/lit/ - Literature

book recommendations for someone who's:
>35yo
>zero accomplishments
>no ambitions
>no plans
>no goals
>no valuable skills
>can't focus

how do you cope with the fact that you will forget the vast majority of what you read and whatever sticks in your mind will be most likely a distorted version of the original text?

Holy shit its real

>>21991615
I'll just wing it and try to give you an unorganized study list:
Cultural Roots (no particular order):
>Confucius Analects
>Lao Zi
>Zhuang Zi (just the inner chapters is fine)
>Sun Zi Art of War
>maybe understand a bit of Yi Jing (which is primarily a method for divination but it comes up a lot).
>Heart Sutra (Mahayana Buddhism comes up a lot).
I don't have a good primary source for Chinese history but you will want to have some basic idea of what happened between Zhou (most important 'ancient' dynasty) and whatever period you're reading in (for example if you start Three Kingdoms you might want to be somewhat familiar with Records of the Grand Historian because its referenced a lot in the book when they talk about the past).
Big 4 literary classics:
>Romance of the Three Kingdoms
>Journey to the West
>Water Margin / Outlaws in the Marsh
>Red Chamber Dream
Red Chamber Dream is by far the hardest so I'd save that for last, the first three are in no particular order.

You'd have a pretty good understanding of the ancient Chinese cultural systems after all that, plus you'd have had the privilege of reading some great literary classics. Good luck on your journey anon.

Question for the thread. I'm thinking of getting an e-reader since I've probably spent more than the cost of the e-reader on books in the past year or two. There was a thread a few weeks ago where the OP asked for recommendations for a good e-reader, and the first post told him to spend $500 on a pdf reader e-ink instead. Does anyone want to weigh in on that topic here? I figure if I'm mostly going to be using it to read books anyways, is the extra $300 or so going to be worth it to me?

>>19454304
>Disarming the populace actually increases freedom! Why doesn't anyone understand!
You're wrong, your perspective is dumb, and reading books written by other morons about your dumb opinion will only make you dumber. This website is doing you a favor by giving you shit.

I still live at home, my parents want me to go to their Church meetings but I absolutely dread them. Stayed home today and am now looking for something to do. I'm so God damned lonely

It sounds vain but I'm really fucking anxious about my hairline receding. Now it looks like I'm going to be irrevocably male for the rest of my life. I don't mind it, but don't like being forced into a role like that against my will. Oh well

I keep hearing Christianity stole from the Pagans, is this accurate or a larp? Any book recommendations for this?