Pls don't be mean

pls don't be mean

Before this book I hadn't read fiction in years. My reading primarily consists of scientific articles and philosophy — I regrettably thought of fiction as a waste of time while I tried to fill my head with """""useful""""" knowledge that I can apply, not realizing that reading is valuable in and of itself

But when I read this book, I would find myself picking it back up at every opportunity, even waking up and immediately trying to see what will happen, something that I haven't done since I was a kid.

So, given that I am a plebian when it comes to literature, and that I like this book, can Veeky Forums recommend me a book to read next?

Other urls found in this thread:

poets.org/poetsorg/poem/cotton-you-lose-field
harpers.org/archive/2015/05/lunar-phrases/
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Infinite Jest

start with the greeks

not even a good Murakami though
It's just Hard-Boiled Wonderland (which is really enjoyable imo) with the most obnoxious teenage protagonist and awkward shoehorned sex scenes ever and an unfocused, annoying narrative. Some of the sections with the old cat guy were pretty funny though.

Don Quixote. Or for something similar yet different, the Catcher in the Rye, and Dostoevsky might tickle your philosophy fancy

Or better yet get into poetry

>Scientific articles and philosophy
So I take it you're not very much into science either? Might I suggest reading actual, textbooks, monographs, and journal articles instead of spending your time reading articles in pop-science publications like Scientific American, National Geographic, or whatever else people are reading these days? I assure you, you'll find your time is much better spent that way.

As for fiction, I suggest Kafka, Dostoevsky, Joyce, Stendhal, and Lewis Carrol.

If you elaborated on what you liked about Kafka on the Shore it would be easier to recommend stuff. As it is, go to the recommendations in the sticky and roll from there.

nty

although from lurking, Meditations does sound like an interesting read.

What poetry would you recommend? I've been casually reading Love is a Dog From Hell and so far I love all the poems I've read from it

popsci is cancerous

I've spent the bulk of my time reading molecular genetics papers. Recently I've wanted to get in on the data science meme, so I've been reading papers related to computational social science (very cool intersection that I never knew existed) and bioinformatics. I'm lucky to have a physics/bioengineering/cs background — it lets me get into the weeds of a lot of cool subject areas. But at some point, you get the uncomfortable realization that you've spent the past four years cheating yourself by not getting into the liberal arts more.

With Dostoevsky, is it pointless for someone like me to read it without one of those "reader's guide" books? Or can I still get enough out of it on my own? His books are something that I would need to reread anyways, but still.

I found myself emotionally attached to the characters, particularly Kafka and Nakata (the mentally challenged guy), and enjoyed watching them grow (more so Hoshino, the trucker than Nakata). I found myself smiling when Hoshino listened to that classical piece and found himself actually liking it.

It was humorous too, like I liked the cat scenes. I enjoyed Murakami's writing style too, there were one-liners that I thought seemed profound and deeply meaningful, at least in the context of the story.

I also liked the multiple storylines. Although I can see myself quickly being lost when there's a lot of multiple storylines, two was good. I was excited to see how their fates intersected.

It also felt calm, peaceful, and resigned — the death of Miss Saeki and Nakata in particular. I'm at a place in my life where I feel constantly anxious and unsure of what I want to do and what I ought to do, and if I can do something that satisfies both. It was nice to read a story where the characters gave in and let fate guide them, if that makes sense.

I realize as I typed the beginning of my response to , I just described pretty generic things about all books. But I think the point I made at the end about resignation is what really made me like it.

It reminded me a little bit of some haiku's I've read. I don't have the vocabulary to compare them in any other way than "it seemed peaceful", but hopefully you guys can make sense of this poor description. It seems like a Japanese aesthetic.

haikus* fuck

For someone who hasn't read A LOT of books, here's what I would recommend (the description of a Japanese aesthetic or 'peace' doesn't help me too much):

A Confederacy of Dunces
The Savage Detectives
Siddhartha

Don't read Meditations off the bat, you say you don't want to start with the Greeks which is logical but don't then jump into the Romans--aside from the chronological jump, and this is my legitimate concern for you with it not so much the swtg meme, it's a somewhat difficult read in the fact that it's entirely numbered aphorisms the next more similar to the last that if you try to read one after the other you'll glaze over. Don't start with that OP, though I do love meditations.

>What poetry would you recommend?
Sorry in advance for the lengthy reply, but this warrants something interesting. First and foremost poetry is all about language emotion with characters and story secondary. But there are exceptions, if you want into epic poetry, go with some relatively easy translations (Fagles) of the Iliad and the Odyssey which are the bases for almost every story ever written. But if you really don't value fiction like that and want some shorter poems, I highly recommend William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Lord Byron for starting to read and understand meter. After that, you can try something from Herbert, Donne, Dante, among others.

For some specific poems I would recommend, Rime of the Ancient Mariner as seen in pic related, The Waste Land by Eliot, Pale Fire by Nabokov, and lastly if you're feeling up to the fairly difficult blank meter, the contrarian, controversial, yet highly inspiring Paradise Lost by Milton.

Have you ever read any Dostoevsky? I assure you you do not need a readers guide to understand his story driven works, the only really difficult book of his is Demons which has much to do with political theory. Instead, if you liked Kafka on the Shore, I highly highly recommend redirecting you to his novella White Nights and his longer story The Idiot.

I understand your cautious interest for liberal arts in which many people have spent their entire lives not even having a passing interest for. Keeping in mind it's an intentionally slow book, I would recommend The Magic Mountain by Mann above all else. I know some of Murakami's works are enjoyable, but take them with a grain of salt

You would like House of Leaves I think.

I see Hard-boiled Wonderland mentioned on here quite often as one of the better Murakami books but it remains the only one I've put down (about halfway through). I've begun to wonder if its appeal comes down to the fact it has a stronger plot structure than some of his other books.

Personally I couldn't get over how flat and lifeless the characters in Hard-boiled were. Perhaps I stopped reading too soon but it felt like it was missing the key ingredient of humanness that is perhaps the only thing Murakami has going for him as a serious novelist.

Though maybe I'm just a pleb. I'm not exactly his biggest fan.

This is still not great advice for a beginner. Nobody who has a passing/beginning interest in literature would want to jump into The Magic Mountain (a book I love), The Waste Land, Pale Fire. Furthermore, Keats is absolutely the GOAT and I would so much sooner recommend him as far as the Romantics go than Blake or Byron.


Poetry recs:
Frank Stanford
Larry Levis
Robert Frost


Keep it simple, you know? These fellas are much more digestible than anything you suggested. Let OP get a base to go from

An honest question: why do people read about science? I mean I understand if you do it simply for pleasure, but many seem to consider it useful (you seem to take this position yourself since you refer to pop-science articles as a waste of time in comparison). What is it useful for?

Knowing the science of few centuries ago could give you a huge advantage, but now with contemporary science what can you do? To actually apply it to anything you would require tools that aren't available to any private citizen.

If you like Murakami then read
>Norwegian Wood
>After Dark

Siddartha has been recommended to me by too many people for me to continue not reading it. Downloading it right now.

I've only read an essay from Nabokov but I really liked his writing, I'll give some of those a shot, although iirc, I tried that Eliot in high school (by "tried" I mean look at the words I didn't know, which there were a lot of).

I started The Brothers Karamazov but fell off at the part where the whole family meets and goes to the church (like, 50 pages in rofl). A novella might be better suited for me though. Thanks!

I heard about The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You, and it was so hyped up, I spent years looking for it, only to get it, and sit there like a neanderthal just looking at it. Where should I have started with Stanford, because I don't think it was supposed to be his epic poem.

I spent 2 years as an undergrad working in molecular biology labs where I had lots of freedom. So I had to read dozens of journal articles for that in order to make sure I wasn't leading a team of freshman into dead ends, let alone all the articles I had to read on top of that to even select a viable project idea. In one of my courses we had to write a mock R21 NIH grant proposal, so I got to spend time diving into papers on microfluidics.

But even beyond being at a university — papers in computer science/bioinformatics/data science can be immediately useful to people without access to a laboratory. You can hop on sites and download terabytes of cancer data, for example, and try and apply some of the cutting edge techniques machine learning all by yourself.

If you're in STEM and still in university, or are going to be eventually, make reading journal articles a habit. At the very least, read review articles — they give relatively high-level summaries about fields, often they discuss the essentials, and the cool new shit, and where things are going.

added to the list

What About This is his entire poetic collection sans the TBWTMSILY. There is a lot of it, it's like 700 pages. I'm a huge fan so I love a lot of it, and most of it is very good, some didn't need to have been included, but there are hundreds of gems. There's a prose poem that I believe finishes the collection, at least it's toward the end, and I think about it very often.

Anyway, what got me interested in him was a Poem of the Day email with a poem from him:

poets.org/poetsorg/poem/cotton-you-lose-field

Some bad whiskey
I drink by myself
just like you
when this wind
blows as it does
in the delta
where a lost hearing aid
can be taken
for a grub worm
when the black constellations
make you swim backwards
in circles of blood
stableboys ruin their hands
for a while
and a man none of us
can do without
breaks his neck
jumping over some hill
chasing the fox
of a half-pint
and a fine-blooded horse
is put out of its misery
The other was a Harper's extraction of some of his verses about the moon called Lunar Phases that kinda became a poem itself when read

harpers.org/archive/2015/05/lunar-phrases/

And the moon
Was a dead man floating down the river

the moon
was the blind eye of a fish
in the back of a cave

the moon was a salt lick
for her cattle of darkness

the moon
It is a piece of butcher’s ice

the moon full and flowing this side of Ozark
Smoldering like a burnt tick

Night and her moon
Like a widow with child

the moon like a bleeding toenail
the dancers will pass by

moon hung together with dark
like camp dogs in a ditch

The moon was swollen up
Like a mosquito’s belly.

the moon.
It was a clock with twelve numbers

the moon
Was a piece of stationery
In a drawer she would not open.

The moon is your old shirt.

And the moon was his white piano

And the moon was a body.
I don’t know who put coins over her eyes.

the moon
Flinching behind the trees.
It was a white flower
Afraid to be cut down from its dark stalk.

the moon, the old cow
That chewed its way out
Of the darkness in our fields.

the moon.
It was like the light blue handkerchief
She gave him to go with his dark suit

the moon wades a creek
Like an albino with a blade
Fixed to a stick.

Now the moon was a fifty-cent piece
It was a belly I wanted to cut open

the moon in the woods flashing
Like a girl running in her panties.

The moon went back into its night
Like a blue channel cat in a log.

Your major is literally made up. That's the point: pretentious nerds work at places like Google with obscure degrees. I would say it's pretty immoral

If you want more Japanese stuff Tanizaki and Kawabata are pretty great