2017 is already halfway over, friends. What have you read?

> reading this much this quickly was a huge waste of time
I certainly didn't feel that way. If I had just read 10 books I'm sure there would be other people on here accusing me of being a brainlet because I'm too slow.

> you're a dipshit
I asked you to make me prove I understood the books but you didn't take that chance. Instead you just assumed I was stupid. If you really do want to have a discussion about any of these books I would unironically like to. I won't profess to understand/appreciate every book 100% (who can?) but I would like to think I gave each a fair chance. I may be a pleb but I'm trying.

Would you like to share what you've been reading this year, as was requested in the original post?

No. you're a dipshit

Dude, I literally asked the other guy in this thread to discuss some of these books with me and he didn't want to, just called me names. If you don't think I understood the books, just ask me to discuss them and expose me as a pleb if you want. I will try to have a serious discussion with you.

If you don't want to do that, would you mind discussing what books you've read so far this year? That's what I wanted this thread to be about, and maybe I'll learn something about what your standard pace is.

delete your gay ass thread

If i did, it wouldn't be secret anymore.
yes
Nigga, u gotta calm down, you're in Veeky Forums.

>understanding or not understanding is your bar for whether or not you succeeded
heh

Friend, I just wanted to have a discussion about books but you would just rather dismiss me. Isn't this board supposed to be about literature, not making fun of people who read it.

I read these books in good faith and asked you to engage in a good faith discussion. You declined and made a whole bunch of assumptions about me. If that makes you feel good about yourself, then cool. Truly, the winner is he who doesn't even try to engage in a conversation.

> inb4 you reply to this calling me a dipshit

That guy called me out for "not understanding" what I read so that's how I responded.

If you want to talk about aesthetic appreciation, historical context, or impact on my philosophical views, we can talk about that too.

Or, you could just post what you've read this year, which was the original reason for the thread.

Go back to /r/books

t. millennial with a brain so fried on TV and the Internet that he can't imagine reading more than 3 books a month

Seriously, if you're not reading at least 15 books a month you should really consider getting a new hobby.

It's not like English is his second language or anything.

what did you think of Underworld? i'm considering buying it, but not sure. i'm afraid of being too ambitious for Delillo, and not actually being a worthwhile book. Some pretend to be geniuses.
Speaking of, who were the outstanding geniuses extant in your list, by your estimation?

>Seriously, if you're not reading at least 15 books a month you should really consider getting a new hobby.

He fell for the speed reading meme

Mar 17th - The Pale King
May 29th - Freakonomics
Jun 5th - The Waves
Jun 13th - All The Pretty Horses
Jun 15th - Memories of My Melancholy Whores
Jun 16th - Night
Jun 17th - Cryptonomicon
Jun 19th - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Jun 21st - Through the Looking-Glass
Jun 23rd - Hamlet
Jun 26th - Life: A Users Manuel
Jul 2nd - The Secret History of Twin Peaks

got a new job where i just sit around so getting back into reading

how was perec?

> what did you think of Underworld?
It was basically an encyclopedic chronicle of life from the 50's to the 90's, each component of which is rendered convincingly and with some salient points about the underside of consumerism. There are a lot of threads that end up wound together in unexpected ways, which was amusing but not, I think, as mind-blowing as Delillo may have thought it was.

> i'm afraid of being too ambitious for Delillo, and not actually being a worthwhile book
If you've not read anything else by Delillo I would definitely recommend starting with White Noise or Libra. Underworld was worth it in my opinion but it was definitely overlong. To spin off your comment about ambition, Delillo has a huge vision for Underworld (that is mostly realized) but still didn't require 800 pages to get across. While you may be interested in many of the individual stories that occur throughout the book, the main character's plot is relatively lackluster and can't sustain interest or suspence for the entire length.

> who were the outstanding geniuses extant in your list, by your estimation?
The authors who really blew me away were Dosto, Camus, and McCarthy. For Dosto and McCarthy I had read other things before, though, which may even exceed their contributions on this list. Crime and Punishment and Blood Meridian are two of my favorite books. Although I had read essays by Camus before, The Rebel really exceeded my expectations and brought new perspective for me on issues of existentialism vs. absurdism vs. nihilism. His prose is also exceptionally clear and has a few beautiful turns of phrase. (Obviously I was reading a translation but his whole passage about Sade and how "the executioners eye each other suspiciously" was great.)

wasn't really a fan, had a few good tangents but too many chapters just endlessly listing items in rooms. not really my idea of world building but to each their own

disappointed because i was super excited for it

>May 29th - Freakonomics

Do you plan to read SuperFreakonomics? I thought it was a great expansion of the theme and actually refined the concept.

sorry people are picking on you OP. I think you're cool and I seriously envy that you read so many things on my to-read list, in a row and in so little time.

I've read 29 books this year and am pretty happy with my selections, although I've mostly read American and European white dudes.

You're making me excited for The Rebel. I read The Plague recently, and The Myth of Sisyphus plus essays and The Fall this year. Read The Fall in one sitting, it was pretty compelling, especially after having read some other Camus.

What did you think of ubik? I read it all high, still not sure my version of the plot is right.

I hope you enjoy it, man! I am likely going to read The Fall soon, as well.

Ubik was probably my favorite Dick novel. I read it nearly all in one sitting (though I was not high at the time) and I was really impressed with both the level of imagination and scope given the length. Although it suffers from some of the same problems of a lot of other Dick novels (plain-jane prose, for example), it actually subverted his "wish-fulfillment girlfriend" tropes in an interesting way, which I liked.
To me the things which put it over the top were the great pacing of information reveals (like teasing the mystery of what "Ubik" is) and the way the plot twists utilize the concept to the hilt. It doesn't just settle for being a "someone is controlling reality" story, it really explores how this phenomenon is experienced, combated, or subverted (from a narrative perspective). Pretty cool stuff.

lmao

i've been NEETing for the last 10 months and i've read 400 books and 400 academic papers, a few dozen of them more than once

reading 6-7 hours a day

I'm with this guy.

I'm always shocked how most people in this board can't imagine reading 200-300 pages per day. I work about 12 hours a day, and go to school and still manage about 10 to 15 books a month.

Is everybody retarded or what? If you don't spend any time watching tv, movies or whatever you don't need to speedread. I don't, or at the very least I don't feel like I do. What is easy you read fast, what is hard takes time, but if everybody thinks Camus needs some kind of close study to grasp then maybe their shit really is all retarded.

Here's the problem:
We're not autistic bookworm faggots.
We like other things too.

I work as a CEO in a multinational corporation. I work 21 hours a day and i've read 50000 books and 750 academic papers within a month.

what's your excuse degenerate? Step up your game nigga.

Ok, but don't go about saying other people can't manage what you're incapable of.

You're lying, there's no such thing as camus group study.

I refuse to believe humanity can't grasp the obvious.

>reading is his only hobby

When do you work out? When do you practice a musical instrument? When do you interact with people? When do you make love? When do you live?

Obscure and secret do not mean the same thing

noice m8

In the morning when I get home from work. I'm studying music, I practice after a small workout. I do plenty interacting as I have a job, and a couple of days off I use to meet close friends when I can, I have a regular friend with benefits and stay at his place plenty.

I may be an autistic bookworm fag, but I'm living ok, don't you mind. It's precisely because I have a very busy live that I've got to make good use of every bit of free time, and spending it on dumb shit just so I feel distracted isn't something I plan on doing again. I used to, but not anymore.

Tbh, I'm a very slow reader, and I didn't read in February and March. I've read Picture of Dorian Gray and most of Infinite Jest this year.

I've read 50 books but I won't share the list because it's full of genre fiction and embarrassing garbage.

i have observed many of these types of threads over the years. without fail, there will always be a group of incredibly antagonistic individuals who will not appreciate what you've read. too little, too much, too many "meme authors", entry-level stuff, whatever. it's painfully transparent these people are envious of the amount and depth of the books that you've read; not worth your time. do make sure that as you progress further into this hobby you do develop your own taste so you don't appear as a poseur.

I-I read The Tunnel by Sabato and I'm reading Brothers Karamazov...

How do I read moar, Veeky Forums? Unironically asking.

Joseph Conrad - Victory
Steinbeck - Of Mice & Men
Dumas - Count of Monte Cristo
Wilde - Picture of Dorian Gray
Corncob - All the Pretty Horses / The Crossing
Burroughs - Naked Lunch
Beckett - Waiting for Godot

Working through Brothers Karamazov right now

I'm a pretty slow reader ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Disgrace - Coetzee
Libra - DeLillo
In the Wake - Christina Sharpe
Water and Dreams - Gaston Bachelard
Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance - Simon Critchley
THe Birth of Tragedy - Nietzsche
Varieties of Disturbance - Lydia Davis
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - TS Eliot
The Master Builder - Ibsen
De Profundis - Oscar WIlde
Finnegans Wake - Joyce (of course, as Derrida noted, one does not "read" Joyce, but I did look at the words on every page of this)
V. - pynchon
Waiting for the Barbarians - Coetzee
Moby-Dick - Melville
The Waves - Virginia Woolf

The Iliad
Crime and punishment
The Buddha and what he taught
Alice in wonderland again
Beyond good and evil
Memories dreams recollections or whatever. That jung biography
Then I started reading Infinite Jest and i went from reading at least a chapter a day to forcing myself to read 5pages most days. I'm like halfway through but my god can it drag on some bullshit I don't care about.

Oh yeah and I read crying of lot 49. That had some cool ideas but I couldn't stand it for the most part. It's as close as you can get to intentionally disorienting and still have a trace of a plot.
I think Infinite Jest is making me retarded.

>East of Eden by John Steinbeck
>Ancient Gonzo Wisdom by Hunter S. Thompson
>On Revolution by Hannah Arendt
>The Second Generation by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
>Evil in Modern Thought by Susan B. Neiman
>Dragons of Summer Flame by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
>Light in August by William Faulkner
>Rebel Dream by Aaron Allston
>Rebel Stand by Aaron Allston
>The Demon Lover by Robin Morgan
>The Plague by Albert Camus (reread)
>Revival by Stephen King
>Under the Dome by Stephen King (reread)
>Desperation by Stephen King (reread)
>A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
>The Great Shark Hunt by Hunter S. Thompson
>Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
>Runoff by Clay Matthews
>Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
>Sermons and Lectures Both Blank and Relentless by Matt Hart
>Astonishing the Gods by Ben Okri
>Jacob, Menahem, & Mimoun by Marcel Benabou
>All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
>Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
>A Case of Need by Michael Crichton
>Love and Other Hungers by Susan O'dell Underwood
>Looking Awry by Slavoj Zizek
>Interrogating the Real by Slavoj Zizek
>A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
>The Prague Cemetary by Umberto Eco
>Poetics by Aristotle (reread)

I need to speed back up, I've been slowed down because of my birthday and Electric Forest the past two weeks.Currently reading The Prince & Twelfth Night.

Oops! Forgot

>The Bacchae by Euripides

as well

the thought of this fills me with dread

I'm satisfied with my reading, I also live alone and have a full time job so I'm doing pretty good so far.

Stop shitposting and get off the internet, read whenever you have the chance, while commuting etc, learn selfcontrol to not check the internet/your phone every 5 minutes, things like that which are obvious if you think about what are you doing instead of reading. I'm this guy (You) and I've made significantly more progress since I've started checking Veeky Forums like once a day and I realized most of the people here are wasting their time and you can barely have any good discussion.

...

Nothing desu