I'm an 18 year old male eager to get into reading. Does anyone have any beginner books which would be good to ease me into it?
>>8148881
Try Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I'm not even kidding. It's a great stepping stone to literature because it makes you feel smart even if you aren't, is known for difficulty but is actually very easy to read, and probably relates to the problems that you're going through right now, so will be a relatively meaningful experience at least. You will soon grow out of it once you realize it's not all that incredible when compared to other works, and when you begin to recognize more and more of DFW's bullshit, but it's a fine place to start.
>>8148898
Seconding this
easy-ish interesting reads 101:
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Grendel by John Gardner
The Hobbit by Tolkien
Eragon by Christopher Paolini (if you're not afraid of Young adults shit)
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
And Finally, after all that shit,
Every boy should read Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky at some point (even though he has better works)
>>8148898
Also these guys are meming you. They're trying to create a barrier to learning because their fucking halfwits, trying to destroy the board with humor that you probably wont understand unless you lurk here instead of reading the actual fucking books
INFINITE JEST FUCKING BLOWS
pluto - the greeks
>>8148881
The sticky has a starter kit chart for beginners. have fun
>>8148918
>>8148942
no he isn't meming him, he's right.
it's literally how it actually works.
1. start with infinite jest
2. love it because ur a 4chan neckbeard
3. realize that you're not cool and well-read as Hal
4. start reading actual literature
5. start shitposting online and advising beginners to start with the Greeks even though it's the worst possible advice, and pretending you hated infinite jest
all you faggots have read IJ and loved it and you know it
I'll probably start with The Stranger by Albert Camus, do you think that's a good choice?
I was in the same position as you, but I've already began. I suggest you find something from the 1900s that suits your likings so that it also builds your diction.
I started with 1984 by Orwell, The Stranger by Camus (wasn't good), then went to Brave New World by Huxley, and also Stoner by john Williams.
Now currently reading the Idiot by Dostoevsky.
I just keep finding the next book to read related to the ones I am actively reading, this is suppose to build momentum which I didn't have when reading books for school, but found by picking up literature that I wanted to read about.
>>8148955
I started with SlaughterHouse 5 and loved it's pretty funny sometimes and is an easy read
>I'm new to reading
anyone else triggered by this?
That's like saying "I'm new to being human."
Who the fuck besides toddlers can be new to reading. Were you one of those twats who only pretended to read in highschool? Fucking kill yourself ASAP my good man.
>>8148949
>start with the Greeks
>worst possible advice
jesus christ
>>8148981
>3000 years old thematically irrelevant crap
>cliched piece of shit narrative wise
>>to start with it is not worst possible advice
holy spirit
I'm in the exact same situation
I stopped by the library and bought some used books, started with Lord of the Flies, went on to 1984, and now I'm reading Catch-22, I have a bunch more lined up
>>8149004
Good choices my man.
>>8148996
>odyssey
>not fun as hell adventure with immense influence
>sophocles
>not intriguing drama which defines theater tragedy
>plato
>not enjoying the cheeky bants
>aristophanes
>farts
>>8149020
i really am just sticking to classics, picked those plus Catcher in the Rye up for $5, I've got The Old Man and The Sea, Fahrenheit 451, Clockwork Orange, and Moby Dick queued
I can't believe how much high school made me hate reading, and how much I enjoy it now
>>8149038
REMOVE clockwork orange
>>8149040
any reason why?
>>8149053
Toxic masculinity.
>>8149056
*the film is better.
Ftfy.
>>8149056
KEK
Don't drop Clockwork Orange, it's one hell of a ride and a very enjoyable book.
>>8149056
the rape?
if rape is a problem, then why would I be okay with readingcatcher in the rye?
>>8149056
Jesus God.
it's a book. an objective thing.
feeling "oppressed" by a piece of literature is indicative of weakness in the reader, not the written work.
And if you only read the things that you agree with/find comfort in than it only strengthens my point.
masculinity's "toxicity" is only caustic to the weakest moral fiber and those with no principals with which to divide the things they should and should not apply to their life.
>>8148996
Clichéd narrative? I'm reading the Iliad right now and its narrative is nothing like what we read today. Neither is it thematically irrelevant, who haven't had a HS teacher or intro prof relating Homer's epics to modern gang violence or PTSD?
>>8148988
Does /lit/ have an 'advanced kit'?
>>8149112
the meme trilogy
>>8149112
only thing that comes to mind.
I don't know what that Reddit-tier rating system is all about
>>8149128
cause it's a pretty old image
>>8148881
tldr 1984
It was the first book I liked back in middle school.
>>8149128
it will do
>>8149128
Steppenwolf really shouldnt be in the "initiate" category, should be swapped by Siddharta
I began reading with short stories
try Jack London's works, especially shit like White Fang
also The Scarlet Pimpernel books were breddy gud
probably wouldn't have sat through reading all the books being rec'd to you here when I started, used to read like 5 pages a day when I began
>>8148955
I like that book but I don't know if it's a good place to start. Then again, I started early, and you're already 18, so I guess it's cool.
Try 1984 instead? A few other anons have suggested it, and it really is one of the best books to get you started.
>>8149220
>I started early, and you're already 18
>already 18
Follow your interests op. You'll know the right books when you find them.
>>8148949
I honestly haven't read IJ, but the arguments about it is the most entertaining part of this board
>>8149038
Moby Dick is one of my favourites and I hope you will enjoy it just as much, my man.
Sticking with many of the classics is a good way to go when getting into literature. Just keep in mind to go at your own pace and that if the book becomes exhausting mentally somewhat, feel free to take breaks and whatnot.
Man, I wish I knew people who are enthusiastic about reading as much as those who are showing a good appreciation for classics, even if they are entry-level /lit/-starter kit stuff, it's just refreshing to have conversations about classics, y'know?
>>8148881
Start with nonfiction on the subject of your choosing. Lots of writers make lots of references to stories they liked which will motivate you to read some.
>>8149128
>hux
>vonnegut
>kerouac
get that pleb shit outta here
put Notes and Crying in initiate, C&P in Knight
>>8150425
>>hux
>pleb
why do words, like, lmao, need to have meanings, like
like, what if we were to just speak some words, like, and like, not mean anything by it
I feel like that I'm a bigot and that my ethics aren't coherent/questionable.
Is reading philosophical books a good idea to combat these issues?
I barely ever read.
>>8148955
Yes. Read Camus, and if you enjoyed the philosophy, move onto Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism" (with a grain of salt as regards inter-subjectivity), and then backtrack to Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and Sickness Unto Death for a solid foundation in continental existentialism. For full circle, you can read Camus' critiques in Myth of Sisyphus, and then Sartre's Being and Nothingness (Which pairs well with Mad Max Meme Man Stirner) for an emotive but rather life affirming view of the universe and, especially as regards Kierkegaard, the nature of faith and psychology.
Honestly, if you can recite these books ideas to a girl in a non-spergy way, you'll get laid if they're smart. And laid if they're insecure too. In fact, just channel Camus. Now, if you want more fiction, Dostoyevsky is good, just keep in mind he wrote his books by the chapter and they're broken up more than the 1,000 pages would suggest. Lighter reading could be Catch-22, Kafka, Crying of Lot-49 or even Vonnegut. All these writer's share a similar view of the world, and their motifs tie up into each others. Are you interested in plays? Stoppard's Arcadia and Sartre's works are very fine, alongside the Greeks.
>>8148911
>Eragon
This is where your list fucks up.
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five
Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises
John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men
Cormac McCarthy - The Road
J.G. Ballard - Crash
George Orwell - 1984
Bernhard Schlink - The Reader
Yukio Mishima - The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea
Philip Larkin - Jill
Jack Kerouac - On the Road
J.D. Salinger - Franny and Zooey
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
Yann Martel - Beatrice and Virgil
All are fairly short and readable novels.
Start with that
>Homer – Iliad, Odyssey
The Old Testament
Aeschylus – Tragedies
Sophocles – Tragedies
Herodotus – Histories
Euripides – Tragedies
Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War
Hippocrates – Medical Writings
Aristophanes – Comedies
Plato – Dialogues
Aristotle – Works
Epicurus – Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus
Euclid – Elements
Archimedes – Works
Apollonius of Perga – Conic Sections
Cicero – Works
Lucretius – On the Nature of Things
Virgil – Works
Horace – Works
Livy – History of Rome
Ovid – Works
Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia
Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania
Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic
Epictetus – Discourses; Encheiridion
Ptolemy – Almagest
Lucian – Works
Marcus Aurelius – Meditations
Galen – On the Natural Faculties
The New Testament
Plotinus – The Enneads
St. Augustine – On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine
The Song of Roland
The Nibelungenlied
The Saga of Burnt Njál
St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica
Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy
Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales
Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks
Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy
Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly
Nicolaus Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
Thomas More – Utopia
Martin Luther – Table Talk; Three Treatises
François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel
John Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion
Michel de Montaigne – Essays
William Gilbert – On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote
Edmund Spenser – Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene
Francis Bacon – Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis
William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays
Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
Johannes Kepler – Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World
William Harvey – On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals
Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan
René Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy
John Milton – Works
Molière – Comedies
Blaise Pascal – The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises
Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light
Benedict de Spinoza – Ethics
John Locke – Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding; Thoughts Concerning Education
After 3 months of following list i am still at old testament lel
The Haruki Murakami topic reminds me of another easy read: Norwegian Wood
>>8148898
agreed, this is the book that got me hooked on reading
>>8149056
So he should also remove moby dick and hemingwey?
Im in the same position as OP, but at least a solid 3/4 of the shit on your lists were school books that we already read.
>>8148881
The Devils Guard by Talbot Mundy
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
How about Rabbit, Run?
>>8148967
Great place to start. Everyone loves Vonnegut.
