/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14629756]

I've read nothing of substance. I'm 22 as of yesterday and have only read YA shit. I am a slow reader, as in, it took me about a month to finish the first book of the Deathworld series.
How long do you think I'll take me to catch up with you guys?
Pic related and the greeks is what I want to cover and what I mean by "catching up."

[Anonymous No.14629763]

you dont catch up, holy shit you never catch up, I read thousands of pages a week since i was like 13-14 and i never catch up. just try to enjoy it, its just a hobby after all, all this higher knowledge shit is just memes, fit can help you more in that regard than this place ever could.

[Anonymous No.14629812]

>>14629763
I just want to cover my bases. The most base of bases so I can stop being a literature brainlet.
Trying to write when you have had nothing but YA in your skull is terrible.

[Anonymous No.14629833]

>>14629756
>>14629812
Don't start by reading 1000 page experimental meme novels

Read the famous plays, short poetry collections (not epics), and 200-300 page novels. You should be able to cover most cultures and eras by doing this.

[Anonymous No.14629867]

>>14629833
Are anthologies good to seek out for that sort of thing? I have no clue where to start.

[Anonymous No.14629905]

>>14629867
everything up to 1924 can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg for free and everything else can be downloaded from #bookz as explained in this board's sticky

I am violently opposed to anthologies. Get the collections of poetry that the poets published in their lifetime. For example, Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake or Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney. Some poets, like Emily Dickinson didn't publish in their lifetime, but there is a "Three Series Complete" published right after her death available on Project Gutenberg. Edgar Allan Poe is another poet with a public domain "complete poems" collection that is better to get than any collection he may have published in life. Whatever you do, don't waste your money on "Norton Anthology of Literature."

[Anonymous No.14629940]

>>14629905
>tfw all of my literature courses made me rent Nortons
I have read certian things, but for grades, and from Norton anthologies. It wasn't true reading, just fact spouting and consulting sparks when I didn't have time to actually read.

[Anonymous No.14629974]

>>14629905
Why are you opposed to anthologies? What about the Delphi series on kindle?

[Anonymous No.14629988]

>>14629974
Because I believe you should read works of literature the way they were intended to be read whenever possible. With some exceptions, most poetry collections and short story collections were placed in a specific order by the author, and you lose that in an anthology. The Norton anthologies will also put in excerpts from novels, which is the most absolute haram thing I have ever witnessed.

[Anonymous No.14630213]

>>14629756
>imagine actually reading

fuck books

[Anonymous No.14630378]

>>14629988
Agreed. I get disgusted when people shuffle studio albums for the same reason.

[Anonymous No.14630434]

>>14629756
>catch up with you guys?

anon thinks /lit/ of highly esteemed intellectuals when it's just depressed social rejects who speed read at best

[Anonymous No.14630490]

>>14630434
What's the point of speed reading? You literally get nothing worthwhile out of the material and waste your valuable time. Reading is fun because you can actually mull over the concepts discussed in the book instead of rushing it like a brainlet. Maybe I'm just a slow reader tho since I tend to go on a tangent in my head every other page.

[Anonymous No.14630498]

>>14629756
>How long do you think I'll take me to catch up with you guys?
alri who's gonna tell him

[Anonymous No.14630508]

OP, are you even going to read ANYTHING as a result of this thread?

[Anonymous No.14630546]

>>14629756
Read <200-300 page "classics". Any of them. All of them. If one bores you before it ends, drop it. Who cares. You can go back later. Just read short "classics." It's a good starting point. Try thinking about how it relates to you. Be extremely selfish that way. You're the only one reading.

[Anonymous No.14630568]

>>14630490
Reading should be treated like any other activity.. there are multiple ways to do it. Some people are sprinters and some do marathons. I subvocalize when I'm reading to kill time and I speed read technical documents at work so I don't have to spend hours getting one thing done.

[Anonymous No.14630628]

Not OP but also a brainlet.

How long "can" you read until you get tired?

[Anonymous No.14631349]

>>14629756
I've read and owned a few of those, seen movies of others, want to read some, won't fuck with the rest for about as long as I live.

[Anonymous No.14631395]

You're not really catching up to anyone at 22. Most of your friends only read classics when they were in high school to pass.
I ask most acquaintances/colleagues/friends I meet at least once if they read books or not and most people barely finish more than one if any, within a year.

[Anonymous No.14632465]

>>14629756
youve made this thread before. just go ahead right now and read crime and punishment as i have told you. the first 1/5 might be boring but its well worth it to push through it (once you reach the letter from raskolnikovs mother it starts to get exciting quickly) ignore this "lit starter kit" chart. all those books are mediocre. why read those mediocre books when you can instead read masterpieces like crime and punishment? its not even hard to read. just download a pdf file of the book and read it. right now. you cant possibly have anything better to do if you make this same thread twice on 4chan /lit/.