Favorite Literature

[deleted_user]

Name em!

[Laurence Drake]

boku no pico

[Papist]

Things Fall Apart

[pecelot]

Winnetou, Madame Bovary, The Doll (Polish author Bolesław Prus) for now

[musketjr]

what kind of literature are you interested in?

[Laurence Drake]

what kind of literature are you interested in?

gay erotica

[fightinfrenchman]

what kind of literature are you interested in?

gay erotica

I'm John the big homosexual

[gustavusadolphus]

Forum Posts by Metis!

[pecelot]

Forum Posts by zoom!

FTFY ^^

[_venox_]

"The Physicists" by Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt and "Puss in Boots" by Ludwig Tieck.

[Mimsy for President]

Heroic Fantasy books. And I listen to Tokio Hotel while hating my parents because they don't allow me to date Gregory Stevensh, the Schwaglord of Narnia

[Metis]

I still think "Les Miserables" is one of the best books, even in today's context. For more modern works, I'd say Maugham's "The Razor's Edge" and "Of Human Bondage" express the human condition quite well, as does Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath."

A really good, short book is Bach's "Illusions: The adventures of a Reluctant Messiah." He's the guy who wrote "Johnathan Livingston Seagull." You would never know from his books that he was an Air Force fighter pilot. Another great contemporary book is Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

The book that set me, literally on the road is Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." Least Heat Moon's "Blue Highways" and Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley in Search of America" are written in the same light. I was on the road for several years riding motorcycles or traveling around in my truck canoeing. I hit all of the 48 lower US states and most of the lower tier of Canadian provinces before running out of fuel, so to speak.

In my travels, I'd always have a theme. For example, one summer it was "Civil War Battlefields," another it was "US Deserts" -- I've spent many months camping in the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, Great Basin and Mohave deserts. I was stationed in the Mohave too for three months of desert training when I was in the Army. Another year it was "Cities that Marty Robbins sang about. You can travel far and wide in the West following the trails that a man who sings "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs" sings about.

This song talks about Kansas City and Amarillo, Texas. I was a paramedic in Kansas City and joined the Army in Amarillo.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv4jtsoRejg[/video]

[Laurence Drake]

sorry Metis but none of those books can stand up to steinbeck's East of Eden

[deleted_user]

I still think "Les Miserables" is one of the best books, even in today's context. For more modern works, I'd say Maugham's "The Razor's Edge" and "Of Human Bondage" express the human condition quite well, as does Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath."

A really good, short book is Bach's "Illusions: The adventures of a Reluctant Messiah." He's the guy who wrote "Johnathan Livingston Seagull." You would never know from his books that he was an Air Force fighter pilot. Another great contemporary book is Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

The book that set me, literally on the road is Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." Least Heat Moon's "Blue Highways" and Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley in Search of America" are written in the same light. I was on the road for several years riding motorcycles or traveling around in my truck canoeing. I hit all of the 48 lower US states and most of the lower tier of Canadian provinces before running out of fuel, so to speak.

In my travels, I'd always have a theme. For example, one summer it was "Civil War Battlefields," another it was "US Deserts" -- I've spent many months camping in the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, Great Basin and Mohave deserts. I was stationed in the Mohave too for three months of desert training when I was in the Army. Another year it was "Cities that Marty Robbins sang about. You can travel far and wide in the West following the trails that a man who sings "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs" sings about.

This song talks about Kansas City and Amarillo, Texas. I was a paramedic in Kansas City and joined the Army in Amarillo.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv4jtsoRejg[/video]

How do you feel about JK Rowling

[deleted_user]

what kind of literature are you interested in?

All kinds! Novels, short stories, memoirs, and poetry mostly grounded in realistic fiction. I'm also sucker for a good fantasy novel.

[Metis]

I read "East of Eden" and didn't really like it all that much. I also read a couple of Rowling's "Harry Potter" books. I really don't get why they are so popular but, than again, I'm not the right age either. Obviously she has something going for her as she has made billions writing her books. Age and experience play a large factor in whether you like certain literature. I remember reading "Dune" in middle school school when it first came out and not really getting into it. I read it again when I got out of the Army and really liked it. I prefer hard science-fiction with a touch of mysticism to fantasy per se, generally speaking. I was really into Ray Bradbury and Heinlein several years ago and have read much of what they wrote, including their non-fiction.

[Dolan]

Haven't really been reading literature since high school, but if I had to name some names, I remember I liked Goethe, Sappho, Nerval, Hölderlin, Poe (the short stories and novels), Turgenev, Céline (Voyage), Stendhal (The Red and the Black), Zola (short stories), Breton.

I read a lot more, I think I liked at some point some works by Ibsen (don't remember which) (and some other Scandinavian writer, forgot the name) and Henry Miller (some short stories).
I also liked this Romanian writer (Cărtărescu) before he became a commercial hit, especially the novel "Blinding" ("The Left Wing").

I tried to like Dostoevsky until I realised how hungry for fame and recognition he was. Same for Hugo; Eugen Ionescu did a good job revealing the character behind the books.

But that was all in high school, when I had a lot of time.

[deleted_user]

I read "East of Eden" and didn't really like it all that much. I also read a couple of Rowling's "Harry Potter" books. I really don't get why they are so popular but, than again, I'm not the right age either. Obviously she has something going for her as she has made billions writing her books. Age and experience play a large factor in whether you like certain literature. I remember reading "Dune" in middle school school when it first came out and not really getting into it. I read it again when I got out of the Army and really liked it. I prefer hard science-fiction with a touch of mysticism to fantasy per se, generally speaking. I was really into Ray Bradbury and Heinlein several years ago and have read much of what they wrote, including their non-fiction.

Sarcasm can be a little fickle.

[noissance]

My top 3:
Edgar Allen Poe - The Tell Tale Heart
Franz Kafka - The Metamorphosis
Thomas Mann - Doktor Faustus

[Dolan]

And Urmuz.

[Metis]

Sarcasm can be a little fickle.

Actually, no sarcasm intended. I am just saying that different people (or the same person), in different stages in life, will oftentimes have different tastes in literature. It also depends a lot as to how many books you have read. Some books can seem a bit "old hat" if you have read many similar books. Others will tell an old story in such a new way as to become classics themselves.

[deleted_user]

Nevermind.

[Mimsy for President]

Goodspeed's guide.

[musketjr]

All kinds! Novels, short stories, memoirs, and poetry mostly grounded in realistic fiction. I'm also sucker for a good fantasy novel.

I don't think you were there at the time but during the bygone era in which I was ingrained in the SCoAoEE (Skype Council of Age of Empires Elders) community you would have seen me lauding the merits of an e-book called The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect: http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html.

It's about the so-called, potential 'technological singularity' - the point at which AI becomes able to improve itself exponentially, and what happens after. What happens after you can imagine as true post-necessity, where the AI, bound as it was in its creation to laws (Prime Directives) which require it to protect and never harm humans, is able to harness powers over nature and the laws of physics the likes of which we might imagine belong solely to a god; it thus insulates people from harm (in accordance with its Prime Directive), and provides for their needs.

So we have a state of affairs in which humans need nothing and cannot come to harm. The book explores whether this does in fact represent a utopian ideal or whether the inherent danger of pre-'AI God' life is a fundamental constituent of what it means to truly live. It's written by an engineer, so quite terse; very visceral - totally unforgiving in the themes (i.e., violent fantasies) and depictions of, that it explores. That imbued it, in my reading, with a certain kind of authenticity and credibility. It's not so much gore for entertainment's sake as in the Saw franchise, but violence (in thought/fantasy, and description) necessary or rightfully attendant to a realistic exploration of human psyche and drives. It stuck with me as one of the best books I've read.

So that's fiction, and sci-fi.

I'll make a couple of non-fiction recommendations (the first I recommend is fiction but the author was generally an essayist) for their merit in two regards: expert use of the tool - which it is - of language, and of course (without which writing is at best momentarily impressive but hollow) their intellect which yield insights. The Enlightenment brought forth a swathe of brilliant, able (to note their thoughts with eloquence) people.
- Voltaire is one of these Enlightenment geniuses. Candide is a short story about, again, the fruitless or misguided search for the ideal (society).
- Short essay, meritorious on the accounts I mentioned, notwithstanding the content - whether you agree or not, by another E. writer, Bernard Mandeville: http://www.animal-rights-library.com/te ... ille01.htm. Note the suffusion of the Ethic (proper noun intended), something often barred from modern, especially academic, but also intellectual, discourse, by the nature of the times we live in. We have now, at least superficially, what I would term a cult of objectivity, in which the only content deemed valuable is that which is rooted in either something quantifiable, or in the inherited dogmas of past intellects. Thus you can't discuss what is good for the state without funnelling the discussion through Bentham's and Mill's works.
- Similarly, but principally for its merits as discussed above, an essay by Thomas Clarkson, one of the foremost abolitionists in England. Whilst at Cambridge he produced this essay on the topic of slavery (note that it's dissertation length, and I've only read excerpts myself, so only the first chapter is necessary to illustrate the brilliancy and lucidity of the writing, in both form and substance):

WHEN civilized, as well as barbarous nations, have been found, through a long succession of ages, uniformly to concur in the same customs, there seems to arise a presumption, that such customs are not only eminently useful, but [2] are founded also on the principles of justice. Such is the case with respect to Slavery: it has had the concurrence of all the nations, which history has recorded, and the repeated practice of ages from the remotest antiquity, in its favour. Here then is an argument, deduced from the general consent and argreement of mankind, in favour of the proposed subject: but alas! when we reflect that the people, thus reduced to a state of servitude, have had the same feelings with ourselves; when we reflect that they have had the same propensities to pleasure, and the same aversions from pain; another argument seems immediately to arise in opposition to the former, deduced from our own feelings and that divine sympathy, which nature has implanted in our breasts, for the most useful and generous of purposes. To ascertain the truth therefore, where two such opposite sources of argument occur; where the force of custom pleads strongly on the one hand, and the feelings of humanity on the other; is a matter of much importance, as the dignity of human nature is concerned, and the rights and liberties of mankind will be involved in its discussion.

It will be necessary, before this point can be determined, to consult the History of Slavery, and to lay before the reader, in as concise a manner as possible, a general view of it from its earliest appearance to the present day.

The first, whom we shall mention here to have been reduced to a state of servitude, may be comprehended in that class, which is usually denominated the Mercenary. It consisted of free-born citizens, who, from the various contingencies of fortune, had become so poor, as to have recourse for their support to the service of the rich. Of this kind were those, both among the Egyptians and the Jews, who are recorded in the *sacred writings. †The Grecian Thetes also were of this description, as well as those among the Romans, from whom the [4] class receives its appellation, the ∥Mercenarii.

We may observe of the above-mentioned, that their situation was in many instances similar to that of our own servants. There was an express contract between the parties: they could, most of them, demand their discharge, if they were ill used by their respective masters; and they were treated therefore with more humanity than those, whom we usually distinguish in our language by the appellation of Slaves.

As this class of servants was composed of men, who had been reduced to such a situation by the contingencies of fortune, and not by their own misconduct; so there was another among the ancients, composed entirely of those, who had suffered the loss of liberty from their own imprudence. To this class may be reduced the Grecian Prodigals, [5] who were detained in the service of their creditors, till the fruits of their labour were equivalent to their debts; the delinquents, who were sentenced to the oar; and the German enthusiasts, as mentioned by Tacitus, who were so immoderately charmed with gaming, as, when every thing else was gone, to have staked their liberty and their very selves. “The loser,” says he, “goes into a voluntary servitude, and though younger and stronger than the person with whom he played, patiently suffers himself to be bound and sold. Their perseverance in so bad a custom is stiled honour. The slaves, thus obtained, are immediately exchanged away in commerce, that the winner may get rid of the scandal of his victory.”

To enumerate other instances, would be unnecessary: it will be sufficient to observe, that the servants of this class were in a far more wretched situation, than those of the former; their drudgery was more intense; their treatment more severe; and there was no retreat at pleasure, from the frowns and lashes of their despotick masters.

Having premised this, we may now proceed to a general division of slavery, into voluntary and involuntary. The voluntary will comprehend the two classes, which we have already mentioned; for, in the first instance, there was a contract, founded on consent; and, in the second, there was a choice of engaging or not in those practices, the known consequences of which were servitude. The involuntary, on the other hand, will comprehend those, who were forced, without any such condition or choice, into a situation, which as it tended to degrade a part of the human species, and to class it with the brutal, must have been, of all human situations, the most wretched and insupportable. These are they, whom we shall consider solely in the present work. We shall therefore take our leave of the former, as they were mentioned only, that we might state the question with greater accuracy, and be the better enabled to reduce it to its proper limits.

I would then - and most strongly of all - advocate for the Greek and Roman Classics, but that is its own discussion, and the above will suffice for now.

[momuuu]

I can't read books without binging them, which kinda sucks because I like other parts of life too, like going to the bathroom or having food without reading a book.

the last book I read was about a girl who got raped, tried to recover and then got raped again. Nothing about that book made my life better. I think I wont be touching them for a while.