What book are you reading and what is your opinion of it so far?

The Simulacra by PKD. Liking it so far, seems highly pertinent today.

Re-reading the Republic. Pretty ok desu

Een talloos veel miljoenen by W.F. Hermans

It's okay, but rather dull, which I suppose is somewhat the point.

I'm reading Butcher's Crossing.

I wasn't expecting it to be anywhere near as good as Stoner but I'm honestly surprised at how obviously flawed it is. The prose is acceptable but nothing amazing, Stoner had some really inspiring and beautiful passage, but the characters are almost genre fiction-tier. I'll probably finish it still because it's not bad really it's just amazing how much Williams improved between this book and Stoner.

>fellowship of the ring.
beautiful. although i think they're spending a bit too much time in the shire and outskirts of the shire. super comfy though.

Dubliners

I like Araby and A Painful Case so far

The Tigress of Forli. Probably the best portrait of Caterina Sforza I've ever read (not that there are many biographies readily available). I'm a little over halfway through it now.

Have just finished reading Stoner. Good, but vastly overrated. Ending is great, though.

>Oblomov
Pretty great, I like how well the characters are described

>What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Makes me feel like a lazy piece of shit desu

>Where angels fear to tread

Is it good? I am 3 pages in

i like it

Answer the OP you little bitch

> The Trial / Kafka
>Fuck the shitty system XDD amirite???,

Decided to read Houllebeque's the Elementary Particles. I'm really loving it and can (sadly) relate a lot to him

go back to your own board

Crime and Punishment. Very compelling and strangely relatable.

Currently reading The Tunnel by Gass (at about page 150). The first few readings I was considering shelfing it because I had no idea wtf was going on. Around page 100 it started to settle in and have more dirtection, my last few readings have been very enjoyable and I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

Da Vinci Code - It's entertaining

Prince Caspian.

I thought it would be charming like the first book, but i'm bored and fed up.

>tfw get really sad when they leave the Shire and all the bad shit happens

The Master and Margarita. Really fun and comfy novel so far. I feel bad for Ivan though and I want to protect him.

The Man Without Qualities
it's beautiful

You clearly have no understanding of what you read.

liked xDD

Light in August

About 200 pages in, I like how Faulkner's built up the narrative and characters. I've been reading his works in chronological order and can see the strides he's made from As I Lay Dying and Sanctuary.

Re-reading The Road for some reason. I still really like how it deals with slog and repetition, but honestly I can't say it's as compelling as I remember it. McCarthy's prose style is fun though.

I'm reading The trip to Echo Falls. I'm not as hooked by it as I was the last book by the same author but it's an interesting account of the drinking habits of various American authors from the previous century. The writing is very good in some places and it's generally illuminating.

Don Quixote

I only have 30 pages left to go and I plan on finishing it later today, but it's been a magical experience. Before I stopped reading last night, I flipped back and read some of his first adventures together with Sancho and it genuinely saddened me that I wouldn't get to spend more time with these characters. I don't want it to ever end ;_;

I'm curious why the windmill stuff became the big meme that everyone knows with this book though, considering they have about a million other adventures over the course of it. Is it just because it's early on?

>I only have 30 pages left to go and I plan on finishing it later today
Are you me? I haven't been able to read these last few days cause of tooth pain. Sad that I have to leave Don Quixote and Sancho, but at least I get to start a new book.

Clockwork orange

Never had it before, decided to give it a go. The slang took some getting used to but I like it. I am still at the beginning, just starting chapter 6 part one, and I have the full 21 chapter book. So far I like it but the rape scene with 2 ten year olds made me uncomfortable, to be honest. Still, I see the purpose.

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I'm reading The Stranger, it's pretty good

Just finished the trial. The only thing I don't like is that we never get to know why the Italian businessan never showed up to the cathedral, I get that Kafka probably wanted to leave us guessing, but to me it just seemed lazy and unsatisfying

just started The Unconsoled
didn't think it would be a Wes Anderson novel

The Bible, NRSV translation with notes.

I'm about 40 chapters into Genesis at the moment, and holy shit is it boring. Parts of it is really good, but then you have the bits that is just justifying wars between nations that stopped existing two thousand years ago.

And there are other dry bits as well, like when Abraham sends Jacob away to another land to acquire a wife, and he stays there and works for 14 years, and all the characters constantly try and scam each other.

wasn't he implied to be an agent of the courts?

Really makes me think.

>The Bible
just started Numbers, Leviticus wasn't as boring as people make it seem... I just want to get to Job and the Gospels asap

like :^)

Labyrinths, by Borges

Interesting read, the stories are really imaginative and I haven't read much else like them, but I'm fairly retarded and usually only have a surface understanding of them.

Jacob's story was made into a ~400 page novel by Thomas Mann kek

when Isaac send Jacob*

Most of the content of Job isn't that interesting, IMHO. It's the overall structure and some of specific details that make it worth reading now.

I'd argue that you can read it whenever you want, although it's worth going over every the earlier books to realize that (at its position in the Bible), it's the first place to mention Satan by name. Especially considering how much of the Hebrew Bible had been written at that point and what Satan actually does in Job, it might change some of your previously held notions of things.

Genesis is mostly there to set up the history of the family of Jacob/Israel (and to a lesser degree, the world as a whole) leading up to Exodus.

It hits so close to home that I've begin to wonder if I should turn myself in. It is as if I'm reading my own journal and at times it's almost to tough to read, but it's such an amazing character study of myself that it's strangely compelling.

Like Demian, it characterizes some of my own thoughts, feelings, and experiences in a new way and makes me feel a bit less alone. Also like Demian, though, it sometimes seems a little juvenile. I personally have enjoyed these books but I don't know if I would go around recommending them.

The Art of the Deal.
Praise kek and MAGA.

On the Origin of Species, it is hard to comprehend for me desu , partly because of shitty translation, but impressed with researching work in it.

Have you read Augustus or any of Williams poetry?

Good so far, though I'm finding the club more interesting than the stories they tell.

No I've just read Stoner, I've got Augustus though and plan on reading it after Butcher's Crossing

I'm not reading anything right now, but I've started and finished The Setting Sun today.

It was very nice, with the same "melancholic and thought-provoking, but not quite depressive" aura that No Longer Human had, while being more cohesive and fleshed out.

The story was well-rounded and the struggle of the characters (and Dazai) to adapt was compelling and verossimile, he had a great ability to express the feeling of inadequacy and cultural/moral clash.

I wish that Dazai had written more before his suicide, his style and themes are very attractive to me.

Now I'm not sure if I should read another novella (probably Taipei or Confessions of a Mask) or get a bigger book (Map and the Territory, Book of Disquiet or Death on the Installment Plan).

Augustus is very good, read it as soon as you can.

Augustus is the best of the bunch desu senpai. Williams always admitted to being a genre author--I'd argue that BC feels "worse" because Stoner is in a genre that you consider loftier by nature.

I hate to spout memes but there's nothing holding me back from enjoying a great western, like Blood Meridian, it's just that in those kind of books the conventions of the genre and the clichés are totally transcended by the quality of the writing and mature characters, themes etc. I'm only 60 pages in so I'm not sure of that will come later in Butchers Crossing, but the prose at least isn't much to write home about.

"Conquered City" by Victor Serge

I've never heard of Serge before, but I couldn't pass the cool cover and the fact that the book was an NYRB on sale for $6.99 in good condition. That being said, from the first chapter that I've been able to read in this empty waiting room, I can conclude that it'll be a damn good read.

Anyone else read this?

(Pic related.)

i have bottom's dream on my desk right now

it's big and scary (but might be a good collectible)

thumb up

Enjoy your time in the Shire area. Also please confirm you've read The Hobbit before this.

House of Leaves.

I like it quite a bit, but I'm not far into it. I like the fact that he's able to create a world through random footnotes.Truant's narration is getting a bit annoying.

confirmed. although it was a while ago i did read it.

Diary of an Oxygen Thief.
It's a meme book, I got memed. One of you faggots wrote it yes?

fountainhead

its great; wasnt expecting to like it this much

Lolita. First time reading Nabokov and I'm captivated.

Reading the Iliad right now, in Lombardo, Alexander, and Pope translations. My brain is usually stuck in 1st gear so it's taking some time. I'm on book 9 and it's been almost a month since starting. The poem is lengthy because each individual is recognized by their relation to someone or something. Every time, in two-word increments to vast digressions on history.

For relative ease of narrative form, I started Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid today. It's reminding me of Wide Sargasso Sea, but probably of its world before it grew cold and brutal. The prose is appreciably clean without sacrificing rich imagery so far.

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i saw this in a store and almost bought it. the only reason i didn't buy it was because it looked a little memey

1Q84 fucking love memekami

>in Lombardo, Alexander, and Pope translations

That's commitment, goddamn.

Now that's top tier nabakov my man

I am a 19-year-old, svelte cute male currently 650k words into my debut six-part autobiography. I work a superficially interesting and respected job and live in a major city. If it weren't for my intense self-awareness and heightened intelligence and sensitive to external stimuli I would literally be one of the most sexually active members of my age group. Most people are incapable of appreciating just how much of a mental hurdle there is to overcome when you are a Will Hunting-tier genius like myself. It isn't easy. For all the upside (perfect ethical standards, increased insight into human motives, awesome memory capacity, and so on) there is a significant downside, especially when it comes to interacting with women, who are on the most part essentially looking for a dictator-type boyfriend to claim them physically and dominate them psychologically. When you are a pure, sensitive, erudite introvert like myself the idea of doing those things to anybody, let alone a girl, is as repulsive as any other type of behaviour which reminds us of the brute, irrational aspect of the human disposition. At this point, on the verge of international fame and renown as I am (I intend to self-publish my autobiography in Spring 2017), I am literally only willing to date a girl who is pale, petite, cute and completely docile without being a complete masochist. I have accepted that I will never find an intellectual peer to either befriend or date, so I am resigned to settling for someone who is at the very least a virgin (like myself) and who is at least curious about my intellectual capabilities, even if she (male) is incapable of relating to them.

transparent things by nabokov.
i can't read it in public, somehow i can't understand what is being said if i don't actively pay attention to it.

Wuthering Heights, great storytelling and great prose.

How is Pope's Homer?
i have immense respect for the man, but i cant imagine him as an accurate translator for some reason .

I'm reading No COuntry for Old Men. It's good stuff.

Liked

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
It was great in the first third but then it suddenly got really abstract really quickly and I'm not sure if I like that or not. Also I wish that Phaedrus wasn't an actual character, I get that he's just used to described his own philosophy but if I have to go read through another Phaedrus backstory then I'm going to shoot myself.

Paradise lost. Fucking badass. I wish I had found it in highschool but still enjoying it a lot.

Show me your boipussi

Reading this feels like swimming trough shit only to get to the diarrhea part of the shit sea.

Statism and Anarchy by Bakunin

His reactionary attitude to nineteenth century European democracies makes sense when you realize the repression the majority of people had to face in his lifetime.

His ideas are powerful, but their impact to illicit a perceptible public response has diminished with the emphasis on civil rights in Western democracies.

I like it

1/3 into Krasznahorkai's Melancholy of Resistance.
Holy moly, that's great.
I am really enjoying how the enormous sentences can give very detailed descriptions, while at the same time surrounding the narrative in a dismal and dreadful ambience.

The themes are also very promising. I will definitely check out Satantango soon.

>a dismal and dreadful ambience

I'll never understand why people want to read books like this.

The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote.

Badly needs footnotes.

good taste

Like

What if I like it but I don't write anything?

If this thread is still going, I am the post linked to above. I just finished a clockwork orange this afternoon, and I must say, I cannot believe the American version and movie take out the last chapter. It left me with a whole different taste in my mouth than if I had been stopped at part 3 ch 6. I do t think I will watch the movie now. Also I enjoyed the book more once the rape stopped.

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I'm reading Aristotle's Poetics right now, pretty good.

I like it xd

The Iliad for the first time
Really cool so far

Not all enjoyable experiences need to be joyful.

real nice pepe

I'm reading notes from the underground. It's breddy gud, the first bit was a little written pretty much like a philisophical text as opposed to a narrative so it felt a little bit dry and I had to re-read it a million times just to get some semblance of understanding but it been smooth sailing after that. Protagonist is basically a robot so that makes it more entertaining too. Would recommend.

>the first bit was a little written pretty much like
fug. Thought I deleted that bit, must've stroked out. Oh well.