/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3011768]

What book are you currently reading, /lit/?


>Pic related
7/10 so far.

[Anonymous No.3011799]

V. & Ficciones currently
V.'s been fun as hell so far and really insane.
Not sure how I feel about Ficciones yet.

[Anonymous No.3011815]

Happy by Alex Lemon.

So far 6/10

[Anonymous No.3011819]

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay Mcinerney. So far it's eh, but I needed a nice pulpy break from all of the absurd/existentialist lit.

[Anonymous No.3011830]

Three Shadows - Cyril Pedrosa (comic book) 10/10.

Ratings are personal, but a Clockwork Orange is objectively 10.

[Anonymous No.3011835]

slaughterhouse-five

10/10 so far. sippin on whiskey and chuckling quite a bit

took a break to look up if kurt vonnegut really went to University of Chicago and apparently he did. i just got a job at UC like a week ago. wierd.

[Anonymous No.3011837]

the Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
8/10.

[Anonymous No.3011847]

The Glass Bead Game
by Hermann Hesse
8/10 thus far

[Anonymous No.3011851]

Just finished so I'm not sure.

Thinking of reading Stirner, but I'm not so much into philosophy.

[Anonymous No.3011857]

Hunger - Knut Hamsun

10/10. Loving this book. The despair, the pride, glorious

[Anonymous No.3011862]

Moby-Dick
and >>3011859

[Anonymous No.3011880]

Sherlock Holmes collection 3/10

[Anonymous No.3011887]

last 100 pages of A Clash of Kings - 9/10

[Anonymous No.3011900]

Wrapping up The Obscene Bird of Night right now.

10/10, would destroy my sense of a conventional novel again

[Anonymous No.3011903]

Hamlet
Wizard of Earthsea

[Anonymous No.3011906]

Crooked Little Vein, by Warren Ellis. Pretty damn fun so far. Here's an excerpt:

>An older guy in a short-sleeved shirt with bloodstains on the front sat in the aisle seat next to mine. He gave me a secret little smile. “You know,” he said. “You know. If you drink whiskey. And I don’t mean a lot of whiskey, just enough to keep the little engines in your head alive. If you drink a bunch of whiskey, you can piss in a cup before you go to sleep. And in the morning all the alcohol will have risen to the surface of the piss. And you can drink it off the top of the piss with a straw.”

“I’ll, um, I’ll certainly bear that one in mind.”

He made a happy noise and stuck out a big hand with caked blood all over the fingernails. “Excellent. I’m the pilot.”

[Anonymous No.3011909]

>>3011887

Robb dies Jaime gets his hand cut off joffrey is poisoned at his own wedding

[Anonymous No.3011913]

>>3011906

sounds legit

[Anonymous No.3011916]

'Patricide,' Joyce Carol Oates.

[Anonymous No.3011943]

Blood Meridian.
Just finished The Road last night as my introduction to McCarthy and it made me cry. Hoping to like Blood Meridian as I've heard it's his best

[Anonymous No.3011977]

"The Annals of Ancient Rome" by Tacitus; also "The Twelve Caesars" By Suetonius

[Anonymous No.3011982]

>>3011977
9/10, and 8/10, respectively, btw

[Anonymous No.3012002]

6/10

[Anonymous No.3012007]

Damned to Fame (Samuel Beckett bio)
The Power Broker (Robert Moses bio by Caro)

Also,
The Odyssey
The Unnameable - Beckett

[Anonymous No.3012015]

RATING BOOKS NUMERICALLY SEEMS POINTLESS

[Anonymous No.3012018]

>>3012007
>The Odyssey
How you liking it?

[Anonymous No.3012023]

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
It's really good. His writing is very journalistic and, in novel form, this comes off as crude storytelling, but it's very arresting and interesting, and the man understood the gears and belts of US politics, this book is the portraiture of American dystopia. I was amused by Babbitt, I'm impressed with this one.

[Anonymous No.3012035]

Currently reading the Old Testament of the Bible.

10/10 for what it is. 1/10 as literature without considering historical context.

[Anonymous No.3012043]

>>3012018
Pretty well. I especially like having read it after reading Ulysses.

[Anonymous No.3012049]

Daniil Kharms' stories.
My friend wants me to check out Cloud Atlas, so maybe that next. I read number9dream by the same author and it was alright, but maybe because I don't mind Murakami (and that's what it seemed heavily influenced by).
Also, comic books.

[Anonymous No.3012060]

About 20 pages into Against the Day. Not far enough to really be able to say anything.

[Standard Toaster !TOAST5/GiQ No.3012079]

I'm just about to finish The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa.
It's easily a 10/10

[NeckBeard !!NpTHxDe41bb No.3012140]

Just finished ender's game. It's awesome. Much simpler plot than asimov's or philip k. dick's but awesome anyway. Simpler in the sense that it could possibly have a good movie based on it (and keep most of the stuff).

[Anonymous No.3012144]

[Anonymous No.3012149]

lol it's basically in a different language

[Anonymous No.3012150]

really gay.

as in literally homosex. socrates just wants phaedrus's sweet boy ass the whole dialogue. wish plato would just have them fuck already, jesus.

[NeckBeard !!NpTHxDe41bb No.3012153]

>>3011768
>>3011830
Gotta tell you guys, I really disliked a clockwork orange. This is one of the few books I actually prefer the movie exept for the ending that the movie lacks
But I kind of hated having to look up all that slangs meanings. (I was younger so I might be "wrong")

[Anonymous No.3012164]

>>3012153
not wrong i was 20 when i first read it and still had to look up all the slang lol

[Anonymous No.3012170]

Halfway through this, so far it's just as good as everything else he's done.

[NeckBeard !!NpTHxDe41bb No.3012182]

>>3012164
the slang he creates for the book like "horrorshow" and others. I was younger so maybe I couldn't appreciate the book because it was too complex or something, I don't really remember.

[Anonymous No.3012202]

if you immerse yourself in the book (Clockwork Orange) correctly, the meaning of the words comes easily through usage.

[Anonymous No.3012204]

>>3012182

That slang is actually based on Russian.

[Anonymous No.3012224]

Blood Meridian
9/10
babies heads on rocks
wut

[Anonymous No.3012227]

>>3012202
This really not that hard to decipher! No wonder you plebs can't handle Joyce!

[Δpex !byU50GSapY No.3012229]

9/10 for now

[Anonymous No.3012234]

7/10, this is really similar to The Big Sleep and that other Chandler book I read.

[Anonymous No.3012245]

Dracula

[Anonymous No.3012248]

Gravity's Rainbow, about three hundred pages in. If it stays this good it will become my favorite book.

[Anonymous No.3012255]

8/10

[Anonymous No.3012262]

The Wind-Up Girl. It's actually pretty good.

8/10 so far. Positively surprised.

[Anonymous No.3012273]

Right now I have to read Bastard Out of Carolina and I am almost at the end. In fact I already know the ending since it was for school and I am a little late on the reading. I must say I am very impressed. I would give it a 7/10 it really is just To Kill a Mockingbird blended with a Lifetime film

[Anonymous No.3012276]

not bad

[Anonymous No.3012286]

>>3012273
Meant UNimpressed. The book kind

[Anonymous No.3012293]

Yiddish Policeman's Union by Micheal Chabon

8/10

wanted to read it before reading "Kavalier and Cray" (and because this one was given to me) Really creates a unique little culture around itself for what looks to be a depressing little story.

[Anonymous No.3012299]

7/10 but it varies.

[Anonymous No.3012300]

The Odyssey

Thus far an 7/10 but I'm only into book 3

[Anonymous No.3012302]

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

[Anonymous No.3012305]

>>3012302
How is it?

[Anonymous No.3012346]

>>3012305
I'm not bright enough to characterize it beyond "pretty interesting".
Oddly this is in an effort to prep myself for trying Gravity's Rainbow. Some guy on the internet said if you wanna do any prep work for reading Gravity's Rainbow, read some poems by somebody I never heard of (I still managed to get the book of them), some book named Martin Fierro that I couldn't find at my bookstore (which is Powell's in Portland so this is saying something), world war II history esp. with regards to the V2 bombings of London, and strangely, the autobiography of Malcolm X. Not included: earlier Pynchon works like V. and some short stories.q

[Anonymous No.3012344]

Just finished Journey to the End of the Night....

I don't know quite exactly how to feel. I think about it a fair bit, maybe it's corrupted me.

[Anonymous No.3012348]

>>3012346
Also I should say "trying Gravity's Rainbow again...for the 3rd or 4th time". I always get to the banana breakfast song and then just get completely lost after that, which isn't to say that I'm ever on steady footing even up to that point.

[Anonymous No.3012350]

I just finished A Confederacy of Dunces. 8/10.

[Anonymous No.3012359]

>>3012350

My teacher gave me that book to read.

I didn't read it for some odd reason.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.3012362]

America Beyond Capitalism, by Gar Alperovitz

Fantastic stuff. 10/10

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.3012369]

>>3012299
Yup, The Silmarillion is a solid 7/10.

>>3012300
The Odyssey however is 10/10. Keep reading

[Anonymous No.3012375]

A Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

2/3rds of the way done, and so far I'm enjoying it, though I'm hoping the ending is mindblowing or something.

[Anonymous No.3012512]

Just about to start Burmese Days by Orwell.

[Anonymous No.3012587]

Both he and I are currently wondering why he was the man for the job, and I hope that changes soon.

[Croaker !!xx4lDI2TW+N No.3012605]

A pretty good novel. Well written without being of the dry and / or purple prose that sends me to sleep and often passes for "good" literary writing.

I'm surprised how much it reads like a biohazard horror novel though, and the weird Jewish slant was even more unexpected.

[Anonymous No.3012610]

Dostoevsky - The Idiot

Currently reading this one; it’s the Wordsworth edition. Don't know how it compares to other translations. Has grammar and spelling errors, though still very enjoyable.

[Anonymous No.3012666]

Inherent Vice, Page 5

[Anonymous No.3012680]

Schindler's Ark by Keneally. Starting my journey through the classics
>18yo
Bit strenuous to get through the start.

[Anonymous No.3012693]

>>3012680
>Schindler's Ark
Sorry, how is this a classic?

[Anonymous No.3012699]

>>3012693
Heard nothing but great things about this book, wanted to read it for a while, made a list of well-known books I could start reading. So it sort of made its way there.

[Anonymous No.3012705]

>>3012699
No worries.

I remember reading it when I was 16 or 17. It did make for an interesting read.

[Anonymous No.3012714]

10/10

[Liam !qo7xv3H9IQ No.3013635]

Stepping out of Self Deception

meh, its a litte bit mickey mouse, but the only way to truly understand the point of view of a buddhist, you must become a buddhist.

[Anonymous No.3013670]

meh

[Anonymous No.3013680]

So far 8/10

[Anonymous No.3013698]

>>3013670
I loved that book

[Anonymous No.3013711]

>>3013698
I find I'm working to keep interested. About 75 pages in. I don't think I'll give up on it, though.

[Anonymous No.3013709]

5/10

[Anonymous No.3013719]

>>3013711
I read it in portuguese and considering the excentricity of Saramago's work translation probably chops some of it's "power", I guess. It should stay a great novel, though.

[Franz !!8ZELb56UWUx No.3013721]

Love Is a Dog from Hell by Charles Bukowski
>Bukowski is generally a bunch of hit-or-miss poems, but usually there aren't too many misses. This book seems to have more than usual, though the gems are quite excellent as far as the canon of his works is concerned.

Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
>I just started it. Loads of case studies as usual. Fun stuff. Haven't learned anything about perception of music though. Just weird things that've happened to people. Again, I've only just started it.

Bellocq's Ophelia by Natasha Trethewey
>Nice poems. Very readable verse. There isn't as much of a narrative as I'd expected, which I think works quite nicely actually. Not sure if something feels lacking or not though.

[satan !!1Fa7LzeI6u8 No.3013724]

>>3013709

kill yourself?
kill yourself.

>We have a few old mouth-to-mouth tales, we exhume from old trunks and boxes and drawers letters without salutation or signature, in which men and women who once lived and breathed are now merely initials or nicknames out of some now incomprehensible affection which sound to us like Sanskrit or Chocktaw; we see dimly people, the people in whose living blood and seed we ourselves lay dormant and waiting, in this shadowy attenuation of time possessing now heroic proportions, performing their acts of simple passion and simple violence, impervious to time and inexplicable

[Anonymous No.3013727]

>>3013719
I think I'm having a hard time with the structure. I don't mind crazy structure or different ways of writing, but this is hard....I feel like someone is just sort of mumbling the story out, I'm not getting the "punches" that I feel could be there maybe. But the story itself intrigues me so I'll continue. As you say, it may be watered down in translation.

[satan !!1Fa7LzeI6u8 No.3013735]

>>3013724

oh yeah,

i'm reading Chronicle in Stone by Kadare

9/10

[Anonymous No.3013742]

>>3013727
Don't expect a scientifical or mystical disclosure to the book. His "blindness" is quite symbolic.

[George No.3013748]

I found the eccentric language used in this book (clockwork orange).
My current book is franz fanon's the wretched of the earth.

[Anonymous No.3013753]

>>3011768
http://img.dooyoo.co.uk/GB_EN/orig/0/7/9/3/8/793829.jpg

It's actually pretty good.

[Anonymous No.3013759]

>>3013742
Oh yeah I'm all about the symbolism, which is why I'm still reading. I know there's a sequel, too.

[Anonymous No.3013770]

>>3013759
Yeah, "Seeing". Haven't read it yet