/lit/ - Literature

>>13
I need to give myself a right kick in the ass and read something. Manga has blown up as of late and I still don't read shit.

The last thing I read was "The Power of Habit" it explains how habits emerge and how you can kind of control or change them, also explains how the brain works, pretty interesting.

I think it's the kind of book everyone can benefit from reading it.

I mostly read books about programming and computer science so it's nothing interesting.
But recently, I read The Dandelion Girl. Not really a book, it's just 11 pages, a short story. I really liked it.
I should really read some /lit/ content...

>>13
My mother told me that I should read a book called "The Ragged Trousers Philanthropists" for a very long time and about 3-4 months ago I decided to finally listen to it while exercising and it's been an interesting experience. She read it when she was a child and told me that it stuck with her for the rest of her life due to how common the practices still are despite the book being a hundred years old now.

The book is mainly about a bunch of poverty stricken labourers in the early 20th century who live in the south of England and how they survive in their day to day. The book goes over how the rich fuck the common man over constantly and even convince them that this is normal and any change is bad so they continue to live in this way, along with how people who preach about being religious are some of the worst of the bunch, hypocrites who don't follow their teachings using religion as a stepping stone to make themselves richer by convincing others that they'll get their reward in death if they just help others (the rich) instead.

I'd say the best parts of the book are the conversations the labourers have with each other, as well as their private lives. Owen (who is most likely the author's self insert) is seen as the main character and spends around 4-5 chapters spread out over the book explaining how money isn't the cause of poverty to his fellow labourers during their lunch break, and while the conversation is interesting In and of itself the reactions of the others are quite humourous and I've laughed a few times listening to their reactions.

I also enjoy the sections of the book that discuss how the company they work for tries their hardest to fuck them over to make sure they make the most profit, either through firing them for being lazy so they can hire another worker at a cheaper rate, stealing items from the properties they work on for their own, replacing them with worse items and blaming it on the workers, or the most recent example of creating a "dinner time" period where they no longer get paid for an hour of their work, instead they are allowed to eat their food they've brought from home and they can "make up for it" by working an additional hour of overtime for no extra pay.

If I were an incredibly political person, I'd probably despise the book for being "communist propaganda" or "leftist dribble" or some other buzzword. I honestly don't feel that from the book. It feels more like a man who was writing that the current system is bad and should be changed but had no idea what kind of change to really bring about beyond a vague concept of "socialism" and he obviously had no idea what that would bring in the 20th century.

I'm around 8-9 chapters away from finishing the book now so it'll be interesting to see how it'll end. I do remember being told that the final few chapters were not written by the author but instead by his daughter and the tone feels "off" so I wonder if I'll be able to pick up on that.

>>13
I don't really read books, manga or otherwise, that often. The latest one I've read months ago was Frank Herbert's Dune, which I'm half-way through. I've also read much of Tolkien's works (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Silmarilion, and Children of Hurin), the first four books of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and various books about programming, Norse mythology and weapons/warfare.

>>17
I looked a bit into it and it seems that the original 1914 print had a rewritten ending by his daughter, but the post-1955 editions are the original, unaltered text. Presumably what you're listening to is a reading of the complete text, not the changed one.
I've never read the book before but "working class literature" can be very eye-opening, especially older works. Lets you see how long the current systems have been in place and how deeply the working class has been affected by it.

>>19
Ah, interesting. I will have to check both endings when I eventually finish the book in a month or so, and yes, the book is a real eye opener for the type of issues that were prevalent back then are still are today to some extent. We've come a long fucking way from being in such poverty as the characters but at the same time the rich remain rich and the poor remain poor and the practices they use can still be seen today.

>>13
Not retro at all, but I'm starting to get deep into pic related. Love Sanderson's work.

>>13
Funny I also read this recently. Couldn't put it down.
That fucking ending man

>>22
OP here, just finished it. Great read, great ending. Very rarely do "classics" have the impact on me that they're said to have, but this one was just fantastic.

I read this
It's an epic about demons wanting to go heaven
It's good

>>13
I like whodunits so recently, I read through these Christie novels and loved them, especially TMORA and DOTN.

>>21
Honestly Sanderson makes the most "anime" feeling fantasy I've ever read (this is not a bad thing). I think it's interesting to compare how it raises it's stakes in comparison to homestuck, specifically how Sanderson does it in a better way.

He gives all the characters time to breath and interact with each other, and the utterly ridiculously powerful stuff is given enough of a build up before it actually gets screen time. Additionally, every character gets the right amount of screen time. I recall that at the end of each chapter in most of that series, I just wanted to skip to when the narrative would get back to the narrative that was going on. The man knows how to write a chapter that makes you beg for more.

Lol just wait until you see link marry the master sword and when king candy comes around.

>>17 here. Been a while since I posted but I thought I'd update for a tiny bit of discussion on here.

Over the past year or so I've slowly listened to Crime & Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov and The Citadel. All really good books.

Won't give a brainlet's analysis of Dostoevsky's work so I'll say what I enjoyed about each. Crime and Punishment was an entertaining book right from the start and I very much enjoyed reading the build up to the murder, the murder itself and the eventual escape. While the delirium afterward was boring it picked right back up again until the ending. Was never a moment I felt really bored by the book although I was spoiled on the ending about halfway through when trying to figure out some themes of the book and meanings behind the characters which annoyed me. My favourite part of the book will always be the chapter that discusses Raskolnikov's idea of the Übermensch and the ordinary person and how the Petrovich discusses this with him how he read his theory in the paper on it and begins to suspect him because of it. Very fun cat and mouse energy while reading.

As for Karamazov. I found the first 10 chapter or so excruciatingly boring but once it got to The Great Inquisitor I really enjoyed it since that story was just amazing. After that I found myself really engrossed with the characters and loved how the book went on. A very long book but worth it in the end. Although, I did find the divergence from the main plot about Ilyusha to be strange and somewhat ruined the pacing but I heard it was because he knew it was going to be his last book and wanted to throw all his unused stories in here in some form.

The Citadel was a short book and I finished it a week ago. Mainly about a young doctor in 1920's Britain and his life in a small mining town up in Wales. He spends most of his time dealing with how terrible, greedy and under-qualified the other doctors are while trying to actually HELP patients that come to see him. Leading him to help miners bit by bit and become a loved figured in the the small town. Eventually the main character gets married and moves to London to start his own practice but discovers that actually treating patients is not profitable and starts to wonder if he should be a greedy person giving coloured water to patients so they'd all remain sick and keep paying him money.

While I wouldn't call it an "eye opening experience" in the slightest, it was a good read to see how it'd make sense for doctors to keep you ill or treat you with placebos as you'd remain ill and keep paying for their services. The most shocking part of the book was when the main character went to assist a supposed surgeon during an operating where he completely failed to do his job and killed the patient while both being described pretty brutally but with a sense of "normality" and "indifference" towards it. Where everyone else in the room is fine with how this is while he's disgusted.

It's interesting going from long, (arguably peak) Russian literature to something a bit less nuanced and descriptive with The Citadel. I was surprised that I could tell the difference in quality between the books. It didn't affect how I enjoyed the books though. I just wanted to mention that.

Unsure what I'll read next. I've always wanted to read Jules Verne books since a lot of the media I've fell in love with have been based on worlds he has created. From the Earth to the Moon is a pretty short one I might give a shot.

I recently read a volume of Stanisław Lem that included Fables for Robots and The Cyberiad, it was very fun! It made heavy use of language so it might depend on the translation, but in my language it was very amusing.

I'm reading Iqbal's Javidnamah. A dream-like fantasy poem where the protagonist is guided by the poet Rumi on a journey through the stars. On his way, he meets the people of various planets, Egyptian Pharaohs, Satan and even Nietzsche. It has this other worldly magical aesthetic combining Asian religious imagery with references to modern events like industrialization, WW1, the rise of Japan or the Russian revolution.

Iqbal is mostly forgotten these days and painted as a fundamentalist for his pan-Asianist, pan-Islamic views. Sadly, he was India's last great Persian fiction author. The language would die out a decade or so after he died.

I picked up M.M. Kaye's The Far Pavilions awhile ago. The only work I'd read by her previously was The Ordinary Princess, which I was re-reading when I noticed in the back it said she was actually famous for her historical novels. The local library had The Far Pavilions, so I grabbed it.

It's about a boy born to English parents in India in the mid-19th century, except thanks to events he's quickly orphaned and raised by his nurse as an Indian, and then a lot of stuff happens. It's one of those sweeping epics that just follows this guy through his life and gives you an extensive portrait of India and the people living in it during the time period.

I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit. It's much more tell than show, but the author does it well, and all the characters feel real. I can't speak for the historical accuracy, but it feels like it was the product of a lot of research. So far it's worth a read if you have any interest in India during the time period.

I've almost Ethics of Authenticity by Charles Taylor, not to be confused with a cannibalistic Liberian warlord. Its a short read and actually helps explain why our world is so messed up. The gist is that Western societies have experienced a revolution the way we understand ourselves and morality. We've become inward looking individualists that reject all unchosen obligations and responsibilities and we think the aim of life is to find our true authentic self and express it. People embracing extreme relativism and subjectivism where each person's lifestyle is valid no matter how harmful it is to others and personal relationships become fleeting utilitarian transactions in ways that reduce people to meat. This creates the three malaises of modernity: individualism that atomizes society, extreme relativism that leads to a loss of meaning, and extreme rationalism that turns everyone and everything into a resource with purely instrumental value. He says this culture of authenticity isn't totally bad per say but that the modern problems are just a debased form of it.

Despite these downsides, Taylor says that individualism and authenticity has helped us lead richer lives and encouraged us to be more responsible. He suggests a few things that can help remedy the problems of authenticity culture but none of these feel all that convincing and leaves the reader unsatisfied. Sure, we're more responsible now but the obsession with authentic identity drives a lot of the racism, phobia, and general tribalism online. Instead of being more responsible, we lock ourselves into warring tribes and identity politics. Its made us hate each other.

Good read 8/10

Damn I last posted 11 months ago huh? (>>27). Might as well update some books I've read.

I chose to listen to Roadside Picnic and the audiobook I chose was more like a middle ground between a dramatization and an audiobook which I actually really enjoyed. There was a constant droning ambiance in the background almost like the sounds of a wasteland and I felt it fit the story well. As a fan of the STALKER games this was actually a great read because I could truly visualize everything that was describes as anomalies and artifacts are common in the STALKER games. I do wish we got to see more of the exploration into the zone as it's obviously the most interesting part of the book. I also really enjoyed Red interacting with his daughter who was a lively and happy child in the earlier years until eventually becoming a mute like all children of people who enter the zone become. I found it very touching he tried his hardest to give her a normal childhood, even paying off the other people in the apartment block he lived in to treat her normally and it was a shame to see it all be for nothing. The ending did confuse me a bit but I understood it after a bit of searching here and there. I did enjoy it a lot though.

I took a long break from reading for several reasons and tried to get back into it with several books but each of them didn't really stick. I tried listening to Jeeves and Wooster as my mother said it was a funny comedy but I didn't really get it. I tried to read Catch 22 but found it somewhat boring as it went on. I tried to read Journey to the Center of the Earth but couldn't find an audiobook good enough, one I found would change readers every three chapters which was incredibly annoying. I did read The Idiot through a dramatization because I didn't want to really listen to the book and I really liked it, it skipped a few chapters but I just re-read chapter summaries on what I missed. The final section was harrowing.

The last book I did finish was Stoner. That was a really good book, like surprisingly so. I was hooked from the first chapter. I tried to find what to read next after The Idiot but couldn't find anything good before checking /lit/'s top 100 books and picking one that seemed cool which landed me on Stoner. I pretty much understood why it was a top 100 for /lit/ as it's basically about an r9k user's life in the early to mid 20th century. It was still a great read about a remarkably unremarkable man and the things that happened in his life going from learning his love of literature to becoming a professor at the university, to his marriage, having a child and more. In a way each of these things go from being a happy moment to just being sad or just something that's "there" in his life and he doesn't really care for it much while drifting through it. Hell, even the chapters are several years apart from one another. Really great book.

Right now I'm reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay which is about two kids around the 1940's teaming up to make a comic book character in America. Both are Jewish and one escaped from the Nazi's which I feel will probably have some kind of effect on what they write. It's an interesting book so far but I feel myself drifting in an out of it as I listen but I hope it goes somewhere with it.

I've been going through Discworld lately. It's hardly high brow, but I'm having a good time. Recently I've finished Going Postal and Making Money, and I think Moist Von Lipwig is probably my favourite protagonist in the series. He's smart but also deeply flawed and it's always great watching him bullshit his way out of situations. I'm thinking of picking up Raising Steam as it's the last Von Lipwig book, but I also hear Pratchett was under the more severe effects of his illness around that time and it supposedly shows. Sounds depressing to me.

So I'm currently reading Guards! Guards! Instead. I've already read a few of The Watch series and it's odd seeing them as a disheveled group of four guys. Fun all the same though, it's like Hot Fuzz in Discworld.

>>68 I enjoyed Roadside picnic a good too, though I read after having watched Tarkovsky's movie version. Strugatskie also did a 'Snail on the slope' novel that's touches on similar ideas staged in a similar context. Pushing this a notch further away from the gloomy buzzing environment while still staying true to the core problem of order and chaos, human and nature I have another amazing rec, Frontier by Can Xue. I'd love to have all three physical books to sit together on the shelf, but have only the last one.