/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18795005]

I'm gonna drop videogames and become a well-read, educated person. Where to start my /lit/ journey?

[Anonymous No.18795011]

This book is probably the best place to start, hurry before people start spamming "start with the greeks"

[Anonymous No.18795019]

Start with the Greeks

[Anonymous No.18795026]

Start with the Greeks, unironically. Specifically, start with the Presocratics, not with Plato and Aristotle. Make sure to read Thales, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaximander, Protagoras, Pythagoras, etc. basically as many as you can. The Phoenix Presocratic Series is a good place to start.

Also, it's not one or the other, you can play videogames for recreation, just don't let it take too much of your time.

[࿇ C Œ M G E N V S ࿇ !KNDY3cHnRY No.18795030]

>>18795005


THE CLASSICAL PATH IS THIS:

HELLENES, ROMANS, HISPANICS —ALL OTHERS ARE AKIN TO CANDY: SUPERFLUOUS.

[Anonymous No.18795040]

The tripfag above me is a shitposting attention whore btw, never take any of his advice.

[Anonymous No.18795045]

>>18795005
Novelizations of video games.

[Anonymous No.18795047]

Socratic dialogues, then Plato’s Republic, then Aristotle’s Metaphysics, then the KJV Bible (regardless of religion, this book is massively historically important and very good), then read capital by marx (same as Bible, it’s massively historically important no matter your political leaning), then move on to any 19th century poet of your choice, then Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and finish it off with Blood Meridian, Stoner, and you will then know where your interests lie, and many works that come before them will be open to you. There’s an enormous body of work in the western canon and many religious texts that will change your life permanently, so take my list and just charge through these few books.

Wait for the more exciting books after you have the big tomes out of the way. You can get through these in a month if you actively read every day.

[Anonymous No.18795054]

>>18795005
Start with the easy to read modernists, quickly switch back to the greeks.

[Anonymous No.18795061]

>>18795026
This guy has your best interest at heart, OP. But he’s dropping a big workload on you. Listen to >>18795047. He’s being more realistic for a new reader

[Anonymous No.18795065]

>>18795011
This book is great; it explains why anybody who hasn't done any serious reading before can't just pick up one the great books and start to read (if you do, you will either get confused and remember nothing, or you'll get frustrated and give up entirely); it explains the basics of self-education and classical education, how to take notes and keep a reading journal, how to engage and 'dialog' with the different kinds of texts you'll be reading (histories, biographies, fiction, poetry, philosophy, etc), and gives you a basic reading list to follow for each of those topics

[Anonymous No.18795066]

>>18795030
Butterfly 2.0

[Anonymous No.18795075]

>>18795047
>>18795061
Isn't Aristotle's Metaphysics hard af to get through if you have no previous knowledge of Aristotle?

[Anonymous No.18795077]

>>18795066
t. Newfag

[Anonymous No.18795084]

>>18795075
It will teach him to focus and hopefully force him to break out his phone/computer and learn what he's saying, which will open him up to what else he needs to read and so forth.

[Anonymous No.18795087]

>>18795005
read roadside picnic and then play stalker for at least 100 hours

[Anonymous No.18795090]

>>18795047
It's ridiculous to expect someone to go through all these books in one month and actually learn something

[Anonymous No.18795091]

>>18795090
You are a brainlet

[Anonymous No.18795112]

>>18795075
Yes it is painful to read without scaffolding, most of these recommendations are memes

The real best answer is to read a lot of shit you enjoy, with a reasonable mixture of say 70/30 or 50/50 digestible to giga-patrician so you avoid both extremes of pleb stagnation and burnout, respectively. Read some fun and easy shit like Watership Down, Rudyard Kipling, easy and accessible classics, and fantasy and science fiction that is at least one or two cuts above total degenerate schlock. If my little brother were trying to deprogram his zoomer brain I would give him Hyperion by Simmons or Neuromancer, or Robert E. Howard short stories or something, not Anquetil-Duperron's Latin translation of the Upanishads.

>>18795077
t. butterfly 2.0, she has been here over a decade and he only got HIV 5 years ago

[Anonymous No.18795120]

This is all you need on your journey, OP. I believe in you

[Anonymous No.18795122]

Just shit post here and Wikipedia as needed. I appear well read and post in several generals and have read virtually zero books.

[Anonymous No.18795129]

>>18795005
Don't bother

[Anonymous No.18795130]

>>18795005
Bunch of bad advice here that may overwhelm a new reader such as yourself. Start with Don Quixote - a classic with philosophical values and sonnets that are straightforward and easy to follow.

[Anonymous No.18795131]

>>18795120
I can feel the gay hipster facial hair on the man holding the camera like it's brushing against my neck.

[Anonymous No.18795139]

Honestly I think OP should start with The Lord Of The Rings. It's a bit in the same vein as Don Quixote in >>18795130 , easily digestible but with some solid content behind it. Plus he's probably seen the films and he'll get a kick out of the ways the books are similar and are different from the movies.

[Anonymous No.18795146]

>>18795061
While >>18795047 does drop a lower workload, starting with the Presocratics pretty much builds a solid foundation for all of philosophy, from epistemology, to metaphysics, to ethics, etc. And if you read them, you'll pretty much figure out your interests instantly. It skips a lot of the jumping back and forth between time periods and contexts that he has to do, and everybody should read the Presocratics at some point anyway (and their works are actually very easy on beginners, unlike later philosophies).

>>18795005
I know it's a lot, but OP, I highly recommend you start with the Presocratics, you will not regret it. >>18795011 is not a bad place to start either. After the Presocratics, do read Plato and Aristotle, but don't stop there. Consider reading other Greek schools of philosophy, especially the Stoics and the Pyrrhonics, these are arguably the most important out of the bunch (aside from the former two), and have directly inspired philosophers more than a thousand years after their time.

[Anonymous No.18795159]

>>18795005
half of the guys here post things they know will ruin your attempt at this.

look up the most famous writers of the last century and the summarisaitons of their works and then look for what interests you the most.

i liked to start with dostojevski, kafka, hesse

[Anonymous No.18795160]

Thanks anons. I'm going to make a list and read everything mentioned in this thread. Will come back in a year to tell about the results, or make a thread if I have a question or something. I've already started reading Moby Dick because that was the top 1 in the /lit/'s favorite books chart, I'm around 250 pages in after a day. It's pretty challenging so far but I'm enjoying it. Practically this is the first book I've read since high-school.

[Anonymous No.18795173]

>>18795005
>fun
vonnegut
heller
pynchon
genre fiction
literary fiction
>educated
greeks
philosophy
textbooks

[Anonymous No.18795174]

>>18795131
fucking this. the single speed bike. the plants. the chessboard. thundering tryhard.

[Anonymous No.18795193]

>>18795174
7 gear actually

[Anonymous No.18795202]

Starting with a lot of what is being recommended here will be painful. Anons will say that you never had a chance, they are wrong. Start with like easier stuff like Dosto. Not with the damn Republic. None of the faggots ITT started with Plato, it was there in their first 20 books, but not the first.
If you really want to start with the Greeks, then start with Homer.
>inb4 brainlet, midwit
You are a Nonentity to me.

[Anonymous No.18795212]

>>18795005
Star with the Greeks or you will end up being a coping brainlet.

[Anonymous No.18795226]

>>18795030
>Hispanics
Lmao

[Anonymous No.18795239]

Start out slow. Don't cut out video games cold turkey directly. Instead, try to replace some of your time spent playing video games with reading. If you play vidya for 3 hrs a day, play for 2 hrs and 30 mins, and spend the last 30 minutes reading. In terms of what to read, it really is up to you and what you find interesting.

[Anonymous No.18796367]

crime and punishment will get you interested in books because its so compelling but not difficult to read. if youre a super noob maybe read something young adult i guess, a series of unfortunate events maybe.

[Anonymous No.18796838]

I made the same promise to myself a decade ago, and fell away from reading a few times for longer than I would have liked.
In the beginning: Create a system, stay organized, and make acquaintances you can talk with about your studies/readings. You only need a pen and a few good books to get started, so don't fall prey to the hustle of "productivity culture."
Less objectively, here's some advice from a long time reader: do your heavy reading in the morning. Right when you wake up otherwise do it as soon as you are able. If you have a full-time job, then wake up earlier.
Burnout happens. Don't let it become permanent. If and when you burnout for a period DO NOT return to video games. Pick up a hobby, get more exercise for a few weeks, build up a backlog of interesting books, practice periphery skills: hand-writing, typing, mathematics, etc. Set a date when you plan to return to dedicated reading and stick to it.

[Anonymous No.18797748]

>>18795091
And you're a delusional liar for thinking you can effectively read the bible, das capital, plato, aristotles, and three other novels in a month. Unless of course your a disgusting neet freak who has no responsibilities

[Anonymous No.18798062]

i take prozac and read genre. shits cash

[Anonymous No.18798169]

>>18797748
Maybe a month was a bit optimistic, but it shouldn't take you that long. And if OP has time to burn on vidya, then he has time to spare

[Anonymous No.18798995]

>>18795120
>18795120
I hope that i'm never caught in a room this embarrassing.

[Anonymous No.18799020]

>>18796838
>make acquaintances you can talk with about your studies/readings
How does one do this?

[Anonymous No.18799028]

>>18795026
You have to read Homer first

[Anonymous No.18799078]

>>18799028
no

[Anonymous No.18799115]

>>18795005
Start with the Americans

[Anonymous No.18799169]

>>18795005
XD

[Anonymous No.18799176]

>>18795011
>a woman

[Anonymous No.18799267]

>>18795030
imagine being an adult and browsing the internet

[Anonymous No.18799269]

>>18795005
Read books that interest you at first, whether its genre fiction or a history book on a topic you like, to get you into reading and to be sure you enjoy it. After that, the Greeks.

[Anonymous No.18799304]

>>18795005
read greeks
move backwards and if you like go more east

[Anonymous No.18800170]

>>18795005
start with the east
never go towards the greeks, they are poison

[Anonymous No.18800368]

>>18795030
What's your issue with writing everything in caps and the weird paragraph spacing? Is this a bot or something? I refuse to believe any sane individual who willingly choose to write like this.
>>18795065
It sounds nicer than what the cover would lead one to believe.