Literarture Thread v1 - One never knew, after all, now did one now did one now did one. - General

(whoops, typo in the thread title) [IMG]http://risingroads.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/books4.jpg[/IMG] Discuss books and other literary stuff, be it poetry, novels, audio books, etc. [URL="https://www.gutenberg.org/"]Project Gutenberg[/URL] [URL="https://www.reddit.com/r/books/wiki/books"]/r/books recommended reading[/URL] [URL="http://4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading"]/lit/ recommended reading[/URL] What have you been reading? I recently finished [I]A Confederacy of Dunces[/I] by John Kennedy Toole and [I]The Pale King[/I] by David Foster Wallace. I'm currently reading [I]Gravity's Rainbow[/I] by Thomas Pynchon.

I usually read about 12 books a year on average, but this year I've extended it to 25 :3

Finished [I]As I lay Dying[/I] by William Faulkner the other day. I thought I wasn't going to like it after reading 50 or so pages. It was a bit too vague at points, which wasn't helped by the multiple perspectives. I kept at it and I'm glad I did because it had probably the best paragraph I've read - a description of floodwaters. I don't know why but this paragraph just damn blew my mind. I re-read it about 5 times because I found it so good. The rest of the novel is so-so but there are flashes of brilliance like that paragraph which made it worth it. Can recommend. I've got [I]A Confederacy of Dunces[/I] sitting on my beside table waiting to be started. Any good? I think I tried to start it many years ago but my heart wasn't quite there. [editline]27th February 2018[/editline] Also, I really cannot abide by Thomas Pynchon. I gave up on [I]Gravity's Rainbow[/I] because it was obnoxiously dense and masturbatory. Life's too short for a newer version of [I]Ulysses[/I] or whatever it's trying to be.

[QUOTE=Lonestriper;53163403] I've got [I]A Confederacy of Dunces[/I] sitting on my beside table waiting to be started. Any good? I think I tried to start it many years ago but my heart wasn't quite there. [editline]27th February 2018[/editline] Also, I really cannot abide by Thomas Pynchon. I gave up on [I]Gravity's Rainbow[/I] because it was obnoxiously dense and masturbatory. Life's too short for a newer version of [I]Ulysses[/I] or whatever it's trying to be.[/QUOTE] [I]Confederacy of Dunces[/I] is funny and Ignatius J. Reilly is one of my favorite characters I've read out of a book so far. I can get why people wouldn't like something like[I] Gravity's Rainbow[/I], but I enjoy it so far. I haven't seen where people get lost with this book, it does some weird tricks but I haven't found it impossible to follow--at least not yet. On a somewhat related note, what do you guys think of [I]Infinite Jest[/I]? I thought it was great even if it got really indulgent with its prose at times. Nothing on the level of Finnigans Wake but there were admittedly times where the book felt like a chore to get through.

For about half a year, I've made it my goal to read one book a month. So far, I've been good on my word and I'm pretty proud of myself. Most of it is non-fiction, but I picked up a few fictions, as well. I just finished [I]Crime and Punishment[/I] by Dostoyevsky a few minutes ago. What a piece of work. Incredibly well-honed and detail-oriented. I binge-read the last five chapters in one sitting. Before that, I got through [I]One Hundred Years of Solitude[/I] by Márquez on audiobook. I such a hard time keeping track of the plot because they keep naming the kids the same two fucking names!

I'm almost done with Stephen King's "It". Got to say I love the book. Most King books I've read have had some sort of 'buffer', where King goes into detail about some thing I don't actually care about (For example, Donald Callahan in the Dark Tower, about 40/50 pages dedicated to this man, almost made me stop reading the book) but that doesn't seem to be the case for It, especially when the story is nearing it's end, how it flows so smoothly between past and present. Simply wonderfull

I have been thinking about picking up a few Kurt Vonnegut novels. Obviously [i]Slaughterhouse Five[/i] is on the top of my list, but what other works by him are recommended, and in what order?

[QUOTE=Kirbyfactor;53167138]I'm almost done with Stephen King's "It". Got to say I love the book. Most King books I've read have had some sort of 'buffer', where King goes into detail about some thing I don't actually care about (For example, Donald Callahan in the Dark Tower, about 40/50 pages dedicated to this man, almost made me stop reading the book) but that doesn't seem to be the case for It, especially when the story is nearing it's end, how it flows so smoothly between past and present. Simply wonderfull[/QUOTE] To be fair, Callahan was in 'Salem's Lot and his backstory served to both introduce the character to new readers and to longtime fans it was a way of explaining just how the hell he ended up in Mid World. Speaking of which, I just started King's [I]Sleeping Beauties[/I] which he co-wrote with his son Owen. About 200 pages in, it's pretty good so far as a throwback to his classic epic good vs evil struggles. [editline]1st March 2018[/editline] Once I finish up with this, I'm hoping to start on Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy.

i recently finished [I]Occultation[/I], a collection of short-ish stories by Laird Barron, and some of the best horror i've read in a really long time. he has this really great way of skewing details towards the disturbing but stating them with a weird and disarming ease, then hitting you all at once with these horrific sequences that are at once flowing in their wording but razor-sharp in their structure. and he drops these bits so easily that you genuinely never know when you're going to be plunged back into it. definitely recommended to fans of surreal or Lovecraftian horror.

[QUOTE=Lyonidis;53167570]I have been thinking about picking up a few Kurt Vonnegut novels. Obviously [i]Slaughterhouse Five[/i] is on the top of my list, but what other works by him are recommended, and in what order?[/QUOTE] Personally, I really liked [I]Breakfast of Champions[/I] though it isn't one of his most popular books. That said, you can never go wrong with [I]Cat's Cradle.[/I] If you're feeling really crazy you can check out [I]The Sirens of Titan,[/I] which is supposedly going to be adapted into a TV series by Dan Harmon sometime in the future. I haven't read it myself, but the synopsis seems pretty fucked.

I was looking for a copy of Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar on Amazon. Used ones go for $180+, new ones $370+. Nothing here for me, but one caught my eye, 1,017.91 dollarydoos from the seller Red Rhino. Red Rhino's storefront is literally 100 pages of all sorts of books priced $600+. It looks like they accidentally added a 6, or 60 in front of every price. What the fuck did I stumble upon?! [url=https://www.amazon.com/shops/AVAXV8DS4WONR?ref_=v_sp_storefront]Red Rhino Storefront[/url]

Amazon booksellers can be really weird. I remember seeing a first edition of Cloud Atlas going for around $5000 years and years ago, but now you can snag one for about $5. It's probably some currency conversion getting lost in the translation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QrWfbYFtNk Here's a pretty good lecture from Terrance McKenna on James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. If it hasn't been apparent from my posts, I enjoy weird, difficult stuff like this.