/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4291042]

ITT: we recommend great nonfiction books.

[Anonymous No.4291049]

Non-fiction can't be God-tier because God himself is fiction.

[Anonymous No.4291053]

>>4291042
Anything by HL Mencken, but especially A Mencken Chrestomathy, The American Language and Treatise on the Gods.

[Anonymous No.4291059]

>>4291049
Check and mate, Op just sweated through his fedora. spoiler From a technical standpoint you are correct though /spoiler

[Anonymous No.4291062]

>>4291053
My high school history teacher spent a great deal of time telling me he thought I was basically the next coming of Mencken.

[Anonymous No.4291069]

>>4291059
>>4291049
*tips*

[Anonymous No.4291075]

>>4291062
You're becoming the next thorn in my ass, I'll give you that.

[Anonymous No.4291076]

A Demon Haunted World.

[Anonymous No.4291087]

To me, light is one of the most important, inspiring and amazing things I've ever come across. Ben Bova (have never read his fiction) did a great job with this book.

[Anonymous No.4291093]

[Anonymous No.4291102]

Great series. Never see them mentioned here.

[Anonymous No.4291127]

>>4291102
>have one of them
>find 2 more
>$15 apiece
poorfags gonna poor

[Anonymous No.4291180]

[Anonymous No.4291191]

>>4291180
This. Godel, Escher, Bach is nonfiction, but its creativity and scope puts most fiction to shame

[Anonymous No.4291193]

>>4291102

I dig this.

[Anonymous No.4291196]

>>4291049
>>4291059

Checkmate, faggoty feds.

[Anonymous No.4291199]

Mastery is bretty good too

[Anonymous No.4291202]

Age Of Wonder by Richard Holmes
From Dawn to Decadence Jacques Barzun

[Anonymous No.4291210]

>>4291042
If you like animals.

[Anonymous No.4291211]

is this any good? i'm going to give it a read soon.

[Anonymous No.4291215]

>>4291210
If you like hystory, art, west meeting east and other things.

[Anonymous No.4291218]

>>4291210
>>4291215
If you like symbolism and dreams.

[Anonymous No.4291237]

>>4291199

Tell us more.

[Anonymous No.4291239]

>>4291211

I got it. Everyman's Library. I've only heard good things about it.

[Anonymous No.4291248]

[Anonymous No.4291251]

This book opened my eyes to so much. Mandatory.

[Anonymous No.4291259]

[Anonymous No.4291275]

>>4291248

Non-fiction?!

Those annotations are obviously from a much later date than the main text and aren't evidenced in the Gk/Hb manuscripts. You might as well tape the Book of Mormon onto the back of it.

[Anonymous No.4291285]

>>4291275

>much later date

The latest criticism, so yes, it's very recent. Not everyone is born knowing what Leviticus actually is as a text. This book explains it, and every other part of the Bible. Great introductions, essays, and armies of footnotes.

[Anonymous No.4291290]

>>4291239
>I've only heard good things about it.
same.

i read pic-related about 7 years ago and had a hankering for some more vietnam literature. that said, pic-related could quite easily be a work of fiction (and plenty of people suggest it is). if it isn't, however, it's pretty harrowing.

[Anonymous No.4291298]

>>4291290

There's another I saw the other day, something called "Dear Mom" and it's a sniper's memoir or something.

[Anonymous No.4291304]

Using such simple terms to describe art over a 3000 year period is quite a feat.
His Art And Illusion is also very good.

[Anonymous No.4291314]

Mandatory if you're interested in serial killers.

[Anonymous No.4291318]

[Anonymous No.4291321]

>>4291042

[Anonymous No.4291323]

[Anonymous No.4291334]

>>4291321

I actually didn't think much of it. Not comparable to the Bible in more ways than one, if only for the fact that the Quran is literally one book, while the Bible is over 60 different books from over 4 millennia.

[Anonymous No.4291362]

[Anonymous No.4291363]

>>4291323
>>4291321
*YOU HAVE BEEN VISITED BY THE WALRUSE OF RUSES** POST THIS IN 3 THREADS OR BE WALRUSED!!!!!!!
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[Anonymous No.4292454]

wonderfully fascinating book. Really a good and interesting read.

[Anonymous No.4292685]

also, The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt

[Anonymous No.4292694]

outdated, but bretty gud

[Anonymous No.4292698]

There were times when I felt like I was reading an action-packed war novel.

[Anonymous No.4292703]

>>4291334
Wouldn't that make it more reliable as a source of divine wisdom. A single source of truth rather than 60 books that makes it easier to distort over a length of time.

[Anonymous No.4292706]

Every book ever written is fiction.

[Anonymous No.4292739]

Is non-fiction the one that really happened, or the made up story? I get confused sometimes, could a kind anon please explain the difference?

[Anonymous No.4292743]

A Peoples' History of the United States
Bury My Heat at Wounded Knee
10 Days That Shook the World

[Anonymous No.4292745]

>>4292739
It's the made-up story of what really happened.

It's the one that's not fiction.

[Anonymous No.4292752]

>>4292706
hi, bookchemist

[Anonymous No.4292761]

[Anonymous No.4292772]

It's dry as hell so it's not very fun to get through, but I feel like it's important.

[Anonymous No.4293840]

>>4292698

I don't doubt it. History is packed with the best action and violence ever imagined.

[Anonymous No.4293841]

>>4292739

Nonfiction doesn't have to be about stories. A chemistry book is nonfiction.

[Anonymous No.4293842]

>>4292772

I read two thirds of this but stopped. I'm not sure if it's serious or propaganda.

[Anonymous No.4293843]

>>4292761
mein negro

[Anonymous No.4293851]

>>4292772

>chomsky

Not even once.

[Anonymous No.4293855]

>>4293851

Give me more. I'm serious. I'm skeptical about him but was never given a good reason.

[Anonymous No.4293959]

[Anonymous No.4293987]

On the origin of species by means of natural selection by Darwin

[Anonymous No.4293990]

>>4293851
I've never read chomsky. I'm a liberal so I'm assumed to like him. What might I like about him? What do you dislike about him? I actually get the feeling I would find him overrated but am reluctant to find out.

[Anonymous No.4293993]

>>4291042
The Bible.

[Anonymous No.4293999]

Obligatory.

[Anonymous No.4294223]

>>4291321
OP said non-fiction. Read the fuckin' post you dimwit and stop trolling with sandniggerish mythology.

[Anonymous No.4294227]

>>4294223
>>>/b/

[Anonymous No.4294240]

>>4294227
go fuck a goat, you superstitious fool.

[Anonymous No.4294392]

>>4293999

What's his argument, roughly?

[Anonymous No.4294395]

>>4291042
G?del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

[Anonymous No.4294420]

[Anonymous No.4294426]

One of those books that changed my perspective on life. Found myself described so well in his writings, particularly the divided self.

Highly recommended, even if you're not religious or spiritual.

[Anonymous No.4294432]

>>4293990
Chomsky's just a /pol/ack who happens to blame murica instead of jews for everything.

[Anonymous No.4294884]

>>4294420

Actually better than anything else he wrote.

[Anonymous No.4294885]

>>4294426

I may just get that. I wrote a thesis on the numenous in Moby-Dick, using Rudolf Otto's book, and think James' came up often during my research.

[Anonymous No.4294938]

>>4294426

Tell me more. What is it exactly?

>Henry's bro

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4295892]

>>4294432
>Chomsky's just a /pol/ack who happens to blame murica instead of jews for everything.
So he's sensible.
I don't know what you mean by "just a /pol/ack"
>>4293990
He's a sensible far leftist, advocates anarcho-syndicalism. Worth a read, though a very dry speaker, I've seen plenty of DVDs and youtubes of his

>>4294223
I agree, but you don't have to use such derogatory language.

>>4294392
Going by the wiki, pessimistic predictionism. So what if we're on another seeming downswing, this present situation isn't what Spengler ever wrote about. Samuel P. Huntington's 1992 The Clash of Civilizations, still has lots more significance than The Decline. Still, I like the labels "Magian," "Apollonian" and "Faustian." Cute.

[Anonymous No.4296454]

The Hero with a Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell

[Anonymous No.4296456]

>>4295892
Just stoppin' in to say that Huntington (at least in his analysis of civilizations and their conflict) was a garbageman whose works have no relevance to anything

welp later

[Anonymous No.4296471]

>>4292703
>missing the point

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4296521]

>>4296471
It still doesn't belong ITT

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4296540]

[MtMattics !!58hTUK7XbfZ No.4296544]

>>4291199
Compared to other famous self-improvement writers he's much more relevant to reality.
Although he's being left behind, he makes too many assumptions and is idealizing too much for what he writes.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4296546]

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4296550]

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4296552]

You'll all hate this.

[Anonymous No.4296553]

>>4296546
You should read Orwell's Essays too, I'd rate them higher than "Homage to Catalonia".

[Anonymous No.4296580]

>>4291180
GEB is more of a fad. it lacks any real content or argument.

[Anonymous No.4296585]

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4299089]

>>4291042

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4299097]

This is a great detailed read.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4299103]

Sort of reading in parallel with Garibaldi.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4299113]

This too.

[Anonymous No.4299117]

>>4291290
>vietnam literature

you really ought to read meditations in green by stephen wright. really great novel.

[Anonymous No.4299125]

>>4299103
>>4299097
thx for theese recs, was kind of thinking of reading Herzen, good to hear it's not awful

[Anonymous No.4299168]

>>4291102
i found the first four in the series at a thrift store for a dollar each

such happy

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4299185]

>>4299125
Reading Herzen's musing about his childhood and school days, I choked up a couple of times. This edition/translation is a simple read but the stories were just enthralling for me. Like listening to an uncle tell stories.

Rial's Garibaldi is completely different. It details all the major players movies and the social shifts due to technology and art. Dense attention to minutiae. Taking me longer to read but still loving it.

[Anonymous No.4299215]

Diarios de motocicletas.
I know I'm gonna get a lot of hate for this but fuck it.

[Anonymous No.4299290]

>>4295892
>Going by the wiki, pessimistic predictionism.
>Going by the wiki

Seriously commenting on a book based on its Wikipedia entry?

You truly are the plebbest of the tripfags.

[Anonymous No.4299313]

>>4296454 This is relative to my interests.

Added to my "to read" list. Thanks!

[Anonymous No.4299347]

>>4291042
It's about corporate america, advertising and branding.
Disclaimer : I didn't read it in English so I probably won't use the right names for the concepts.
She analyzes slogans like "Just do it!", and more generally the ablity of corporations to brand the revolution itself, making any resistance futile.
She shows that fighting against global corporations' advertising is difficult, as you will get accused to use the same means as them (like if you use counter-slogans to criticize the empire of manipulative slogans).
The only way that your struggle against Nike and others will not be turned back against you (they will make your struggle look cool, revolutionary, and use it for themselves) is to focus on real struggles, like trade unionism.
Only this can't be manipulated ("recuperation"?) against you.

[Anonymous No.4299354]

>Ctrl + f
>No posts containing "The good war"

I costanza'd

[Anonymous No.4299570]

>>4291042
Subtitle : Infantile autism and the birth of the self.
This book is both
1. a new theoretical approach
2. a textbook, an encyplodia about autism
3. many case studies (in the middle part of the book).

Bettelheim was the head of a center for autistic kids, in Chicago.
In the 1st part, he tries to show that autistic kids become, over time, empty fortresses.. At the start, there was communications problems between the caretaker (the mother) and the child, so the child got scared, distrustful.
His ego couldn't develop normaly (boundaries, sense of self...). In the fortress (empty), he tries to hide that he has no ego. He's all the more scared that he doesn't have anything left to protect.

Bettelheim compares wilh his own experience in Nazi concentration camps, where you were extremely scared of dying, of totrture, humiliation, exhausting tasks to do with empty stomachs until you would fall of exaustion.
So that some prisoners lost the strength or faith to go on fighting for survival; They became broken (moslems).
i.e. they stopped daydreaming about a possible better future, they fell completely obsessed by the capos and SS guardians, turning eventually into a moslem, depressed beyond imagination, about to die.

Bettelheim claims that the unhelthy development leading to autism and to the empty fortress, is the same development that had to endure the jewish prisoners who would become molslems, and die.

So Bettelheim's theory is that autistic kids, somehow, have been the victim of a context just as horrible as the one of of the concentration camps. For Bettelheim, autism is a defence against violence.

The price to pay is the loss of the ego. (autistic kids look scared but also quite younger than their age)

Through 3 or 4 cases studies, he shows that with enough staff (like nurses able to be 24/7 witht the kid), he can make them abseil down the Empty Fortress. When they go bak to trying to do something with the world, they become persons again, and for the first time they grow an ego, and then, confidence.

The stories (I know, non-fiction) are very moving, each case is different. Of course it's quite complicated, there are many drawbacks. But I remember a quote from a little girl who had been mute since she was born : one day, she changed her mind : "Talking is good. Talking is like Playing:" Another boy says at some point says : "I'm staying in this world".

The Idea that this book accuses the mothers is wrong. Bettelheim says mothers have only a subconscious wish that the baby doesn't live. He says there are miscommunication between the mother and the child.

The book is ambitious, because it wants not only to study Infantile Autism, but also study the development of the self in normal children. And with 2 sets of children, Bettelheim had a way to analyze what went wrong in the autistic popuplation while the sane popupation was growing a sense of self.

>(cont.)

[Anonymous No.4299574]

>>4299570
>(cont.)
I liked it a lot, because I don't agree, In my case (I'm not an autist, but I have social phobia) with the genetic factors. I do think that a cause for autism could be misunderstanding between a mother lacking confidence, and her child. Then, the theory of Bettelheim is that the autistic kid plays his part in developing his autism, like the moslems in concentration camps ended stopping dreaming, stopping listening anything else than the SS, and shut themselves completely, which was leading them quicky to death.

autism would be a sort of reaction to fear by depression, so strong that the depression, in infants, precludes the formation of an ego. And without an ego, you can't function in the normal word, you can't defend yourself, can't be proud, can't make concessions...

This book helped me a lot.
"Talking is good! Talking is playing!"
"I'm staying in this wolrd!"
also this one
"Vagina. Somebody's vagina will explode. Explode us all." => "You're afraid everything will explode because we won't take care of you, and you'll get hurt."

[FiRez !!tndrCZJHE+I No.4299588]

Every artist should read this. It's that beautiful.

[Anonymous No.4299592]

>>4299215
it's ok.
I watched the movie first.
I was pleased to see that there was more political pages in the book.

[Anonymous No.4299600]

my favorite three recently read nonfiction:
eaarth by bill mckibben
collapse by michael ruppert
atlantic crossings by daniel rodgers

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4299649]

>>4299290
I obviously haven't read it, and no one else, including the one who posted it, has anything to say. My two cents where admitted to be based on a quick look at its wikipedia entry. I simple honest opinion. Use a trendy catchphrase to degrade my ignorance if you like, but "tripfag" is so not what you think it means.

Have you read it!? Lets her your take on it. Why should we care about Spengler. Sell it.