So Far This Year

[Anonymous No.13620204]

Works read this year, guys. Enjoy the thread. Cheers.
>Pan, Knut Hamsun
>The Lottery and Other Stories, Shirley Jackson
>At the Mountains of Madness, Lovecraft
>Hero With a Thousand Faces, Campbell
>The Horla, Maupassant
>Tree and Leaf, Tolkien
>The King of Elfland's Daughter, Dunsany
>The Castle of Otranto, Wolpole
>Best Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe
>Master and Man, Tolstoy
>Heart of Darkness, Conrad
>Haunting of Hill House, Jackson
>Ancient Greece A very short introduction
>Classical Literature A very short introduction
>The Iliad
> A Little History of Literature
>El Tunnel, Ernesto Sabato
>The Collector, John Fowles
>The Celts, Alice Roberts
>Mythology, Edith Hamilton
>The WoW Diary
>Aesop's Fables
>Diary of a Madman, Gogol
>No Longer Human, Dazai
>Wabi Sabi: the japanese art of impermanence, Andrew Juniper
>The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker

[Anonymous No.13620748]

>>13620204
Too spooky for my taste but you’re doing good.
In January I started a project to read 2 books from/about every African country. I started with Morocco and have worked my way as far as Cameroon, about 20 books so far. Blue Clay People and The Fortunes of Wangrin are the ones I’ve enjoyed the most.

[Anonymous No.13621034]

>>13620204
>>13620748
Nice thread. This year I've tried to read 4 books a month as a target, to stay in shape. So far this year:

>short stories
>The Lady or the Tiger and other Tales, F. Stockton
>Murderous Stories, B. Quiriny
>Moonlight and others stories, Maupassant

Mostly forgettable except for the great Maupassant. Moiron and The Night are terrifying.

>novellas

>Paul and Virginie, Bernardin de Saint Pierre
>Diary of the Countess Livia, Camillo Boito Senso
>The Man who was Thursday, Chesterton
>Messieurs les Ronds-de-cuir, Courteline
>Regain, Jean Giono

All very enjoyable. Chesterton is rejuvenating and thought-provoking. Courteline is ferociously funny. Regain has a interesting oral-inspired prose style. Worth studying if a bit overdone.

>Novels

>School of Flesh, Mishima
>Nana and La Curée, Zola
>Charterhouse of Parma, Stendhal
>C&P, Dosto
>Novels by Adolfo Bioy Casares (8 short novels)
>The Future Eve, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam
>The Sparrow and Children of God (2 novels), Maria Dora Russell

All good. Mishima really touched me. Stendhal was clever, moving and exhilarating. Dosto always delivers, though C&Pdidn't hit me as hard his others novels. Russell was enjoyable and the religiousstuff was well-rendered.

Above all I was entranced to have discovered Bioy Casares and Villiers. The former is a friend of Borges, and like him but more sentimental and realistic, with a great feel for dialogue and an effortless way of defying narrative conventions. I already hold him dear.

Villiers is a disciple of Baudelaire and an absolute madlad, his Future Eve is a metaphysical novel, a brillant piece of cynical irony and at the same time tragic cry dressed in ornate prose. Really quite an impressive, unique literary achievements. Those two are the ones I plan to reread and study in the coming months. Needless to say I'm going to plunder them for all their worth.

>non-fiction
>Black Swan, Taleb
>Essay on Self-Reliance, Emerson
>Images of Thought, W. Benjamin
>The Democracy of Others, A. Sen
>A moral history of the 20th century, J. Glover
>Torture and Democracy, D. Rejali

All good. Benjamin would be pleasant to hang out with, I want to try my hand at that fragmentary writing. Emerson's essay was short and inspiring, I'll reread it when I feel down. Sen's essay was short and made me reconsider my ideas on democracy. Glover and Rejali touch on tragic subjects (torture, genocide, war) but are enlightening and well-documented, particularly the latter. Can be a slog, but completely btfos most popular notions about torture. Taleb is a treat and great rumination material.


>others
>Legendaries Moralities, J. Laforgue
>Black Spring, H. Miller
>Farces of the Middle Ages

Last one gives an idea of what amused the average Middle Age peasant. First two are stylistically and thematically unique, Miller is organic and ultimately melancholic, Laforgue reads like he's trying the most elaborate shitpost ever but there a surprising sincerity underlying it all.

[Anonymous No.13621241]

>>13620748
Cheers. That's an interesting idea. I usually just switch from subject to subject; you can see my interests are mainly in mythology/introspective fiction/literature itself.

[Anonymous No.13621250]

>>13621034
I abandoned it too quickly. I didn't realise people would post. Woops. That looks like a very unique list, especially your novellas. Giono's The Man Who Planted Trees is one of my favourite shorts. The animated version is stunning. You've done a lot of solid reading.

[Anonymous No.13621265]

I forgot to add to my list that I read half of a book on the history of scotland, but I just found it so dense with dates and names that I had to put it down. Strange as I'm Scottish and I can usually read that sort of stuff easily. The next book I'm going to read is something on environmental ethics.

[Anonymous No.13621427]

>read 56 books so far with a further 10 or so half-finished
>still 4 and a half months left

[Anonymous No.13621617]

>>13621427
I'm envious of that. No idea how to read that much. To be fair, I did complete a bachelors degree and I do a lot of creative stuff myself.

[Anonymous No.13621947]

>>13621617
>no one else has a job
>no one else goes to school
>no one else has any hobbies or social life
get off 4chan and read