/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2670714]

Last five
Currently reading
Next five

Last Five:
Tales of Moonlight and Rain - Akinari
The Odyssey - Homer
The Most Dangerous Game - Connell
I, Claudius - Graves
The Belly of Paris - Zola

Current
The Pianist - Szpilman
Pan - Hamsun
Goodbye to Berlin - Isherwood
The Tales of Ise - Anonymous
The Valley of Fear - Doyle
Goodbye to all That - Graves

[Anonymous No.2670760]

Why do I see this picture here so often? Find a new one.

[Anonymous No.2671397]

Last five
>Child of God
>A Monster Calls
>Things Fall Apart
>A Canticle for Leibowitz
>The Collector
Currently reading
>Number9dream
>We Were Soldiers Once...And Young
Next Five
>Star Maker
>City of Saints and Madmen
>One Soldier's War
>Cloudstreet
>Last Exit to Brooklyn

OP, I think you put 'Goodbye to All that" in some other list here on /lit/ a few weeks ago, and I looked into it. Ended up getting it from Amazon. Copy's right next to me and I'll end up reading it six or seven books from now.

[Anonymous No.2671422]

Last 5:
Homer - The Odyssey
James Joyce - Ulysses
Shakespeare - Hamlet
Franz Kafka - Collected Shorts
Bret Easton Ellis - American Psycho

Current: Virginia Woolf - To The Lighthouse

Next 5:
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
Infinite Jest
>Infinite Jest
>Implying I'm thinking that far ahead when I'll likely change my mind.

[Anonymous No.2671450]

How are you liking Pan, OP? Have you read any other Hamsun? If so, how well do you think it stacks up to his other works, particularly Hunger and Growth of the Soil?

Maybe it's because I read it in a rush and during a streak of bad days but I felt kind of underwhelmed.

[Anonymous No.2671455]

Last 5:
Norweigan Wood - Murakami
Dead Souls - Gogol
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Joyce
Kafka short stories
A Farewell to Arms - Hemingway

Currently:
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway

Next 5:
The Sound and the Fury - Faulkner
Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut
Lolita - Nabokov
The Castle - Kafka
Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky

[Anonymous No.2671471]

last five:
the bell jar - sylvia plath
story of the eye - georges bataille
siddhartha - herman hesse
consider the lobster - dfw
a moveable feast - ernest hemingway

current:
complete works - arthur rimbaud
all the pretty horses - cormac mccarthy
ariel - sylvia plath

next five:
steppenwolf - herman hesse
something by paul verlaine
lolita - vladimir nabokov
on booze - f. scott fitzgerald
hashish, wine, opium - baudelaire

[Anonymous No.2671762]

last 5:
The Start Up of You
The Sound and The Fury
The Adventures of Huck Finn
The Art of Non Conformity
The 100$ Startup

Next/Current 5:
King Lear
Crime and Punishment
a portrait of the artist as a young man
much ado about nothing
the primal blueprint

[Anonymous No.2671771]

>google search 'top 20 books ever'
>Last 5 read = First 5 on list.
>Current = next 5.
>Next 5 to read = next 5.

This is what everyone in this thread looks like they've done.

[Anonymous No.2671786]

Last five
>Weapons of Mass Instruction, Gatto
>Public Opinion, Lippmann
>Island, Huxley
>The Moral Landscape, Harris (didn't really like it because uptight pretentious douchebag)
>Death of the Liberal Class, Hedges


Currently reading
>A People's History of the United States, Zinn

Next five
>Leviathan, Hobbes
>War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, Hedges
>The Way of Zen, Watts
>The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Jung
>Our Knowledge of The External World, Russell

[Anonymous No.2671787]

last 5
To the Lighthouse - Woolf
The Sirens of Titan - Vonnegut
Hamlet - Shakespeare
Brave New World - Huxley
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Wilde

Currently
Lolita - Nabokov

Next 5
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Joyce
The Handmaid's Tale - Atwood
Pride and Prejudice - Austen
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
Slapstick - Kurt Vonnegut

[Anonymous No.2671791]

>Last five:
Blood Meridian
No Country for Old Men
Of Mice and Men
The Catcher in the Rye
(don't remember before that)

>Currently reading
Hegemony of Survival - Chomsky
A Brief History of Nearly Everything - Bryson
American Psycho - Ellis
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Thompson

>Next five
The Sound and the Fury
rereading The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn for the first time for a long time
finally going to start on Hemingway
maybe The Stranger
possibly going to reread Blood Meridian

[Anonymous No.2671792]

Current:
The Odyssey
Othello

Next:
Ulysses

[Anonymous No.2671804]

Last five:
>Sputnik Sweetheart
>Fahrenheit 451
>Sanshiro
>The Setting Sun
>Infinite Jest

Current:
>A Confederacy of Dunces
>Deep Green Resistance
>The Divine Comedy
>The Prince

Next Five:
>Gravity's Rainbow
>A Kierkegaard Anthology
>Moby Dick
>A Personal Matter
>The Great Gatsby

[Mad Scientist Hououin Kyouma !!RBaVX6t0twu No.2671816]

Last book I read:
Brothers K

Currently:
Gilgamesh

Next:
Thomas Paine's collected works.

[Anonymous No.2671817]

Last Five
>Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevski)
>Look at the Birdie (Vonnegut)
>Bluebeard (Vonnegut)
>Mother Night (Vonnegut)
>Ape and Essence (Huxley)

Current
>Naked Lunch (Burroughs)

Next Five
>Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Schultz)
>Ends and Means (Huxley)
>Island (Huxley)
>Mortal Coils (Huxley)
>War and Peace (Tolstoy)

[Anonymous No.2671820]

>Last five:
Frankenstein
Rasputin - Life and death
All quiet on western front
Lord of flies
The Shining
>Currently reading:
The Stand part I
>Next:
The Stand part I

[Anonymous No.2671821]

Last Five
James Joyce - Finnegans Wake
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Jorge Luis Borges - Ficciones
William Shakespeare - Henry IV Part I
Samuel Beckett - Endgame

Now
Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow

Next
Dante - Inferno

[Anonymous No.2671822]

For people who read so much, many of you are surprisingly incapable of conversing about literature.

[Anonymous No.2671823]

>>2671821

If you're not scared o hell now, you will be after you read Inferno.

[Anonymous No.2671826]

>Last five
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin
My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts by N Katherynne Hayles
The Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass by Himself
Deconstruction and Criticism by Harold Bloom, et al.
Seven Taoist Masters by Eva Wong

>Currently reading
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula LeGuin

>Next five
Cyptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts
Watt by Samuel Beckett
The Grass-Cutting Sword by Cathrynne Valente
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

[Anonymous No.2671838]

FUCKING CAPS FOR SALE! Book of my childhood.

[Anonymous No.2671845]

Last Five:
Go ask alice
Never let me go
Flappers and philosphers
In cold blood
Man's search for meaning
Current:
Lolita
Less than one
Do Androids dream of electric sleep
Next five:
Galápagos
Ham on rye
The book of Disquiet
Post Office
Gravity's Rainbow

[Anonymous No.2671897]

>>2671817
>tfw ape and essence is better than island
>tfw nobody knows about it

[Anonymous No.2671931]

Ape and Essence is one of my favorite books.

Also no one anywhere has heard of it (except you I guess).

[Anonymous No.2671951]

>Last five
Grooks 3 by Piet Hein
Grooks 2 by Piet Hein
Grooks 1 by Piet Hein
Museum of the Weird by Amelia Gray
The Adventures of the Ingenious Alfanhui by Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio

>Currently reading
Grooks 4 by Piet Hein
Telegrams of the Soul by Peter Altenberg
Essays in Idleness by Yoshida Kenko
A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics by Donald Richie
Life and Limb: Selected Tales of Peril, Predicament and Dire Distress
A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

>Next five
Singular Pleasures by Harry Mathews
Sisters by a River by Barbara Comyns
Empire of Signs by Roland Barthes
People of the Dawn by Jan Fridegard
Metrophilias by Brendan Connell

I guess my fondness for flash fiction was inevitably going to lead to one for aphorisms. Probably going to be picking up a lot of collections of those soon. Also doing a Japanese aesthetics thing at the moment.

[Anonymous No.2671964]

>>2671931
bros5eva (dat mean its moar den 4ever)

No seriously though, it's really good. I got addicted to it, while I put down Island for a few weeks out of boredom. We have mad hipster points on the Brave New World lovers out there.

[Anonymous No.2671971]

>>2671964

Ah Brave New World is beginners reading.

You don't really have fun with Huxley until you dive right in.

[Anonymous No.2673777]

Last Five:
>The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Twain.
I loved it. I found Tom Sawyer and The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn at a second hand book store closing down sale(it sucks that's it's closing down)
>Selected Tales - Poe
>The Alchemist - Coelho
So it's reputation is correct(to me), nothing special.
>The Time Machine - Wells
>The Island of Dr. Moreau
Not a big fan of Wells after reading these and I also read The War of the worlds and The Invisible Man, one after another.

Currently Reading:
>All Quiet on the Western Front - Remarque
I'm liking this. Some breath taking parts. I've found it needs to be read in large chunks, small bursts don't enable you to get into that war mindset. So many times already I've found my mind wondering, putting myself in the shoes of the characters, wondering how I would react to the war. How would I cope in a trench with people being destroyed mentally and physically around me. Would I be tough enough to keep my sanity? This novel is very hard to put down.
>Ulysses - Joyce.
I'm glad I read some Pynchon before trying to tackle this work. Lots of interesting moments so far, there hasn't been an extreme immersive feeling yet though, reading drunk is very fun.
Next Five:
>The Heart of a Dog - Bulgakov
I'm trying to catch up on /lit/'s goodreads weekly books. I think this one is for week two so I'm quite behind.
>Midnight's Children - Rushdie
I cannot wait, I love reading novels set in places like Indian.
>If on a winter's night a traveler - Calvino
My first Calvino, I have high hopes.
>Tove Jansson - A summer book
Don't know what to expect, possibly something to do with summer?
> Collected Fictions- Jorge Luis Borges
Over 800 pages of hopefully fantastic writing.

[Benny Profane !!muO1YE/mn/J No.2673778]

Last:
>Catch 22
Current:
>Mason & Dixon
Next:
>2666

[Anonymous No.2673797]

Last:

Faust (1st part)
Manfred
The Book of Sand

Currently:
2666
Of Love And Other Demons
On The Road

Next:
Swamplandia
The Famished Road
Tropic of Cancer

[Anonymous No.2673812]

last 5:
-the count of monte cristo
-the hunger games
-steppenwolf
-the illustrated man
-the beach

current:
-treasure island
-something wicked this way comes

next five
-under the volcano
-cosmos
-the power of now
-a confederacy of dunces
-the sun also rises

[Anonymous No.2673834]

ok lets do this

last 6:
>Bilbo the hobbit, Tolkien
>Brave new world, Huxley
>Le Déchronologue, Beauverger
The Empire Trilogy:
>Daughter of the Empire, Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts
>Servant of the Empire, Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts
>Mistress of the Empire, Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts

Currently:
The outsider, HP Lovecraft

next 4:
The Riftwar Legacy
>Krondor: The Betrayal, Raymond E Feist
>Krondor: The Assassins, Raymond E Feist
>Krondor: Tear of the Gods, Raymond E Feist
>some HP Lovecraft don't know which, any idea?

[Anonymous No.2673842]

last: the scar - mieville

currently reading: self portraits - dazai

next: a moment in the sun - john sayles

[Anonymous No.2673847]

Last:
>Uni Readings
>Uni Readings
>Uni Readings
>The Road
>Uni Readings
>Uni Readings

Current:
>Uni Readings
>Blood Meridian
>Uni Readings
>Uni Readings
>Uni Readings

Next:
>Of Love And Other Demons

[Anonymous No.2673850]

>>2673834
I'm catching up with some classic SF, like huxley brave new world, and i'm up to dive in HP Lovecraft's worlds. Any advice for my fourth and fifth reading?

[Anonymous No.2673851]

Recently read:
Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
Der Schimmelreiter by Theodor Storm

Currently reading:
Die Portugiesischen Briefe (translated by Rilke)
The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick
Der Proceß, by Franz Kafka
Whatever the new Terry Pratchett is called. Got it for Christmas and left it at home, only a few chapters in.

Upcoming:
A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks
and 1984 again, whenever I get home.

[Anonymous No.2673873]

>>2671450
OP here, Hunger underwhelmed me also. I'm liking Pan, it's so simple, and yet poetic.

[Anonymous No.2673884]

>>2671450

Not OP, but I liked Pan the most, although it's clear why Growth of The Soil is the more acclaimed work, as the dichotomy expressed in Pan seems more unorthodox, and maybe less developed than that of the former.

Hunger was atmospheric and gloomy, and possibly a prelude to Sartre's more captivating Nausea, but Hunger was a good book nonetheless.

[Anonymous No.2673896]

>>2673797
Yay, people on lit are starting to read The Famished Road, suggesting it on threads has paid off :)

[Anonymous No.2673940]

>>2673896
Can his stuff be found online?

[Anonymous No.2673947]

>>2673940
I don't know man. I only read books in psychical form. Ben Okri has some great stuff. Start off with The Famished Road or one of his short stories called Astonishing the gods.

[Anonymous No.2673952]

>2673947
physical
it seems to be on this site
http://ebookee.org/The-Famished-Road_265424.html

I have no idea how to use it.

[Anonymous No.2673958]

>>2673896
It's available online. I have a copy. Just Google.

>>2673940
Someone recommended it on Goodreads. The plot seemed quite extraordinary, I can't wait to start reading it.

[Anonymous No.2673959]

>>2673958
Woops mixed up the replies.

[Anonymous No.2673964]

>>2673958
That recommendation would have been from me :) I really want to read the two sequels. Apparently the first sequel is "trippy" as fuck.

[Anonymous No.2673983]

Anyone interested in Okri, heres the first page.

IN THE BEGINNING there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry.
In that land of beginnings spirits mingled with the unborn. We could assume numerous forms. Many of us were birds. We knew no boundaries. There was much feasting, playing, and sorrowing. We feasted much because of the beautiful terrors of eternity. We played much because we were free. And we sorrowed much because there were always those amongst us who had just returned from the world of the Living. They had returned inconsolable for all the love they had left behind, all the suffering they hadn't redeemed, all that they hadn't understood, and for all the they had barley begun to learn before they were drawn back the land of origins.
There was not one amongst us who looked forward to being born. We disliked the rigors of existence, the unfulfilled longing the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of the simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom every learn to see.