Tuned in to Random Acts of Kindness!

The last book I read was Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. I had no idea what it was, only that it was included in a "depressing books" collection that I have downloaded many years ago. Apparently it is kind of like fanfiction for some famous book that I have not read either. But I did like it, it was sad as I was promised, the style was a bit disjointed but it made it dreamy like a mild nightmare, I enjoyed it.

>Have you read anything good recently?
The last truly good thing I read was Roadside Picnic. But more recently I've just been consuming American slop for the lack of a better choice, which actually demotivated me a fair bit, so I don't want to read anything any longer. I really bought into high fantasy because of how much soul Tokien put in the genre, but it turns out that Americans are just disgusting pigs who raped the genre in every possible way filling it with cheap narrative devices so that the whole thing doesn't even feel like it's been written by a human being. 80s and early 90s are the only period of American literature worth checking out at all. Everything goes downhill from there. To my knowledge, people on imageboards tend to read either some self help or political shit, so I never even bothered to ask to be honest. But if you read something decent lately you could mention it here of course.

>>5470
If you liked that novel then you really should try reading Jane Eyre. It's a strange, but very unique experience.

>>5476
Is it good? I will read it then.

>>5483
I don't know what you personally consider good, but I liked it. Unfortunately I don't remember much about the actual contents, because I read it very long ago, but it really held my attention from the get go.

>>5469
i've been learning mineralogy the past few weeks. it's been fun… 'math girls' and the 'oh my goddess' light novels are pretty good too!

I just finished Ask the Dust by John Fante. I never head about it before but apparently it's considered to be a classic in the USA. It was pretty entertaining, but everyone was so un/kind/ in it, did people really used to be like this.

Perhaps this is too off topic, but I've been digging into https://www.poetryintranslation.com/index.php . On the surface of it, this website doesn't seem that odd, until you realize it's only one guy, who goes by A. S. Kline, who's doing all of it. One guy who can apparently speak eleven languages, quite the ridiculous polyglot! Kline identifies himself as a translator and says he specifically translates the works, so if there is any kind of machine help here, it's being hidden. I find the translations (I have sampled Russian, French & Italian ones) can be very dry at times, but I can't tell if they're machine based or not, even though the fact that he claims eleven languages makes machine-help seem very likely. For what it's worth, Kline also hosts his original English poetry on the site, and it seems legitimate. This website would be a wonderful bounty if it is legitimate.


I'm inclined to push past my skepticism, though, because (perhaps unfortunately) this place has some of the only translations into English of these works. That's what introduced me to the website to begin with, as it has the only verse translation of "Orlando Innamorato" in English, it seems. I'm still having trouble figuring out what of Roland's works to read and in what order, for what that's worth.

>>5515
thanks for the link! i found a cool poem about 'astrophil and stella' there… i thought it was beautifully written, and thought the idea behind the poem was highly meaningful.

>>5515
I don't get poetry and it bothers me. I tried reading some anthologies hoping that I just need to find something to like but I am starting to suspect that I am doing something wrong. Maybe I should read them out loud or something to hear the rhythm? Or maybe it's just lingering bad experiences from my schooldays where I hated memorizing poetry and absolutely dreaded reciting them in front of the class.

>>5599
poetry is just boring, let it go

>>5599
Poetry is like rap in that if you don't feel or resonate with the reasons why someone is saying something then you won't understand what is being said and why it's been said in this way. I don't understand rap at all because it's meant to portray a value system that I never felt.

GOD I LOVE YOMIKO READMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I haven't been reading much lately, was much too busy playing video games so I've been easing myself back into with some short stories.
What I'm reading currently:
>Nabokov's dozen
I really love Nabokov's writing, Spring in Fialta and Signs and Symbols are by far my favorites so far
>Selected Stories - Anton Chekhov
A Nincompoop left a pretty big impression on me, in this un/kind/ world I simply wish to be like this woman who smiles in the face of it all :)

>>5484
I just finished it, it was good, thank you for the recommendation.

I just finished Bambi. I think I saw the Disney film before, but I don't remember much. I expected silly talking animals and the book did have talking animals and I guess they were a bit silly, but it was also very gloomy with their constant worries about the hunters and poor Bambi barely had a single moment of happiness.

>>5765
Don't feel sad, friend. Watch the sequel now.

Ender's Game. The cover says they made a movie out of it but I don't remember it so it must have not been a big hit. It was a good read, nothing special but enjoyable. I really couldn't care about the siblings subplot but I enjoyed reading about how Ender won his games. The ending was a bit confusing why did they have all the queens on a single planet? even though later it was explicitly stated that they had queens on different planets? did they all evacuate or something?.

Tried reading The Book of the New Sun. Read 90% of The Shadow of the Torturer. Didn't understand 3/4 of the symbolism, didn't relate to the remaining 1/4, I think I won't continue it.

I desperately need some just-above-cheesy adventure with an above average quality of plot and characters. At this rate I might end up reading Harry Potter.

> Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves
This is a self-help book that I have read because I got fed up that I can't seem to talk with anyone. I see all these people around me having fun talking with each other for hours but anytime I try to talk with anyone, it fizzles out after around five minutes and I feel like a failure and an outsider that does not belong in society. I found the title to be a little misleading, it does not really say anything about "being ourselves" and, while it supports its advice with research (done in the USA, mostly on university students…), it does not really propose any scientific theory about conversations either. Otherwise, it was a good book. It is organized around the acronym TALK, which stands for: Topics, Asking, Levity and Kindness.
My main takeaways from topics is that it is okay to talk about pretty much anything, people are more accepting of topics than most would suspect, but they also like to switch topics around a lot more than you would expect, so you shouldn't get stuck with a single topic. I don't think I am good with topics and one of the advices of the book was to keep a mental list (or not just a mental one) of random topics to talk about, and just throw one in when conversation starts to lull. Admittedly this sounds weird but apparently it works. I know that I always feel like I need a reason to talk about things, like I can't just ask someone if they like yuri without it somehow coming up before but their research says otherwise.
Asking is about asking questions, which is apparently something that most people don't do enough. The general advice is to ask more questions, try to ask follow-up questions, and that questions are also a good way to switch topics, which is a desirable thing. I think I ask enough questions…
The next is levity, which is the funnies, and the advice here wasn't that convincing. But yeah if you are funny, be funny, and if you are not funny, at least enjoy other people being funny.
Kindness, I guess everyone here is an expert on /kind/ness and will agree that being /kind/ is great. Apparently it also helps if you are kind while talking, or at least not rude. But you should listen actively and things like that.
There was also some stuff on talking in groups, having difficult conversations and apologizing, that did not interest me that much, but the content seemed sensible.
At the end there are some actual exercises to try and some topics to talk about, I did not try them yet but I am planning to.

I've decided to go through the Chinese Classics this year. I'm starting with the Daxue and Zhongyong. These two books were beginner level for anyone getting a basic education in China, Japan, Korea, and the rest of the Sinosphere before the 19th century. What we have here is a very different moral and ethical structure from liberal modernity, one that modern people would find very challenging. Both books are fairly short and there's a solid amount of commentary which makes reading a lot easier. I also picked up a copy of Baudrillard's Symbolic Exchange and Death. On imageboards, he's typically associated with the idea of simulation, but really this book was his magnum opus and symbolic exchange is most important idea. I get the sneaky suspicion that his theories of sacrifice and gift exchange aren't right but I want to finish the whole book first and I'll have to go back and read Marcel Mauss. This book also has a clearer layout of his ideas of simulation and simulacra.

>>5935
>like I can't just ask someone if they like yuri without it somehow coming up before but their research says otherwise.
I don't think I could do that. "Hey, have you ever heard of eroguro?" That wouldn't work I think.

>if you are funny, be funny, and if you are not funny, at least enjoy other people being funny.
I really struggle with this because I've spent so much time on esfores and VIP type boards that I have a really warped and disturbing sense of humor. Other times, I find other peoples sense of humor unfunny or just weird. Like they'll bring up some talk show thing or a stand up comedian and I just don't get what's so funny.

I just finished "The Inn in the Spessart Forest" by Wilhelm Hauff, it's a collection of tales with a framing story around it about travellers taking refuge in the inn but fearing they will be robbed there and telling stories to each other to stay awake. It was a nice little book and some easy reading, I enjoyed it.

>>5977
Anon!! Thank you for this, I didn't know. I'm interested in China too, I was reading the Sanzijing to learn it.

>>6002
I read another book of Hauff's tales, this one contained "The Caravan" and "The Shiek of Alexandria and his Slaves". Very fun!

I've been slow with reading through the Daxue. I've been pretty lazy and brain dead lately but meaning to post here. I'll start with the fiction.

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima
This book is often billed as an autobiographical novel where Mishima explores the difficulty of being a homosexual in a heteronormative society. That seems like a serious misreading to me. Mishima's preoccupation in this book are masks, the facades we put up in public, and the disconnect, alienation, and self destruction they can lead to. It feels like a very immature work. Mishima was only 24 when he wrote it so these themes aren't as fleshed out as they could be. The social media age has made the problems of avatars and inauthenticity much worse. Mishima has may immature fanboys and while I find his ethno nationalism distasteful, he does seem to be badly caricatured in the West.

Unintended Revolution by Brad S. Gregory
This 500 page behemoth is a forensic breakdown of how Protestant theology paved the way for secular liberalism, the common ideological framework for liberal democracy, capitalism, and state socialism. The real strength is that Gregory doesn't see Western secular modernity as necessary, inevitable or even good. Sadly, he seems to be throwing Protestants under the bus here, ignoring how medieval Catholic theologians also contributed to secularization.Gregory recognizes that modernity is failing, but the sheer dominance of secular liberalism has killed off or placated alternative worldviews.

>>6040
Are you learning Chinese? I had no idea about the Sanzijing so I'll go ahead and read it at some point soon. >>6040

I just finished Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's the second book of a trilogy, the first of which, Shards of Earth, I have read some time ago. Both are good, but I liked this one better than the first one. They are space operas but I found this one to be more exciting.

I am reading two books at the moment, which is standard for me. The first is On The Genealogy of Morals by Nietzsche. The second is The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas.

There are many things I disagree with Nietzsche on, especially pertaining to Christianity, but his ideas of knightly-aristocratic judgement and what it means to be aristocratic are something I agree with. As well as the importance of using power to impose morality on the layman. As for Dumas, it's just a very fun read can't lie. I sat down earlier this week and blazed through like 350 pages in one sitting. I thought it would be daunting since it's so long but so far my attention has been held.

The book I read before this was Hitler's Revolution by Richard Tedor as well as some Lovecraft short stories. I have a habit of reading one nonfiction book and one fiction book in parallel, helps avoid burnout. After my current readings I'd like to read The Sword of Christ by Giles Corey and Dracula by Braum Stoker.

Read Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami. I really liked this book. I finished it days ago and I steel feel emotional when thinking about it. Probably the best japanese book I've read so far.


>>6475
I've been meaning to re-read Genealogy again because my first read years ago was superficial and I feel like I could get more out of it now. I did hear that it's a better read after Beyond good and evil so maybe I should read that first this time.

>>6478
Yeah if it weren't for the fact I am reading it as part of a book club with others more versed in Nietzsche I wouldn't be able to appreciate or understand it as much. If you have read more of his works I would probably recommend giving it another shot, you'll probably enjoy it better.