/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2072100]

That book--you know the one: the book that you keep coming back to.

The one that keeps coming back to you.

Pic related; it's mine.

[Tro Lin !9Mb3EcFAV6 No.2072105]

Holy Lord God in Heaven @ that cover.

[Anonymous No.2072113]

>>2072100
>>2072105
wish my copy had that cover

[Anonymous No.2072115]

>>2072105
brix were shat

[Anonymous No.2072122]

Count of Monte Cristo

[qball !!hVxuk25wyZX No.2072127]

the sun also rises

[Anonymous No.2072131]

>>2072127
Read it. I didn't know exactly what I was supposed to walk away with. Maybe I should give it another shot. Or maybe I'm just a shit reader.

[Anonymous No.2072136]

>>2072100
dat cover

[Anonymous No.2072154]

[Tro Lin !9Mb3EcFAV6 No.2072161]

This play haunts me like a spectre I can't shake.

[Anonymous No.2072174]

.--Sir Bones: is stuffed,/de world, wif feeding girls.

[Anonymous No.2072180]

>>2072100
>dat cover

good stuff so far.

[Anonymous No.2072183]

[Anonymous No.2072192]

>>2072161

I hear you, buddy. Eugene O'Neill is haunting.

[Anonymous No.2072197]

At the risk of sounding cliché, I can always come back to The Catcher in the Rye.

[Anonymous No.2072205]

2 da lighthouse

[Anonymous No.2072220]

>>2072205

[Anonymous No.2072222]

I cannot, for the life of me, go a single day without spending at least 20 minutes thinking about Gravity's Rainbow.

[Anonymous No.2072226]

God, why?

[Tro Lin !9Mb3EcFAV6 No.2072232]

>>2072197
Don't be ashamed of it.

I think "The Catcher in the Rye" is the novel I've read the most times, and I've read it annually since I first read it at 18 (and me, now, pushing 30). It's funny. It's easy to read. It says so much, even when it appears to say nothing at all.

Stick to your theoretical guns. Nobody respects a malleable person.

[Anonymous No.2072236]

[Anonymous No.2072242]

[Anonymous No.2072245]

nice surprises here.

[Anonymous No.2072247]

>>2072197
not cliché at all. I always end up coming back to that one, too. It's just a fucking good book.

Also, My Antonia.

[Anonymous No.2072253]

>>2072247

>read it in highschool
>meh, time for vidja games

>read it recently
>mfw

[Anonymous No.2072292]

Animal Farm

[Anonymous No.2072296]

[Anonymous No.2072305]

>>2072296
What am I looking at?

[Anonymous No.2072306]

>op's cover

[Tro Lin !9Mb3EcFAV6 No.2072314]

>>2072305
"Waiting for Godot"

Its stage directions specify, "A country road. A tree."

Also see: Harold Pinter.

[Anonymous No.2072322]

>>2072105
>>2072113
>>2072115
>>2072136
>>2072180
>>2072306

moby dick, you scary.

[Anonymous No.2072323]

>>2072314

Never seen/read it. Why such sparse stage direction?

[Anonymous No.2072333]

To the Lighthouse
Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

[Anonymous No.2072350]

>>2072323
Read it man. That was exactly what I was going to post. That and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

[Anonymous No.2072364]

>>2072100

I'm with OP. Here's my cover.

But damn. That cover. What a great visual representation of the novel. Gotta find it.

[Anonymous No.2072366]

>>2072364

also, looks like I better get on To The Lighthouse. I BSed my way through it in class, but looks like it's worth a serious shot.

[Anonymous No.2072390]

>>2072100
best cover I've ever seen

[Anonymous No.2072420]

>>2072366
Just appreciate the wonderful imagery and flowy sentences. The plot is deliberately played down I think. It's a brilliant insight into the way people relate and think of each other. It shows the beauty in everyday things and thoughts and conversations.

[Anonymous No.2072429]

[sandwiches No.2072470]

Anna Karenina or In Search of Lost Time.

[Anonymous No.2072482]

Catcher in the Rye, because I teach it every year to my students and thoroughly enjoy it.

All the Pretty Horses

[Anonymous No.2072494]

I've been coming back to this one once a year since about 2nd grade. Fucking grew up with it, still love it to this day.

[Anonymous No.2072506]

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford.

The word "haunting" suits this book so well. This book is all sorts of evil and devilry, and the first time I read it it disgusted me and yet at the same time I had such a morbid fascination with the forbidden immorality and depravity under the surface of that book. And what a masterfully crafted book ... so much to wonder about, so much to think over, so much to decide at. And every time you read it it presents itself slightly differently.

>dat unreliable narrator

[Anonymous No.2072507]

>>2072494
When I was a child, I could not get enough of survival fiction. Hatchet, Lost in the Barrens, White Fang, all of Jack London, My Side of the Mountain, Lord of the Flies, Robinson Crusoe.

There was something that deeply appealed to me about being lost and alone with yourself.

[Anonymous No.2072527]

>>2072470

Pretty much this.

[Anonymous No.2072562]

>>2072482
salary?

[Anonymous No.2072571]

>>2072562
60$ an hour. I privately teach to children of millionaires. It's really the only way to go.

[well if this isn't nice i don't know what is !!paMGnEDb9AD No.2072574]

I'm a sucker for Klosterman

[Anonymous No.2072575]

>>2072571
how?

[Anonymous No.2072582]

>>2072507
I was always attached to the journey of White Fang, I always just loved the character, I could give a shit about survival /lit/erature. Thats why I hated call of the wild. I did like Lord of the Flies, but again not for the survival aspect.

[Anonymous No.2072587]

>>2072575
Be very good at the study of English literature, be a good teacher and get lots of personal referrals.

Chinese parents respect teachers and pay quite a lot if you're worthwhile. I've never advertised for my students. Every single one of my 10 students at the moment are from word of mouth referrals. Multi-millionaires, especially Chinese ones, all tend to know each other in Vancouver.

[Anonymous No.2072593]

>>2072587
I've considered teaching math in NYC, do you think there's the same kind of market? I wanted to tutor for the SATs but the company I was applying to asks you for your SAT score as if that means anything 6 years later. How do you know you did your job/your results?

[Anonymous No.2072597]

>>2072593
In NYC? Yes, absolutely.

If you want parents that love you and pay you well, seek out Chinese students. They take their education very seriously. I love teaching Chinese students English literature. You help them open up their world through novels and interpretation and writing. Good feeling, man.

Don't tutor for a company. They'll just take a cut and limit your salary. If you're a good teacher, you'll set your own salary.

>How do you know you did your job/your results?

You get more students. Your students get into the school they want to.

[Anonymous No.2072601]

>>2072597
I guess you can also seek out Jewish students, Korean, or Japanese ones. Those are all serious education cultures.

[Anonymous No.2072603]

>>2072597
To add on to this, I guess it goes without saying, but you should dress professionally, exercise to be attractive to the parents and students, and be friendly and personable. Put aside everything you know about the teacher/student relationship being one of power and submission. If you become their friends and drop all the bullshit and straight up be honest with them, they'll love you for it.

I'll tell my students to "stop being fucking lazy and do your work" to their face when they slack. If only teachers could do that in the public school system, because it works.

[Anonymous No.2072614]

>>2072429

This, but in French.

Hnnnngggg

[Anonymous No.2072618]

>>2072603
so you work 3 days a week and pull in what?

How many years did you teach before going into one on one private tutoring?

Is the time off awesome?

[Anonymous No.2072620]

>>2072601
Ignore the jewish part of the post. As a jew who spent all my pre-Uni education at Jew School surrounded by the rich jews, I can say confidently, they wouldn't want you to tutor their kid unless you are also a jew.

[Anonymous No.2072626]

[Anonymous No.2072627]

>>2072620
Fair enough, Chinese parents only want a Chinese tutor and that's who's holding all the money in Vancouver.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Anonymous No.2072634]

Mentally, I live inside The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers.

[Anonymous No.2072640]

>>2072618
I work 4 days a week, at minimum 3 hours at most 6 hours a day.

I pull about 20 hours a week at 60$ an hour. Here's the joke: I'm 23 years old. I've never taught in the school systems. I don't really care to teach in the classroom. I prefer 1 to 1 teaching, Plato to Aristotle style.

The time off is amazing. I get to read, exercise, play vidya, and prepare for the LSAT in December. I'm heading to law school next year. I've taught privately for 3 years. Before that, I worked at an academic journal at my University as an editor. Shit sucked. It made me certain I wouldn't enjoy academia.

[Anonymous No.2072645]

>>2072640
how did you get your first client?

[Anonymous No.2072653]

>>2072645
There was a listing looking for a tutor on my Arts Coop job posting board while I was in University. I went and interviewed and got hired on the spot. 3 years later, here I am. My first student just started his first year of University out in Toronto, thanks for my helping him with his English grades. :)

[Anonymous No.2072670]

What do you get on your practice lsats? Why not just stick with teaching?

[Anonymous No.2072671]

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It may not be super important, serious "literature", but if you told me I could only read this one book for the rest of my life, I'd be perfectly okay with that.

[Anonymous No.2072677]

>>2072670
I'm not even started on the practice LSATs yet. I'm still struggling with the Grouping Games chapter in the Logic Games Bible. I started two weeks ago my LSAT prep. Fuckin' birds in the woods man, I swear to God...

Because I want to keep trying new things until I hit my limit. A brief list of all the things I've tried in my life (at the tender age of 23):

Hardwood flooring salesman
Cashier
Barista
Tour guide
Interpreter
Museum historian
Private Teacher

soon

Attorney


And because I feel bad for basically having a conversation within an unrelated thread, I can always go back to DFW's non-fiction essays.

[Anonymous No.2072687]

>>2072677
/fa/ as fuck

[Anonymous No.2072691]

First read it in fourth grade, during a time where my family was pretty much in ruins. But reading it made me think about happier things, and I loved the romanticized thought of going out and surviving in the wilderness, so I get a lot of nostalgia from rereading it.

[Anonymous No.2072693]

>>2072677
If I were you I wouldn't worry too much about it - the law school grad market is so bad that my high school best friend's older brother probably would have been better served by just straight-up bartending for a few years instead of bartending to earn rent money while attending Northwestern Law. My little sister just got a 173 on the LSATs and her college advisor is asking her to seriously consider whether she really, really gives a shit about the practice of law, because at this point it just isn't worth going to law school to make money.

[Anonymous No.2072695]

>>2072691
my nigga, do you read Hatchet by Paulson or Lost in the Barrens by Mowat?

I highly suggest you do so.

[Anonymous No.2072703]

>>2072691
oh god lol, all this time i thought i read go tell it on the mountain by james baldwin and i actually read this

[Anonymous No.2072710]

>>2072693
Yes, I've heard and read a lot of literature on the glut of lawyers in the US legal system. The situation isn't the same in Canada. It's no longer the golden age of law school, but it's quite an OK profession in Canada at the moment.

[Anonymous No.2072714]

>>2072100
>dat cover
Am I going to die?

[Anonymous No.2072715]

1984, I guess.

Pic related. It's the cover of my copy (pretty cash).

[Anonymous No.2072721]

>>2072100

Cover is a killer.

[Anonymous No.2072722]

>>2072695
Loved Hatchet since I was a kid, haven't read Lost in the Barrens so I'll check it out.

I love Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson, too. SFR is like the ultimate bullshit escapism fantasy life on a tropical island, but I guess that's what's so appealing about it.

[Anonymous No.2072724]

>>2072715
There is nothing "cash" about Shepard Fairey

[Anonymous No.2072725]

>>2072710
Ahh, okay, good for you and god bless. Sorry for showing up to shart America all over your thread; it's just that this is the kind of thing I hear about all the time being surrounded by smart American twentysomethings who can't do math.

[Anonymous No.2072731]

>>2072724

Dude, respect for symbolism.
Bear with me.

[Anonymous No.2072732]

>>2072722
Man, you and I are similar in our tastes for escape literature. Have you tried McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, or hell, all of that Border trilogy by him?

It's essentially about man being stranded in the borderlands from the rest of humanity. It's seriously powerful adult escape literature.

>>2072725
Absolutely no apology needed. As a Canadian, I don't even follow my own country's politics. I'm deeply versed in the happenings of your country, and prefer the NYT over the Globe and Mail. You're the power movers, we're just the quiet neighbours, and I think it behooves us that we should know the ins-and-outs of your country, but not necessarily the other way around. :)

God bless, friend.

[Anonymous No.2072736]

>>2072731
OK OK, I'll cut you a break :) You are right about the need for <3 and semiotics.

[Anonymous No.2072737]

>>2072732
>>2072732
>>2072732

God bless Canada

[Anonymous No.2072743]

OP here.

Really pleased with the breadth of titles in the thread.

[Anonymous No.2072744]

>>2072736

[Anonymous No.2072746]

>>2072737
>>2072693 here - truer words, man.

[Anonymous No.2072756]

>>2072732
Haha, yeah, gotta love that escapism. Haven't read those, to be honest I haven't done that much reading in general over the past few years. I definitely am trying to get back into it though, so I'll try them out. Thanks for the recommendations, bro.

[Anonymous No.2072763]

How can I become a better, more intuitive reader?

I'm looking at the titles on this thread, and I'm kind of intimidated by a lot of them. Sure, I like reading, but how do I know if I'm ready to dive head-first into something more cerebral?

[Anonymous No.2072767]

>>2072763
Oh, and Catcher in the Rye is my fave so far

[Anonymous No.2072769]

>>2072763
Read more. There's no need to be intimidated. You'll have to jump off the deep end and just learn as you go.

I like to imagine all the books that are good for me floating freely in space with spiders hanging webs between them. The books are connected by the strands of spidersilk, meaing they're intertextual. You read one book, and that experience makes the next 5 books you read all the richer by allowing you draw the connections between them.

I guess if we want to carry this terrible analogy further, the webs the spiders spin, as your intertextual net grows bigger and bigger, catch the flies of mediocrity and stupidity. :)

Catcher in the Rye is one of my favourites. Why not go and read everything by JD Salinger? DOwnload or get your hands on a copy of Lift High the Roofbeam, Carpenters / Franny & Zooey

[Anonymous No.2072775]

Thanks for the response.

Good advice. But what if I wanted to jump into something like Ulysses? Is that learning to run before you can walk, or is there still some value to be gleaned from the experience--even if it's not as full as it could be?

[Anonymous No.2072776]

>>2072769
I think the analogy was spot-on.

[Anonymous No.2072781]

>>2072775
Honestly, I don't think you'll get anything from Ulysses right now. The value I gleaned from Ulysses at the age of 23 was that I learned I had very little patience for literature that basically required me to read hand-in-hand with a reader's guide. Your mileage may vary. I just don't like Joyce's attitude towards the reader.

Start somewhere else? Moby Dick is a giant in the room that you could glean a lot from right now.

[Anonymous No.2072782]

I can't think of a book that 'keeps coming back to me.' I'm not entirely sure what that even means.

Feels bad.

[Anonymous No.2072787]

>>2072781
Maybe I'll give it a shot. I only read a dumbed-down children's version of Moby Dick when I was really young (8-9 years old).

But if I get my hands on a copy with OP's cover, I'll be too scared to open the bitch.

[Anonymous No.2072789]

"Gravity's Rainbow". I simply cannot go a day without thinking about it.

[Anonymous No.2072793]

>>2072787
Ha, I was poking around the dollar section of Target the other day and ended up flipping through an abridged children's version of Moby-Dick - made me wonder what other classics I remember reading as a child were actually dumbed-down kidlit purchased for a buck in the foyer of Books-A-Million. Like, I'm pretty sure even my copy of Black Beauty was an abridged Young Readers edition.

[Anonymous No.2072794]

>>2072789
is it about nazi missles?

[Anonymous No.2072795]

I have three

Abbey, "A Fool's Progress"
Doig, "Heart Earth"
Least Heat-Moon, "Blue Highways"

[Anonymous No.2072796]

Gravity's Rainbow is that book for me. You know, the one keep going back to.

The book that keeps coming back to me.

For at least twenty minutes a day.

[Anonymous No.2072797]

>>2072787
I know you're half-joking, but beautiful covers make me not want to read them because I'm so stuck on admiring the art.

[Anonymous No.2072918]

the grapes of wrath

naked lunch

[twattle !EA3bdMFX0. No.2072931]

a portrait of the artist as a young man

[twattle !EA3bdMFX0. No.2072943]

>>2072931
meditations marcus aurelius

[Anonymous No.2074195]

>>2072100
Who published with that cover?!

MY GOD MAN TELL US ALREADY!

[Anonymous No.2074388]

>>2074195

Found it, it's unpublished. It's by an illustrator named Robyn Ng.

http://www.robynng.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=41

[Anonymous No.2074403]

>>2074388
the guy is good

[Tro Lin !9Mb3EcFAV6 No.2074411]

>>2074403
Agreed.

I'd be damn surprised if his "Moby Dick" cover didn't get picked up by someone or other. Talent finds a way of getting recongised. Gear up the Ouija board and ask Kafka.

[Anonymous No.2074428]

>>2072197
me too, i actually bought a new copy recently because mine was an old library ed. that i bought at one o them book fairs at school when i was younger. and fuck the haters, look at the love you got for it bro

I honestly reread the Silmarillion every other year.

captcha: Nerabrat Brings. someone write a book about that.

[Tro Lin !9Mb3EcFAV6 No.2074435]

>>2074428
>fuck the haters, look at the love you got for it bro

And that is all there is to write, really.

[Anonymous No.2074441]

>>2074435
stay classy /lit/

[Tro Lin !9Mb3EcFAV6 No.2074454]

>>2074441
If this is an ironic post, please see
>>2072232

To quote Martha Wainwright, "all I wanted was to be good. To do everything in true."

[Anonymous No.2074464]

The Count of Monte Cristo.

It was the first book that got me into reading classics.