You can only read one book for the rest of your life which one do you choose

You can only read one book for the rest of your life which one do you choose
Inb4 bible, the bible is a multitude of books.

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Either Ulysses or a collection of poetry so I can know them by heart and use that knowledge to attain pu$$y.

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This desu

>The tone of the book changes as you get older
>for me it was fucking hilarious and the ending had me rolling in tears, for others it is was the complete opposite.
>The ending is open without a moral message, it can be perceived in any way:
trusting your heart is for a fool, logical.
never allow your anger to get the best of you, conservative.
Love is useless we all die in the end, nihilistic.
Love is right, humanistic.
>no actual author leaves you wondering who actually wrote it.

>this desu

There are editions of Shrekspeare's complete works. Or maybe we could petition Bloom to publish a book containing all of the western canon. Thing would be huge.

>inb4 bible

I know dozens of poems and it has never helped me get any. In fact, it can more easily hurt your efforts.

For me it would be either Psalms, Collected Works of WB Yeats, or Ulysses.

the dictionnary, so I can write my own books

I dare you to write down a short one from memory NOW

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Pointless since you can just say I copied it down but here you go:

The houses are haunted
By white night gowns
None are green
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles
Only, here and there,an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots
Catches tigers
In red weather

You guys have fucking terrible taste lmao. This place is a shithouse.

>the ending had me rolling in tears
bullshit

why some people saying desu?

what is the filter word?

>he didn't have to learn at least a few poems by heart in school

So what kind of third world education did you get?

t b h senpai

My pick would be The Brothers Karamazov. Lengthy and interesting.

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This. Yeats, Joyce, and Shakespeare are all total garbage.

The Western Canon in One Volume.

patrician choice

ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ

>reading Dostoevsky's prose for the rest of your life

Jesus Christ how horrifying.

>no actual author leaves you wondering who actually wrote it.

Nice meme.

>Can only read some book for the rest of your life
>Chooses fiction
Literal retardation.

>interesting

nice meme, senpai

user, who on Veeky Forums hasn’t memorized at least the Lovecraft poem?

THE JAGUAR

The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.
The parrots shriek as if they were on fire
Or strut like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.
Fatigued with indolence the tiger and lion
Lie still as the sun. The boa-constrictor’s coil

Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty
Or stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw.
It might be painted on a nursery wall.
But who runs like the rest past these arrives
At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized
As a child at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enraged
Through the prison darkness after the drills of his eyes.

Not in boredom—the eye satisfied to be blind in fire,
By the bang of the blood in the brain deaf the ear—
He spins from the bars but there’s no cage to him

More than the visionary to his cell,
His stride is the wildernesses of freedom.
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.

Should be more or less correct. Line breaks are hard to remember in a poem with no rhymes. The phrase ‘on a short fierce fuse’ should come somewhere, but I cannot remember where.
As it turns out, I misremembered the change from the second to the third stanza, the actual lines are:

>Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes
>
>On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom—

Touhou Gumon Shiki: Perfect Memento in Strict Sense. I need that information.

Well actually you are more-so reading the translator's prose.

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The only Lovecraft poem I know by heart is this one:

When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove's fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
The Olympian host conceived a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.

kek reporting, thanks senpai

The Book of Job

my man!

Which makes more sense. Can only interpret "some indigenous species of birds here mate nocturnally" so many ways.

>he cannot write out any poem at all
C'mon user, get your Veeky Forums shit together.

>Implying you won't get bored of muh romantic lit memes more quickly
There are lots of types of nonfiction you knoww.

I'd probably choose a narrative instead of a philosophical work, so I'd choose Shogun by James Clavell. Beautiful story

quads knows

now one without the dust jacket please

not him but heres mine
>inb4 shitty camera

This pleases me

Very much this.

the only appropriate answer

Is Ginsberg a new meme around here? Seriously asking, I've seen a lot of posts about him recently and he seems like someone Veeky Forums would disapprove of.

Could be Canada

Terrific choice family.
>The book of proverbs

>can't be an amalgamation of books.
>user posts complete works.

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