January is almost over. Post how many books you've read so far this year, which you liked, and which you didn't

January is almost over. Post how many books you've read so far this year, which you liked, and which you didn't.

0

read 300 pages of ulyssess and it was boring as fuck. so now I'm reading ancient history by mcelroy and it's really good.

I've read 8, having started a couple in December

>Great
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
Dubliners. By James Joyce
Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Márquez

>Good
Murphy, by Samuel Beckett
War & Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

>Okay
The Story of the Night, by Colm Tóibín
Thérèse Raquin, by Émile Zola
London Triptych, by Jonathan Kemp

I've read 9, and I'm reading Enough rope by Dorothy Parker White Buildings by Hart Crane and The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek, will probably finish them in early february

>great

J.G.Ballard – Crash
Harlan Ellison – I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
The Epic of Gilgamesh
James Baldwin – Giovanni’s Room
Alexander Pope – An Essay on Criticism
Anne Sexton – To Bedlam and Part Way Back
Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse Five

>okay

Haruki Murakami - Hear the Wind Sing
Haruki Murakami – Pinball, 1973

Love in the time of Cholera was disappointing to me. The prose was so dull.

>300 pages in

Just finish it my dude

4

Napoleon, a life by andrew roberts

will in the world by stephen greenblatt

revolutionary characters by gordon wood

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding


I liked all of them, would recommend them all. especially Tom Jones which I don't think most people would stumble onto. the others you're bound to read if you're interested in those parts of history.

Is Tom Jones funny?

11

I liked best a collection of short stories by Gogol.

On the other hand, Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler was a hideous experience for me. I cannot stand it when the auhor identifices himself with the protagonist, it feels like watching the author masturbate. Technically it's very good written, but I wasn't fun to read at all.

Anthem - Ayn Rand
The Magicians Nephew - CS Lewis

I thought so

6

Best in order
>War and Peace
>The Count of Monte Cristo
>The Road

>Two Towers
>Return of the King
Finally read LotR, really comfy
>Mythology (Hamilton)
About to start reading the Iliad and will have to go back and reread parts of this one, but I found it to be well structured and informative. Enjoyed the stories.
>Vathek
Reading through some short novels. No comment.

I'm also halfway through Lolita and it has blown me away so far. I savor every sentence and I think it's very beautifully written.

>translations
Cucks

Good 1

>great
The Third Policeman, Pnin, Macbeth
>good
The Magic Mountain, Maurice
>okay
One Hundred Years of Solitude

I have also read Molloy and Malone Dies, but I'm not gonna rate them until I finish The Unnamable.

5 so far

>Incredible
Inland by Gerald Murnane

>Good
How Much Land Does a Man Need? and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy
A Listener's Guide to Free Improvisation by John Corbett
The New Guard Movement, 1931-35 by Keith Amos

>Burn it
The Plague by Albert Camus

>Currently Reading
All The Things We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Walden and Other Writings by H.D. Thoreau
Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil

The Bell Jar - Plath
The Virgin Suicides - Eugenides
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle -Murakami
Infinite Jest - Wallace (unfinished)
Nightmares and Dreamscapes - King

Read Zealot by Reza Aslan twice, and am currently reading the catechism

I read a bunch of Greeks this month and they are what they are, can't really say they are anything less than great.

Re-read Iliad and Odyssey, meh
The Aneid - Virgil
The Theban Plays - Sophocles
Oresteia - Aeschylus
The Republic + a few Socratic dialogues - Plato

Cormac McCarthy -
All The Pretty Horses
The Crossing
Cities of the Plain
Suttree

Suttree was the best, the trilogy was all equal in merit to me, basically like reading one book.

Herman Hesse -
Siddhartha
Narcisuss and Goldmund
Steppenwolf

Enjoyed all 3, siddhartha the most, but I think I need to Reread steppenwolf to absorb it more.

Stoner - John Williams - meh

Lolita - Nabokov
Probably at least in my top 5 greatest/favorite novels, dying to read more of his stuff.

Overall a pretty productive month. Got a good amount of significant writing done as well.

Currently half way through Crying of Lot 49. I'm not sure if I enjoy it as much as I am expected to. This is my first Pynchon novel and I think I am grasping everything to the fullest extent that one can at a first read through, but I'm not sure if I enjoy the fact that reading his work hinges on deep analysis of themes and references with every sentence. Ill continue to read his books to the extant that I had planned but it might have to be an on and off thing based on my mood.

For February I plan on following up with V and then Mason and Dixon, possibly GR if I still have a taste for Pynchon. Other than that I planned on reading some selections from Aristotle and Descartes as ive had both of their complete works for years and haven't had a chance to break into them. After that I'll keep creeping up through western philosophy. Should be able to accomplish. I read like 5 hrs a day at least.

Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan
Infinite Jest (started before the new year)
In and Out of the Working Class
Men in Aïda
Silence
Northanger Abbey (school)
1984 (school, reread)
Heart of Darkness (school, reread)
Jew of Malta (school)
The Merchant of Venice (school, reread)
As You Like It (school)
Civilization and Its Discontents (school)

+Many selections from theoretical/critical works (mostly other psychoanalysis) and individual short stories

14 so far, will read some short poetry books to close at 16.

>great
Les Fleurs du Mal, Charles Baudelaire
Hymns to the Night, Novalis
The Odyssey, Homer
À Rebours, J.K. Huysmans (re-read)
The Melancholy of Resistance, László Krasznahorkai
Hunger, Knut Hamsun
Complete works of Sophocles
Theogony/Works and Days, Hesiod

>good
Rigadoon, L.F. Céline
Les Chants de Maldoror, Comte de Lautréamont
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Broquéis, Cruz e Sousa

>okay
Lord Arthur's Crime and other stories, Oscar Wilde
Amor de Perdição, Camilo Castelo Branco

>bad
Factotum, Charles Bukowski
Ham on Rye, Charles Bukowski

Started with Anna Karenina and loved it. First Tolstoy experience and now I don't know if I quite have the motivation to do W&P since I hear it's not as cathartic. Halfway through Moby-Dick and so far find Melville's prose to be really beautiful.

I also picked up Shelby Foote's tome on the Civil War today but I have no clue when I'll shoehorn that in.

That book about the New Jersey Mob and it's relationship with the Soprano's TV show.
Donnie Brasco
Sons Of The Southern Cross: rebels, revolutions, Anzacs and the spirit of Australia's fighting flag (very good read, for Aussies but also the Irish and especially the Yanks - it'll give you a better understanding of why Australia and America are so closely linked)
That Jay Dobyns Hell's Angel book
The Crying of Lot 49
Inherent Vice
Old Man and the Sea


Not sure what to read next. Guess I'll trawl through this shit thread and try and find something juicy

I've only been reading at the gf's instigation. I'm reading Moby-Dick for the second time and Mansfield Park at the same time. I finished A Streetcar Named Desire at her instigation. So that's the only "book" I've finished so far. I've been wanting to read more of the Bible lately but it's hard to dip into when you already have Melville on your hands, let alone another novel. I even tried reading some of Gideon's Bible on vacation and she just laughed at me. Sucks because you only have a short time to save your soul...

0
still getting through all the fucking endings in return of the king.

how the fuck did you read both two towers and return of the king in a month? im actually curious as to what kind of reading schedule people have in order to be reading 5 to 10 books in a month.

where do you guys find the time to read?

I finished Gravitys Rainbow
Honestly my california raisin is still totally discombobulated from all the
1. Capers
2. Buffooneries
3. Hoodwinks
4. Raillery
That were present in that book
Im sure I missed out on about 80% of the significance of what was occuring

Not him, but back when I studied English before changing majors, it was not uncommon for me to read that much in a month (5-10 books). On goodreads, there was one year where I had read 200-300 books. Usually I made a document on notepad with page lengths to reach. You either have the enthusiasm and time for it or you don't. Had I been working a full-time job, frankly, I doubt I would have made time for Ulysses.

2
I feel like shit because everyone else has read more

Paradise Lost
Swann's Way

at least youre honest, user. there's more intellectual humility in your post than in most of Veeky Forums's cum-soaked tube socks.

I only read 50 pages a day before bed. That's 5 300 page books a month, and usually read anywhere between 2 and 8 books a month depending on what they are.

11 by the middle of the month and still 11. I suppose that was because my post-holiday workload was lessened temporarily. Steppenwolf and Eugene Onegin were great

Who came in your tube socks, brainlet? Too dumb for Pynchon? Get off my board please.

>masturbating into a sock

Do people actually do this? I thought this was a meme from American Pie

Don't lol. Those are both long, dense af works (assuming you understood them :^) )

soooooo boring. couldn't do it senpai. I liked it for the first 100 pages then it just dragged on and on.

I used to masturbate into the same sock and keep it down the side of my bed that was touching the wall when I was young. I stopped after finding maggots in it one day.

Two. I rarely read.

...

>i'm gonna read a ton of books this year
>start 4 800+ page books

lol

I've read 6 so far.

>5/5
The Hobbit. It really felt like an adventure all the way through and never really had a dull moment.

>4/5
On writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King. I want to become a writer, would be 5/5 if not for the self-biography, didn't buy the book for that purpose.

3/5
Lord of the Flies. I don't know, felt slow paced and kind of dull. He also broke up the dialogue every second sentence for some reason.

2/5
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman. Had no idea it was an abridged version. But the story had a lot of content that didn't need to be in there and the flow felt odd as hell. People said it was funny and like a fairy tale. The latter is true, the prior, not so much.

1/5
The Dead Zone, by Stephen King. Nothing happens till the last 100 pages, spent way too much time on John Smith and other bullshit instead of going into the preventing WW3 scenario which the book should have focused on from the very start.

Unrated:
The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. Interesting read, not sure how to rate it since its about the basics of war.

Are you 14?

No, I just enjoy reading fiction. Also only began reading heavily quite recently, so I have a lot to catch up on.

The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
Ubik - Philip K. Dick
Heretics - G. K. Chesterton
The Screwtape Letters - C. S. Lewis
Apology - Plato (not really a full book but you get the point)
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
Notes from Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky
I'm on the verge of finishing "Demons" by Dosto as well.

They've all been pretty good, although I was less impressed with some than I had expected. "TMaM" was entertaining and had a really poignant ending (for me, at least) but I wasn't really amused by the first half of the book because it failed to connect with any major characters; it's just the devil and a procession of people he screws over for two chapters. Also everyone says it's a great satire of Soviet Russia but through my pseudishness I didn't discern that as a major theme. Maybe it's a lot different to read it as a Russian.

"Ubik" was very enjoyable as a Dick read. It was kind of like "Inception" in that it has a very unique premise and exploits it to the hilt but to do so kind of throws compelling characters and dialog by the wayside. Still a great punchy little "ideas book."

"ACoD" was often very funny but sometimes I was overcome with just sheer rage at Ignatius. Clearly that was part of the point but I don't know if I'll be rereading it again soon just to upset myself. Still, an impressive blend of humor, deep characterization, and a skewering of the self-importance of a lot of intellectuals.

The Dosto's have been Dosto-tier. Seriously great stuff, here's hoping that Demons keeps it strong in the last 10%.

Too few, not even worth mentioning. I was busy writing, studying and watching movies. I watched loads of them, in fact. Started the year with Fellini's Roma and going to end the month with Tarr's Satantango in a cinema + talk with Tarr himself after the projection.
Roma was probably my favourite (Satantango might overthrow it, who knows), Werckmeister Harmonies and Days of Darkness were great as well. The latter is sadly obscure, it captures the absurdity of modern life disturbingly hilariously. Two Tarantinos - Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction - were entertaining but felt empty overall. Hateful Eight was better, maybe because I saw it in cinema. Kurosawa's two adaptations of Shakespeare are my attempt at getting into Japanese cinema and they didn't sit quite well. I'll try his original stories next, maybe that will yield better results.

Enjoy reading drivel, more like. You know there's fiction that isn't YA/genre schlock, right?

Why do you gotta shit on this guy, man? Let's all just post our books and have a friendly discussion. Why do you want to go out of your way just to insult this guy because his book choices aren't intellectual enough for you?

You don't have to insult other people's intelligence to *be* intelligent, you know.

Don't be mean

>Enjoy reading drivel, more like. You know there's fiction that isn't YA/genre schlock, right?

Then recommend me some and I will guarantee you I'll try them.

Only read 2 books this year
The Bishop and other Stories by Chekhov
Image and Idea by Phillip Rahv

I got about 100 pages into The Confidence Man and had to abandon it. Repetitive and tedious.

The Rahv book had some interesting essays about Tolstoy, Hawthorne and Kafka. He's an interesting critic.

You're in a thread that's chock full of it

asshole
the hobbit and lord of the flies are really good books but it is something you should have read in middle school.
check out lord of the rings and the dark tower if you like tolkien and stephen king.
id say stay away from stephen king for the most part though.

That might be so, but you're the one who confronted me about this issue. Therefore, since you're obviously superior to me on every level imaginable, I would like your recommendations on fiction that isn't "schlock" level material. Whether those recommendations already are in this thread or not doesn't matter. Repeating a few books already posted doesn't hurt.

I'm not a native english speaker which might answer why I haven't read Lord of the Flies up until now. I must say though, despite not being a native speaker I find the lack of literature we had to read in school to be depressing.

As for Lord of the Rings I got the entire series, just finishing up some other standalone books I have lying around before diving into the trilogy series. As for The Dark Tower series I've wanted to read that for some time and after The Dead Zone I sure as hell will be more cautious when considering to buy one of Stephen King's books again.

Am I? You're on an anonymous image board, friendo. The first guy who responded to you is probably long gone.

I just finished the audiobook of Napoleon, too.

Great
The Floating Opera [Barth]
Burr [Vidal]
Candide [Voltaire]
No Exit and Three Other Plays [Sartre]

Good
Exiles [Joyce]
A Modest Proposal [Swift]
JFK and the Unspeakable [Douglass]
Napoleon: A Life [Roberts]

>Great
Count of Monte Cristo
Blood Meridian
Death of Ivan Ilyich (reread)

>Good
The Waves
The Cossacks

>Decent
Mother Night
An Artist on the Floating World

I read Altered Carbon while on vacation, and it was very enjoyable.

Since then, I've mostly just read medical records for the purpose of redacting the personal information of clients. My brain is starved for artistic input, but I can spot a SSN or a home address from 50 yards.

Stoner
Hamlet
The crying of lot 49
Breakfast of champions
Fear and loathing
A few short stories by Kafka

I've enjoyed all of them, I think it's because I'm new to reading and don't have to search for diamonds in the rough yet

Freedom by Franzen. It started off slow but midway through got really fucking good. I think that was the point though.

So far I only finished one but I've been juggling 5 books and I'll probably finish all of them in early February.

>new to reading
Not a bad start. Might I recommend Under The Volcano by Lowry or East of Eden by Steinbeck

Ive read 4

>great

The Antichrist
The Undiscovered Self
Road to Wigan Pier

>good

Animal farm

5
>Great
Dispatches

>Good
The Birth of Tragedy/The Case of Wagner
Man and His Symbols

>Okay
The Quiet American
Barabbas

...

This year, I've read very little. Just A Short History of Decay, a reread of Aristotle's Politics, some Emerson essays and starting back in with Don Quixote, which I never finished reading back in college.

It's not going to be a reading heavy year though. Last year I read probably 25,000 pages of literature and philosophy. Can't let yourself fall too deeply into the book meme.

None so far. 3 short stories? Pretty pathetic, but. I started watching The Wire recently and that's taken up a lot of time.

Going away soon so will get some reading done then.

Read 6 this month

>Great
Germinal - Emila Zola
Invisible Man- Ralph Ellison

>Good
A Moveable Feast - Hemingway
Beauty and Sadness - Yasunari Kawabata

>Meh
Utopia - Thomas More
The Problem with Socialism - Thomas DiLorenzo

Literally finishing up love in the time of cholera was thinking of making what and peace my February book, why was it only good

I've only read Wind in the Willows. I've seen 52 films though lmao

Point omega: was ok
The iliad: was ok kinda tiring
Childhoods end: meh, frustrating, disagreeable
Steppenwolfe: boring but interesting, kind of pretentious.

exactly 1

but i have some reading for classes, so its aight
>tfw early enough to change majors
>tfw moving from Philosophy to Comp Lit
its fucking lit senpai

I'm the guy you replied to. My average this month has been about 30-40 pages per day. Not that much really compared to most people here. The LotR books are only about 400 pages each.

It's much more about consistency rather than long hours. Read for an hour every day and you'll be suprised at how much you get done.

Kill yourself you father fucking asshole dumb shit I sincerely hope you die in a cesspit filled with maggots who are themselves filled with maggots filled with HItler's mustache. Your mother must be so fucking disappointed in herself to have birthed you you piece of human trash. God, if he exists should kill himself because he let you exist. Jesus died for our sins but not yours. Kill yourself. Maybe the only reason you're alive is because the devil doesn't want you down there.

Only finished The Master & Margarita, which I really enjoyed. Been trying to get through Don Quixote ever since.

The # of books doesn't matter. Hours spent reading is what really matters. People don't usually track that though, so we can't post about it.

The guy is a giant cunt. Don't ask him for recommendations, and certainly don't prioritize anything he recommends.

You do you. Fuck the pseuds.

War and Peace is the best book I've ever read. Just because one guy says it's only good doesn't mean everyone thinks that.

don't listen to the redditors criticizing you my man. i think you are cool

>good

Moby-Dick

>meh

Sun also Rises
Farewell to Arms
Old man and the Sea

>nah

For Whom the bell tolls

Gone Girl - i don't even rember her name gilian or something 2/5
The first few chapters were interesting but once they revealed the twist it was just boring

Demian - herman hesse 4/5
You should know your jung before you read this, not sure i got everything but the it was an amazing journey of self discovery

Mythology - hamilton
Started reading it with the greek reading group, some interesting stories so far

A few short shorties

>Murnane
Holy shit, I never see Murnane mentioned here. How was it? I read about half of The Plains a when ago before getting sidetracked, I've been meaning to pick it up again soon.

The Last Guardian of Everness + Mists of Everness - John C wright
Enjoyable, that guy has a wild imagination.

Foundation - Isaac Asimov
A bunch of jews finding new ways to cuck the galaxy after being sent in exile. Fun.

The Following Story - Cees Nooteboom
Great.

A Sorrow Beyond Dreams - Peter Handke
Not bad, some edgy posturing.

The Exiles and Other Stories - Horacio Quiroga
Confy.

Signs Preceding the End of the World - Yuri Herrera.
Nice.

The Transmigration of Bodies - Yuri Herrera
Also nice.

The Merciful Women - Federico Andahazi
Spooky/Sexy

Dubliners - James Joyce
First time reading Joyce, I'm already impressed.

Pedro Paramo - Juan Rulfo
Didnt seem that good but I think I should re-read it one day.

Blinding - Mircea Cărtărescu
Mind-blowing

Damn do u have a job? Because i don't, and after going to the gym, filling out applications, doing school work, running errands, the max i could put towards reading was like 2 hours. And this does not take into account the tike shitposting in Veeky Forums.

Im busy with Don Quijote, the brothers Karamazov and De avonden (the evenings). Probably a bad idea to read books this way because i never finish anything.

Death of Ivan Ilych
Hamlet
The Iliad
The Odyssey
The Stranger
East of Eden
The Crying of Lot 49
Misc Greek plays
Kokoro
The old man who fell from the sea etc

so around 10 i guess

All of them were pretty good, thanks Veeky Forums for introducing me to the good shit

As long as you're reading every day you're good.

Focus on reading for longer periods each day.

Tristram Shandy, which I enjoyed, especially the parts with my uncle Toby.

A bunch of Wodehouse. Jeeves and Wooster stories were nice light reading. The Clicking of Cuthbert wasn't my favourite, but then I don't golf.

Our Ancestors. Love Calvino, the Baron in the Trees was beautiful.

A couple hundred pages into Don Quixote.

4

>End of Watch
>The Fault in our Stars
>1Q84
>Lolita

Lolita was the only good book

Quick update before January is over:

I finished "Demons" and squeezed in "The Stranger" as well.

Quick update I finished Anne Sexton – All My Pretty Ones
Hart Crane – White Buildings
H.D. - The Walls Do Not Fall