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/lit/ - Literature

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1942901 No.1942901 [Reply] [Original]

The obligatory 'What are you currently reading thread'.

>What are you reading
>What do you think of it so far
>Would you recommend it?

>> No.1942905

I am reading Titus Groan.

I quite like it. It has barely any plot at all (about 210 pages in), but the castle Gormenghast and its inhabitants are very interesting to read about. I find myself excited just to see what the author is going to show me next.

Yes. If you like fantasy, but aren't married to the sort of cliche epic quest of noble adventurers sort of thing, I would recommend it.

>> No.1942904

Don Quixote
It's very good, repetitive but it doesn't bother me.
Yes I would.

>> No.1942914

The Decameron
It's masterful and hilarious.
Of course. It's one of the most important texts of Medieval literature, not to mention that it's just plain enjoyable.

>> No.1942915

Conan of Cimmeria, part of the Ace Fantasy printings they did of R.E. Howard material

It's incredible and I would absolutely recommend it, provided the obvious misogyny doesn't bother you.

>> No.1942923

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

It's good.

>> No.1942924

Just finished God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. It was all right. All of his books feel the same.

Just finished The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov. I like Asimov. I'm not into science fiction or anything, but I just really like how neat and clean his style is. I really like his short stories. I read him and Vonnegut in between larger, more complicated or flowery works. Everyone should try him a little, at least. Nightfall and The Billiard Ball are good short stories.

I'm about to finish Kundera's Immortality. I love it and will read more from him. The parts with Goethe are great. It's better than I thought it would be.

Still half-way through No Longer Human. I like the intro better than the actual story. I don't like it as much as I thought I was going to. Feels kind of like Notes from the Underground (which I also have never finished).

I pick up Brief Interviews with Hideous Men every few days, and I'm always displeased. I would not recommend it, but that's just me. I plan to try IJ eventually.

>> No.1942936

>>1942901
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
The writing style is bland and I don't know French for shit, but I guess I like it.
Eh, if you're into mystery then go for it.

>> No.1942940

>>1942904
Don Quixote may be the best novel. Maybe. We'll see if anything tops it. So far, it's still on top.

>> No.1942960

Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

liking it more and more, I can tell this will be a long series

great fantasy ideas

>> No.1942976

the magus
bizarre, page turner, starts off slow
yes

>> No.1942977
File: 16 KB, 198x300, American%2BPsycho%2B%252528book%252529.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1942977

American psycho. I've just started it, and Ellis's writing style is amazing. He does an excellent job of portraying just how batshit Patrick Bateman is. I recommend it

>> No.1942989

I just finished The Intuitionist the other day.

No, I wouldn't recommend it.

>> No.1942990

Just finished God Emporer of Dune.

In my humble opinion, I liked it; it gave me a lot to think about.

>> No.1942995

>>1942924

Asimov is amazing, you need to read a lot more of him. I agree with Hideous Men though, I thought it was DFW's worst work (although he's good).

>>1942977

American Psycho is good, yes. I enjoyed it a lot.


As for me, I'm reading Lunar Park, which is a good book so far. The first chapter was excellent. The Teenage Pussy chapter was very good too, but short.

>> No.1942997

>>1942977
I have a love/hate relationship with that book. The fact that it is so obsessed with minor details is both admirable and agonising.

>> No.1943000

The alienist by Machado De Assis...
It`s a great book,it says about a doctor who doesnt know what is madness.
I recommend it if you`re interested in Realism literature...

>> No.1943003

>>1942997
I agree. But its the obsession with minor details just makes you realize how insane Bateman is. But yes, it can get a little ridiculous sometimes

>> No.1943013

>>1942977

fucking overrated

It's like pride and prejudice
+ 5 pages of goreporn

if you want psycho without the bullshit gossiping and pervasive clothes cataloguing, read Hogg, or My loose thread, or this symbiotic fascination

>> No.1943035

>>1942901

the wall
better than Nausea
yes

>> No.1943042

Just finished 'Dance With Dragons'

Loved every page, just rageface at how long I need to wait for the next book.

If you're a fan of the 'Song Of Ice & Fire' series. You are not going to be disappointed at all.

About to start reading the swashbuckling tale 'Captain Blood'. I'll let you know how that goes!

>> No.1943050

Shadow & Claw
By Gene Wolfe

>> No.1943077
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1943077

It's amazingly, sublimely objective.

It's healing my heart after a decade of torture.

>> No.1943080

>>1943077

Objective?

That's one of the most polarizing subjects in modern America, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to write something objective on it.

>> No.1943083

>>1943080
Actually the one review of it that I read made it sound objective, amazingly enough. I was planning on reading it----is it good?

But more to the point, were you really a scientologist for a decade? Did you make it to OT-3?

>> No.1943090

Currently reading: The Third Policeman

I think it is hilarious, the entire plot is just endless lol.

I would recommend it to people that like weird shit, and it has a bit of irish slang in it that might bug some people but nothing extreme.

>> No.1943115

Foundation
Loving it
If you don't mind sci-fi, yes.

>> No.1943139

Anna Karenina, I'm only 100 pages in but man is it gloriously written.

>> No.1943145
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1943145

>>1943139

Britfag brain orgasm detected.

>> No.1943157

Du cote de chez Swann by Proust.

Fucking love it. Amazing prose, it's basically a long rant with little as to plot (so far) but I don't find it boring at all. I'm getting a lot of that "oh shi-, he's writing about my life again" kind of feel.

Will be reading the next installment afterwards. Looking forward to all the lesbian shit.

>> No.1943170

>>1943145

I don't know what you want. You tried to guess where am I from by my English? I'm not even a native English speaker.

>> No.1943180

>>1943170

I just wanted attention.

Thanks! @_@

>> No.1943194

David Copperfield
I'm 2/3 done. It takes a while to grow on you, but when it does you will love the characters and the interesting plots that intersect. Sometimes it shows that Dickens was payed per word, but sometimes the writing is fantastic.
I would recommend it, but not to beginners.

>> No.1943195

A Dance with Dragons
It's fairly good so far, though not at as good as A Storm of Swords.
If you like fantasy, yes.

>> No.1943205

Rereading Gormenghast (<3) and slowly-but-surely working my way through "A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped The World".

Would recommend both, noting that they're each sort of a dense read.

>> No.1943206

>>1943157
Reading this too. Are you reading it in French?
I'm about to finish the first part called "Combray" and I like it.

>> No.1943209

>>1943206
Yes and I'm also finishing up Combray. Will probably get to Un amour de Swann today.

I'll race ya

>> No.1943213

The Complete Poems of Hart Crane
Plays. Vol. 5, by Tom Stoppard

Both are very enjoyable

>> No.1943214

A Wizard of Earthsea
Picked it up because I loved The Left Hand of Darkness, but I'm halfway through it and it's nowhere near as good
I might if you just want an easy fantasy read, but probably not

>> No.1943218

>>1943194

Cheers. Never quite managed to finish that one, though. One of those books I always pick up, read slightly further than I did before, go "Why did I never finish this", and then put it down and don't touch it for months.

>> No.1943222

>>1943213
I tried to read Hart Crane. It was fun but I did not understand a single thing. Maybe I was really high but it sounded like he was just making up words.

>> No.1943228

>>1943209
That's not fair because I'm a slow reader

>> No.1943231

>>1943214

You should try some other stuff in the Hainish Cycle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainish_Cycle

In particular, The Dispossessed is one of my favorite novels.

>> No.1943233

Commencing a Mason & Dixon reread.

Snowballs been flying their arcs, yo.

>> No.1943238

>>1943228
It's probably fair, I'm also a really slow reader, french is my first language but I speak and read english all the time so I'm really slow and I check words in the dictionary. Plus it's Proust so I feel like I have to read slower than usual.

Brofist.

>> No.1943272

The Social Contract
Reading it is making me want to learn French.
yes

>> No.1943295

>>1943233
An arc...you mean...like a rainbow?

>> No.1943307

Paul Auster's Leviathan and Murakami's The Elephant Vanishes.

Leviathan is good. It's fairly Auster-like, which I think is good. I'd actually appreciate if it had more of his eccentricities. You're told at the beginning that the life of a friend of the main character somehow turned into a gruesome mess, but sixty pages in I'm still in the dark about that. Very much keen to find out.

The Elephant Vanishes is fairly good. Being a collection of perfectly independent short stories, I just recently picked it back up, to read 'The Last Lawn of the Afternoon.' Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a better collection.

I'd recommend Leviathan.

>> No.1943325

>>1943295
bingo

>> No.1943332

Justine - Marquis De Sade
Have about 40 pages left. I'm enjoying it, though it could have been shorter.
If you like moral philosophy, and sodomy, you'll love this book

>> No.1943342

Love in the Time of Cholera.
Can't help thinking that something is lost in translation.
I don't need to

>> No.1943355

Iron Council, China Mieville.
It's an okay book (but not a good Bas-Lag book) and I'm nearly done with it.
I probably wouldn't recommend it.

>> No.1943463
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1943463

>Breakfast of Champions

>I like the format of it, but it comes off as quite masturbatory for Vonnegut; but then again, he wrote it for his own sake for his 50th birthday.

>Yes, Vonnegut is, as always, fucking hilarious to read, the way in which he writes about the absurdities of american everyday life.

>> No.1943470

Agamemnon by Aeschylus

Good, but I wish Clytemnestra would shut the hell up.

>> No.1943471

The Trial.
What the fuck is wrong with K.
Perhaps.

>> No.1943476

>Ulysses
>I was reading it at a steady, slow pace for about a month
>Got halfway through it because I read too infrequently at the time and my reading was really slow because I kept looking things up and checking a critical interpretation that I had alongside it so I could take more away from it since I'm relatively new to serious reading
>Greatly enjoying it but I keep procrastinating to read the rest of it
>Am wasting my time on 4chan instead of reading it right now
After this I plan to read Gravity's Rainbow.
Before this I read Beasts Of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala

>> No.1944047

I am reading Forward The Foundation, and I want to kill myself. Not because it's bad (I love Asimov) but because it's just so damn depressing.

>> No.1944085

Currently reading: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Current thoughts: A bit dry at times in the first chapter, but is building up speed in the second. I didn't know much about Joyce's personal life prior to reading this, and I'm relating strongly to his conflicted feelings towards religion as an adolescent.

I would certainly recommend it. Going to read Dubliners next, and I've heard good things.

>> No.1944099

The Moviegoer

Percy Walker

>> No.1944124

>Currently reading:
Kraken by China Mieville

>Current thoughts
It might be getting a bit too weird to disentangle itself. This is my first Mieville book, so I don't know his power level for such things. Perhaps he'll tie it all together

I would recommend it. I hate this comparison, but imagine if Dan Brown could write really well, so much so that any comparison to Dan Brown should be considered an insult. Sprinkle in some Lovecraft and Gaiman at his anachronistic best, and that is pretty much Kraken so far.

>> No.1944136

>American Pastoral - Phillip Roth

It's pretty good. My first Roth novel. He has a really verbose style, and you HAVE to stay focused or some of the sentences will leave you in the dust. I like the way the Zuckerberg character explores every possible angle of the Swede's motivations - it's neurotic, but fun. Reminds me of Tolstoy's 'many-sidedness.'

I suppose I could recommend it, only about 40 pages in, though.

>> No.1944171

>>1943471

Also reading The Trial.
Don't know what the fuck is wrong with K. I'm about 2/3 of the way through, and I have to say I liked The Castle a lot more. I read it recently, however, and I feel like I'm reading a lot of the same stuff in The Trial, so maybe if I had read The Trial first I would have liked it more? Still very good though, especially considering that it's incomplete.
Yeah.

>> No.1944179
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1944179

only about 40 pages in but the story is developing well. very curious to see how Camus is able to use the amount of characters he's introduced since the majority of his works only have a handful of characters