/lit/ - Literature

Why are you asking /lit/? It's not like we read or anything.

That misplaced Dreiser triggers me

>>19110341
It gets worse Faulkner…Fitzgerald…Franklin…Faulkner

Absolutely disgusting

Hemingway, McCarthy, Kerouac, Steinbeck, Dickinson, Pinecone

>>19110743
Why
> Kerouac, Dickinson, Pinecone
?

most of them are worth reading, but Dick is not one of them. his inclusion is proof of the falling standards at LoA.

>>19110801
There are several volumes of Susan Sontag, plus explicit race baiting volumes, and that isn't even just a recent decay. Dick isn't representative of the decline.
They wanted to throw a bone to science fiction with how much it got ingrained in US culture and he's the only one decent enough to not look completely out of place.

Carson McCullers

>>19110813
Genre fiction picks are representative of the same decline as the affirmative action picks. They're pandering to modern tastes now. If they had to publish some science fiction they should have just stopped at the "5 random scifi novels of the 1950s by different authors" or whatever that was because the point would be to represent a popular and historically significant genre, not an individual writer, much like their recent Western collection. By publishing volumes by individual genre writers they are saying they are valuable enough to stand beside Melville and Faulkner which is simply embarrassing.

>>19110313
Flannery O’Connor is worth reading

>>19110847
Kek

>>19110847
The US are a comparatively young country and not particularly prone to literature. There are perhaps five authors of world canon relevance from there. That wasn't the aim of the collection.

All American writers are simply proto DFW, not worth reading.

>>19110743
OP wants to buy LOA. Rights for McCarthy's books are owned by Everychad's library which is infinitely superior and Hemingway's family is a complete bitch about licensing his works.

>>19110869
The purpose is to "champion our nation’s cultural heritage by publishing America’s greatest writing in authoritative new editions." Genre fiction is part of the cultural heritage of the U.S. but it is most certainly not its greatest writing. So an omnibus or two is all the genre fiction that truly belongs in the series. Three volumes of Dick is just as bad as 5 volumes of Le Guin.

>>19110886
I think the rights to McCarthy’s books are spread all over the place; Vintage International is able to publish paperbacks of all his works, Everyman’s has only published The Border Trilogy and Modern Library published Suttree and Blood Meridian awhile back

To clarify: I've taken OP's pic at the library, so I have no plans of buying either of them. I just want to know which one of the authors do you guys think are worth checking out. I have mostly read British authors, rather than American ones. The only notable American authors that I have read are Lovecraft, Poe and Fitzgerald.
Here's what I like about each:
Lovecraft: his philosophy of cosmic indifferentism, as well as the descriptions which if read properly are great at inducing fear (allowing exploration, especially in dreams).
Poe: my favorite author due to the stories involving Dupin, as they were mentally engaging and allowed the reader to try to solve the mystery along with the detective (thanks to him I can't read Christie or Doyle anymore).
Fitzgerald: I've only read The Beautiful and Damned due to a shitty recommendation from here as the theme was completely of no interest to me (was looking for a book similiar to American Psycho), but in spite of it it proved a nice read due to its structure & style.

I enjoy mental engagement, so I mostly read nonfiction. I enjoy fiction the most when it isn't trite (thus allowing you to learn something from finishing it) and when the characters don't play a big role (in Lovecraft it's the descriptions that matter, whereas in Poe Dupin is merely a narrator who serves the purpose of giving you hints to help you solve the mystery on your own).

Thanks

>>19110313
Henry James
Agee
Hawthorne
Henry James
Frost
Porter
Roth
Henry James
Gertrude Stein
Wharton
Whitman
Henry James

>>19110980
Could you justify them? With the exception of Henry James of course, since he has already been justified beyond reason

>>19110313
>Faulkner
yuck

>>19110313
I'd add Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian is a great book and actually specifically American

>>19110313
I love Library of America so much bros

>>19110313
Pic rel.
Also, I found a great book by typing in google "life changing books" at position 6.
>'How to Be an Antiracist' by Ibram X. Kendi
>Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist is a masterclass on the conversations America isn't having about racism, teaching us how to confront our nation's dark history and what the path towards true equality looks like.

>>19111201
Try and imagine the thought processes of a woman reading that

>>19110788
Kerouac is normie, but OP reads Fitzgerald anyway.
Dickinson is based.
Pynchon is basically /lit/-tier required meme.

>>19110980
>including Roth instead of Bellow

>>19111627
I've read Fitzgerald because I got memed into him. Besides, 'normie' and 'based', mean very little in this context. It's just as saying it's bad/good. Why is it bad/good? Becaues it's bad/good

Bump

>>19110833
best female Faulkner.

>>19111728
Kerouac writes about a version of the "American Dream", hence the similarity with Fitzgerald. Normie love that shit.
Dickinson basically reinvented English through poetry. Themes are death, eternity and the likes.

>>19110313
>Philip Roth
Why's his cover different?

>>19110313
>Dick
meme

>>19110886
Everychad Blood Meridian please.

>>19110313
>schizoid speedfreak has several volumes alongside literary giants like faulkner
pretty based if you ask me

>>19113557
That's a library retard

>>19110313
James is not worth reading.

CotC

Off topic but does anyone know why the BM thread was deleted? I have noticed this happen half a dozen times now in 6 months.

>>19113640
Imbecile

>>19113794
Faggot

>>19110788
Pynchon wrote the book on 4channel

>>19112723
shes better than faulkner.

bump

>>19110313
Poe, you moron

>>19113631
I'm talking about Dick