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/lit/ - Literature

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5956603 No.5956603 [Reply] [Original]

ITT: Books that changed your life.

>> No.5956617

star child

>> No.5956637

The Castle

>> No.5956657

>reading John Green
>being 14

>> No.5956690
File: 13 KB, 280x400, PDM-9780976775829.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5956690

Freaks and degenerates all around me.

>> No.5956844
File: 2.69 MB, 4752x3313, very-hungry-caterpillar-book-cover.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5956844

CHANGED MY LIFE

>> No.5956872

The Tartar Steppe

>> No.5956879

>>5956603
I am not easily influenced by anything, even less by art.

>> No.5956887

>>5956603
introduction history to psychology.

Read the whole thing twice when i was like 14.

It was from my moms old college courses. She would ground me from everything besides books when i didn't do my homework. I remember first discovering Frued. He is such a bad ass.

>> No.5956895

>>5956887
>She would ground me
>I remember first discovering Frued.
>He is such a bad ass
checks out okay actually

>> No.5956898

Every book changes my life.

>> No.5956901

>>5956603
The Brothers Karamazov is the reason I am as I am.

>> No.5956917

>>5956895
I know Frued is normally a meme tier thing, but anyone who when forced to write a recommendation to a nazi germany restaurant says "I would greatly suggest you try the gastapo." Is pretty cool.
Also when they where burning his books he said "What progress as humans we have made, 100 years ago they would of been burning me."

>> No.5956950

>>5956898
I agree with this, for better or for worse. Youre going to learn something new from any book you read, even if its as simple as "Ill never read fiction again"

>> No.5956978

>a novel

>> No.5956983

>>5956901
Excellent book, although The Idiot was what changed me

>> No.5956994

>>5956983
In that case, I will read that as well.

>> No.5957055

>>5956901

This.

>> No.5957072

>>5956901

Which of the brothers do you identify with?

>> No.5957089

>>5957072
Not him. But I would say Ivan with a bit of Dmitri

>> No.5957096

>>5957072
Not him either. But Ivan is hugely identifiable for me. As a college kid who grew up in the church, I find his spiritual and intellectual inner battles very relatable.

>> No.5957099

>the year of our lord 2015
>not being Dmitry

>> No.5957106

>>5957099
You very much know that you can never be as passionate as him. Not even your green text can help you prove it.

>> No.5957111
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5957111

>> No.5957133
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5957133

Made me reassess my attitude regarding education, read it in high school.

>> No.5957374

>>5957072
I am the one that initially posted and I think the reason the book had such a profound effect on me was because I identified with all three. With the innocent Alyosha for his vehement belief in God, one that I then held and continue to hold, and for the altruistic desire to display kindness and affection to anyone. With Ivan for the aloofness from those related to him and for the skepticism concerning God that, despite my convictions, I have never completely rid myself of. With Dmitri not only because of the passion that motivates a impetuous quality in him, but because of his role as the eldest brother, a position I hold as well.

I can't imagine there exists a book out there to affect me to a greater degree than this. Unfortunately, despite all my efforts to recommend it, no one I have spoken to has read the book so I've yet to see if it has affected another as it has me.

>> No.5957833
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5957833

Made me feel more accepting of my incompleteness and gave me a new look at imperfections

>> No.5957841
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5957841

Snapped me out of my pseudo-Rimbaud phase. Prolonged deliberate derangement of the senses wasn't turning me into an artist, just a nitwit drunk.

>> No.5958125

>>5956690
>Taking PDM seriously at all

>> No.5958204
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5958204

Get rid of the spooks

>> No.5958913

The Society of the Spectacle
Naked Lunch
The Pale King


granted, these were multiple years in my past, if I read them now for the first time they might have as much of an impact

>> No.5958919

>>5958913

*might not have as much of an impact

>> No.5958966

>>5958913
>>5958919

You could check by watching the movie version Debord himself did.

>> No.5958982
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5958982

>>5957374
This

>> No.5958984
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5958984

Gave me an existential crisis that made me call up my friend with benefits at the time and tell her I couldn't do it anymore. It was quite a month.

>> No.5958999

>>5958966

yes, iv been meaning to watch that.

>> No.5959022

Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
The Cossacks - Tolstoy

I remember liking Catcher in the Rye a lot when I read it, but since have had a real hard time seeing it favorably. Probably something to do with teen angst

>> No.5959075

>>5959022
>Siddhartha

Did you read it in 1922?

>> No.5959124
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5959124

>>5957374
>I believe in gOD

>> No.5959151
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5959151

>> No.5959155
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5959155

>>5956657
>replying

>> No.5959184

>>5956690
Is this a real post?

>> No.5959202

Demian.

>> No.5959205

>>5959022
I've been trying to get through The Cossacks for a while, and I do like it, but for some reason I really can't stay focused on it, and I always put it down after reading a few pages. Right now I'm at the part where they're at the river watching for Tartars (I think). I know it's only like 200 pages and I should just power through it, but I'm reading so many other things right now it's pretty difficult. Is there a certain place in the story I should get to in order to be fully immersed? I really want to read this.

>> No.5959219
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5959219

>> No.5959275

>>5959219
>>5957133
>>5956901


You all say book that my father (48 years od) has tell me changed his life.

What does this even means?

>> No.5959279

>>5959275
What?

>> No.5959282

>>5956603

East of Eden, helped me find God.

>> No.5959294

>>5959282
I don't understand how, can you elaborate? It didn't change my life much if at all. Still a wonderful book, though.

>> No.5959304
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5959304

>>5956879

>> No.5959306
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5959306

Call me a scrublord, but I fucking love this book.

>> No.5959312
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5959312

>>5956879

>> No.5959314

>>5956690
can you give me a link for that?

>> No.5959315

>>5956879
I imagine you've written more books than you've read....

>> No.5959320
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5959320

>>5959155
>2015
>not danking constant memes
>not shooting up fhloston paradise
>not talking about how hesse changed your gender
>not putting electrical leads into a public aquarium

Enjoy your pleb existence.

As for me, I was most moved by pic-related, it taught me to see community college in a whole new way. I feel God in my life more often now than I ever did when I was a sweaty alcoholic writing irreverent postmodern fiction. Bohemians unite.

>> No.5959341

>>5959205
I'm not sure if there really is that point for sure. I'd say power through it, maybe wait until you're less consumed by other books. I tend to read one thing at a time so all my focus in on a single topic and I dont end up merging things in my head
Both of those books I mentioned, however have to do with a certain yearning in life, for more, for less, for an enlightenment of some kind. And that's probably why I find them so impacting.

Also not going to lie, I fell hard for a friend and related her to Maryanka so I was able to empathize with the protagonist even more so

>> No.5959342

>>5959306
bought this used because someone recd it here. havent read it yet, good to know its that good to someone.

>> No.5959349

>>5956603
my organic chem book. not lying. also the little prince.

>> No.5959361

>>5959320
Wait, what.

>> No.5959417

>>5956901
Cliche, but this for fiction. Non-fiction would probably include Nietzsche, Kant, and Hegel.

>> No.5959746
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5959746

>> No.5960523
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5960523

>>5959151
I'll see your nintentoddler rubbish and raise you some mustard race material!

>> No.5960562

>>5956901
I read 100 pages of this and gave up, is it really that good. I found it kind of cool in parts but boring as fuck in some. When they have that long discussion about church and state i wanted to kill myself

>> No.5960759
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5960759

wasn't the same after I read it.

>> No.5961369

>>5960759
In what way were you affected?

>> No.5961405
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5961405

>> No.5961420

VALIS and Stoner

>> No.5961495

>>5961369
I realized Joyce was a hack.

>> No.5961499

>>5961495
....damn

>> No.5961521
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5961521

>>5960562
me too, then I found out it was the most important part of the book.

>> No.5961524

Logicomix

tips fedora

>> No.5961529
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5961529

>> No.5961538

Cliche but Moby Dick

>> No.5961547
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5961547

The Moon and Sixpence

>> No.5961554

Moby Dick. Cliche, I know but it was a damn good novel

>> No.5961751

I know that Vonnegut is considered kind of plebby but Cat's Cradle is what got me into reading.

>> No.5961821
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5961821

>> No.5961883

>>5958204
>stirner
>steiner

Let me guess, Jewish right?

>the ego

Oy vey, lets sell some cripple kabbalah to the goyim!

>> No.5961918

>>5961883
you're not from around here, right?

>> No.5961934

Well Dick's A Scanner Darkly got me to quit taking cocaine (or maybe it was the daylong incapacitation that always awaited me after staying up all night doing it) and shocked me out of contemplating taking meth, so I guess there's that

>> No.5961974

the sickness unto death
philosophical investigations
groundwork for the metaphysics of morals
as i lay dying
ulysses
naming and necessity
harmonium
culture and value
the structure of scientific revolutions

>> No.5962020

>>5961974
how did Wittgenstein change yr life?

>> No.5962029

>>5962020

I became enlightened

>> No.5962039

>>5962020
the compartmentalizability of pretty much everything was made evident to me by wittgenstein's demonstration of the language game

>> No.5962067

>>5962039
I know his language game but can you explain the relevance of compartmenatlizibility? I'm not sure I understand

>> No.5962077

>>5962067
i'm just talking about the simple thought that problems, processes, objects even can be broken down and assessed according to a language game-type "structure", that things can be assessed regardless of a "grounding"
it made clear to me the process of bracketing off, to be short about it

>> No.5962120

>>5962077

And thats life changing to you?

Pleb.

>> No.5962149

>>5962077
Never thought of it like that; thanks for clearing that up

>> No.5962161

The sun also rises
The grapes of wrath
Aunt Julia and the scriptwriter

>> No.5962214
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5962214

>>5961974
>as i lay dying
I feel like Faulkner doesn't get the respect he deserves on /lit/

>> No.5962237

>>5956879
>edge.org

>> No.5962255
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5962255

>> No.5962258

Pensées, In the Penal Colony.

>> No.5962330

>>5961974
Yes I said yes

Kierkegaard and Stevens and Faulkner especially. You are cool. We should hang out.

>> No.5962422
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5962422

The Recognitions by William Gaddis
Hundred Years of Solitude
The Great Shark Hunt esp. Freak Power in the
Rockies
Sirens of Titan
9 Stories
The Dharma Bums
(ok, Vonnegut/HST/Salinger/Kerouac are pleb tier but on the other hand if you didn't have your brain shattered by them at a young age then you've only lived half a life)
the Diamond Sutra
Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars (do yourself a favor and find this book if you like surrealism, revolution, satire, adventure, and hate society)
Lord Jim
VALIS (made me realize I wasn't crazy, or maybe I am but after reading this book I realized it was a blessing)
Tao Te Ching (related to above)
Crime and Punishment made me realize that it wasn't cool to be an edgelord
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh
Sometimes a Great Notion
David Foster Wallace's essays
Death Comes For the Archbishop
A Sand Country Almanac
Small is Beautiful by E.F Schumacher (shows the way forward to a more sustainable and just society, which provides me with optimism)
the essays of Arundhati Roy
Wretched of the Earth

>> No.5962459

oh and Moments of Reprieve by Primo Levi and The Enormous Room by ee cummings are both great memoirs about being incarcerated in POW camps that are focused on painting portraits of people who rebelled against their circumstances in subtle ways because humanity always rises etc

highly recommended, two of the best books i read this year and they changed my life because i decided to write something similar

>> No.5962473

>>5962255
I thought this was almost universally agreed upon by well-read communists to be shit

>> No.5963271

>>5962120
it's a simple thought, like i said, but wittgenstein made it click for me

>> No.5964159

>>5958125
>>5959184
>2014
>still shilling for the DSM

>> No.5964171

>>5962422
Thanks for the list anon, also agree with how amazing it is to discover Vonnegut and Salinger at such a young age, Slaughterhouse-Five altered how I saw life for a long time afterwards.

>> No.5964194

>>5962214
I'm currently reading that book and so far it seems good, but I see no meaning to it yet.

>> No.5964234
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5964234

>> No.5964243

>>5956603
Alright, /lit/, go ahead and shit on me. The Dark Tower series is a masterpiece. Fuck anyone who doesn't think so.

>> No.5964314
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5964314

Principia Discordia.

>> No.5964318

>>5964314
xD so randum

>> No.5964328

>>5964318
>not understanding post post-irony

You understand nothing, go back to the pre-socratics and start all over again.

>> No.5964395
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5964395

>> No.5964470

>>5959306
What's everyone's problem with this book? Is it because it's entry level?

>> No.5966406
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5966406

>>5964470

Refer to image.

>> No.5966410

>>5964395
>>5964395
>>5964395
GET THE FUCK BACK TO POL BIGOT

>> No.5966423

>>5956603
Kafka's complete short stories made me stop believing in evolution

>> No.5966425

dgaf, Lord of the Rings

>> No.5966427

>>5966423
idiot

>> No.5966676

>>5956901
this

But how do you identify yourself? What "are you" ?

>> No.5967602

not a book, but a computer game series - the story, and the writing in it, so it's not completely off topic.
The Legacy of Kain series. Formed a huge part of my personality and made me love books and meaningful lines.

>> No.5968275

>>5959294
Oh but it will. Timshel my brother

>> No.5968279

>>5966676
I'm Gotham's Reckoning

>> No.5968287

>>5966676
I am a Muslim. The book strengthened my faith like no other religious text was able to do. I identify myself as being a servant of God before anything else; all other titles, categorizations, and identities are less significant and therefore hardly worth acknowledging.

>> No.5968294

>>5966423
expound anon

>> No.5968902

>>5956637
how's the castle? i found the trial terrible and meramorphosis ok. and hunger artist shit. should i really keep insisting on kafka

>> No.5969595
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5969595

>>5956603
Every book changed my life in some way, but well... Eiji Yoshikawa's "Musashi", due to the zen approach.

>> No.5969640

>>5969595
lol