What are you currently reading and is it any good?

[Anonymous No.13534388]

[Anonymous No.13534394]

Reading the RAPE of the Lock. I've found the first few cantos pretty boring and overly flowery, looking forward to the titular rape thought

[Anonymous No.13534421]

>>13534388
Catch-22. I'm a brainlet so I've just been reading classic American novels and this has been a highly enjoyable read thus far. I am about halfway through and it has given me plenty of sensible chuckles. Also the chapter where Yossarian meets Luciana might be one of my favorites of any book.

[Anonymous No.13534427]

Re-reading Stoner for the 5th time, still good.

[Anonymous No.13534434]

>>13534388

Parade's End. I'm enjoying it and I find the book itself doesn't get enough love but I love Tietjin and his autistic like behavior so far when it comes to the rules.

[Anonymous No.13534471]

>>13534388
I am currently reading this thread

[Anonymous No.13534583]

>>13534388
Gravity's Rainbow, just finished Part 2.
I'm following the story just fine, but I have no idea what I'm supposed to be getting out of it. It's very entertaining, but it hasn't "clicked" yet.

[Anonymous No.13534679]

King Jesus by Robert Graves
About halfway through. Very satisfying.

[Anonymous No.13534725]

Republic by Plato
It's interesting. I'm at his cave simile and wondering if I'm interpreting it wrong.

[Anonymous No.13534837]

>>13534725
What is your interpretation?
p.s. it's an allegory, not a simile

[Anonymous No.13535409]

I'm reading V. by Pynchon. I made it through Infinite Jest with the help of a dictionary app and the annotations on the wiki, but V. is making me doubt there's any point in me reading at all. I feel so lost after I finish a chapter and when I look up what the chapter was about, I usually get it but the point seems so obvious I don't even consider it. Like Mondaugen's story is about how bad colonialism is, wow, blows my mind, never would've guessed. I just figured it was about people pining for a time when they had more control (which in fairness, it is partially about that.) I seem to simultaneously understand things yet understand nothing at all, or be so dense I can't pluck out what I get.
So to put it shortly, I really dislike about half of what I've read, and found the other half enjoyable. I'm not going to drop this book, and yes I'm mad.

[Anonymous No.13535468]

>>13535409
>Like Mondaugen's story is about how bad colonialism is
Ackchyually it's about how the decadent culture of interwar Europe was a direct cause of fascism/Nazism but w/e

[Anonymous No.13535585]

>>13534388
Will Durant's Lessons from History. It's 10/10 and should be mandatory reading in every school in the anglo world.

[Anonymous No.13535618]

Walden, the it drags on in quite a few places but the good parts are really good. The bit with the Canadian lumberjack especially had an impact on me.

[Anonymous No.13535627]

>>13534394
>tfw it's about hair
Why live?

[Anonymous No.13535652]

>>13534421
hey me too, only about a quarter way through though
I think my favorite character so far is Major Major Major Major.

[Anonymous No.13535822]

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, by Ligotti

Enjoying it so far, but desu his prose is a bit boring.

[Anonymous No.13535828]

>>13535822
His prose there was shit, I only read it for the bibliography

[Anonymous No.13535890]

>>13535828
what work of him would you rec instead?

[Anonymous No.13535982]

>>13535409
I'm re-reading this after years, really enjoying it, but it's perhaps not as good as I remembered. Mondaugen section is top though, so I don't follow you. Colonialism is bad, but it also makes a game try to describe the crimes there as part of an individual guy's look on life/pleasure in general, especially when you take it that Foppl in his part-guy persona is basically locked off from his magical experience of murder and his attempt to score love from a slave he never even had a conversation with.

The thing that's letting me down is the Sick Crew stuff, which still has some okay jokes but is way to on the nose when it tries to be serious.

[Anonymous No.13536042]

>>13535822
Gas station carnivals were brilliant.

[Anonymous No.13536047]

Dual reading "On Killing" by Lt. Colonel Grossman and "Alone at Dawn" by Dan Shilling
first one is interesting as it goes over alot of the thought put into the more intimate side of war and combat and the second one is an account not only on medal of honor recipient john Chapman life but also the history of combat controllers
I think i should go back to reading standard literature since i still have some classics to get through

[Anonymous No.13536052]

As I Lay Dying by You Know Who

Eighty five pages in and Cash is still working on that coffin? This guy is one of the worst carpenters of all time Yes I understand the Catholic overtones etc.

[Anonymous No.13536059]

>>13534837
I'd like to see you simile.

[Anonymous No.13536063]

>>13536052
>is still working on that coffin?
Dead people aren't going anywhere, so what's the rush?

[Anonymous No.13536085]

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk

[Anonymous No.13536109]

The Gospel According to St. John.

[Anonymous No.13536111]

>>13535822
Many people have voiced similar complaints regarding his prose, but I really don't understand why. Can you point to anything in particular? And have you read any of his fiction before?

[Anonymous No.13537311]

Palomar by Calvino, i'm liking it so far, even though it's a book that you have to read multiple times to understand it imo, also it's pretty short so it's non a problem

[Anonymous No.13537334]

Wuthering Heights. It’s my second time reading it and it’s just as good as I remember it.

[Anonymous No.13537404]

i just finished the riverside villas murder. i liked it

[Anonymous No.13537411]

>>13534394
man you are in for some serious disappointment

[Anonymous No.13537421]

>>13534388
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
Parts with and about Noboru are very interesting.

[Anonymous No.13537527]

>The Wandering Earth
Good, interesting idea, somewhat cheap writing though. especially with the sun exploding just as the takers have frozen to death
>Mountain
Best one so far. The aliens in this one are fascinating.
>Sun of China
bad, drags on. Reads like chinese propaganda, very cheap.
>For the benefit of mankind
The idea of the last capitalist is pretty nice, but other than that it's very hacky.

As far as I've come.

[Anonymous No.13537531]

>>13537527
Is Chinese science-fiction interesting?

[Anonymous No.13537731]

Still plugging away at Gravity's Rainbow, about 500 pages in and I'm enjoying it more as I go along.

[Anonymous No.13537742]

> myth of sisyphos
My second time. I don't know if it's the translation or camus writing style. But it still seems incomprehensible in some parts, where as the ideas explained by dr sadler were so clear.

>Meditation by Marcus Aurelius
Can't say anything so far because I just started

[Anonymous No.13537804]

>>13534388
Beyond Good and Evil, I can understand the basics but I feel like a massive amount is going over my head

[Anonymous No.13539447]

>>13535982
I didn't think of it like that. I guess I just take things too much at face value.

[Anonymous No.13540269]

>>13534388
This thread. Pretty interesting so far.

[Anonymous No.13540361]

Three things I read and dropped in the past few days
Fear and Trembling: Autistic rambling with an irrelevant personal Biblical extrapalation. Everything this book tries to do is done better by the Scholastics and traditional theology.
Concept of the Political: Interesting at parts and mind-numbingly boring at others. Once again infected with that same sort of continent autism that compels a man to write a book on nothing but a single word.
The Sailor who Fell with Grace from the Sea: the first 25 pages is literally just softcore porn and the intro is pretty cringey with its melodrama. Mishima lived in another reality with no self awareness it seems.

[Anonymous No.13540503]

>>13534421
Me too! I was laughing out loud.
Major x4 is great yeah. Other Anon

[Anonymous No.13540546]

>>13537804
don't worry about the content. read what he's doing, pay attention to his expression.

[Anonymous No.13540548]

>Appassionata by Eva Hoffman
A novel I picked up literally at random from the library, about a traveling concert pianist who becomes entangled in the life of a Chechen dignitary/militant. It's pretty good so far, and I enjoy the way the author describes the classical pieces the pianist plays, the effects of sound and light and new cities, etc. The Chechen character is very critical of the West/Western politicians/artists/thinkers and overall high-culture liberal types. He's not necessarily the hero of the story, and his thoughts are seen as going too far, but also not entirely wrong, and the pianist doesn't necessarily have arguments against him either. I'm enjoying so far, but it's strange trying to figure out where the author herself stands on the character's thoughts and where the book might go. I have about 1/4 left.

[Anonymous No.13541269]

>>13537334
Failed to finish it, twice. "Jane Eyre" and "Tenant of Windfell Hall" are the Brontes sisters more to my taste.

>>13534388
Turn of the Screw. Pretty good Victorian ghost story so far.

[Anonymous No.13541432]

>East Of Eden
Very very very good. One of my favorites already. Steinbeck is just a beautiful writer
>Japanese Death Poems
I just started reading it a couple days ago, and I wasn't expecting such a reverent summary of the history of poetry in Japan their attitudes towards death. It's been really informative I'm glad I picked it up

[Anonymous No.13541442]

>>13534388
I'm currently reading Plant Myths by George Sorel, a nonfiction book about the origin, development, and conservation of plants. I love the chapters on the roots of life, how plant species grow over time, and the relationship between plants and plants and people. I love these chapters about animals and how we used them, and I was blown away when Sorel went through the process of writing plants and how they went through a "life cycle." Sorel writes about plants that are still around today because he believes we need to recognize and work with them, because they have some value in this world. That being said, I am an animal lover, and animal welfare is my whole life's passion. If anyone else in this world could have done this for me, that is my reason for writing this story.

[Anonymous No.13541459]

>>13536109
I am Catholic and that meme just reminds me I need to not discredit Baptist preachers just because they don't wear any form of religious garb so much of the time.

[Anonymous No.13541464]

>>13534388
I'm in the last 100 pages of The Savage Detectives. I like the author and the vignettes are nice, but I'm not entirely sure what the point of the book is other than that literary circles aren't as profound as they think they are and are full of high school type drama. The book is like "Jack and Diane" but with Mexican writers who may or may not actually write anything.

[Anonymous No.13541466]

>The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
Really enjoying it.

>The Boys from Brazil
Decent so far.

[Anonymous No.13541476]

Summertime by Vanessa Lafaye: Dislike it intensely so far

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro: Like it intensely so far

Carnal Knowledge by Daniel José Older: Like it intensely so far

Troubled by Tatsuya Takahashi: Like it intensely so far

The Way of the Wind by Yoko Taro: Like it intensely so far

I Am Not Your Negro by Eros Kanou: Like it intensely so far

Konosuba by Natsume Matsui: Like it intensely so far

All My Love for You: Like it intensely so far

[Anonymous No.13541482]

>>13541476
>All My Love for You: Like it intensely so far
I love you too, anon.

[Anonymous No.13541487]

Just stared reading Joyce for the first time. I started with A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It's a bit confusing and I'm having trouble with some parts, but from what I pick up I enjoy.

[Anonymous No.13541489]

>2666
Almost finished with the Part about the Crimes, which alone has taken me all week. The book is alive. Reminds me of reading Moby Dick and Blood Meridian in the best ways. Leagues better than the Savage Detectives, which is also wonderful. Anyone who enjoys literature owes it to themselves to read it.

[Anonymous No.13541534]

>>13541459
Start with Spurgeon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIB3MHd2EWo

[Anonymous No.13542056]

>>13537334
excellent novel

[Anonymous No.13542238]

I'm rereading the Castle by Kafka after two years. It was probably the book that sparked my interest in literature

[Anonymous No.13542323]

Anna Karenina. Just reached Chapter 5. Enjoying it so far.

[Anonymous No.13542406]

13 chapters into Moby Dick. So far so good. I like the camaraderie between Ishmael and Queequeg.

[Anonymous No.13542493]

I'm reading this four novella-volume by Thomas Mann. Tonio Kröger, Tristan, Death in Venice, and Mario and the Magician. I've found it incredibly enjoyable; Mann's both wordy and wrote the longest sentences, but it's well-structured and never gets boring. Just about to finish Tristan, which has been quite the strange ride compared to Kröger (which I loved), and it certainly lived up the cover's description of it as 'burlesque'.

Mann's might be some of the most enjoyable prose I've read, and I already have Buddenbrooks lined up.

[Anonymous No.13542505]

I've been reading a Reader's Digest collection of Detective Fiction

It's fairly decent, a lot of nice authors and some good stories in there. Perhaps a bit too much of one genre for the moment though, I may put it down for a month or two.

[Anonymous No.13542507]

The Plague
about 150 pages in. It's amazing, can't out it down. Might like it better than the outsider so far

[Anonymous No.13542535]

>>13542507
>Might like it better than the outsider so far
I thought this too. The Plague is its polar opposite in a sense; rather than feature a man completely detached from society, it's about a cast of very human, very involved people. Rieux and Tarrou's friendship is nothing short of fantastic.

[Anonymous No.13543147]

>>13534388
The origin of conciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind. It's been interesting so far.

[Anonymous No.13543531]

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Nice prose in contrast with Wanderers by Chuck Wendig which was what I was reading before.

[MCVB No.13544165]

Currently reading Crime and Punishment
It's a good read, I will probably read his other works after I finish reading Crime and Punishment, not sure about the order though.

[Anonymous No.13544316]

The Stand because im a brainlet who is addicted to entertainment in all mediums

[Anonymous No.13544328]

I never read anything and my father, among others, makes fun of me because of it. I have only ever loved vidya and my attention span is weak. I want to create my own fantasy world but people say I have to read more than I write. Why reading from ordinary books is better than reading from the internet? I don't get it.

[Anonymous No.13544337]

The Midlander by Booth Tarkington

yes

[Anonymous No.13544533]

>>13544165
Read The Brothers Karamazov last

[Anonymous No.13544547]

>>13534388
>pic related
It's good, I have only 200 pages left but the current chapter is somewhat boring

[Anonymous No.13544554]

>>13544547

[Anonymous No.13544588]

I am halfway through Gaddis’ Recognitions.

I’ve already A Frolic of His Own so Gaddis’ prose and dialogue is no surprise to me. Frolic was much more focused on its points and variety of literature it pulled from, I can see how as his first novel (and a beast at that) he would be more spread out about his topics. Obviously just reading and not trying to match all Latin, but I find it a very effective novel - God, Art, Consciousness, form, love the Esme chapters, Otto is fun and the late of form and presence in Wyatt scenes is beautiful to read.

And I think I read the bull fucking scene correctly..

Picked up J.R. For a $1 as well, though will space out my reading after I get through Recognitions.

[Anonymous No.13544627]

All Tomorrow' Parties by Gibson
Just started, liking it so far. The bridge trilogy doesn't stand up to the sprawl one but it's still good. Also reading his writing after a burroughs novel and the influence is very obvious

[Anonymous No.13544638]

>>13542493
I always wonder why Mann isn't more popular among readers of literary fiction in the 21st century. His crystal clear, almost never self-indulgent, prose combined with that ironical and melancholy laid back bourgeois-m seems to be quite in vogue with the world right now. Perhaps we just need the next generator of readers to grow up, if they even exist. The burlesque qualities of his stories are always amusing but what's even better is that they're imbued with a great, almost Moby-Dick level sense of tragedy at times, especially Tonio Kroeger

[Anonymous No.13544655]

>The Song of Hiawatha
Turns out Americans can actually write, they'd just rather promote trash like Whitman instead of the good stuff.
I'd recommend Longfellow's epic poem using a Native American setting, absolutely.

[Anonymous No.13544669]

Foundation and Earth, its awful but within the Foundation universe so tolerable.
I'm glad I can put this in context regarding the stage of Asimovs life he wrote these books, you can tell hes an old man trying to recall memories/ideas from 30 years earlier and is just shitting them onto paper as quickly as possible before death.

[Anonymous No.13544674]

The Sublime *sniff* Object of Ideology. I wanted to give Z's actual philosophical corpus a try. All the Lacanian mumbojumbo really detracts from it and makes me go cross eyed. But I find his analysis of ideology as this pervasive, perception-bending and thought-constraining superstructural field compelling.

[Anonymous No.13544676]

I just finished Laziness in the Fertile Valley, which was top notch, so I jumped right into Proud Beggars. Love it.

I love anything that deals with laziness, leisure, sloth, self-indulgence. I want more stories about the adventures of flaneurs, slackers, layabouts, and idlers.

[Anonymous No.13544714]

>>13537421
Did you buy it off bookdepository by chance?

[Anonymous No.13544750]

1-3 rubicon
4-6 ivan
7-9 beowulf
0 fap and sleep

[Anonymous No.13544817]

Moby-Dick. It's good.

>>13544638
>Mann
>Not self-indulgent
Did we read the same author? (I've only read The Magic Mountain)

>>13544655
Edgar Allen Poe publicly accused Longfellow of plagiarism/unoriginality as a way to build his own reputation. Later, after Longfellow was dead, the Modernists used this to turn Longfellow into a symbol of everything bad and kitschy, as opposed to everything good and cool (written by them).

I personally think Evangeline > Hiawatha -- the trochaic meter Longfellow uses in the latter is kind of exhausting to read at that length.

[Anonymous No.13544890]

>>13542238
I’ve read it twice myself. I feel like I have to go back to it every few years once I’ve forgotten all the little details so I can fully enjoy it again.

[Anonymous No.13544892]

pic related
I usually really like history, but this guy is just boring, and his writing is bad and self-indulgent.
Still, I keep going purely for the subject (which seems well enough researched).

[Anonymous No.13544976]

Started reading Suttree yesterday and I think it's quite good. I love McCarthy's dialogues. They're so raw and genuine. They remind me of the dialogue of a video game series called Gothic, in a way. Kind of weird but they both have this coarse, crude realness to themselves.
Anyway, Suttree's pretty good so far and reading out in the sun yesterday has been a total pleasure, no better way to spend an afternoon.

[Anonymous No.13544995]

Oliver Twist, I like it, Dickens pretty funny dude IMO.

[Anonymous No.13545000]

>>13544817
Even if Longfellow is "unoriginal" when it comes to form, it's still actually good poetry, connecting to the thousands of years old blood flow of literature instead of the regressive free verse idiocy.
Pure slander.

[Anonymous No.13545070]

The China model - political meritocracy and the limits of democracy by David Bell
I did not know it was possible to attack liberal/capitalist democracy from a perspective this cucked, especially while living in china. Some interesting insights into east asian practice of politics and an idea worth considering no matter what your political beliefs, but stating mugabe as good military, but inferior political leader, fellating the obama administration and completely avoiding ethnic issues with regards to applicability of a certain political model is just absurd in my opinion. Perhaps it gets better later on.

[Anonymous No.13545566]

Swift's Gullivers travels. It's really great

[Anonymous No.13545641]

>>13544669
One draft, minimal editing is Asimov's whole deal. You don't end up an author in 9 out of 10 categories of all human knowledge by rewriting a bunch.

[Anonymous No.13545777]

Confederacy of Dunces, i love it

[Anonymous No.13546236]

Brave New World. Yes

[Anonymous No.13546278]

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. I’m really into it so far. Greene has a great “voice”.

[Anonymous No.13546292]

The Red and The Black. Very entertaining book, I'm at the seminary chapters where Julien sees Ms. Renal again. This is my first Stendhal and the narrator treatment of the characters reminds me of The Magic Mountain. Would recommend to everyone.

The Book of Disquiet. Probably the most melancholic book I've ever read. Would recommend only to certain kind of people.

[Anonymous No.13546941]

>>13534388
Dis. I heard it was kind of boring but I actually really like it. I'm happy I'm getting out of my two-year-long reading/depressive slump.

[Anonymous No.13546952]

>>13534388
Martian time-slip.
Slow, but interesting.

[Anonymous No.13546961]

Currently:

Witelo - Perspectiva (Bk.I + V)
Milton Friedman - Capitalism and Freedom
Nicole Oresme - Tractatus de configurationibus qualitatum et motuum
Adam Smith - The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Aristotle - Prior Analytics

After:

Roger Bacon - Opus Majus
Clive Granger and M Hatanaka - Spectral Analysis of Economic Time Series
Nicole Oresme - On Seeing The Stars
Jeremy Bentham - In Defence of Usury
Aristotle - Posterior Analytics

[Anonymous No.13546963]

just finished submission by houellebecq, terrifying book, especially considering the circumstances around it

[Anonymous No.13546976]

>>13534388
Imajica, yes.

[Anonymous No.13546992]

Rowbothan - The Earth Is Not A Globe. Best book on the flat earth

[Anonymous No.13547107]

>>13534421
I'm >>13535652 and I just read the Luciana chapter and you're right, it is very good. Reminds me of when Bloom met Gerty in Ulysses, you'd probably like that chapter as well.

[Anonymous No.13547147]

Metaphysic of War- Julius Evola
Seems interesting so far, I fear some of its going over my head. Being raised in and following an Eastern Religion and familiar with the traditionalist school through my father I thought I wouldn’t need to read Guenon beforehand. Starting to doubt that

[Anonymous No.13547381]

>>13545000
Yeah agree on all counts. I'm mad about it because his bad reputation is pretty much entirely reliant on academic-critical fart-huffing rather than even modern readers finding him boring like with e.g. Dickens or Hawthorne.

[Anonymous No.13547492]

>>13534388
Oxford History of Ancient Egypt

[Anonymous No.13547519]

>>13534583
Is it as dense as I think it is?

[Anonymous No.13547537]

>>13536052
Finished it a a few weeks ago. Cash takes great pride in making a nice coffin.
My mother is a fish.

[Anonymous No.13547544]

>>13536063
She's dead for about two weeks before they put her in the ground. Must have smelled terrible. Also, the vultures looming throughout the second half of the book? Must have been ominous.

[Anonymous No.13547558]

Steppenwolf. It's cool. The book for madmen was good although a little confusing at times. Excited to see where it goes!

[Anonymous No.13547585]

>>13547558
Is it about werewolves?

[Anonymous No.13547595]

>>13547585
In a way. More of a man who feels like a wolf, but yeah.

[Anonymous No.13547659]

>>13536063
>t. Anse

[Anonymous No.13547669]

>>13534388
>What are you currently reading
the bible
>and is it any good?
the best

[Anonymous No.13547678]

>>13542406
I'm around 50 chapters in. I also found myself really enjoying their fast friendship. I don't know why I put off reading this book for so long, it really is fantastic.

[Anonymous No.13547697]

>>13546292
>The Book of Disquiet
which edition? I've been looking into reading it for some time but the amount of differences between the editions has me worried I'll choose wrong and not enjoy it.

[Anonymous No.13547837]

>>13544892
Any other good history reccs?

[Anonymous No.13547845]

Nothing to Envy

About defectors from DPKR. Garbage book. Super exaggerated an really poorly edited. Author repeats phrases verbatim from earlier in the book or even on the same page in some circumstances. It's like chunks were all written at different times and then hastily cobbled together. Pretty much done so need to just push through and finish.

[Anonymous No.13547934]

>>13534725
based nigger
he's holding that book fast even though it's burning his hand

[Anonymous No.13547993]

The Three Musketeers
It’s sort of silly at times and it’s clear it was published in the newspaper. Not to say the chapter breaks are jarring but the cliffhanger endings get to you. I actually like it though.

[Anonymous No.13548040]

don quixote

150 pages in and I like it so far, even laughed a few times. I want the story to go somewhere because right now it's a cycle of don and sancho finding adventure and getting beaten up.

[Anonymous No.13548159]

>>13548040
The second(or third?) part is way more reflexive if that's what you're waiting for. Obssesing over what is real was a common topic in spanish golden age literature

[Anonymous No.13548503]

>>13537531
YES! Cixin Liu's remeberance of earth past trilogy great. His standalone novels like the one mentionned cant keep up in scope. I liked ball lightning tho.

[Anonymous No.13548551]

>>13534725
the fact that he's posting this to a milwaukee facebook group makes it all the more funnier

[Anonymous No.13549521]

>>13544890
Exactly, now that i'm rereading it it almost seems another book other than the general plot that i remember