Reading Goals / 52 Book

[Anonymous No.17328626]

This year I'm reading 52 books in 52 weeks.
So far I've read:
>Augustine's Confessions
>Jane Austen's Emma
>Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

Currently Reading:
>Crime and Punishment

What are you guys reading? What are your goals?

[Anonymous No.17328660]

>>17328626
12

[Anonymous No.17328671]

>>17328626
Read fewer books and spend more time with them, you will probably get more out of it.

[Anonymous No.17328704]

>>17328671
Cope
I spend around 6 hours reading a day because I have no life, no friends, and don't do my school work.

[Anonymous No.17328708]

>>17328626
Good job anon!
I want to get into American lit. I started with Infinite Jest two days ago. After that, I am planning to read Gravity's Rainbow

[Anonymous No.17328713]

>>17328704
>Cope

Just trying to give you some advice. Nevermind. You do you anon.

[Anonymous No.17328717]

>>17328713
Sorry I was so mean, I shouldn't have been. :(

[Anonymous No.17328786]

>>17328626
30 books for the year. Read 12 last year but found my attention span expanding and being able to focus longer since delving into more literature.
Have already read:
> Illiad
> Odyssey
> Siddhartha (very short)

Currently Reading:
> The Brothers Karamazov
This is my intro to Dostoyevsky. So far I'm about 200 pages in and enjoying it very much.

[Anonymous No.17328804]

>>17328626
You won't retain shit that way

[Anonymous No.17328806]

>>17328717
Does this mean you're going through 52 life lessons this year?

[Anonymous No.17328813]

>>17328804
T. Memorylet and readlet

[Anonymous No.17328835]

>>17328626
Whats your opinion on great expectations?

[Anonymous No.17328980]

>>17328806
I guess so

[Anonymous No.17328983]

>>17328813
You have an inflated ego

You're mediocre at best

[Anonymous No.17328992]

>>17328835
I loved it! Dickens strength is his imagery and prose style. The story is very funny, and the characters are wonderful to get to know. Dickens explores the divide work and home life, rich and poor, and the trauma of growing up. Pip never changes, really, because he is telling the story as a retrospective, but you come to understand his guilt, guilt being, in my opinion, the central theme.

[Anonymous No.17328994]

>>17328626
I just finished The Time Machine and I'm now reading The Sun Also Rises, my goal is to consooooooooooom

[Anonymous No.17329029]

On book 11 of 52. C&P is tremendous.

[Anonymous No.17329133]

>>17328626
How far are you into c&p?

[Anonymous No.17329168]

So far I’ve read 16 books and 3,823 pages beginning January first to know, is that any good? That amounts to 201 pages a day and I am not speed reading but rather going at a slow comfortable pace, taking breaks to google and research the various topics of each book every few pages.

[Anonymous No.17329169]

>>17328983
El Projecto

[Anonymous No.17329175]

>>17329133
190 pages, started 2 days ago, I've been reading it non-stop cuz its so good.

[Anonymous No.17329314]

>>17329175
Wow that's really impressive

[Anonymous No.17329332]

>>17328626
>Speedreading

[Anonymous No.17329340]

>>17329175
>started 2 days ago

Nobody cares how fast you read faggot

[Anonymous No.17329353]

You retards who care about stats like trying to achieve reading x amount of book in 1 year ruin the approach to literature honestly

[Anonymous No.17329430]

>>17328786
That's a lot of heavy books in a short amount of time, are you sure that you really appreciate what you read and understand it?

[Anonymous No.17329437]

>>17328626
Ur gonna miss a lot forcing C&P into one week. It would take min 2 to really understand this, and thats for an astute reader

[Anonymous No.17329447]

>>17328786
Please STOP read TBK! That is basically the finale of Dostoyevsky and the worst place to start, you will get so much more out of it if you read C&P, Idiot, NFU, and Demons first

[Anonymous No.17329491]

>>17328626
Had the same goal for the past two years. It's a nice way to get motivated when you're busy and/or lazy.

>What are you guys reading?
Currently, Cynthia Fleury's essay "Here lies bitterness : Curing oneself from resent", which was a Christmas gift from my uncle (essay is in French, came out recently so not translated yet). Better than expected, and on point, since I'm still not over some past failures and I clearly need help on that.

Next I'm going through the major Athenian playwrights from Sophocles on (already read Aeschylus earlier this month).

> What are your goals?
Same as yours, but since I successfully completed my goal last year I'm amping it up a bit and aiming for 60 overall.

Btw you've got a very niche start. Keep going, even if only 10% of the book you read are worth it you'll have gotten better reading memories in a year than most people do in 10.

[Anonymous No.17329497]

>>17328626
Howd you like the Confessions? I enjoyed the autobiographical chapters for how relatable it was at times but ended up just skimming all the theological stuff at the end

>>17329437
Completely disagree, it should be binged and for full effect you should probably starve yourself a little so you get into the mindset of the protagonist.

>>17329447
Bullshit

>>17328786
who the fuck reads the Iliad and Odyssey in two and a half weeks though, thats just deranged

[Anonymous No.17329505]

>>17329332
A 400 pages book in a week is less than 60 pages a day, or two hours of daily reading unless you're very slow (a moderately fast to very fast reader can do it in less than 90 minutes). It's entirely manageable even with a day job.
Some book will be 1000 pages but others will be 200, so 400 seems like a good average.

[Anonymous No.17329511]

>>17329491
*very nice start
Oops

[Anonymous No.17329531]

>>17329497
I enjoyed the autobiographical stuff, and loved the theological stuff. I think that it adds a lot of character to the work, because the theology isn't just tacked on at the end but you can relate it to parts of his life.

>who the fuck reads the Iliad and Odyssey in two and a half weeks though, thats just deranged

To be fair, they were originally performed in just a couple nights.

[Anonymous No.17329563]

>>17329505
The whole problem is exactly viewing literature through a mathematical lense. "How many pages can i cram into a day to read a lot over time".

In the long run you're going to regret that method. Some works deserves to be mulled over for a time before filling your head with the next piece of dense classic literature.

If you read YA shit then sure, just blast through it, but if you read good literature you don't just blast through it. If you think you read something like Moby Dick in a week and think you understand it, trust me, you dont.

[Anonymous No.17329589]

>>17329563
Well, I will still remember what I read after, I'm a pretty slow reader myself I just read for a very long time. I can mull over it after.

[Anonymous No.17329624]

>>17329589
How can you mull it over if you already leaped unto some other great piece of literature?

Do you think you will retain important details after reading another book?

[Anonymous No.17329625]

>>17329624
yes

[Anonymous No.17329646]

>>17329625
You won't

[Anonymous No.17329651]

>>17329646
yeah-huh

[Anonymous No.17329665]

>>17329563
Absolutely true, but remember it's a yearly average, not "I must have read this 2000 pages behemoth by sunday or I'll neck myself".

If nothing else it's an incentive to pick a new book in the few days after you finish one, so that you don't end up spending all your time on 4chan after one good month (which can happen pretty fast). It'll also lead you to balance heavy book with lighter one, which is a nice diet and make for better transitions from a big book to another. A writer like Colette, or Saki, for instance, makes for an excellence light read while still being enjoyable and of high quality.
This will also make you realize how much time to read you have if you actually take the step to commit that time.
Sure, when I was a teenager I needed no incentive for reading and I could amble freely in any library. When you're employed it starts getting harder, any hour set aside for reading is a small victory.

Also by doing this you'll also realize how many great book you can actually read in a few days. You can read the complete surviving works of Aeschylus in a week by reading one hour a weekday (and two hours on each weekend day), 30 pages an hour.
I've read them very closely, even drawing mental division in the text to better appreciate its economy, and reflecting on Aeschylus' frequent use of signs, so that I was reading much slower than usual, and it probably took me no longer than 35 hours. For a first read you don't need that, and 12 hours will be largely enough.

[Anonymous No.17329677]

>>17329646
Taking time to notice patterns and coining an expression or short sentence to describe them goes a long way, anon, and it doesn't slow you down by that much.

[Anonymous No.17329713]

NEET POWER

[Anonymous No.17329715]

Honestly I love all you 4chan bros because you all have the trait of wanting to understand everything. But maybe distance yourself from understanding since it isn't a very discriminatory trait, for example what should you understand and what shouldn't you understand. My piecemeal advice would be understand things that help you and your identity. So instead of reading to understand other people you read to better yourself.
4chan used to be about bettering yourself. People read infinite Jest and Pynchon but now the goal of /lit/ is lost because people don't have goals anymore and every goal has an end, whereas now people think reading is endless and goalless which just isn't true. Please think about what you want your identity to be and read to make your identity better.

[Anonymous No.17329716]

>>17329665
I agree on a lot of what you're saying

But i think it's better to think in terms of setting aside time to read more than setting a page goal or x amount of books in a year. An hour of reading Moby Dick will not be the same as an hour of reading a light, easily approachable novel.

Besides, I think there are more to Aeschylus than you give credit.

[Anonymous No.17329747]

>>17328626
My goal is to do 60 for the year and so far I've finished
>A Tramp Abroad
>All the Pretty Horses
>The Story of Philosophy
>The Oxford Anthology of English Poetry: Spenser to Crabbe
Currently reading:
>The Good Soldier Svejk

[Anonymous No.17329777]

>>17329715
Based

[Anonymous No.17329778]

>>17328626
52 books too, I'll probably do it, since I've read 6 books so far. They were:
>Rabelais - Complete Works
began in December, The five books of Gargantua and Pantagruel are amongst the kinoest things I've read, the rest (mostly letters) is between boring for the average reader and charming
>Flaubert - Three tales
Once again Flaubert's genius is very much apparent is these tales. His mastery of the language is both very obvious and yet absolutely discreet, unless he wants you to notice it. The tales themselves cover his whole range, from the bland realism to the near fantastic. Would recommend.
>Bataille - Blue of the noon
Very disappointed by this. The writing is very heavy-handed (Bataille recognised it himself and did not want to publish it at first), reads like a bad existentialist novel. The opening scene is sadly the best thing in it. Overall still pleasing to read and quite short. Some anons reassured me that his other works were better.
>Bobin - Prisonnier au berceau
Beautiful. It's more akin to a poetical autobiography than to a novel, it's pretty unclassifiable. Christian Bobin lives and always lived in Le Creuzot, a very shitty ancient industrial town in the middle of nowhere. This book focuses on how he found beauty in this life, the title "prisoner at birth" seems very pessimistic but it is because Bobin finds beauty and love despite all the shitty things. He has a very childish sense of wonder and a very personal conception of Christianity. He talks about the exploration of Le Creuzot, Dickinson, his childhood, his crazy grandma, his faith, the workers, etc. I recommend it! I don't think it was translated into English but it's short and easy to read if you can speak a little French.
>Gracq - La Littérature à l'estomac
A short lampoon about the state of literature in post-war France. Delightful style as always with Gracq, but a mean one for once. He btfos Sartre and the other public intellectuals, the empty political literature, the readers and critics who have opinions but no tastes of their own, the inanity of literary discussions, the literary prizes who are nothing but machine to make the news... And he still has time to talk about his love for literature, what it should be, Jünger, Breton, all in a very sensitive and poetical manner. Coherently, Gracq refused the prix Goncourt who was awarded to him next year for The Opposing shore.

1/2

[Anonymous No.17329847]

>Barbey d'Aurevilly - Les Diaboliques
Six decadent short stories very much centred around the twilight of nobility in 19th century France . At first I was kind of disappointed because it seemed pretty dull, but then it hit me: his style his perfect. He captures the spirit of the French discussion and badinage perfectly. In a sense he is the anti-Borges, his short-stories are quite long and always have time for what seems to be inessential. They are always constructed around a pivot which is lost in plenty of details, this in turn allows him to make us believe the most unbelievable situations. The cruelty, and humour, he is capable of is very reminiscent of Villiers de L'Isle-Adam. Like Flaubert, he's a man who hides his genius (a little less though, he likes to show he's capable of constructing quite complicated sentences - but that's not where his true talent lies). The book only goes better as it goes and I recommend it. The casual misanthropy (read misogyny) is quite fun too.

Currently reading:
>some collected poetry by Coleridge
pretty disappointing so far, and I've already read his "masterpieces", they're fun to read but the poetry itself is often not there I find
>Girard - Things hidden since the foundation of the world
I'm enjoying this. Not what I expected but really interesting, though I don't feel able to assess the truth of many of his statements since I'm no ethnographer. He often btfos psychology, marxism, Nietzsche, etc. It's funny.
>Claudel - Cinq grandes odes
that guy is definitely one of the greatest French poet of the 20th century

Currently reading on the long term (meaning I read a little bit from it in between other books)
>Schwob - Complete Works
>Dickinson - Complete poetry
Both are great.

This will be a good year literary-wise. I also have a nice backlog with a lot of Gracq and poetry.

[Anonymous No.17329868]

lmao'ing at people ITT who say
>NOOO YOU CAN'T READ THAT FAST
meanwhile they're on 4chan 6 hours a day

[Anonymous No.17329907]

>>17328992
>dickens strength is his imagery and style
??? His characters are what he’s known for

[Anonymous No.17330547]

>>17328626
My goal is to read all the meme-books this year. Already read The Ego and its own, Mein Kampf, the Unabomber manifesto, currently going through IJ

[Anonymous No.17330687]

>>17328626
30
So far read
>Brothers Karamazov
>Myth of Sisyphus

Currently reading
>Thus spoke Zarathustra

Kind of reading doomer books but winter is very doomer I plan on reading Great Expectations next.

[Anonymous No.17330732]

>>17330687
How did you find Camus to be doomer-core? This is a really weird take.

[Anonymous No.17330831]

>>17329907
I agree with that too, but his imagery is really what sticks out in my mind beside the characters, which is a given. Wemmick & Magwitch were my favorite characters, with Joe & Jaggers following closely. And of course Pip (the narrative voice)

[Anonymous No.17331114]

Bump

[Anonymous No.17331298]

>>17329497>>17329430

I started Illiad earlier in December and finished the second half of it in 2021 so it counts on this years list. I did read Odyssey fairly quick though, but yes I am retaining it well.

[Anonymous No.17331305]

>>17329447
What if I appreciate it and am enjoying it very much? I can always revisit once I read the rest of his discography.

[Anonymous No.17331338]

>>17330732
Maybe not doomercore. But the head space I was in during a lonely winter and the first half of MoS made me a bit depressed. The latter half is much more bloomer.

[Anonymous No.17331894]

>>17329747
How do you like All the Pretty Horses? I'm a fan of Cormac McCarthy but have read surprisingly few of his books.

So far:
>Solaris
>On Writing
>A Scanner Darkly
>Hard to Be a God
>Pachinko (currently)

[Anonymous No.17332843]

>>17331298
What do you think odysseus bed represents?

[Anonymous No.17332883]

I don't really have a goal because I'm not sure what my free time is going to be like as the year progresses, at the moment I have a lot of it.

Read so far:
>Tigana (Kay)
>The Sleepwalkers (Clark)
>Sarajevo (Remak)
>The Precipice (Goncharov)

Currently reading:
>The Shout & Other Stories (Graves)
>Stalingrad (Grossman)
>A World Undone (Meyer)

The Precipice was a fantastic novel, I will definitely be rereading Oblomov soon too.

[Anonymous No.17332923]

>>17329868
You can read as fast as you like, but it's often a bad way to tackle classical literature. You need to digest what you read.

Read fewer books and give them more attention. We should read to learn and grow, not to complete a checklist.

[Anonymous No.17332957]

So far I've read
>The Elementals, Michael McDowell
It's southern gothic horror and it's comfy af. Take it on a beach vacation for the best atmosphere.

Currently reading
>Paperbacks from Hell, Grady Hendrix
Pretty fun light read. I like reading trashy paperbacks every now and then, so this has given me a good selection.

Want to read
>Gravity's Rainbow
>Any dostoevsky, never read any of his stuff
I've read a fair few classics, but not anywhere near enough. I'm trying to expand my reading into more literary stuff.

[Anonymous No.17333060]

>>17331305
>the rest of his discography.
Based

[Anonymous No.17333081]

>>17328626
Goal is to read 30 books in a year. Read 30 books last year, but with some "cheating" by reading some really short ones.

Only read Netochka Nezvanova so far. Currently reading Augustus.

[Anonymous No.17333092]

>>17333081
How do you manage to avoid wasting your time in this soul sucking place?

[Anonymous No.17333127]

>>17333092
I don't know. I have wasted alot of my time here, but now I just check once in a while for recs, humour or a good discussion about Dosto.

[Anonymous No.17333200]

>>17331894
Not him, but it was pretty good but not nearly as good as the other two in the trilogy. The Crossing being the best of the 3.

[Anonymous No.17333402]

52 books.

Already read 7 of them

[Anonymous No.17334048]

bump

[Anonymous No.17334553]

>>17333127
>disco elysium
A book so good I read it twice back to back.

>>17333200
Nice, I may opt to try those instead for my next foray into his workbody. I got a chunk of Blood Meridian down but it's so dense that I bounce off each time. I also attempted the Orchard Keeper, but his natural poetic beat wasn't enough to bring me all the way through.

[Anonymous No.17334724]

>>17328626
I read 54 last year. This year I’m just trying to read 100 pages of a book per day and spend more time reading in general. Hoping to exceed 60 this year. I know it can easily be done if I plan my time correctly and focus. Teddy Roosevelt read around 300 books per year during his presidency so when I think of that I don’t feel overwhelmed by my goal.

[Anonymous No.17335075]

>>17328626
24 total.
If I mainly read smaller things then I'll pass it. If I hit large tomes then I'll cut it close.

[Anonymous No.17335082]

>>17329447
>TBK last
that's what I'm doing. I paused between Demons and TBK to read some non-dosto but I enjoyed the Idiot and Demons.

[Anonymous No.17335137]

>>17334553
I read the orchard keeper too, agree its not very fun but McCarthy's prose is damn great in it. I was really surprised that he was already this good in his first novel. I completed it though, purely for the language. Somebody told me that reading the book of Genesis helps a lot in unpacking The orchard keeper and Atph. Maybe read that after Atph and try orchard keeper again.

[Anonymous No.17335354]

>>17335137
I may revisit my Bible then - I've been to Genesis enough that I'm familiar with its stories, but I'll take that advice and give it a shot. I admire how his work is so ingrained and based in the Appalachia culture he seems to mutually loathe and adorate, nothing else I've found quite like it. Even though I've only read 1.5 books by him I'd say he's my favorite author for that distinctive style.

[Anonymous No.17335423]

35
finished The Stranger by Camus and Nausea by Sartre so far. Not sure what my next one should be. Any suggestions? (I disliked Nausea tbqh)

[Anonymous No.17335519]

>>17335423
If you want to stay in an existentialist mood, check out Man's Fate by André Malraux

[Anonymous No.17335563]

>>17333092
After around a decade here it will kick it that 99.99999% of posts made aren’t worth reading. Once you get there, not being on 4chan will be a much simpler affair.

For example the only reason I’m making this post is because I’m taking a shit. I was reading my book.

[Anonymous No.17336024]

>>17332843
you don't have to do a literary analysis on every book you read, bud