Have you ever considered going into a bookshop and buying something you've never heard of before...

Have you ever considered going into a bookshop and buying something you've never heard of before? I know it's anti-Veeky Forums but I'm getting a bit bored of this elitism lark. Sounds like a nice life dontchathink

No. Are you a woman? Get out.

I forbid youuu

I would do that more often if the books people offered sounded halfway decent. I am completely open minded but most new books are like some kind of feminist twist on an old concept

No.

...

One can be widely read without ever being well read.

I didn't specifically have new books in mind, although I suppose I would like to actually read something released in the past decade. I feel the problem is that my entire mental library consists of books that Veeky Forums talks about. It feels like a mental block I've enacted upon myself and that not taking a chance on something that isn't critically acclaimed reflects a vast amount of insecurity.

Well I guess that's what I meant when you break it down.

i bought saramago's the cave in a used bookstore and hadn't heard anything about him before. but the back cover sounded interesting and it mentioned he won the nobel prize so i gave it a shot.

turned out to be about 90% boring but that final 10% of the novel made it all worth it. i have a thing for dystopian malls

I did that once and finished The Tower of Babel by Morris West.
It was okay. Good characters.

Yes. I love doing that.

It's called taking risks user, most of Veeky Forums doesn't know how to do it.

I've done it and always got shit. I'm not doing it again.

True. We act like we're being marked for our finals with regard to our appreciation of literature.

Why would I buy the book? If I were doing what you describe, I'd go to a library. I was doing something like that when I was a kid, rummaging through the local library's collection of fantasy novels. These days I don't do that anymore, I have a massive mental to-read list so I pretty much always know what I want to get.

>my entire mental library consists of books that Veeky Forums talks about.
Well if you think that's a problem (and I do think it is, I wouldn't consider someone whose knowledge of literature is founded on Veeky Forums to be knowledgeable), go fix it.

You know what sounds like nice life? Not having to work.

yeah i do that all the time
love going in to browse
come out with something new
give it a try user

of course. i buy nearly all my books from secondhand bookshops (usually the three oxfam bookshops in the towns i pass by frequently). the stock is unpredictable so i usually end up buying something i have never heard of.
sometimes i pick out anything from particular publishers that publish stuff i liked before. earlier this year i went through a phase of only buying Vintage paperbacks, the ones with the red spines.

I do that with library books sometimes, I'm not paying for something that might be terrible.

I do it all the time but with one important consideration: if it has blurbs from writers I like.

Based on experience, I tend to write off books as overrated shit if there are dozens of laudatory blurbs but they're all from no-name critics, but if there's even only one or two respected authors giving a blurb, I will check it out.

If there's an interesting title and cover, I'm always temted to give the book a try
If I open on page 137 and something engaging is being dealt with, I add it to my list of interests

>books
>elitism
you fucktard are wanking to scribble of somebody else. elitism is holding power over something/somebody and not turning a page. get laid whore

I do that a lot. Expand your horizons by chance and blind luck. It gets you out of the trap you have created for yourself by choosing only what jives with certain preconceived notions others have programed into your psyche.

That's what used bookstores are for. Discovering something you didn't know you wanted it until you saw it.

Used books and the library! I legit get excited about my library days because it's so fun to find stuff on my own. Just read maybe half a page and you can tell whether or not something has potential desu. If it turns out to be shit just put it down and start something new. No big deal when the book was either free or $2-3.
There are some great literary journals out there too, surprised lit isn't into them. I'm quite a bit older than most people here so I've already read most of the classics I really want to. Wish I hadn't wasted so much time on books that felt like a chore just because I wanted the cred. There's a lot of good shit out there lads, don't be afraid to judge something for yourself.

>buying something you've never heard of before
I'm interested in philosophy so I'd buy something I haven't heard of from the philosophy section. If it's from a different section then it would have to catch my attention which rarely happens provided I don't read purely for entertainment.

I discovered The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski in the way you described. Great fucking book that isn't discussed on this board. Y'all can stuff it.

There's a big library book sale annually at my uni and on the last day everything leftover is free. I usually go in an get whatever covers appeal to me. The best thing I got this year was The Orton Diaries and a shit ton of poetry collections.

Maybe the way you do it sucks. You don't just pick a fucking book and buy it. You browse through it a little and see if you find something you like.

And you want to call yourselves fucking writers, Jesus fucking Christ. Just let in some fucking chaos in your fucking boring lives and you would have something good to write about

Sometimes I try and get new books I know nothing about but most of the time I can't find any.
Like I would see a title that sounds interesting enough or a cover that makes me feel nostalgic or some of those saddening but happy feelings and when I read the excerpt on the back I would put it back in its place.
Most contemporary books are about feminist topics thinly veiled, political correctness, liberation from the old standards, YA garbage or genre fiction that's almost always a ripoff of GoT or C.S. Lewis on some form or another.

The start with the greeks meme is actually valuable. If you somewhat follow the greeks you will find new and interesting books that are almost always good.

It saddens me a bit that 2500~ years ago people wrote Gilgamesh and it was so imaginative and profound in some ways yet in the current year of our lord you have to grind your brain to find something good.