[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 687 KB, 1920x1200, frac.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3675507 No.3675507 [Reply] [Original]

It's that time again:

>What the fuck is you readin' motherfucker:

>Currently
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, don't judge me for not having already read it. I have lead a hard life.
>Previously
Ringworld by Larry Niven. It was so bad, I had to stop reading it. I got it for a quarter at goodwill, so I guess that says something since it's probably going back to goodwill.
>Next
Dune by Frank Herbert

>> No.3675531

>Currently
Dune by Frank Herbert
Cossacks by Leo Tolstoy
>Previously
1984 by George Orwell - Just left me...kind of depressed.
>Next
Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard - I can't fucking waaaait.

>> No.3675533

>Now
The Mass Psychology of Fascism, by Wilhelm Reich.
>Last
The Book of Pleasures, by Raoul Vaneigem
>Next
Either The Technological Society, by Jacques Ellul, or Western Illusions of Human Nature, by Marshall Sahlins.

>> No.3675550
File: 111 KB, 815x1176, 1364393935898.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3675550

>Currently
The Republic and Exploding the phone
>Previously
A clockwork Orange
>Next
Not sure
Maybe Snow Crash or The trial.

>> No.3675546

>>3675531
Ah, I'm just about to start R&C are Dead too. On a recommendation from someone on here a few months back.

>Previously
The Handbook by Epictetus
>Currently
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
>Next
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

>> No.3675568

>currently
The Pursuit of Victory (Nelson biography).
>previously
The Difference Engine - Gibston & Sterling. I really didn't enjoy it. The world was well thought out, but the writing was uninteresting and in some parts simply bad, the story was bland and the final section was an incoherent mess.

>next
Wellington - Richard holmes. I'm in a napoleonic history mood, that and it is nice to read about people revered as Gods' failings and humanity.


I need to get around to reading the illiad at some point, too.

>> No.3675573

>>3675533
Is TMPoF any good? The premise sounds interesting, but I can't see how you can pin an entire political movement one on trait.

>> No.3675578

>>3675507
>currently:
Snuff by Palahniuk,
Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut
>previously:
On the Roadr, Kerouac
Schiller, die Räuber
Mandarin ed. of Ulysses, Joyce
>next:
Not sure yet. Maybe Dune or the nifty Collection of Edgar Allan Poe's works.

>> No.3675584

>Now
The Master and Margarita
>Last
The Communist Manifesto
>Next
Either Das Kapital or Nikolay Kun's Ancient Greek Legends and Myths

>> No.3675624

>>3675573
I'm an anarchist, so I picked it up (mostly) for his critique of state socialists.

But yeah, it's interesting, to say the least. The only mention of orgone energy came in the preface, so it's one of the few of Reich's works that he didn't go back and fuck with after he went insane. He doesn't pin fascism on sexual repression totally, but he does point out how sexual repression in the family is the germ for fascistic sentiments and obedience to authority.

>> No.3675641

>>3675624
But how can you be socialist without being a statist to some degree?

I might have a look actually, it does sound intruiging, but it might take a bit to persuade me that you cannot be both promiscuous and respect authority.
Half the problem is, we haven't defined authority. Authority as in the state, as in your parents, elders? Nevermind, I'll just read the book.

>> No.3675646

>current
a scanner darkly by PKD
>prev.
The three stigmata of palmer Eldrich by PKD
>next
VALIS by PKD

>> No.3675673

>Currently
American Gods by Neil Gaiman (friend rec)
>Previously
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (fucking terrible friend rec)
>Next
Songs of the Doomed by Hunter S Thompson (friend rec), The Crucible

obviously just working through my backlog of friend recommendations i've been procrastinating. the next book i'll be reading purely for my own enjoyment will be The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. read 80% of it before losing my copy in canada a few months back. need to finish that fucker.

>> No.3675699

>currently
the chronicles of clovis by saki. some of the short stories are extremely good, i'll be reading more saki in future.
>previously
the robots of dawn by asimov. best out of the three robot detective novels in my opinion. would read again.
>next
robots and empire by asimov.

>> No.3675706

>Currently
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
>Previously
The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
>Next
The Way of the World by William Congreve

>> No.3675707

>Currently
Musashi

>Previously
The Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard
Senselessness by Horacio Moya Castellanos

>Next
Musashi will probably occupy me for like 2 weeks, so it's impossible to tell what I'll choose next. If I had to chooser right now it'd be HHhH

>> No.3675710

>Currently
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Heart of Darkness

>Previously
The Death of Ivan Ilyich

>Next
The Exegesis of PKD
A Scanner Darkly

>> No.3675715

>Currently
The Celtic myths- various authors
>Next
Principles of American government- various authors
>past
The Vietnam war: a history of Vietnam at war- Stanley Greene

>> No.3675721

>>3675707
Is Musashi any good? I saw it mentioned in a thread the other day and I love stuff about feudal Japan, especially the Edo Period where all the bored Samurai basically just killed each other for fun.

>> No.3675730

>Currently
1984 by George Orwell
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
>Previously
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
>Next
Don't know yet.
Also, got the complete edition of H. P. Lovecraft, so I read one tale between books.

>> No.3675750

>>3675531
>>3675546
R&G is really fucking great. So hilarious. You should also watch the movie version Stoppard himself directed.

>Currently
Ada, or Ardor - Finally finishing this son of a bitch. It's a really great book but it's extremely bloated. The narrative structure is done in a way to mirror thematically Nabokov's conception (or at least his character's conception) of memory and time. It feels very good at first, but the middle of the book just feels overwrought with too much of Nabokov showing off. I'll finish it tonight most likely or possibly tomorrow, right now it'd be a 4/5.

The Odyssey - I just finished the Iliad and haven't really gotten into this one yet. I'm a couple books into it, but I've mostly been focusing on finishing Ada. This has been interesting so far, with the relationship between Athena and Odysseus's son, but i'm not nearly far enough into it to have formed any real opinion.

>Previously
The Communist Manifesto - This was a very enjoyable short read. It was interesting but the majority of the ideas the average /lit/ browser would know without having to actually read it.

>Next
Mason & Dixon
Moby Dick
A portrait of the artist as a young man

>> No.3675764

>>3675721

It's entertaining but it isn't very high-brow. It's still one of my favourite novels.

>> No.3675776

>past
demian and invisible cities


>present
the selfish gene
if on a winters night a traveller
the aleph
>future
some early greek philosophy and socratic diaologues
probably some more borges and calvino

>> No.3675783
File: 115 KB, 599x458, 1366290795304.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3675783

>Previously
arthur schopenhauer - essays and aphorisms

>Present
fyodor dostoyevsky - notes from the underground
albert camus - the myth of sysiphus

>Next
marcus aurelius - meditations or
sigmund freud - the psychopathology of everday life

>> No.3675787
File: 54 KB, 800x1036, Hemingway.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3675787

>Currently
Blood Meridian- This is actually a re read. I read it a few months before but I had a lot of my mind and tried to rush through it so I didn't like it. Even though I didn't like it much the first time I had an urge to re read it and am loving it so far.
>Previously
For Whom The Bell Tolls- Loved it. Only my second Hemingway after Farewell to Arms
>Next
Master and Margretta
As I lay Dying
Book of the New Sun
The Road

suggestion on my next reading?

>> No.3675811

>>3675721
the prose in translation seems like shit, and the character motivations/actions are clunky at best so far. it does have a kind of JE NE SAIS QUOI to it

>> No.3675812

>Currently
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
it's pretty good
>Previously
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
hell of a book
>Next
probably Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen

>> No.3675817

>>3675783
Better read Aurelius over Freud. Don't read Freud at all.

>> No.3675854

>>3675817
>Don't read Freud at all.
How much of an idiot are you?

>> No.3675877

>previous
Hitch-22. Meh
>current
In Search of Lost Time
>next
No fucking clue

>> No.3675890

>>3675854
not much of an idiot for I realise Freud was a pseudoscientist who was just just guessing around with his quirky theories. Basically all of what he wrote is currently regarded as wrong, and gives wrong ideas about psychoanalysis, plus caused people to go like:
>LEL I GUEESS U GOT A EDIPUSSY COMPLEX ! XD
Unless your field is psychoanalysis (just to see where you're coming from, not because ANY of his work is relevant) you are best to avoid him.

I don't dislike Freud as a person, and I can't fault him for trying to apply his theories. But it's worth warning Clerisy about the merits of his work, so he doesn't waste any time. Because as he just read in Schopenhauer's Essays and Aphorisms:
>One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.

>> No.3675928

>Currently
The Odyssey
Don Quixote
Wildwood

>Previously
The Old man and The Sea
Goodbye to Berlin

>Next
Paradise Lost
Daphnis and Chloe

>> No.3675938

>Currently
Looking for Jake, Miéville
>Previously
The great and secret show, Barker.
>Next
Honestly, no idea. I'm thinking about some Gene Wolfe. Maybe something else.

>> No.3675973

>Currently
Dubliner by James Joyce
Don't Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America by David M. Kennedy
The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant
>Previously
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
>Next
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon

>> No.3675977

>currently
the savage detectives by robert bolano
notable american women by ben marcus
the painted bird by jerzy kasinski
>previously
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
Ulysses by James Joyce
>Next
i was thinking women and men by joseph mcelroy? if i can't find that then probably gravity's rainbow. oh, and the three samuel beckett novels.

>> No.3676005

>>3675890
>guessing around
Do you even philosophy of science?
>I realise Freud was a pseudoscientist
Haha, baby's first FROID IS PSEUDOSCIENCE revelation
>Basically all of what he wrote is currently regarded as wrong, and gives wrong ideas about
Only a fucking ignoramus would dismiss him, even if you hate his guts. He's contributed a lot, he's still relevant in a way, and is still being studied a great deal, pretty much everywhere in the world.

>> No.3676022

>Currently
The Plague (Camus) and A Confederacy of Dunces (Toole). Both are proving to be fantastic.
>Previously
The Story of Philosophy (Durant). It's a fantastic synopsis on the lives of a handful of major philosophers.
>Next
Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck). In a way I'm dreading this because I'll probably be left emotionally devastated.

>> No.3676710
File: 66 KB, 367x655, 1365623965619.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3676710

>>3675817
I'll most likely read Aurelius first. But, I do plan to read Freud in the future, not with the agenda to learn anything grandiose from him, but just for entertainment value and to have the merit to discuss my own opinion of his work rather than adopt 4chan's.

>> No.3676726

>>3675646
Hope you love VALIS.

>> No.3676731

>Currently
Lolita, never read before and I'm enjoying it a lot.
>Previously
De avonden (The Evenings, don't think this book has been translated) by Gerard Reve. Acclaimed and controversial Dutch book about a young man who fights his existential crisis during the boring year of 1946 in post-war Netherlands.
>Next
Moby Dick

>> No.3676766

>Currently
War and Peace
The Joyous Cosmology by Alan Watts
A Storm of Swords

>Previously
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea by Mishima. Beautiful prose, though i feel it would have been better read in native japanese. Also dat ending.

>Next
I dont know yet maybe try some Pynchon...

>> No.3676789

>currently
Siddhartha, it's good but I think Steppenwolf was better

>previously
Grapes of Wrath, couldn't even finish that shit

>Next
I don't know, actually.

>> No.3676792

>>3676022
It's not nearly that sad.

>> No.3676797

>Currently
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.
Read it in sixth grade, didn't really understand it other than it was intense as fuck. Figured i'd give it a proper read.

>Previously
The Catcher in the Rye
What an edgy piece of shit.

>Next
Pride and Prejudice because fuck bitches get money.

>> No.3676809

>Previous
Arthur Schopenhauer, The Horrors And Absurdities Of Religion

>Current
Mark Twain, The Complete Short Stories
Fyodor Dostoevksy, Poor Folk And Other Stories
Fyodor Dostevsky, Demons.

>Next
George Orwell, Shooting An Elephant, and other essays
Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker
Leo Tolstoy, The Death Of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha.

That's the plan, anyway.

>> No.3676818

>Currently
The Beast Within by Emile Zola. The imagery is beautifully impressionistic, and the characterisation's sufficient to warrant future investigation.

>Previously
Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Kafka. He plays with movement a lot, but I feel he only masters it in "Children on the Road." I quit after "In the Penal Colony", which disappointed in repeating a mechanical description of an exotic execution device. I'll return in a few years, for he doesn't quench my current esoterism.

>Next
Penguin's coverage of either Lautreamont or Nerval. My favourite band, Current 93, have multiple pieces on the actual figure of Maldoror which best realise their apocalyptic mania, and so I'm inclined towards the former.

>> No.3676820

>>3676818
[future investigation of Zola's works]

>> No.3676835

>>3676818
Never knew the term impressionist applie to a work of lit. What makes it so?

>> No.3676848

Currently reading:
>A moveable feast, by Hemingway. I am oly about 5 pages left, and I don't go and finish it. Afterwards maybe the Great Gatsby (Yes, I haven't yet read it)
Previously, in "anon reads":
>uh... I think it was heart of darkness

>> No.3676852

>>3675890
>Basically all of what he wrote is currently regarded as wrong

You have no idea what you're talking about.

People think the Oedipus complex is something that it isn't because dumb fucks like you keep telling people not to read Freud.

>> No.3676856

>>3675507
>Currently
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

>Previously
Nickel And Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (Had to for school, book was meh)

>Next
Origin of Species by Charles Darwin or something by Kierkegaard, any reccs?

>> No.3676857

>>3676835
His scenery description is reminiscent of Impressionist paintings. It's part of what makes it such an excellent document of the mid-19th century, alongside the surprisingly fun description of railways and the vague alienation of most of the characters. I finished on this sentence earlier:

>"Once again, a cloud of soot drifted across the Paris sky, reddened by the fiery glow from the engine before."

The above's one of those rare sentences in lit that's so vivid as to be orgasmic, like 'flaky pollen of the night' or something in Nabokov.

>> No.3676875

>Previously
Child of Vengeance by David Kirk. It was okay.
>Currently
Moby Dick
>Next
The Land of Wooden Gods or the Seven that Where Hanged

>> No.3676879
File: 66 KB, 1594x708, confused.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3676879

It's that time again:
>Currently
A Scanner Darkly- P.K. Dick
I am really enjoying so far.

The Republic- Plato
I only just now started reading it, but it's just as easily readable as everyone told me, dialogues, fuck the world.

>Previously
The Sun Dog, from Four Past Midnight- Stephen King
The poor writing style is to be expected from Stephen King, the mediocre story was a surprise.

Blood Meridian- Cormac McCarthy
Best book I've every read, the best I've read from McCarthy so far. The only thing I didn't like was the long stretches of purely brain-numbing travel sections, seemed completely devoid of literary content, even less so than actual expedition journals.

>Next
Nothing concrete yet, but possibly
Apology- Plato
Needful Things- Stephen King
All the Pretty Horses or possibly Outer Dark- Cormac McCarthy

>> No.3676885

>>3676879
*ever read
typos on a literature board lol

>> No.3676884

>Previously
Peter Camenzind, Hesse
>Currently
Das Blütenstaubzimmer by Zoë Jenny
>Next
Something by Meyrink. Walpurgisnacht maybe, I don't know yet. In a german phase at the moment

>> No.3676886

>Previously, in my reading:
Notes from underground (thought I'd see what all the hype is about)

>This episode
Sophocles - Theban plays, ajax, women of trachis, electra and philoctetes

>next time
Ethics, humans and other animals

>> No.3676887

>>3676856
there is a good everyman's library edition which has both F&T and Adler, that is good

>> No.3676892

>>3676818
>>3676857
You sound like such a pretentious douche

>> No.3676895

>previously
Claw of the conc botns
>now
dangerous visions
>next
idunno sentimental education or V.

>> No.3676905

>>3676892
>Implying that sounding like a pretentious douche and being a pretentious douche are not one and the same
He is the embodiment of /lit/, just wait until he starts talking abouthow Nietzsche was the best thing ever and how everything is subjective except the quality of a book.

>> No.3676909

>>3676905
>>3676892
Seems to me that you two are far more becoming of /lit/ than that guy. Pointless, random needles at his personality and smug character assessments. Yep, you guys are /lit/ to the core alright.

>> No.3676959
File: 88 KB, 706x470, Vaginal_bulb_syringe.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3676959

>>3676892
>>3676905

>> No.3677480

Previous
Slaughterhouse 5 - Vonnegut
The Old Man and The Sea - Hemingway

Currently
>The Bell Jar - Plath
>Cosmicomics - Italo Calvino

Next
>Portrait of the Artist - Joyce
Let The Right One In - Lindqvist

>> No.3677492

>Currently
Infinite Jest. On page 951 currently.
>Previously.
Of Mice and Men.
>Next
Inherent Vice

>> No.3677496

>Currently
The Scar, by China Mieville (second book of the New Crobuzon series)

>Previously
Perdido Street Station, also by China Mieville (first book of New Crobuzon); it was just delicious and the best book I've read in a long time

>Next
Can't decide between Iron Council (third from New Crobuzon) or Necromancer.

>> No.3677500

>>3677496
Jesus fuck, I meant Neuromancer; god damn this auto-correction.

>> No.3677501

Currently
>The Grapes of Wrath
>The Metamorphosis (Kafka)
Previously
>The Aeneid
Next
>Brothers Karamazov
or
>Metamorphoses by Ovid

Can't decide, which should I do?

>> No.3677535

>>3677496
the scar is an amazing book. my favorite of Mieville's

>> No.3677540

>Currenty
De Bello Gallico

>Previously
Blood Meridian

>Next
Moby Dick

>> No.3677545

>Currently
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

>Previously
Drift by Rachel Maddow (didn't like it)

>Next
Either re-reading The Great Gatsby or The Count of Monte Cristo

>> No.3677558

>>3677540
What do you think of "De Bello Gallico"? I have wanted to read more Roman literature, as I have finished Metamorphoses, Meditations and The Aeneid this year.

>> No.3677572

>>3677558
I just started it yesterday and only read a few pages in (where Orgetorix dies) so I don't have an opinion yet. The tiny bit I have read is written in present tense which I found slightly annoying, but it's barely even worth mentioning.

>> No.3677603

>currently
I'm in between books at the moment.
>previously
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Damned (Palahniuk)
>next
Not sure yet. I'm stuck between 1984, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and 1Q84.
Suggestions?

>> No.3677620

Currently:
Obsidian and Blood, Aliette De Bodard

Previously:
Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics (1st and 2nd Dirac Lectures), Richard Feynman and Steven Weinberg (Strongly recommended)

Next:
I haven't decided yet.

>> No.3678011

Current:
Second Stage Lensman
Previous:
Grey Lensman
Next:
Children of the Lens

I've always had a soft spot for pulp and space opera and this series was like a dream come true when I discovered it.

>> No.3678031

>Currently
Selected Poems by W.H. Auden
>Previously
The Sherlock Holmes Collection by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
>Next
Probably going to re-read The Stranger by Albert Camus. Though I have books I haven't read yet.

>> No.3678032

>>3677545
You could finish Monte Cristo in a sitting, I did anyway. It's fantastic.

>> No.3678059

>Now
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Five Weeks in a Balloon by Jules Verne

>Then
Dune by Frank Herbert
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

>Then
Perhaps Moby Dick or Dune Messiah

>> No.3678082

>Now
Wuthering Heights (Good writing, but so very depressing)

>Previously
The Importance of Being Earnest

>Next
Count of Monte Cristo or something Hemingway. Suggestions?

>> No.3678096

>Currently
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities by Herman Melville
The first part was pretty boring, and goddamn I haven't read any 19th century lit in a while so I need to look up tons of words. His writing can get pretty beautiful though.

>Previously
Notes From Underground
Truly the world's first greentext story.

>Next
Not sure, maybe something Kafka, something Japanese, or Mother.less Brooklyn by Johnathan Lenthem since it's been sitting on my shelf for a while.

>> No.3678099

>last
Hunger
>currently
Pastoralia and Thinking, Fast and Slow, and Kaplan's Verbal Reasoning Review
>next
not sure, I have a few books at home I've yet to read; Omensetter's Luck, Stoner, Tree of Smoke, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Any suggestions as to which to read first

>> No.3678100

>Currently
The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

>Previously
Cold Days by Jim Butcher

>Next
The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi

>> No.3678108

>>3675507
Reverse image search reveals nothing on your image OP. Care to explain why you have alien tech in your vehicle?

>> No.3678516

>Currently
Blood Meridian, it's great
>Previously
Ham on Rye
>Next
Thinkin Gravity's Rainbow or Lolita

>> No.3678544

>>3678108

Looks like spirograph to me.

>> No.3679442

bump

>> No.3679541

>Last
Republic re-read

>Now.
Crime and Punishment re-read

>Next.
Edwin Drood or a Mishima book

>> No.3679584

>>3678108
I made this by altering the original picture.
>All I did was invert the colors in paint
>>I think it looks better like this.

>> No.3679606

>>3678516
Read Lolita first
Go in order

>> No.3679696

>now
notes from tha muthafuckin undaground yo
>back
fahrenheit 451
>then
invisible cities by my man calvino