/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3126116]

ITT: Literary works you can easily read in a day - version 2

Get those recommendations going! Want people on /lit/ to read works/authors you never see mentioned? This is a good opportunity!

I'll kick it off with picture related

If possible, try to steer away from recommending stuff we already have on our novella charts and whatnot.

Novellas, non-fiction, poetry, plays are all welcome.

[Anonymous No.3126167]

The Box Man - Abe Kobo

[Anonymous No.3126172]

>The End - Hamburg, 1943 by Hans Erich Nossack

"Novelist Hans Erich Nossack was forty-two when the Allied bombardments of German cities began, and he watched the destruction of Hamburg—the city where he was born and where he would later die—from across its Elbe River. He heard the whistle of the bombs and the singing of shrapnel; he watched his neighbors flee; he wondered if his home—and his manuscripts—would survive the devastation. The End is his terse, remarkable memoir of the annihilation of the city, written only three months after the bombing. A searing firsthand account of one of the most notorious events of World War II, The End is also a meditation on war and hope, history and its devastation. And it is the rare book, as W. G. Sebald noted, that describes the Allied bombing campaign from the German perspective."

[Anonymous No.3126177]

>Severin's Journey into the Dark by Paul Leppin

"Leppin once wrote: “Prague remains my deepest experience. Its conflicts, its mystery, its ratcatcher’s beauty have ever provided my poetic efforts with new inspiration and meaning.” It is this city of darkened walls and strange decay that forms the backdrop of Severin’s erotic adventures and fateful encounters in a world populated with femmes fatales, Russian anarchists, dabblers in the occult, and denizens of decadent salons. Seeking to unlock the mysterious erotic nature of his native city buried deep in the subconscious of its inhabitants, Leppin's depiction of Prague, straddling the border between the ancient and the modern, has brought the novel deserved international acclaim."

[Anonymous No.3126186]

The most recent things I read in a day were Time Out of Joint and The Man Who was Thursday. I don't know if those chart or not.

[Anonymous No.3126191]

Provide links if possible.

Will contribute when I get home from work.

[Anonymous No.3126197]

(I'm just kinda dumping stuff I've read and enjoyed recently, as it's almost all been one-day sort of books)

>In the Time of the Blue Ball by Manuela Draegar
"These stories introduce English-language readers to the detective Bobby Potemkine and his musical dog Djinn—and they come to us offering, among other things, mystery, romance, maritime-adventure, and a very angry noodle named Auguste."

"As with Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss before her, Manuela Draeger materializes new phrases and places from nothing and inside of fresh and vastly imaginative stories. The reader is brought through these invented worlds via Potemkine’s investigator lens as he tracks the disappearance of the inventor of fire, the constantly reoccurring murder of a noodle named Auguste Diodon, and the case of the baby pelicans who, without mothers, quietly plague the cityscape"

[Anonymous No.3126209]

links

>>3126172
>http://www.mediafire.com/?3a9xyd7m50036a7
(there's something wrong with this one where the text gets progressively smaller through the intro, but it's stopped by the actual book)

>>3126177
>http://www.mediafire.com/?n04kcji24ywl1ah

[VurtKonnegut No.3126218]

Pretty interesting read.

[Anonymous No.3126220]

>Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe

"From the acclaimed author of Woman in the Dunes comes Secret Rendezvous, the bizarrely erotic and comic adventures of a man searching for his missing wife in a mysteriously vast underground hospital. From the moment that an ambulance appears in the middle of the night to take his wife, who protests that she is perfectly healthy, her bewildered husband realizes that things are not as they should be. His covert explorations reveal that the enormous hospital she was taken to is home to a network of constant surveillance, outlandish sex experiments, and an array of very odd and even violent characters. Within a few days, though no closer to finding his wife, the unnamed narrator finds himself appointed the hospital’s chief of security, reporting to a man who thinks he’s a horse. With its nightmarish vision of modern medicine and modern life, Secret Rendezvous is another masterpiece from Japan’s most gifted and original writer of serious fiction."

[Anonymous No.3126231]

>The Return of the Water Spirit by Pepetela
~100 pages

"Set in Angola in the late 1980's, a time of war, and when the Marxist-orientated ruling elite became engulfed by corruption, nepotism and rampant capitalism. Three centuries earlier, a hideous crime occurred, the beheading of a slave who had had inappropriate relations with his Master's daughter. Now, in the very same Kinaxixi Square in the city of Luanda buildings are falling down one by one baffling the country's engineers. Many describe this mysterious process as 'Luanda Syndrome, God's punishment on a degenerate society. Drawing on the essence of African mythology which had all but been obliterated by history, could this be explained by the return of a Water Spirit (the 'kianda')?

The novel focuses on the interplay between these two forces-the forces of old and new. Just like faith can move mountains, the spirit of the water can move cities. This book is a scathing critique of Angola's ruling elite, for abandoning their socialist principles in favour of rampant capitalism."

[Anonymous No.3126237]

The Kreutzer Sonata - Tolstoy

[Anonymous No.3126244]

>For Love of Norway by Pal Espolin Johnson

"When Alt for Norge was first published in Oslo in 1975, a chorus of praise went up from critics in Pål Espolin Johnson's native country. It contained "the joy and art of storytelling at its best," one said. This novel about the fishing folk who live on an island off the northern coast of Norway is Johnson's own favorite of his works to date, and it is the first to be translated into English, by Conrad Røyksund, who perfectly catches its eloquent simplicity.In the tiny village of Mostad, squeezed between the roaring ocean and a saw-toothed mountain, the struggle against the element is eternal. In that small space births, weddings, and deaths unite families. The men who go down to the fishing boats do not always return. The women work and wish for better times while keeping the home fires burning. The people in these pages are almost too strikingly real to make fiction of, particularly Magda, who stays at Mostad for thirty-nine years and listens to its heartbeat grow dimmer as war, economic depression, and the effects of time and tide set in. For Love of Norway is a memorable modern Nordic saga, all the more impressive for an objective style that is the literary equivalent of photography."

[Anonymous No.3126256]

Ah darn, I forgot that most of those were on the contemporary novellas chart. I'll rec some others.

>The Topless Tower by Silvina Ocampo

"When a mysterious stranger arrives laden with paintings, Leandro finds his quiet life instantly and mysteriously disrupted. Awakening locked in a windowless room in a topless tower, he finds himself trapped—the subject in one of the stranger’s eerie paintings. Heavily influenced by nonsense literature such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and the surrealist movement in South America, The Topless Tower features all the typical hallmarks of Silvina Ocampo’s fantastical writing. With subtle inflections of language and tremendous displays of imagination running riot, Ocampo’s writing is beautifully translated here by James Womack."

[Anonymous No.3126259]

Napoleon of Notting Hill - Chesterton

Keep it up guys

[Anonymous No.3126266]

>Time's Arrow by Martin Amis

trust me its worth it

[Anonymous No.3126267]

>Sea of Ink by Richard Weihe

"A beautiful novella in 50 short chapters and 10 pictures about the life of Bada Shanren, the most influential Chinese painter of all times. In 1626, Bada Shanren is born into the Chinese royal family. When the old Ming Dynasty crumbles, he becomes an artist, committed to capturing the essence of nature with a single brushstroke. Then the rulers of the new Qing Dynasty discover his identity and Bada must feign madness to escape."

~very recommended
>http://www.mediafire.com/?v3izhctfk3voq32

[Anonymous No.3126282]

Darkness at Noon - Koestler

[Anonymous No.3126300]

Plaedo - Plato

[Anonymous No.3126315]

>The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am by Kjersti A. Skomsvold
~150 pages

"Mathea Martinsen has never been good at dealing with other people. After a lifetime, her only real accomplishment is her longevity: everyone she reads about in the obituaries has died younger than she is now. Afraid that her life will be over before anyone knows that she lived, Mathea digs out her old wedding dress, bakes some sweet cakes, and heads out into the world to make her mark. She buries a time capsule out in the yard. (It gets dug up to make room for a flagpole.) She wears her late husband s watch and hopes people will ask her for the time. (They never do.) Is it really possible for a woman to disappear so completely that the world won t notice her passing? The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am is a macabre twist on the notion that life must be lived to the fullest."

[Anonymous No.3126346]

>>3126300

>Plaedo

wat

Anon means Phaedo, and he is correct; Symposium can be added to the list. Not only can be read in a single sitting, but should be read in a single sitting.

[Anonymous No.3126364]

Daphnis and Chloe - Longus

Longus's romance tells the story of two teenagers, Daphnis and Chloe, who love each other but do not know how to make love. Around their predicament Longus weaves a fantasy which entertains and instructs, but never errs in taste. The hard toil and precariousness of peasant life are here, but so are its compensations, revelry, music, dance, and storytelling. Above the action brood divinities;Eros, Dionysus, Pan, the Nymphs;who collaborate to guide the adolescents into the mystery of Love, at once a sensual and a religious initiation. Daphnis and Chloe is the best known, and the best, of the early Greek romances, precursors to the modern novel. Admired by Goethe, it has been reinterpreted in music and art by Ravel and Chagall. This new translation is immensely readable, and does full justice to the humor and humanity of the story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-FPimCmbX8

Should be on gutty or someplace

[Anonymous No.3126388]

Hume - Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

I don't remember the exact length, but if you have an average reading speed, it should take only a day.

It pretty much set the bar for theism versus atheism debates, and probably still continues to do so.

[Fergus !hxTvuAIpXU No.3126413]

[Fergus !hxTvuAIpXU No.3126456]

>>3126413

GK Chesterton - The Napoleon of Notting Hill

The dreary succession of randomly selected Kings of England is broken up when Auberon Quin, who cares for nothing but a good joke, is chosen. To amuse himself, he institutes elaborate costumes for the provosts of the newly created feudal districts of London. All are bored by the King's antics except for one earnest young man who takes the cry for regional pride seriously – Adam Wayne, the eponymous Napoleon of Notting Hill.
While the novel is humorous (one instance has the King sitting on top of an omnibus and speaking to it as to a horse: "Forward, my beauty, my Arab," he said, patting the omnibus encouragingly, "fleetest of all thy bounding tribe"), it is also an adventure story. Chesterton is not afraid to let blood be drawn in his battles, fought with sword and halberd in the London streets between neighboring boroughs; Wayne thinks up some ingenious strategies, and Chesterton does not shrink from the death in combat of some of his characters. Finally, the novel is philosophical, contemplating the value and meaning of man's actions and the virtue of respect for one's enemies.
Michael Collins, who led the fight for Irish independence from British Rule, is known to have admired the book. There has been speculation that the setting of the book prompted the date chosen for the setting of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The novel is also quoted at the start of Neil Gaiman's novel Neverwhere.

[Anonymous No.3127040]

>>3126456
Already recommended.

[Fergus !hxTvuAIpXU No.3127049]

>>3127040

My apologies.

Allow me to offer this as a relplacment.

>'Mount analogue' is a twentieth century classic, combining the author's poetic gifts and philosophical accomplishments in a manner that is both entertaining to read and profound to contemplate. Among other things, this is a marvelous tale in which the narrator/author, one of an intrepid company of eight, sets sail in the yacht Impossible to search for Mount Analogue, the solid, geographically located, albeit hidden, peak that reaches inexorably towards heaven - as Mount Olympus reached to the home of the Greek gods, or Mount Sinai to the presence of Yahweh. Daumal, often described as one of the most gifted literary figures in twentieth-century France, died before the novel was completed, providing an uncanny one-way quality to the journey.

[Anonymous No.3127051]

Get on my level.

[Anonymous No.3127064]

Raymond Radiguet - The Devil in the Flesh (1923)

>The story of a young married woman who has an affair with a sixteen-year-old boy while her husband is away fighting at the front provoked scandal in a country that had just been through World War I. Though Radiguet denied it, it was established later that the story was in large part autobiographical.

[Anonymous No.3127076]

[Fergus !hxTvuAIpXU No.3127083]

>>3127076

>try to steer away from recommending stuff we already have on our novella charts and whatnot

That said, great book.

[Anonymous No.3127087]

>>3127064
Happen to have a link for this?

>>3126388
Looks very interesting, will be my first Hume, thank you.
>>3127049
Happen to have a link for this as well?

Great recommendations guys

[anonymous No.3127093]

No Problem faggots

[Anonymous No.3127096]

>>3127093
Why are there no longer any good trolls in /lit/?

[Anonymous No.3127104]

>>3127083
Ah, sorry, I missed that. I can't recommend that book enough.

[Anonymous No.3127105]

>>3127093
Bitch, please.

[Anonymous No.3127143]

>>3127096
Because y'all are too stupid to deserve good trolls.

[Franz !!8ZELb56UWUx No.3127149]

>>3127096
Because GamerGirl's gone.

[Anonymous No.3127159]

slaughterhouse 5

[inb4tehlulz No.3127165]

All the Shah's Men is a non-fiction about Iran. First I want to say WHY you should read it. I know a lot of people don't like to read non-fiction in general but this book can help give you a great introduction to the problems that the US and Europe in general face with Iran and why we face them. This is not a history book, and it's not an end all be all guide to the subject. It is however a great book to get the most important facts and knowledge about the time period, and possibly wet your lips to want more. It's easily read in good day thanks to the fact that it's relatively short (230ish pages), and it's written more like a novel or a narrative than a history book. Honestly, it reads about as much like a history book as Starship Troopers, but instead of being fantasy (well fantasy and philosophy and.... stuff) it's teaching you history at the same time. It really is entertaining to read. And I've read some dry ass books on Iran/Persia There are a lot of dates, and a lot of names and so on, but it's easy to get through, and most of the important names get repeated enough that you'll probably remember them for years to come even without trying. It is a great primer to Iranian / Western relations in the last 100 years.

Specifically the book is related to the end of the Shah's and the involvement of the UK and the US in Iran's politics, attempts to control oil, keep Iran out of the hands of the USSR, and the many other convoluted reasons that we decide to mingle in other countries politics.

[Anonymous No.3127185]

>>3127105
And this is why I have a kindle.

[Anonymous No.3127188]

I can read most novels in a day, 15 seconds per page lets say 500 page book. 15x500=125min plus breaks 2 and a half hours or less.

[Anonymous No.3127191]

>>3127185
And that is why you are a massive faggot

[Anonymous No.3127193]

>>3127191
You would put a book like that in your messenger bag? idiot.

[Anonymous No.3127195]

>>3127188
>>3127188
So obviously you're speed reading; don't you ever feel like you're getting the plot but missing the beauty of the prose sometimes?
I mean, I could manage a fast speed (but not that fast), but really feel like I'm just skimming.

I find a comfortable reading pace (for me) to be around a page a minute. That let's me appreciate to writing while still not taking TOO long to finish a book

[Anonymous No.3127200]

...

[Anonymous No.3127206]

>>3127195
I would not read a normal book like that I use my speed reading for books for unit to really enjoy a book I would say about 30 seconds per page sometimes I re read pages just to really get it

[Anonymous No.3127207]

>>3127206
Uni* fucking phone

[Anonymous No.3127211]

Venedict Erofeev - Moscow to the end of the line (1969)

>pseudo-autobiographical postmodernist prose poem
>drunk intellectual on a train, what else do you need?

[Anonymous No.3127297]

>>3127211
Please tell me you have the link for this, looked for it for so long

[Anonymous No.3127325]

>>3127211
I suggest to everyone who hasn't lived in the USSR -- get this book with commentaries.

[Anonymous No.3127349]

>>3127325
Which edition do you recommend?

[Anonymous No.3127358]

>>3127211
This shit is cash and I lol'd my ass off. I will not say I completly understood it, but I was thrown into a delightful confusion, a sad, tormenting voyage between happiness and discontent, hope and despair that results poetically in the healing of a tormented spirit.

[Anonymous No.3127395]

>>3127358
Want want want

[Anonymous No.3128139]

The Inferno - Henri Barbusse (1908)

>the narrator peers into a hole in the wall of his hotel room. From the other side, he witnesses lesbianism, adultery, incest, and death. It is only when he feels he has uncovered all the secrets of life that he decides to leave the room for good. But, as he attempts to leave, he is overcome with backache and blindness.

[Anonymous No.3128256]

Epictetus's Handbook

[Anonymous No.3128386]

Guys got links for books posted here? Couldn't find the French shit....

[Anonymous No.3128405]

>>3128386
barbusse is on gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12414

[Anonymous No.3128409]

>>3128405
Cheers. Any luck on the others?

[Anonymous No.3128429]

>>3128139
Readable in a day? What? I checked my library and it is 250 or so pages.

[Anonymous No.3128433]

>>3128429
Nah bro, you can read it in a day. I did.

[Anonymous No.3128439]

>>3128433

What did you do, read for 14 hours?

[Anonymous No.3128448]

>>3128433
Really? Is it just easy reading or something?

I just read 'The End: 1943 Hamburg' in one sitting, but that was only like 63 pages.

[Anonymous No.3128459]

>>3128429
i just copypasted it in word, its 41 000 words, still novella mode

[Anonymous No.3128520]

>>3126177
SEVERIN SEVERIN SPEAK SO SLIGHTLY
SEVERIN SEVERIN ON BENDED KNEE

[Anonymous No.3128526]

>>3128139
Got link?

[Anonymous No.3128530]

The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien

[Anonymous No.3129208]

>>3126186
The Man Who Was Thursday rocked my balls, I highly recommend it.

[Anonymous No.3130025]

>>3128520
Someone else who has read it? Fuck yeah. What a dick for the ending though

[Anonymous No.3130026]

Fucking bump

[Anonymous No.3130077]

>>3130025
Not that anon but a 3rd anon. Did you happen to read the additional "fragment" ending that he removed when it was published?

[Anonymous No.3130080]

>>3126116
Should make another novella chart which has all the lesser known stuff

[Anonymous No.3130106]

>>3130080
You do it

[Anonymous No.3130129]

>>3129208

Such a good book. I'll second that recommendation.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a good one. A lot of people think they know the story because they know the (obvious) twist, but there's a lot more to it.

[Anonymous No.3130193]

Never see this mentioned.

[Anonymous No.3130251]

Doctor Glas - Hjalmar Söderberg.

It's about a doctor who murders his patient.

[Anonymous No.3130257]

>>3127093
>>3127105

Punk-ass faggots

[Anonymous No.3131154]

>>3130257
>British orbit covers

Mah niggar.

[Anonymous No.3131217]

>>3127211

Any particular version you would recommend?

[Anonymous No.3131269]

>>3131217
dunno, i read the russian original, which can be found online