/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4157134]

Have you ever read a book that, upon either finishing it or still reading it, you thought...

>I never knew books could be this good,

I am omitting a book of my own for the express reason that I want to see a few submissions before the primary discussion in this thread becomes the value-judgement of other people's choices.

[Anonymous No.4157155]

East of Eden, by my boy John Steinbeck.

[Anonymous No.4157161]

>>4157134
war and peace and anna karenina and a few others

[Anonymous No.4157172]

>>4157155
mah nigga

[Anonymous No.4157176]

>>4157155
Yes!

[Anonymous No.4157196]

>>4157134
>>I never knew books could be this good,

Yes, Dostoevsky stuff. The Brothers Karamazov was amazing. Had to read it for school but have read it 2 times more since.

[Anonymous No.4157206]

The Snows of Kilamanjaro

[Anonymous No.4157208]

I'm a pleb, but it first happened with Dune and Lovecraft.

[Anonymous No.4157217]

Most things written by Borges.

El otro (The other) remains my favorite piece of literature.

Also El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (The Garden of Forking Paths)

[Anonymous No.4157241]

>>4157134
Difference and Repetition.

Funny thing is if I'd read it a year beforehand I would have written it off as obscurantist garbage. But I happened to read it at just the right time (directly after reading some of the essential prerequisites) and understood it perfectly fine (there were dense sections here and there, but it earned my trust enough to wade through them patiently).

[Anonymous No.4157256]

Nabokov has this effect on me. I'm currently reading his short stories and once or twice per page I find myself admiring something he's written.

[Anonymous No.4157272]

Honestly, Portrait of the artist. I rememeber sitting upstairs in a cafe with my girlfriend at the time and breaking every page or so to tell her about the great stuff that was being said and trying to persuade her to read the book.

[Anonymous No.4157289]

>>4157272
Also I agree with the other post about Dostoyevsky. Was blown away by how much I could relate to his characters.

[Anonymous No.4158383]

>>4157289
>Also I agree with the other post about Dostoyevsky. Was blown away by how much I could relate to his characters.

I'm an almost exact copy of a character from 'Notes from the Underground'. It freaked me out when I read it.

[Anonymous No.4158416]

>>4157217
Borges's Labyrinths collection, along with House of Leaves, were the first times I felt like this.

[Anonymous No.4158419]

Journey to the End of the Night

[Anonymous No.4158440]

Blood Meridian
>I never knew books could be this violent

[Anonymous No.4158523]

See Pic Related.

[Anonymous No.4158530]

This is perhaps one of the only books that gets better and more awe-inspiring the more you re-read it.

[Anonymous No.4158643]

Neverending Story, Gatsby and Dorian Gray. All three blew my brain out the back of my head and I had to go scoop it up.

[Anonymous No.4158683]

I collapsed when in 1Q84 Ushikawa said that he was "Raskolnikov without a Sonja". I had read crime and punishment just before that, it really got to me. I feel the same way.

[Anonymous No.4158717]

Mort, The neverending Story.

Also, I'm still in the middle of pic related, but damn, unless the author really starts screwing up soon, it's definitely up there.

[Anonymous No.4158720]

I thought Don DeLillo was a dickless hack after reading Falling Man and Cosmopolis but White Noise is fast becoming one of my favorites.

[Anonymous No.4158738]

One Hundred Years of Solitude!

[Anonymous No.4158758]

>>4158383
I found I had a lot of similarities with him too, at least when I was younger. I wonder if Dostoyevsky was inspired by someone he knew or if he drew from himself.