Age

>21
>Tales of the Dying Earth
enjoyed these bookaroos
>Soldier of the Mist
was alri
>Moby-dick
nice prose
>Blood Meridian
quite cozy once you get used to the way mccarthy writes, also some funny parts
>Don Quixote
nice and relaxing for when you need to just turn your brain off

>27
>Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
>Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
>Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
>A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
>Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami

I thought if I started with something that appealed to my weeb senses, it might help me to develop this into an actual hobby. So far it's working.

>Satanic Verses
A 10/10 both as a character study of a man destroyed by his own fame and of the immigrant psyche, and and a thesis on the nature of reality. The prose was hard to digest at first, but then I grew to love it. The weird chatty organiser approach, with shifting voices and a strange authorial I that pops in and out of existence. Petersonfags will also love this.

>Brave New World
8/10, has a lot of interesting things to say about human suffering and the worth/price of beauty. Well written (if inconsistent) enjoyable prose.

Dubliners:
What the fuck was sisters about? I liked the Dead and that was about it. Still, I found the non-spoonfed style interesting. 5/10

The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The teenage and adult years of steven are very interesting, and the way the style is linked to Dedalus' mind is as well. It can get absolutely histerical during the discussions the students have. I found reading this very helpful to get into Joyce's poetry as well. I have to wonder how closely it adheres to his actual young years. 7/10

A Clockwork Orange
This kniha is a strange vetsch. It is undeniably enjoyable, but I am not sure I can vid how it rabbits. The themes of intrinsic good and evil mixed with hypnotism and propaganda just dont seem to itti together to me. I am not sure I can kupet Alex's transformation either. How can mere aging improve somebody morally? Surely there is more than just being starry to that. But just for the fun and radosty, I give an 8/10

>18

>No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
I've read NLH twice now. Once as a digital book, now as a print edition. It's surprisingly touching. Even if I don't like Yozo's character very much, I can still identify with some of his struggles. (Which I guess is normal at this age.) Honestly, I think this work stems from the same seed as the Trial of Kafka or The Stranger of Camus, the only difference being, that Josef K. believes he is a part of society, despite being an outsider after his trial, Mersault doesn't care about society and Yozo while not understanding and not being part of society, still wants to cling to it somehow.

>War and Peace Volume II (of IV) by Lev Tolstoy
The main reason I haven't been through many other books in the past year. Tolstoy keeps playing with my emotions like it's a damn fiddle or something. The characters are so human, I find myself caring about Natasha and Bolkonsky, even the Rostovs. Fuck Pierre, his diaries and monologues are the most boring passages in the book, and will surely put down someone if he or she isn't relentless enough Otherwise, I don't know why people say W&P is boring. It's certainly a slow boil, and isn't perfect, but the sheer scope of the novel makes me tremble. It has been one of my best decisions to pick it up at the library, and then continuing reading it after volume I. (Currently at the end of Volume III.)

>Snow Country by Kawabata Yasunari
Certainly isn't his best work. Not to say it's bad. It's rich in atmosphere and scenery. I'd say it even teaches a thing or two about geishas. I'd say his shorter novel, "The lake" is a better version of Snow Country. (It was written just after Snow Country, so who knows)
The ending is a bit unsatisfying for me. The so called romance was powerful, yet the novel just simply ends.

>Beautiful Fighting Girl by Saito Tamaki
It's a surprisingly complex analysis of the popular anime character archetype. I was most definitely unprepared going into it, since it has a lot of psychological jargon. But it was still interesting to read. It could have used more Evangelion discussion and less about Henry Dargers' madness.

>All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Since anglos like to wank about this thing being superb and important for some reason, I haggled for at the bookshop and started reading it alongside War and Peace. The contrast is surprisingly clear and visible. It really is a superb work. After reading it, I don't think I want to start a war in patriotic fervour so much. We don't use gas anymore, but I could still catch a bullet while peeking out from the cover. Even if it's not deadly, it's still painful as hell, and has a chance of crippling me.

shut the fuck up

Bump

solid reading list.

>A Clockwork Orange
>This kniha is a strange vetsch. It is undeniably enjoyable, but I am not sure I can vid how it rabbits. The themes of intrinsic good and evil mixed with hypnotism and propaganda just dont seem to itti together to me. I am not sure I can kupet Alex's transformation either. How can mere aging improve somebody morally? Surely there is more than just being starry to that. But just for the fun and radosty, I give an 8/10

dobby malenky review. I enjoyed how you could figure out most of the Nadsat from context while reading the book, it's probably the best part tbqh.

>18

>Swann's Way
Lydia Davis' translation: sentences can be half-page-length and 90% is just Proust's thoughts
Will read again though
>1984
Depressing, sort of basic
>Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
enjoyable
>War Junkie
Pretty shitty now I think about it
>The Valhalla Exchange
Probably my favorite alternate history novel

>23

>The Classic of Mountains and Seas
7/10
Strange stuff. I can't recommend it as much more than a curiosity because of how repetitive it is, but if you're interested in classical China, you'll probably enjoy it to some degree.

>The Book of Tea by Kakuzô Okakura
8/10
Most Meiji period books I've read are very positive to western influence, which made this one's often negative lambasting of western aesthetics surprising, but also a bit refreshing. Overall it is a very good explanation of Japanese aesthetics.

>Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction
7/10
Don't know if anyone memes against the short introductions series, but I found this a lot of help. I'd already read the Analects, but this helped me get a basic picture over the evolution of Confucianism over China's history.

>The Essentials of Hinduism: A Comprehensive Overview of the World's Oldest Religion by Swami Bhaskarananda
6/10
Written by a Hindu, so some sections clearly speak in a tone that's less removed than a typical academic. A lot of it wasn't new information to me since I've read up on Hindu religion in the past, but it was a good review and had some really excellent images to explain difficult concepts like purusha and prakrti.

>Breath of Heaven, Breath of Earth: Ancient Near Eastern Art from American Collections by Trudy S. Kawami & John Olbrantz
7.5/10
A bit of a coffee table art history book, but with some decently informative essays. The pieces themselves are, of course, beautiful.

if you're younger than like 40 don't talk

>than like 40
terminate your existence desu

21 years old

The Book of the New Sun
10/10
>hands down one of the best books I've ever read, absolutely required reading for anyone who likes sci-fi or fantasy
>only let down is I will have to spend time reading it again at some point

Last Chance to See
3/10
>amusing in parts, mostly environmentalist drivel which was all the rage in the time it was written
>reddit humour
>honestly I just read it in between volumes of the The Book of the New Sun

Hyperion
8/10
>very solid high concept and imaginative sci-fi, interesting style and plotting, only let down was the ending

Fall of Hyperion
7/10
>builds off the promise of the first book and fails to deliver in some ways
>literally a deus ex machina ending
>still it was an enjoyable read and I didn't regret it

The Virtues of War
6/10
>about as good as basic historical fiction can be
>limited character development
>Alexander is a blatant mary sue

>Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

Liked this, but had a nagging feeling it was like a reddit Forever War

Looked at the authors twitter and turns out he a full-blown soyboy member of the fuck Drumpf brigade.

extremely poor taste and in general a manchild nigger retard, /10 unratable, don't breed please

>26

>The Thousandfold Thought - R Scott Bakker
TRUTH SHINES!

>The Warrior-Prophet - R Scott Bakker
THE HOLY WAR MARCHES!

>The Darkness That Comes Before - R Scott Bakker
What is this bullshit? Some philosofag who was really into the Crusaders decided to write a book. Something something determinism something something sex monsters.

>Blindsight - Peter Watts
consciousness, sci-fi, aliens, fucking vampires..zzz

>Hideous Gnosis - various authors
academics of the continental/culture studies circle masturbating over black metal. lame ass read, put a bad taste in my mouth towards New School, etc. folks.

>>Agua Viva
>second reread. it becomes more impossible to say anything about it each time. will probably have read it again before the end of the year.

The Clarice Lispector one?
I've read "Laços de Senpaiília" a thousand years ago and really didn't like it. I think it's way too much "middle class mentality" for me in a way that was really off putting. Now, I like reading stuff about people I don't exactly like, but I thought it was bad in a way I cannot even explain. Maaybe that was the 13/14 years old me and I would have a different opinion now, but I had since then (because of that) held a great prejudice against the author.
Recently I've decided to overcome that and give it a try and read "A Hora da Estrela". I really like the prose, but I don't like the book that much tbqh. Trying to describe what I feel about it, I think It's good, but the narrator is too aware that he's writing a book in a way that it's not good. He talks a lot about how he's writing and why he's writing and how hard it is and at the beginning it's nice, but it goes on and on and on and at some point I'm like "wtf, enough with this". I don't have the exact numbers, but I feel like it stops doing that way-too-much and the story really progresses around page 45 or something, in a 80 fucking pages novel.
Nevertheless, I think the prose is great, it has a great sort-of-ironic sense of humor that is really nice and the themes and the story itself are good. It really does a good job in describing the life of a poor girl from Brazilian northeast that moves to a big city in other to work and doesn't have much perspectives in life. Except it takes too much time in self-indulgent meta-prose.

Considering my opinions in all this, should I read anything else by her? Any work that has the same good prose and not this kinds of problems? (And good themes ofc).
Being meaning to ask this, but it's hard to find a trustworthy opinion on Br authors.

27

>Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Very good read and very good "life advice" bits, even though I disagree with a lot of stoic thoughts.

>Steppenwolfe by Herman Hesse
Liked it way more than I thought I would. It lived up to my expectations + the whole magic theater thing is really "Lynchean" in a very good and well written way (the part I didn't expect)

>A Hora da Estrela by Clarice Lispector
See >No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
Great read, good depiction of depression

>Never let me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Well written "conversational style" prose, which I enjoy. The "coming of age" part is well depicted and is a pretty good meditation on mortality (the best part). Also I like how you pretty much expect some revolt/insurgency during all the novel, but it just doesn't happen, dystopia-wise is a history centering in the people that conform to it, not in the ones that revolt, which is very different from the norm.

>the narrator is too aware that he's writing a book in a way that it's not good.
Both Rodrigo and Macabea are avatars of Lispector herself, and Hour of the Star is as much, or more, about Lispector the writer as it is about Lispector the poor girl from the north-east.

Agua Viva is also about writing, although in a different way, it's really instead about the failure of writing, it's nothing whatsoever like a novel. It doesn't have a story of any kind, it's just one continuous stream of thought, mostly about the inexpressibility of existence. If you consider Hour of the Star to be overloaded with self-indulgent meta-prose you will likely find Agua Viva to be nothing but meaningless rambling tbqh.

Personally, I loved Hour of the Star as soon as I started reading it and the three other Lispector books I've read have only made me like her more. Although I really think she's amazing and very much worthwhile reading, I feel like it's hard to actively recommend Lispector the way I would most other writers I like, she resonates strongly with me in a very specific way and it's possible she just isn't your thing.

In any case don't read Agua Viva until you've read The Passion According to G.H., and don't read that expecting anything more or less than a meticulous description of the metaphysical insights that can be gained by accidentally squashing a cockroach in a wardrobe door and watching it die. (It's her masterpiece.)

>Personally, I loved Hour of the Star as soon as I started reading it
tbqh I did too, but then in the middle I thought the meta-prose was way too much.

>Both Rodrigo and Macabea are avatars of Lispector herself, and Hour of the Star is as much, or more, about Lispector the writer as it is about Lispector the poor girl from the north-east.
I get that Rodrigo is and that's why that happens, but still, I think it's way overdone.
And I didn't think about Macaeba as so. I know Clarice lived in Recife than Rio and that her family sort of struggled economically for a while, but from what I know about her life I think it's a very different type of "poor girl" than Macaeba is. (But given what you've said I guess that I'm probably wrong and will do more research about it).

I'll try The Passion According to G.H. at some point then. Worst case scenario I can just drop it in the middle if I'm not enjoying it as a novel while probably still having some enjoyment from the prose in the half that I've read lol.

Thanks for your comments :)

>19 (lmao)

>The Sun Also Rises
school
A few great scenes but lots of blab and filler in between
sub-adequate/10

>At Swim-Two-Birds
Demands to be reread. I love Third Policeman; this one's got a lot more to parse and I have no doubt that a lot of it went over my head but I still laughed my ass off. It's pretty dry in parts, which I get is part of the conceit, but that doesn't mean it's not fucking dry. 8/10 with the presumption that there are sufficient truths yet untold to bump it up on a reread

>White Fang
Solid. It's not as good as Call of the Wild but it's pretty ballsy for a writer to essentially invert his philosophy and tell the opposite of his key story. The ending is a hysterical cornball though. Recommended. 7/10

>Crime and Punishment
Probably the best book I've ever read, I think about it constantly. I could never get through the Garnett translation but the Oliver Ready one brings out the best of the book. It's darkly funny and cruelly uplifting. 10/10

>The Long Goodbye
Solid thriller. Like a lot of American writers Chandler has more wit than substance, but hell, the wit is all you want in something this light. The dude is an excellent entertainer. I had modest expectations and they were fulfilled. 6.5/10

>Enlightenment Now
Shouldn't you be circlejerking over Elon Musk with your reddit friends? I think you'd be a lot happier there

>At Swim-Two-Birds
>Demands to be reread. I love Third Policeman;
I have At Swim on my shelf, gotta get to that. Third Policeman was great
Fav scene was when the guy keeps taking his little houses out of each other or whatever, forget exactly

Try some Mishima next, it's higher quality nip-lit.

youtu.be/w1zwGLBpULs
Here's the only interview she ever gave for television, where she talks about Hour of the Star, among other things. Really worth watching.

Is the man on the cover of Stoner the author?

Nah, he's a professional stock photography and painting model. He's t he guy you hire when you want a middle age white guy looking thoughtful.

>24

>Blood meridian
>Underworld
>Mao II
>The book of sand
>Steppenwolf

Delillo is a messiah

>24

>the Bible
talk about a preachy book, EVERYBODY'S a sinner! expect for this guy.

>birthday letters
without having read much of plath's poetry and having any knowledge of hers and hughes' relationship, it's hard to rate this as a 'confessional/autobiographical' bit of poetry. it is, at times, deadly boring and it is at times throat tightenly gripping - it hits at the nerves of all those memories you hold vividly, and at the nothing that dictates what isn't important. it's a strangely teetoling coalition of poems

>Crow
fucking hell though this is pagan god hating nature fearing self loathing perfection. this is anger and nihilism reflected purely in poetry, a hundred pages from the darkest period of hughes' life. there's a lot of darkness. a lot of spiritual meat to bite into.

>the complete essays of Montaigne
it was really good.

>the Count of Monte Cristo
fucking boring and the pacing was disgusting and the payoff was intensely underwhelming

>Paradise Lost
>Novel

>This book started off so well but I wish Stoner killed himself cuz the second half of the novel was pretty boring
What am I reading. Stoner killing himself would be against the whole point of the book (that a failed/unsuccessful life can still have great value). Also the second part of the book features his reawakening through the love affair and all the Gracie/WW2 stuff which are the most emotional parts of the book, how that can be considered the boring part of the book is beyond me

21

>Les Miserables
Still going on it, jesus christ I didn't realise it was this long. Thats what I get for reading eBooks I guess. I'm up to the June Revolt as Gavroche and the ABC crew are building the barricades. I'm enjoying it but the length can be tiresome. I just want more of Jean Valjean really.

>Caesar's Gallic War
Wasn't really what I was expecting. A lot more about logistics and negotiating than I was hoping for.

>The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon
Been slowly trudging through this one. The prose is excellent but the book itself can also get tiring. That's kind of expected from a book covering 2000 years in a fair bit of depth

>Crime and Punishment
Not what I was expecting at all but I absolutely loved it. I absolutely love when books debate Napoleon's legacy, and this book did that in a really interesting way. Really makes you think.

>The Strange Death of Europe
Not really sure why I read this one, my boss recommended it for me. I found it depressing and almost unbearable.

Everyone here seems to love thr Brothers Karamazov. I read half and liked the zossima soliloquy, but had to put it down for school work. Is the second half the part that blows everyone's nips off, or do i need to go back and reread the whole thing?

I'd say the first half is better. Second half will involve a lot more plot and a whole chapter that just retells what happened throughout the book. Best parts of the book imo are Zosimas lessons, Ivan/Alosha chapter and the Alosha/kids stuff later on

>believing anything pinker writes
iyi detected

>Don Quixote
>turning your brain off

You did it wrong

>Elric of melnibonè
3/10 pulpy tryhard fantasy shit with extremely barebone prose.
>Brave new world
Solid 6/10
>Dubliners
A masterpiece in subtlety. Joyce's writing requires your full attention to get the best out of it. Together the stories form a very compelling portrait of Dublin. 8/10
>Birth of philosophy by Giorgio Colli
Incredibly clear yet expressive, insightful and poetic writing. Nietzsche gets Nietzsche'd. 9/10
>Rime by Cavalcanti.
Sweet. 8/10

23 years old
>Montaigne's Essays
Interesting guy, consistently goes off topic but I like his epistemological approach on the necessity of experience to curate the present, his essay on Repentance is good, on Experience takes a strange turn towards a conversation on health and managing your life. He pretty much adopts Plato's stance on the necessity of doctors and lawyers which is humorous but also unimaginable.

>Discourses on Livy & the Prince
Somehow, these two weren't as contradictory to me as people said they would be. The Discourses focuses on how a republic may develop and how an ideal republic, such as Rome forms, completely accidentally. Curiously, the emphasis on the republic is in liberation and freedom for the citizen which returns to a Pauline interpretation of humanity in which we are freed from the shackles of law for laws incite sin. The Prince however is dedicated to a ruler and on how to maintain rule and authority, it's not as cutthroat or opportunistic as I thought it would be. I mean there definitely is some of that, but he preaches it circumstantially and while it is better to be feared than loved for circumstance dictates you may only be one or the other, ideally it is best to be both.

>Dubliners
Reads like poetry and I always get lost in these sweet saccharine narratives, they're oddly simple and mundane yet so large. I'm cheating since I'm not quite done with it yet but Araby is my favorite thus far.

>Jane Eyre
Terrible, would recommend it to my 15yo daughter if I had one though. Tried to book club it and it was a banal romance of a plain book girl who finds the adoration of a rich yet eccentric and supposedly ugly (or at the very least not as handsome) man. The vocab is nice, if anything, and I think the prose is developed enough so that it doesn't read like butter, but still, never going back to any of the Bronte sisters' work, probably.

>Between 18 and 21

>The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)
I didn't like Holden's language but other than that it was great. At the end, when Phoebe wanted to come with him, I nearly cried.

>Light in August (Faulkner)
The last of his four major novels I had to read and coincidentally the one I liked the least - which doesn't mean anything considering AILD and TSatF are two of my three favorite novels of all time. I like Faulkner best when he uses first person narrator or a quasi-stream-of-consciousness third person narrator (as in the Benjy chapter or most parts of Absalom, Absalom!) but still a great novel. Great plot and the main characters will stick with me. The second least chapter (Hightower's last chapter) is mind-blowing and almost on par with Quentin's or Addie's chapters in their respective books.

>Ficciones (Borges)
Didn't get the appeal of the fictional essays and literary reviews, which made up at least two thirds of the collection. I liked the detective story and the one with the Chinese spy though.

>What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (Carver)
Pretty good, except for the two Perfect Day for a Bananafish rip-offs. So Much Water So Close To Home is obviously great and I also especially loved the vibe of Viewfinder.

>The Trial (Kafka)
Very funny and the ending is great. Torturous to read but that adds to the uncomfortable dreamy atmosphere.

I have to add that German is my native language therefore I read Kafka in German and Faulkner and Borges in translation.

>Not done with it
You haven't even gotten to the best part

Stephen Pinker is a genius and so is Sam Harris soooooooo FUUUUUUCKKKK OFFFFFFF

Yeah I only fuck with reddit for r/kanye so you can suck off your assumptions. I only know about Stephen Pinker from podcasts