SIMPLE QUESTIONS THREAD

shut computer down for a week

this is actually good advice.

Is pic related the only resume with the Romans chart we have? It seems to be seriously lacking. Compared to the number of history books there doesn't seem to be enough philosophy or poetry.

also, a lot of the stuff in Ovid is covered in Hamilton's Mythology, so might this be a bit redundant considering we're resuming

Are there any good poetry collections that are compilations from many famous poets that someone can rec me? Also same thing but for short stories.

The Norton anthology of poetry is supposed to be the best, and I believe they do an anthology of short stories as well

This deserves its own thread, what the hell are you doing, you're meant to ask small questions

How do I start getting in to philosophy?

Where does Plutarch's Lives fall into this?

You start meditating. It's a long and arduous process of deconditioning your mind from a lifetime of instant gratification, but results should show after a few weeks of consistent, daily practice.

Either that, or see a doctor, get diagnosed with basic stupidity or "ADHD", and he'll hook you up with powerful amphetamine pills you can pop for the rest of your life in order to function.

How do people with horrible taste not feel ashamed of themselves and dedicate their reading to the highest caliber of literature possible?

They don't recognize that they have horrible taste.

I'm a pleb and my finals are over. I want to read something that will make me think. Something deep but fairly easy to read. Does such a book exist? Thanks

Crime and Punishment.

yeah anything dostoevsky

kafka too i think

Thanks guys, I didn't actually expect any good suggestions

It takes an effort and most people don't really care

What publishers do the best job with shakespeare? I am not doing an academic reading, but I'd like to read a good intro, and have access to explanatory notes/definitions.

I have a folgers copy of Othello and it seems pretty decent...Are they ?

to specify my question:
where do I go from when I have a broad overview over most important philosophers?

why Davis was punished for making census?

*David. From Bible

Because it demonstrated that he was unsure if he had enough men whereas he should have just trusted God to deliver Israel.

Is a spook just a social construct that's failing to be recognized as such or is there some inherit difference between these two ideas?

I had no problem reading some of Joyce's short stories. But when I tried reading Ulysses I failed, then afterwards I tried reading a portrait of a young artist and also failed. How the fuck do I understand his writing? I'm having trouble adjusting to the write state of mind I guess.

Are there any resources I can find which walk me through it?

Bonus question: Why is this seemingly incoherent bullshit so popular and considered canon?

He doesn't die until the very last sentence of the book, user.

>help me understand it
>I know it's crap but nobody else does.

Just mental muscles you haven't worked in a while. The more you do it the easier it gets.

The Best Poems of the English Language by Harold Bloom is a good collection, and more affordable than the Norton Anthology. It also has a 30-or-so page introduction that goes over the basics of how to read and appreciate poetry, which might help

I didn't really intend for any indepth answers, maybe just a list of concepts like
gave me or some resources which might help.

The quality of your posts makes sense as to why you would also use avatars.

aren't avatars pictures of one person you use over and over on your posts?
I'm literally just posting random pictures, friend.

Thank you for your contribution.

Thanks for describing how what you are doing is even more worthless than using avatars.

Is it crap though? Maybe I'm just missing something

No, the intellectual elite is wrong. You are correct.

>being autismally pedantic and caring about people posting images on an imageboard

Let's stay on-topic, friend.

>let's not discuss what is being posted

Thanks for setting the parameters.

How is it that young people in old pictures always just look like young old people? You can plainly see that girl's grandma face almost as if it were photoshopped onto a hot girl's body.

...

How many?

Yes.

IT'S OVER 9,000!!!

Should books of poems be read continuously like a novel or broken up?

Does Moby Dick even die at the end of the novel?

depends on the book obviously

reddit pls.

Are library of America editions good?
I'm looking to buy the Raymond Carver and Flannery O'Connor ones because they seem like an easy way to collect a bulk of their stuff.

Okay, the book I want to read now is Shakespeare's sonnets, how would I read those?

The organ in his head that regulates diving and echolocation would have been damaged by ramming the Pequod. Unable to dive and hunt for food, he probably would have starved to death.

Greater love hath no whale than this, that a whale lay down his life for his pod.

You should really read Ovid in Latin, because Ovid is filthy. Roman poets around the time were getting more and more bawdy, and they use a lot of puns in both Greek and Latin to get more dirty bits in. Hamilton won't cover those.
Jesus, I just looked at that chart, and you're right it's terrible if you want something more than basic history.

Okay, babby's first poet is Catullus. He's short, mostly in Latin, and if you're starting translating, his couplets are gold. He writes invectives too, so on those it might be hard to find a direct translation because people like to pretend "mouthfuck" isn't a word in classics.

Ovid is about the same time, but he is complex as shit. I prefer him to Virgil, because Virgil is also complex in language use, but boring as shit. Ovid's calendar and metamorphoses and exile poems are probably the best to start a beginner on; the first two because there's probably translations that will tell you the added meanings in them, and the exile ones because they're simple enough language wise compared to his major poems.

You can also replace or reinforce the metamorphoses with Apuleius' version, which is often called The Golden Ass in English. I think more translators of Apuleius leave the bawdy bits in. He's other works too if you like his style, but I don't know if the other ones have consistent translations, or that it would appeal to beginners.

For politics, atomist physics, poetry and philosophy, Lucretius is excellent. Again, this is one where you need a good grasp of the poetic meanings of words if you're not going to get a translation, but it's also one of the best dactylic poems ever if you do put in that effort. Depending on what you want it for, you can just buy some books of the poem, and the one on love and sex is generally the most popular if you don't want the whole thing. If you're thinking about buying it in Latin, try translating the opening to see if you're making the right assumptions about language first because he's not the best for beginners.

Cicero's Latin is very advanced and beautiful, what with being a rhetorician. If you want very comfy Latin, his letters to friends and family should be on there. His stuff on rhetoric should definitely be in there. so you realise he's got an angle he's playing writing the defense of Caesar after his death.

It definitely needs a rework, and less HBO

you see here also in fucking Greek

How do I get better at writing? I'm talking about essays specifically. I've downloaded a bunch of apps to improve my grammar and punctuation but the actual text still reads as if written by a teenager. Are there any books that could help or is it a case of improving through writing more and more?

thx

I've never read it but I know people who got a lot out of Sophie's World.

What's a good place to download audiobooks?

What's the name of the book downloading site that used to be posted on Veeky Forums a lot awhile ago? Something to do with library at the beginning but I can't remember what. Might've gone under.

libgen
gen.lib.rus.ec/

this isn't a bad suggestion. you can skip the YA parts and plot by not reading the times sections, but gaarder is a good philosophical writer in all his YA

however, durant's story of philosophy is the standard.

Thank you so much.

ignoring edward gibbon is fucking retarded

The YA stuff is corny, but it does a good job of quickly surveying western philosophy.

his sonnets are cut into sequences, read them sequence by sequence. they're little "narratives" divided into sets of sonnets.

How similar is V. to Gravity's Rainbow? Just finished V. and I really enjoyed it.

But the main sequence is 120+ poems, surely they aren't meant to be read all at once?

how do you read a novel

I'm not sure poems are meant to be read like a novel, hence my question.

do you pronounce it plehb or pleeb?

Is Moby Dick impossible to read for a semi-beginner? I've read a handful of the classics so I'm not totally retarded but the huge length and dense prose are intimidating.

Not him but you're definitely an idiot man

yeah its fine.

I'm more of a leg man.

You can take it a few chapters a day or just power through. I did a bit of both. Learn to enjoy the eccentricity