>8791099
like what?

>>8794557
more people on reddit/imgur probably browse /lit/ directly than there

>>8789994
It's established fact that white dudes wrote the best literature. I say "wrote" because since the 1980s or so, most white dudes have written books as bad as everyone else. People can cry all they want about it and scream about racism or sexism, but just look at classic literature and see who it was that wrote it.

>>8790586
>higher testosterone leads to lower creativity
>women can't write
finally choose one /pol/, dammit.

>>8789912
Are you against furthering the awareness of great works or something?

>>8798103
No, but this list is awful, and Reddit are being mean to us again

>>8789912
Agreed.

>>8789939
>>8789912
Why did The Stranger drop back so far

>>8796614
There are different expectations in different countries. For example, the French Culture secretary a couple of years back received heavy criticism for not having read Mondiano. In the US who'd even care about that author really? Simlarly, if you're Ugandan and a reader and you haven't read Okot p'Bitek you've really got to look at what you're doing.

There are plenty of black authors that have written classics in the US and elsewhere too.

>>8794557
nobody on kc likes the ukrainians

>>8790958
His Wikipedia page sure is informative

>>8798312
I care.
It's not my fault we're all plebs. I'll suck on your shrivelled snails if you'll make me French.

I think we should spam every single list thread from now on with gore and scat.

Temporary bans are an acceptable price to pay. I voiced your exact concern in every list compilation thread I saw OP, but the slobbering retards just marched on. I hate them OP. I hate them sincerely and intensely.

>>8790586
>Higher testosterone leads to lower creativity

Why do literary students presume they know science?

>>8798387
>anything for muh secret society

Seriously, how old are you?

>>8798381
The way I feel is the Western Canon (wheatever that happens to be to that person) is not enough. There are great authors all over the world, and I think most would do better to read 1 good African author after reading 10 good western authors than to read another western author.

>>8796614
Says the white dude.

I'm not disproving your opinion. Its just a matter of perspective. Great literature is great literature, regardless of race. And if you really want to play the race card, you might want to revise your terminology anyway

>>8796614
>established fact

So give us solid proof. Shouldn't be difficult

>>8798399

Were you here last year when the imgur list reached +1 mil views? /lit/ was fucking atrocious for a couple of months after that.

>>8798419
why, what happened?

>>8798467
Plebs anon. Plebs everywhere.

>>8798494
>plebs
Hahaha, you must be new here from r/books! Welcome, my good man!

>>8798501
>haha plebs is an r/books meme
>haha Stirner is a leftpol meme
>trolleytroubles is a /his/ meme
STOP APPROPRIATING /LIT/ MEMES
plebs didn't originate here but w/e

>>8798511
it came from /tv/

>>8790586
>>8790593
>>8790607
>>8790623
>>8790642
>>8790694
>>8790710
>>8790742
>>8792294
>>8793541
>>8793549
>>8793592
>>8793633
>>8793671
>>8793687

Teenage

>>8798375
*tips citation*

>>8793689
It's a cheque they can't cash. It's already been established by the "immigration never happened ever before" anons that leading historians accept (the whole "le BBC documentary" thing) mass migrations into western countries have happened several times in the past, and that things like the historical black population in Britain is underestimated. Hell, one of the anons mistakenly posted a link supporting that while thinking it would support the opposite (because not reading).

It would then appear that the need for picking and choosing is on the other side, although as said they are quite bad at it so far.

>>8790534
i thought 2666 was all the hype here, whered it go?

>>8791049
August Wilson wrote some good plays. the characters are black and the specific things they experience are typical of a black family in a pre- civil rights america, but the themes can be applied to everyone regardless of race or gender. i.e. Heritage versus Progress

>>8790160
tbqhwuf we are sorely lacking in Austen.

>>8799727
>>8790160
I still enjoy that there is a Bronte up there.

>>8790262
name a more influential work of political theory

>>8790110
school of resentment are still mad they got btfo by Bloom

>>8791805
Pushkin's not black idiot

>>8798571
Faggot

>>8790131
>book by Sarah Palin
I think we've been rused

>>8799844
You going to use a term like mixed race now? He was more black than a lot of African Americans now.

>>8798408
Fun test. Grab the epub for The Holocaust Industry, and replace Jew for Nigger and Holocaust for Slavery and it almost works.

>>8791049
>>8791805
This, but they were European. They didn't have the culturally-enforced victim complex African-Americans have.

>>8793621
>those authors
>classic

>>8796614
This. If blacks want to be culturally recognized they should just write better books and not rely on liberals to promote them regardless of quality.

>>8798404
>African authors
lmao. African literature didn't even exist until whites came in and taught a few of them to read, and most African authors just imitate Westerners. Choose any other area with a rich literary tradition: China, India, the Middle East. But Africans never even developed written language and spread their stories orally.

>>8798541
No, pleb/patrician comes from the /mu/ Golden Age. CLT invented it.

>>8789912

I'm imagining all the normies getting memed into infinity and lolling pretty hard

>>8798404
When a nigger has cause a huge change in the literary world, like that of Joyce or Cervantes, then i'd bother reading said nigger, but there's very little time in life, and might as well read those that are important, and not just read because 'muh diversity'

>>8799949
>African literature didn't even exist until whites came in and taught a few of them to read
So they've had literature far longer than Americans?

>>8800006
>implying it didn't take longer than that

>>8799995
To me Joyce and Cervantes are right up there, probably top 10 or so. So to me what you're saying is "I'll read at most 10 authors in my whole lifetime" and on top of that "I'll only read what I'm told to read". So in your case, I dunno. I kind of want to tell you to keep your focus, but I can't help but think you're also wasting your time on things that are far too cerebral.

>>8800016
Take longer...?

Is this another ESL?

This is the most successful thread I ever made.

>>8789939
I still can't believe that 1984 remains so high on the list, even if that was a year ago. baka

>>8789912
Swap out "/lit/" with "stormfront."

>>8800110
Its the first serious book many young males read, often a week before they decide they are now /lit/ and come asking us our opinions on lovecraft

>>8800054
nice

>>8800054
Gz

>>8790131
>those top 5
lol'd

>>8799904
>mfw that's Pushkin's great grandfather
>mfw Pushkin is 1/8 black

>>8790160
I mean I do enjoy those authors

>>8798653
34

>>8790833
Prose.

>>8790160

The only one worth mentioning out of that whole list is Zadie Smith, and on the updated list White Teeth should be put on there.

It's a great book.

>>8789939
Art of the Deal when?

>>8789912
let's make a really shitty fake one for 2017 so these retards stop coming

>>8789939
So when are we doing 2016's top?

>>8789912
Laughable.

Why don't we make a top 100 list for poetry?

>>8804113

No one knows enough about poetry here. We get "help me get into poetry" threads every week.

>>8789912
>no non-Western literature
At the very least put Tale of Genji and Bhagavad-Gita up there

>>8804116
Well we should at least revise the poetry chart we already have, pic related, it's garbage

>>8804121
>saving thumbnails

>>8804127
>Langston Hughes
>one of the highest tiers

Ew

>>8804156
I just posted it, didn't make it.

What changes would you suggest?

>>8804164
The problem with a poetry chart that ranks poets is it's gonna almost certainly have a very obvious bias towards a certain movement, much moreso than other areas of literature.

We're probably better off with a general poetry chart or, better, a flowchart for getting into poetry, like a kinda jokey one with faggy questions and stuff

>>8804164
Not him but that list needs Keats, Dante, Blake, Rimbaud, Chaucer, and Milton. There's no reason for Dylan and 2pac to be there. I'd also cut out Bukowski, Plath, Rumi, and Pope.

>>8804117
Why?

If no one on /lit/ voted for Tale of Genji, why should it be on the /lit/ top 100?

Keep in mind, it's not a list of the greatest books of all time. It's just our top 100

>>8804191
Agree with most, except cutting out Pope. I know he's not that popular now, but he's pretty representative of an entire era of poets and it'd be like cutting all Romantic Poets out and still claiming to give a comprehensive view of poetry to cut him out.

>>8804194
That's true, I guess. The top list just reflects general taste.

>>8804191
>cutting Pope

>>8804206
I'd be fine with that. Maybe the poetry list should have one or two poets from every era from the Greeks.

>>8804223
wew

Since we're on the subject of charts, and making new charts, I should share my new "intro to /lit/" chart.

>>8790124
white people care too...for real or annoying reasons (ie they don't actually read books non-white people write or seek out the many many great ones, but they bitch about things)
but everyone knows /lit/ is a myopic, small subset mostly white guys 12-26 within the smaller subset of the certain types of losers who even know what 4chan is
most of the books are there are good, but anyone who thinks it's an objective or definitive top 100 is delusional or very sheltered

>>8790586
can you guys step up your meme excuses for knowing nothing about black literature, if writers even do write about slavery it's usually one maybe two books compared to everything else they've written- and it's not the author's fault if those are the ones canonized like with Alice Walker and Toni Morrison

>>8804236
This a lit game of king's cup at a house party where the adults started up upstairs and the kids in the basement but late in the night the parties merged.

>>8804248
>ur just ignorant!
Let's be honest, if you were to choose to read books purely on literary merit you'd probably only have read one or two books by black authors. Blacks just don't write as many books or as high quality books as whites. Even when people meme "black literature" it's the same list of 10-15 writers

>>8804258
>Even when people meme "black literature" it's the same list of 10-15 writers
How is this different to white literature?

I have read quite a few more than that too thinking about it, and that's without even trying.

>>8804258
If you don't know the historical/economic reasons for there being less works published by black authors than white (besides even just demographics of the general population and within publishing, in the US at least, and are you including all African literature in your dismissal?)

But how could you say /lit/ isn't ignorant of pretty much everything, most can't even get through IJ?

>>8804283
*then you are not smart. Are who thinks numbers published=reflection of quality anyway.

>>8804269
It's different to white literature because VIRTUALLY THE ENTIRE WESTERN CANON IS WHITE

Seriously. Nobody HAS to read a book because the author was a certain race.

>>8804283
>dey wuz oppressed n shit
Valid up to the 20th century in America. But that didn't stop Pushkin and Dumas.

There is no reason you should religiously adhere to egalitarianism. Even if you FEEL that blacks and whites should be equal in every way (never kind cultural and demographic differences), you have to accept that equality doesn't actually exist. The fact that whites wrote more important literature than blacks is just a simple fact.

>>8804302
>Seriously. Nobody HAS to read a book because the author was a certain race.
So read a book by a black author.

>>8804302
lol
>The fact that whites wrote more important literature than blacks is just a simple fact.
I'm not arguing that breaking it down to numbers there have been more masterpieces published by white authors (white men) than any other demographic in the United States. That has nothing to do with any inherent superiority in middle class white men, and now that you've made it 100% from 99.9% obvious you're just repeating the same stormfront propaganda you can have fun with that by yourself. Or you can list your top 10 favorite books you've read if you want to amuse me.
>Seriously. Nobody HAS to read a book because the author was a certain race.

Who is arguing that? People are saying it's very sad and pathetic for you and people who think like you to only read what, John Updike? Unless you actually have any power teaching or in the publishing industry you're just making yourself miss out and that's your problem.

>>8804316
That's not how it works. I will read the books I like, no matter what race or sex the author is. Libtards who think that "anti-racism" is specifically choosing books based on race are doubletalking retards. Reading an authors BECAUSE he or she is black is racist in itself. If I want to read Western lit, especially classics, I'm going to find myself reading a lot of whites. That's just factual.

>>8804328
What? Are you a woman?

Saying that whites made better literature than blacks is a simple fact, by numbers. I'm just saying that reading authors BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE is RACIST. It's just racist against whites. That's not stormfront. It's just basic reason.

>Who is arguing that? People are saying it's very sad and pathetic for you and people who think like you to only read what, John Updike? Unless you actually have any power teaching or in the publishing industry you're just making yourself miss out and that's your problem.
What? Reading books that I like and think are good literature regardless of race, and then judging that most of these books were written by whites, is "sad and pathetic"? Do you hear yourself? Why should I expect that a black author would make me a better reader? Why would I want to read "we wuz slaves" books make me more "open-minded"? Seriously, you belong on tumblr. Go back.

>>8804355
>I will read the books I like
Are you a prophet, or are you saying your whims just happen to only be white dudes or what?

>Reading an authors BECAUSE he or she is black is racist in itself.
Oh god you people are worse than the pronoun police. I'll remind you as well I'm >>8804269 and I must have read around 50 black authors without going out of my way, quite a few more if I could remember most of the playwrights I looked at when I studied some Creole languages in high school. I don't see how you're managing to accidentally avoid them or only read stuff about slavery and so on.

>>8804382
>Are you a prophet, or are you saying your whims just happen to only be white dudes or what?
Yeah. I've read many black authors, but I don't GO OUT OF MY WAY to read black authors. There are good black authors, but you can't deny how many of them just complain about racism and opreshun n shiet

Just because I don't choose what to read based on race doesn't mean I'm racist, actually quite the opposite. You're obviously some libtard good goy who watches CNN because your logic makes no sense.

The greatest literature was mostly written by whites. Because it's the Western tradition. You're trying to rewrite history to fit some egalitarian ideal. There is no black Shakespeare or Dante or Joyce. If blacks want to be read equally they should write better books and not rely on their race to get them promoted. It doesn't help that blacks tend to have a very narrow range of subjects (muh Africa, muh white oppression), especially now that racism against blacks has been effectively wiped out and blacks are heavily integrated into mainstream culture considering they're only 13% of the population.

>>8789994
sounds like they need to git good

>>8804438
>try to read Langston Hughes
>"I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it."
>literal we wuz kangs
>literally every other poem is we wuz Egyptians n shiet
>tfw I thought it was just a meme

>>8804415
>There is no black Shakespeare or Dante or Joyce.
...oh no????

For different reasons, Dante and Joyce have a lot in common with (and Joyce in particular a lot of influence on) many black authors. Joyce p much set up decolonized literature, that's part of why he's so important in the western canon.

And all three of those authors go on about fucking oppreshun. It's probably in Joyce the least weirdly.

>It doesn't help that blacks tend to have a very narrow range of subjects (muh Africa
You got a problem with Africans writing about Africa too? Asian authors also write about Asia a whole lot, and American authors about America etc etc. it just happens that weirdly there are a lot of black people in Africa.

On that, why aren't you being vocal about the racism of reading French literature, or German, or Japanese etc?