/lit/ - Literature

>>1521638

> Berne's Games people play.

I strongly second this as well.

I happen to have a few relevant things out from the library right now.

Clay Shirky's "Here Comes Everybody" and Jaron Lanier's "You Are Not A Gadget" are very complementary takes on new media/technology and society. The latter is what I think is a much-needed dissenting voice and the more interesting overall, but Clay's book is great too.

Also, Blueprint for Action (Thomas Barnett), based on a recommendation from /new/ of all places. It's about military grand strategy and globalization.

> tripless namefags will never get ranked
> feels-good-man.pdf

IIRC, "peaked" actually means it has a visor/bill, not a peak on the crown. It's generally accepted that the "Elmer" hat is what is meant.

> she thinks that one can attain objective knowledge from perception

I've found that reading at the library (in a chair, mind) is best. At home it's too easy to distract yourself. At the library there are distractions, but you can tune them out.

>>1455676

> I lash out at what I don't understand. Fire and sharp sticks terrify me.

You're absolutely right, Anon. I'm also a corpulent drug addict and welfare queen with deplorable hygiene and have also turned to a life of petty crime. Everything they say will happen if you drop out of school is absolutely true.

I'm a high-school drop-out. Everything I've learned I've learned from the School of Life from Professor Fistfights and his TA, Bleeding Nipples.

If you liked those you might like these:

- The True Believer, Eric Hoffer
- Games People Play, Eric Berne
- The Theory of The Liesure Class, Thorstein Veblen
- The Hero with A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell

> Damn BPG, all those books are from like a long time ago!
> I know, rite?

Writer's Market or the smaller Novel and Short Story Writer's Market. Both are published in annual editions. Your library may very well have a copy. If you're devious, each copy also has a code for a free year of access to the Writer's Market website.

At the opposite end of the spectrum you have plain text files organized by putting them all in one folder and naming them as best you can. Not powerful, but damned useful. You can, for instance, use a programming editor like Notepad++ on Windows to keep files open in tabs and with saved sessions, or the very cool Notational Velocity on the Mac, which...well, just go look. For bonus points, put this folder in Dropbox, so it's always backed up. Unlike paper, don't mercilessly delete, but do split, merge, and revise these files freely, but avoid "organizing" them for the sake of organizing them.

On a Mac, I strongly recommend OmniOutliner Professional as something a step above plain text without being too dubiously "powerful", with the caveat that if you ever get stuck on Windows again you'll miss it.

The cheapest spiral notebooks you can find and the cheapest acceptable pens. Number the pages when you start a notebook. Date the pages when you start writing on one. Mercilessly tear out dead or useless pages.

As a computer nerd since wee times, I feel qualified to say that software, in general, sucks. Software for writing, idea organizing, brainstorming, etc. sucks even more, on average. Anything that calls itself "powerful" is suspect. Look at Tinderbox for something incredibly powerful but utterly useless to the 99% of humankind that doesn't think in its terms. Wikis likewise fail for personal use.

...

These should be posted during a "rate my novel idea" thread, just for a reality check.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union is great, though some might find it off-puttingly Jewy. Without knowing anything about specifically what you liked about it I don't know what else to suggest, but according to my notes I read Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norell (Susanna Clarke) and A Single Man (Christopher Isherwood) around the same time, both excellent books.

If you're interested in writing I'd also recommend going back through K&C to sort of dissect the structure--sort of trace each thread going through the book, where it starts, where it ends, etc. It's very instructive, and the book is so wrought that it's not really difficult to break it down.

The one I had on mushrooms after I read The Hero With A Thousand Faces.

> reading
You Are Not A Gadget, by Jaron Lanier

> read
The Essential Marcus Aurelius

> nearest
Working And Thinking on The Waterfront 1958-1959, Eric Hoffer

I've just realized that every flat surface in this room has at least two books on it.

This doesn't stimulate my indignation glands if it means that it can and will be taught at an earlier level. It is stupid that this is necessary to do so, but there's no other reason than this language that the book is presently taught at high school sophomore/junior level.

Pulps, by definition and much genre fiction, by extension. Most short stories written when magazines published a lot of fiction. Many novels that were originally published in serial form might qualify.

The way publishing works these days you see plenty of genre fiction authors putting out a book a year, but many of them publish under different names in different genres. So, there are tons of books being written in weeks, they're just not books that you've heard of and probably not books you'd want to read. And anytime there's a boom or golden age for a genre you get a lot of hastily-written material from which gems might emerge: sci-fi in the 50s and 60s, horror in the 80s, YA supernatural fantasy (i.e. post-Twilight coal for the tweenage heart-furnace) today...ok maybe there won't be gems from that, but hastily written, sure.

I think of August Derleth claiming he cranked out a million words a year, which is very plausible given how much recycling was involved. Some of his stories are nice and probably written in very short order, but using the same material he'd developed over a much longer time.

Once I moved somewhere with a good library system I mostly stopped buying. My local branch also has a book shop that sells off donations and withdrawn stuff, and I always end up getting more than I can carry for $5 or $10. What's even better is that much of which is library-bound and in excellent condition because few people ever checked it out.

I probably wouldn't have read it on the basis of it being "gay literature", so I'm glad I didn't know. A great quick read.

It's a picaresque, which means basically that it's episodic. I can see how someone would call it repetitive.

I don't think it's the translation so much as the gap between the original audience and a modern audience.

I suspect it was more vivid back when readers (or listeners) were not saturated with simulated imagery from television and film, nor as accustomed to modern forms of literature. An ancient Greek reader would probably be equally bored by a novel.

What's worked for me is to imagine retelling the story to a modern audience as you read, as though you've got a patient but easily distracted student listening as you read aloud, able to comprehend the original but eager for your more emphatic and cinematic revision. It's slow going but it gets you closer to the original sense of the story as entertainment. It's supposed to be fun.

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

This book is a trade paperback...but it's printed on waterproof synthetic paper that feels silky and weighs twice as much so it has a good heft. I wish more were like it, except when I'm moving.