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/lit/ - Literature

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2273930 No.2273930 [Reply] [Original]

Have you read an author's "entire works" [at least more than 3 books] ?

I'm thinking of tackling Dickens...what should I expect other than fantastic writing and extremely sentimental stories?

>> No.2273939

tackling dicken's complete works would take FOREVER

i don't think there's any author whose complete works i've read. there's a huge amount who i've read more than three books from, though. the set of a writer's entire works is usually far too large for that.

>> No.2273937

Currently planning to read everything by Nabokov and Dostoyevsky.

>> No.2273943

Kafka

And I was 100% on Pynchon till his new ones came outlast decade.

>> No.2273944
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2273944

I've read almost everything by Dostoevsky.

>> No.2273946

>>2273939


ya I'll probably just read a bunch instead of all

>> No.2273949

I have never and probably will never read an author's entire works. Most authors never had that much to say in the first place, and wrote what they did for mostly for economic reasons.

Or, as Virginia Woolf once said, even the greatest authors have at most four great novels in them. If I ever run out of masterpieces to read I'll circle back around to all the dreck.

>> No.2273955

>>2273944

i've read Notes and Crime & Punishment, I have The Brothers Karamazov, but I think i'll save that when i've read more of his stuff. Where would you suggest I go next? Contemplating House Of The Dead.

>> No.2274021

jk rowling

>> No.2274024

I've read all of Orwell. I don't regret it.

>> No.2274036

Stephen King
seriously

>> No.2274112

>>2273955
The Gambler is the absolute best,a dn alos the shortest. It's a full Dostoyevski novel condensed into one fifth of a normal size. Idiot and Besy are also great.

House of the dead is nice, but it's not a novel, it's a slightly fictionalized account of his life in tsarist prison camp.

>> No.2274211

Read about 95% of King's works, for better or worse.

>> No.2274235

I read all of Haruki Murakami's works.

>> No.2274334

>Dat feel when you have read all of Socrates.

>> No.2274340

read a lot of Bukowski. awesome shit.

>> No.2274345

Harper Lee.

>> No.2274366

I've read nearly everything by Camus.
It was a good life decision.

>> No.2274367

>>2274366
the stranger is best?

>> No.2274384

>at least more than three works
JK Rowling, William Shakespeare, John Green, Nagaru Tanigawa, Tennesse Williams, and technically Charles Dickens (Hard Times, bleh)

>> No.2274385

>>2274345
I lol'd

>> No.2274409

Closest I've come would be Mark Twain.

Connecticut Yankee
tom sawyer
huck finn
a tramp abroad

not even to close to all his work, but it's more than three.

>> No.2274410

>>2274334

>implying Socrates ever wrote anything

>> No.2274416

Hermann Hesse. I've read everything so far, except The Glass Bead Game, which is next up on my to-read pile. The only one of his books I didn't like was Rosshalde and even that had it's good moments.

>> No.2274429

I've read most of H.G. Wells' books, & all of Lewis Carroll's books, poems, & word problems. & a shitload of Poe.

>> No.2274435
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2274435

JK rowling

>> No.2274448

If more than three is your definition, then I have read all of Vonnegut, Twain, Steinbeck, Orwell, Faulkner, and Hemingway

>> No.2274454

Nope, never.

I read two or three things of each one and stop. Too tiresome and I have other things to read.

>> No.2274455

>>2274454
I agree. I try to read an author's seminal work before moving on.

>> No.2274468

will read all of tolkien's work u mad

>> No.2274474

>>2274468

Totally forgot about tolkien. I have read all of his work. Including all the short stories and histories that he never finished.

>> No.2274477

>>2274454

Not necessarily all at once, you can dip in and out.

>> No.2274478
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2274478

F. Scott Fitzgerald, JD Salinger, Murakami, DFW, and I think that's about it.

I've also read all of Chuck Klosterman's books.

>> No.2274484

I've read most of Chesterton. Napoleon of Notting Hill, The Man Who was Thursday, The Everlasting Man, The Ballad of the White Horse and an ass-load of Father Brown. No book changed the way I think more than Napoleon of Notting Hill.

>> No.2274488

>>2274484

Not his opinion pieces though, he was frustratingly Catholic.

>> No.2274490

>>2274478
You are the ultimate literary hipster and I bet you don't even know it.

>> No.2274512

I've read *everything* by Raymond Chandler, Bret Easton Ellis, Richard Yates

I've read *almost all* by Richard Price, James Joyce (Finnegans Wake defeats me), Pynchon, Gaddis (I just have JR to finish), Stephen King, Clive Barker, Richard Ford, John Irving, Paul Scott

>> No.2274529

Only thing from Pynchon I'm missing is Slow Learner. Missing a couple of Faulkner's works too, but I've got most of his stuff. Other than that, I'm nowhere close to any other author.

>> No.2274553

>>2274478

Chris?

>> No.2274560

Terry Prarchett, Alan moore (more or less), Brendan Behan (all the plays anyway and some of the books including the two volumes of autoboigraphy) Richard Seymour (both books, all the articles and everything thats been posted to his blog since 2007) and I've read about 80% of Will Self's published novels and collected writings.

>> No.2274561

>>2273930
>what should I expect other than fantastic writing and extremely sentimental stories?
Terribly contrived plots and tedious descriptions of shit no one cares about.

>> No.2274634

>>2274561

refer to OP's pic for a critique of your brain.

>> No.2274638

>>2274561

>contrived plots

too complicated for you ehh?

>tedious descriptions

low reading comprehension or just lack of imagination?

>> No.2274669
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2274669

Shakespeare's the only one I really read ALL of, though I got close with Twain and probably a few others. I used to binge-read a lot but I got burnt out between that and my schoolwork. It's not really advisable. I don't even like to read two consecutive books from the same country anymore.

>> No.2274712
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2274712

>>2274490
Oh god... I am. And I love it.

>>2274553
Nope.

>> No.2274730

>>2274638
>too complicated
Firstly, you're implying complicated = good, which is clearly not the case. Secondly, Dickens' plots aren't even that complicated, they're just dumb and, as I said, contrived. Everyone turns out to be everyone else's secret benefactor or relative, far beyond suspension of disbelief.

>> No.2274744

>>2274730

not even implying any of that