Age

>18
>New Orleans
>a confederacy of dunces

>20
>Faroe Islands
>Francis Bacon - Essays

>24
>Ohio
>Jurassic Park

Good so far. Can't wait until Hammond dies

>25
>NYC
>Ulysses
I'm 200 pages in and enjoying it but I can definitely see why some people wouldn't like it

>18 year old reading The Floating Opera
Don't take life so seriously

>26
>Eastern Canada
>Stoner

Finally getting around to it after seeing it posted for years on here. Seems like the type of book academics who fantasize about living a provincial life would enjoy reading. I don't have a verdict yet, myself.

>22
>South West Germany
>War and Peace

Halfway through. Liking it so far

IV.3

(Context: proud here is an excellence--the balance between being unduly humble and vain)

>Now the proud man, since he deserves most, must be good in the highest degree; for the better man always deserves more, and the best man most. Therefore the truly proud man must be good. And greatness in every excellence would seem to be characteristic of a proud man. And it would be most unbecoming for a proud man to fly from danger, swinging his arms by his sides, or to wrong another; for to what end should he do disgraceful acts, he to whom nothing is great? If we consider him point by point we shall see the utter absurdity of a proud man who is not good. Nor, again, would he be worthy of honor if he were bad; for honor is the prize of excellence and it is to the good that it is rendered. Pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown of the excellences; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character.

>It is chiefly with honors and dishonors, then, that the proud man is concerned; and at honors that are great and conferred by good men he will be moderately pleased, thinking that he is coming by his own or even less than his own; for there can be no honor that is worthy of perfect excellence, yet he will at any rate accept it since they have nothing greater to bestow on him; but honor from casual people and on trifling grounds he will utterly despise, since it is not this that he deserves, and dishonor too, since in his case it cannot be just.

It goes on, but that last sentence resonated with me, and the book is better read in its entirety.

A little context: Before this, he talks about excellences and finding balances (means) between contrary actions, and how the excellent and just don't always hit the target, but instead have minimal deficiency or toxicity. Anyway, he speaks of the two opposites of pride as being unduly humble and vain. Being proud at the right things, at the right times is good.

>22
>DC
>Selected Stories by Nikolay Gogol

Just started and am looking forward to it.

>Faroe Islands

Neat.

>19
>Ohio
>Post office by Bukowski
I really like it. Ive never read Bukowski (I'm just getting into literature idk if Veeky Forums likes him or not).

>18
>Roskilde, Denmark
>The Idiot
It's top notch

dansk oversættelse?

>22
>Nova Scotia
>White Noise

Peppered with entertaining and skillful segments throughout but it's getting tiring to read. IJ is of the same cohort in my mind, and it outranks Delillo's on both counts.

>18
>Canberra
>One Hundred Years of Solitude
It's pretty fun

>22
>Netherlands
>Vineland
I like it but I like it least of what I've read of Pynchon (lot 49 and inherent vice)

87
Land-Bridge Undersea Bubble
Dragon Drive volume 1

It's time to leave (this earth), grandpa.

How? Don't you have alcohol to drink and hijinks to get into this weekend?

>31
>Guatemala
>Occultic;Nine

This doesn't deserve to be so good. But boy is it.

If anyone decides to pick it up: make sure you read at least one chapter.

>25
>Austria
>New York Trilogy
It's shit.

>20
>Minnesota, USA
>The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov

It's pretty great for the most part. Reminds me a lot of And Quiet Flows the Don by Sholokov

>25
>Argentina
>Mason & Dixon

when pinecone rambles about shit it's kinda hard to know what the he's talking about, i thought my english was great until i read this fucking book

> 26
> Ontario
> Things Hidden Since the Foundations of the World

Pretty mindblowing. Seems like Girard has an answer/explanation to every philosophy, literature, politics, anthropology, history, theology.

Basically, when autistic Hegelians jack off to how their guy is the culmination of western intellectual thought...it's actually Rene Girard.

20
ATL GA
"Portrait of the artist as a young man"
Pure gold thus far

Sounds very interesting. Which translation do you recommend?

>26
>Las Vegas
>At Swim-Two-Birds

Hilarious and meta as fuck. I love it so far.

Hi

Harsh dude. I love that book. Especially City of Glass.

I think there's only one translation in English. He's not stylistically difficult or obscure. He's dense but that's because he's commenting on everything.

He's the final boss of the humanities.

>22
>Casablanca, Morocco
>Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Hariri (still haven't begun)

>18
>Australia
>politics by aristotle
>very good

okpi

I finished that seven days ago. I hope you continue to enjoy it.
>18
>Arizona, USA
>The Brothers Karamazov
I read through the exposition today, then I went through a few chapters of the meeting with Zosima. After I had finished said exposition the pacing sped up so that it has been as much of a treat to read as was The Idiot. All of the biblical references have been soaring over my head, but that issue will soon become a thing of the past; I just ordered a Bible.

>24
>AZ, US
>The Complete Works of HP Lovecraft

I have had only nightmares on days that I read it did not disappoint.

>16
>London
>The God Delusion

It's fun.

Nice bait

>19
>England
>The Road

It's alright, the two characters are a bit hollow considering they carry the whole thing but it fits the tone. The pacing is great too.

>24
>Sweden
>Pale Fire

i like it, Nabokov has his usual slick as hell style and the book in general is very beautiful

are you still enjoying it though? Can you say some thing/s you like about it?

>29
>Minnesota

>Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
Fantastic. Peake's descriptions of Gormenghast and its inhabitants are so intense they seem cartoonish, but somehow real. It reminds me of the movie The Triplets of Belleville: a spooky caricature.

>Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind
Less good. It's a pretty run-of-the-mill fantasy with sub-par prose and boring as fuck main characters.

>19
>somewhere near japan
>Ender's Game
I think I'm liking it, but I'm not sure why, really wish I understood my own preference better so I can find more books I like.

>18
>Michigan
>Watchmen

It's pretty good. I think it deserves the acclaim that it's gotten over the years.

20
Minneapolis
Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson

I'm feelin it

>19
>Michigan
>Dune

Though the world's general mechanisms and lore somewhat confuses me, I find myself really intrigued.

23
Mexico
I fondamenti dell'astrologia medica

It's hit or miss. I only bought it because i need it to practice my italian

23
Long Island
Pere Goriot - Balzac

Honestly, it kinda suck

20
Quebec
Notes from the Underground and The Gambler after that.

>22
>Mexico City
>Athenaze (Chap. 7) & Hamlet (Arden)

Reading the introduction of that Hamlet's edition, it's quite good. I'm very hype to be reading Hamlet at last (it's not my first Shakespeare by any means, but I've been meaning to read since a long time ago).

Is it on astronomy/astrology? Does it reference The Almagest?
24
Maryland
Apollonius' On Conics book III, it's harder than the first two books, but I understand it well enough overall.
Also reading Henry George's Progress and Poverty which is fucking overly nitpicky about the concept of Capital imho,smhf

Really, the level of detail and world building render it one of the only two fictional universes paying attention to

This and LOTR tbqhwyf

>near Japan
do you live on a boat?

...

nah, I live in Taiwan, it has it benefits, but I kind of hate it, some of the older books that Veeky Forums recommends me are always so expensive and hard to find here, especially in english

Astrology. The author is this journalist/reporter mostly talking about how often people with certain signs have certain health problems (like pescis being near-sighted).

>19
>Illinois
>Meditations
Am enjoying it a lot its making me forget about my crippling depression.

>22
>Oregon
>Against the Day

Loving it. Always underestimate just how fucking weird Pynchon gets, though.

19
Melbourne
An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

>25
>Boston
>Within a Budding Grove

these hoes ain't loyal

>18
>UK
>The Pyrates

faggot

Why has it taken this long for Squints to become a meme?

Read some Bernhard.

where do you go to college

>26
>Brazil
>Fall of Hyperium

Awesome reading, I had so many mind fucks by now I can't even see straight anymore.

>24
>Romania
>Rise and fall of the third Reich

I like it, history is my new interest.

>18
>Tejas
>Breaking the Spell
I am only reading it because I have nothing else to read at the moment. It actually is a lot less edgy than I thought it would be and has some good points.

That's because Daniel Dennet is an actual philosopher, unlike the other pop atheists

>18
>miami
>the metamorphoses
It's so darn a very good read I can I am enjoying it

>20
>brazil
>V. and Essentials of Business Processa and Informations Systems

>19
>england
>the crying of lot 49

I don't really like it so far. It's quite one-note and predictable, in the way the story develops (webs of almost-coincidences building to some commentary on plots and meta-narratives) and his style of humour (even though his observations are, actually, often very funny)

>Essentials of business processess and informations systems***

also, enjoying V., just finished the esther's nosejob chapter and it was painful imagining the surgery but it was good. and its normal to feel like they are "short stories" connected to each other right?

the other book is mostly for college, business + IT, its interesting if you need a bridge between business processess and the information systems used

>18
>Lawrence, KS

>Journal of Albion Moonlight, Kenneth Patchen

It's convoluted, disjointed and written in a very surrealistic, dream-like, episodic sequence. It's very dark, deals a lot with death and the loss of innocence. But it's more of a celebration towards the darker parts of life. What should be grim and depressing turns into something beautiful half-way through.

His prose isn't good or bad. The content has to be taken in about three pages at a time. Neither its style or its content are very remarkable. But it's good, really good. It's just as random, weird, and short-lived as a dream, yet there's an undertone of order throughout the whole thing. It's like he wrote down every dream he ever had, and revised them just enough to string them together in a book. It's probably the most original book I've ever read.

Imagine a book with the Naked Lunch's chaos and the Tunnel's pessimism in the style of George Orwell where every page is as eccentric as the ending to Steppenwolf. That's the best i can explain it.

>I like it, history is my new interest.

Even though I'm a fictionfag, I have to admit that history is far more interesting than fiction ever could be.

>It's so darn a very good read I can I am enjoying it

Do you need me to call you an ambulance?

>21
>MD
>Leviathan

Just moved past the chapters that build up Hobbes' rudimentary understanding of human psychology and into the more sociological content, which I think is where the real worth of the book is

how is your location a medical doctorate?

>19
>Silicon Valley
>Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, and A Tale of Two Cities

I'm trying to catch up with Victorian-era literature since I have a class next quarter that focuses on it, and I'm enjoying it so far. Emily's style is refreshingly different compared to her sister's, but still familiar enough to understand why the three sisters were so famous. WH caught me off guard, though, since I thought Emily Brontë would write a lot like her sister, Charlotte.

PaP isn't exactly Victorian-era, but close enough. It's kind of boring, though. I'm not sure if it's because of Austen herself, or because I've read too much literature from around the time, but it's nothing but a bunch of rich white people complaining around hors d'œuvres.

Charles Dickens is Charles Dickens. I only like Victorian-era literature because of the prose anyway.

>PaP isn't exactly Victorian-era, but close enough. It's kind of boring, though. I'm not sure if it's because of Austen herself, or because I've read too much literature from around the time, but it's nothing but a bunch of rich white people complaining around hors d'œuvres.

Why do women circlejerk over it so much? It's literally the only book I ever see spammed by women on Instagram.

It's by a female author, about a predominantly female character pool. There's nothing else to it.

Also because it showed that women could square up with men in terms of literary capabilities.

>20
>uk
>The Given Day, Dennis Lehane

My dad recommended it to me. I only read it during my commute since it hasn't become exciting enough to move in to my actual free time. It's very gritty with a good balance of humour and tragedy.

silence welp

you're welcome here.

>25
>JR by Gaddis
>it's good but it's longer than I'd hoped. I just have a lot to read right now

I've transcended the need for physical locus and have made academia my home

>26
>Canada
>Prester John
Loving it. Fascinating old novel from around 110 years ago or so.

I've gotta check that novel out sometime, canadanon

Eastern Canada is best Canada

Been meaning to check that one out as well. Seen the movie. I already kind of forget it but I think I thought it was pretty good.

Fuck yeah; history is badass. Been obsessed with it since I was a young teen.

Because they're just like us.

We're insecure and compensate by presenting ourselves as having the 'bookish' trait associated with smart people and an upperclass lifestyle.

They don't like reading, don't even do it that often, but, when they do, they let as many people know as possible. PaP is one of those classic books everyone's heard of but few have read. It's name is associated with the types of books "intelligent" people read.

They were probably the smart kid in class, was praised by their teachers, had an edge over their peers, might even of been admitted into the gifted program, but it never got any better than that. They never developed outside that environment, never found something that made them interesting or special.

But they want approval. They want people to know that they have things that should be valued. And then they remember, probably subconsciously, the feeling they got when their teacher praised them for reading a book that was "hard".

Being proud is the quickest way past depression. If you can weld well, you take pride in it. No matter what happens, you're still a good welder. Same with being able to do math like that computer that beat Kasparov or having good looks or excellent people skills or hands that could keep up with Glenn Gould's. When you have something like that, it's a base on which to build your personality.

A lot of people don't have that. We were told we were smart as kids. The other kids struggled in English and Algebra, but we breezed through it. Which was nice. But we never had that insecurity or fear that drives young people to find something they're good at. We were good at being smart. Other people can play an instrument and tell a joke and climb a mountain, be we're smart.

That's why a lot of us here read books. We're smart, and we're to caught up in ourselves to notice that it doesn't matter how smart you or what you read if nobody would notice and nothing would change if you went away. We're also insecure. We constantly have to prove to others or ourselves that we're in that league of miserable, isolated geniuses that are only like us in narcissism and social isolation.

We want to be "smart". We do "smart" things. We think about life in a "smart" way. But being smart doesn't mean dick. We're all insufferable after an hour alone with us. We know we have very few friends because we're just that "smart". Everyone would read as much as we do if no one ever invited them out.

Veeky Forums makes fun of these instagram intellectuals because they resemble Veeky Forums so closely. This is all a facade. An we're playing to impress people and get laid.

Who hurt you?

...

It's not inaccurate.

24
AZ. USA
The Education of Cyrus

Did you read The Color Out of Space yet? I really loved that one.

>22
>PNW
>catch-22, honestly such a solid classic. Makes me laugh out loud every other chapter.

You seem to have a lot of self hate. Somehow you've thought up a reason to hate yourself for reading, which is oddly impressive.

You might do some research into Borderline Personality Disorder.

>Borderline Personality Disorder.
all sane humans have this