It's stack thread time boys. recommendations are optional but validation is required

i'm currently in the process of learning spanish so i'll look into it

does moby dick truly live up to the Veeky Forums hype?

Without a doubt, I can already tell it will be one of the best books I'll read just from the prose.

Ok sure, I went to a used book store last Sunday.

How much did you pay for all of that?
I love used book stores but they're usually way too expensive compared to charity stores imo.

$4 a pop with one or two cheaper. And it was in two chunks, cause they had a sister location where they sold the philosophy and mythology stuff. I don't think I would have it in me to get this much from one place.

crossposting from the other thread senpaitachi

I had the same feeling when I started. finished it 2 weeks ago and its beautiful. the first 25~ chapters are

s u p e r

c o m f y

how does the plague compare to other works of camus

desu from these books i will probably read east of eden, pale fire, the hermeticism book, and then the plague so it may be awhile before I can pass judgement desu..

It's the most traditional and developed novel he wrote. Some pretty vivid imagery.

Just finished a book and I'm trying to pick a new one. Help

my pick would depend on what was the last book I read. never heard of gauer, but the others are all pretty dense and massive. If I had read a modernism or postmodernism book and were to pick a new one it would be the decline and fall of the roman empire. from what people say gibbon is a masterful writer and that it is a very enjoyable and, excuse me, comfy reading. its been on my list of 'to-buy' books, and I definitely want to read gass, gaddis and mcelroy, but later on

I just finished Darconville's Cat and, before that, Light in August (someone will likely recognize me from Goodreads.) I'm leaning towards either Mann or Gibbon. I love McElroy, though, and Novel Explosives just got the Silverblatt Blatt of approve, so I'm excited about it. This happens every time I try to pick a new novel.

although I have a sized shelf of 'to-read-books', I never had this problem of picking a book to read, and actually, before finishing the one I'm reading, I usually already have in mind my next book.

but anyways, go with what you want to read the most. usually this works for me
>pick the 2~3 you want to read more
>start reading the first 1~5 pages, the one that you want to keep reading is the one

Do not even bother reading any of the Kant shit. Spare yourself and read a summary of it online, 80% of it is filler shit and the 20% that isn't that intelligent either.

Yeah that's what I do, but with a lot more to start. These are the ones that passed the first round, which is reading the first page. Now I read 2-5 pages and see if I get stuck in one. Also, these are all runners up from my last elimination, as usual.

how was your day, user?

Is that Monkey a good translation?

It's abridged as shit

>Gass
ha.
Read JR. best book there. Novel Explosives looks like a lesser version of Naked Singularity.

>best book there
The only one you've read, you mean.
>lesser version of Naked Singularity
How are they similar, exactly? Because they're long? In what way is it lesser? Can you expand on that?

lesser in the sense that it's not as good. you know, lesser. they're similar in that they are contemporary authors, both have the themes of a massive drug deal, both are post-modern and huge, both follow in the new tradition of latin american megafiction that has begun to present itself. both come recommended by steven moore, need i go on? I don't need to read any of the others to know that JR is the best. probably the best you have in the house.

Is it better than The Recognitions? I loved that one, and I've been putting off JR for a while. I don't know why. Also, how do I acquire the ability to say with certainty that a book I've read is better than one I haven't?

I have a hard time saying anything is better than The Recognitions, even JR.
This ability comes with the gravity accompanying an extraordinary mass of genius, user.

:(

See, I loved The Recognitions, but I don't think I could say with a straight face that it's better than Gravity's Rainbow, though it's close.

Just started GR, actually, you can feel the overwhelming ebullience in Pynchon's writing, can't you? It's such a far cry from what I was reading before and inevitably quit, Omensetter's Luck. What a gremlin Gass is. Such an unpleasant entity. I suppose if one enjoys reading the work of an interminable cretin, it would be fine, but, well. I don't envy you that copy of The Tunnel. I have read his rotten milk prose, tasted the sweating odor of the man through his pages, and escaped, reeking of foul disappointment.

>tfw typed up a long thoughtful answer to this question all the way up to the "one I haven't" part
>tfw about to reply and realize I read the question completely wrong and proceeded to write a paragraph about close reading

I've heard early Gass is shit in comparison. I really enjoyed his essays, so I'll still give The Tunnel a shot at some point. Is GR your first Pynchon?

you should have posted it anyway, i would have, if only to admire my own work. then i would have argued with the others paying attention to this thread, me, about how the reader's interpretation of a question is even less relevant than the author's intent in a given work, especially questions i haven't read fully.

fuck really? what would be the best version then

I've read V., or most of it, I liked it, but i was too emotionally fragile at the time to read it without getting butthurt.
As to Gass, i wouldn't bet on his work having improved, the first page resorting to tampons and college rape. if anything, the guy made me appreciate perversity in literature when it's jovial, in the way Pynchon might write something obscene, whereas Gass is the old man staring at your wife and making crude gestures in absolute earnest. Like I said, if you like some rotten cottage cheese-esque prose, harboring autobiographical allusions to the author's irrelevant and jarring perversity, then you will love Gass' work.

this is the one i own, the pages are very thin, but the set is aesthetic. be warned, that abridgement is what, four hundred pages? the four volume set is around 2400, so it's massively abridged. massively.

er, sorry.
amazon.com/Journey-Chinese-Classics-Classic-Volumes/dp/7119016636/ref=pd_cp_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8F5BWS6KRCQW43NJ1WXP

Yes, this stack is contrived.

Yeah I definitely recommend his commentaries if you ever want to dig a little deeper into Aristotle. Just started the commentary in the pic today and was pretty interested in the philosophy vs. theology distinction made in the (modern) intro.

Have you read much Aquinas? Never seen Treatise on Law before.

these were $2 each for the most part. actually managed to get Locos for 50 cents
good stuff. wish i had a hard copy of the third policeman

I've always wanted to read andy's diaries but I don't think I could get over the shame of that desire.
Did you just pick it up cause it was cheap?
What do you think of it?

>Living In America starts playing.

i'll be sure to put it in my backlog

First I've really read in years, though I'm not entirely sure where to go from here or what I'm even interested in

white noise and one flew over the cuckoos nest are classics if that is any indication as where to start

>A Brilliant Pollution: Venting the American Constipation
>The Shits of Iraq
>The Turds of Iraq
>Two Years Before the Blast

any recs for Arendt books in particular?

currently reading Rand and I'm rather unimpressed.

This
Why do people on this site like Ayn Rand so much?

Arendt is really different, read on totalitarianism

Good find, Enjoy Flann and Murphy!

Hemingway wasn't really my cup of tea. Looking to expand on Russian, German and English classics.

Any chance of scanning the Tarot article from the Inner West and sticking that shit up online somewhere? You'd be helping a poorfag out big time. Thanks mang.

Yes, it's abridge, but the translation is good if a little quaint for modern (esp. American) ears.
The thing you lot have to bear in mind is that the original is repetitive AF; basically just one new monster per chapter getting his ass kicked by Monkey while the monk acts like a faggot.
Read it and if you enjoy it, keep an eye out for the longer version but don't worry if you can't find it, you're not missing much.

...

start with 5 dialogues
inferno is great
either/or and nietzsche both ok
everything else is negligible

wtf I thought Discourse on Method was supposed to be much longer. How did they fit that and Meditations on First Philosophy in the same small book?

>Did you just pick it up cause it was cheap?
yeah, it was only $3. haven't looked in it yet. i'm probably going to just gift it to someone

they're both 40-50 pages dude

I just picked up fountain head today OP

How is it?

I knew that Meditations on First Philosophy was, but I thought the other one was longer.

I know what threw me off. At my college's library I saw Discourse on Method and it was like 200-300 pages long, but a lot of my university's library books have extra parts with essays by others on the book. That must've been why it was a much bigger book.

...

My copy of Hunger (FSG classics) is about twice as thick as that Dover copy. How?

...

Eww Trevor Noah. Please tell us you only got that in order to research the enemy.

Indeed, fellow kekistani! One must know thy enemy's tricks. Praise kek!

How is the Cioran?

What kinda lighter is that, big chief?

>any recs for Arendt books in particular?
Eichmann in Jerusalem, The Origins of Totalitarianism, or The Life of the Mind

>Vocabulary Expander
>also Hemingway

>he doesn't read French

Fuck, I meant >> 9795201

LOL

reading DC right now and loving it. Go ahead and crack open WnM if you want to continue with McElroy

>abridged Gulag

no exit is one of my favorite short works, you'll enjoy east of eden as well.

I hope one day I can talk to somebody who reads literature in my hometown...

> Almost Transparent Blue
> The Painted Bird

I'm jealous, Almost Transparent Blue is out of print in the UK. Hope you didn't pick that up expecting it was the Haruki though, Ryo Murakami is brutal.

The Magic Mountain is my favourite Mann book, and I've read most of his major works. People often regard/disregard it as a 'novel of ideas', implying that his characters and plot are just the vessel for a philosophic meta-discourse, but I'd say this isn't the entire story in Magic Mountain. It might hold true for a work like the pretty laborious Joseph tetralogy, and the character spread in MM might seem very composed and intentional, but I don't think there's a more lovable duo than the dilettante Castor and his loyal cousin Ziemssen (maybe Don Quixote and Panza)
Maybe you need to be able to appreciate the tradition of the Bildungsroman to also enjoy MM as a parody, but reading Wilhelm Meister might not be for everyone.
Pic sorta related.

cant find that edition of blood meridian online
can you id?

I finished Women and Men earlier this year. Incredible.

Novel Explosives. Because it's the only one I've never heard of.

Congrats on being one of ten people to have actually read it?

...

>smoking and eating
eww come on man you could have at least made it a cup of coffee

It's worth reading. I hadn't had the much fun with a novel since GR or The Recognitions

This my stack of what I plan to read next. I didn't even want to read the Iliad three weeks ago, but having just finished "A History of Religious Beliefs, volume 1" I am really interested now. As for whoever is going to complain about the edition, it was the most affordably priced hardcover which also included The Odyssey whereas the others did not.

Mirin that writers from the other europe set user. how much did you get those for?
been meaning to read sanatorium under the sign of the hourglass for a while now. the film adaptation is great btw

Peterson fan by chance?

It's more like Peterson made the material relevant to me, he piqued my interest by articulating the array of topics in such a way that it actually resonated with my soul, very much unlike the sterile, clinical delivery the church pastor would give that is in large part responsible for pushing so many people away from religion in the first place.

I know he gets a terrible rap on Veeky Forums but something these actual pseuds need to understand is that you can't just get someone to start at the ceiling of literature. There are gradual degrees of introduction people need to become acclimated to in order to advance in thought and I argue that more Veeky Forumsizens should be happy that he's even framing the material in such a way as to motivate people to begin reading and getting in touch with the history of man and spiritual ideas in a spiritually bankrupt and stagnant, (if not outright) decaying culture.

Until two months ago I always just entertained the fantasy of reading (coincidentally enough the first 50 pages on Jung have dissected this terrible, unproductive, imaginative-fantasy aspect about myself completely), buying the occasional novel but never actually committing to reading it. But it's time to cut the shit and crack open some damn books.

SMUGS BIBLE

>Abridged
Not gonna make it. I'm also not telling you not to take Solzhenitsyn with a grain of salt, but it's the kind of book you really need to "understand" Tsarist Russia in relationship with the USSR to both understand WHY what happened happened and the SIGNIFICANCE of Solzhenitsyn's writing. You could read some history/political textbook for sure on Russia, but the really Veeky Forums way is to just read literature from both time periods. They're remarkably different yet still remarkably similar in the "Russian magic" that makes their books one of the best in the world, and know that anyone who says good Russian lit ended before the rise of Communism is a huge pseud

Contemporary translation, offers Italian stanza on the opposite page. But it's not the best for a first time through the inferno.