End-of-the-year-review edition!
>>7517924
This year,I bought a whole bookshelf worth of new books.
Only read library check-outs.
I often copy-paste posts from r/books here. there is no discernible difference between the replies.
>>7517924
I forced myself to read Eugine Onegin and it blew
>>7517949
that's because 4chan is reddit's sister website
I got Billy Bud and other short stories and only read Bartleby and The Encantadas even though i started with the intention of finishing all the stories.
I might go back and check out what i didn't read if i get some urge but I'm reading Vineland now which is really good if you don't expect anything excellent like GR or M&D
never read a book tbhfam
>>7517978
>didn't read Billy Budd
it's worth your time. Good, quick read
>>7517978
there's this thing called the comma
>>7517987
Commas are for plebs
I have a Jan.15th deadline for a 20k-word sci-fi short story, I'm 3k in and I have no main conflict in mind. I confess that I am in need of ideas.
thus far: humans are displaced from Earth by aliens but are given technology to join the true space age. An exemplary human space crew take on an alien crewmember in a goodwill exchange program. Not sure where to go with it.
>>7518011
Alien crew member is actually a saboteur and the aliens planned it all along?
>>7517957
More like 4chan is the ghetto neighbourhood being rapidly gentrified by Reddit hipsters.
>>7517978
You missed out, almost all of them are excellent. Certainly better than anything Pynchon ever wrote.
>>7518017
That had crossed my mind, that they're a saboteur or they're doing some kind of test on the humans
but I don't want the theme to be approving of xenophobia
read two mangas this year. never read any before. they were awesome. nausicaa and maison ikkoku.
also read one of the calvin and hobbes collection in between books recently and I enjoyed it a lot. I miss C&H.
Read 'A Place Called Winter' without /lit/'s consent and I liked it
>>7518011
>>7518017
The saboteur angle is interesting but it's a bit cliche to have the aliens planned it all along. We always expect aliens to be malicious. Instead try to play against this expectation. For example:
>Alien on board is greeted warmly by humans
>they all live together fairly comfortably for a while
>Alien gradually subplants the protagonist of the story as the authority on deck, other crew members are almost infatuated with his otherworldly wisdom and beauty
>Suddenly, communications go down.
>The ships main engineer investigates, reports that the nature of the breakdown is very unusual and going to take a while to fix
>Protag suggests that it could be deliberate tampering by the alien, crew dismisses him as xenophobic
>Before comms can get back up, a crew member dies in an apparent accident
>Whole crew grieves, alien provides comfort for them, except protag who suggests to another crew member that the alien could have staged it
>said crew member and protag get in a fight, protag is accused of paranoia and jealousy in front of everyone.
>more crew found dead in "accidents", whole crew is turning on protag.
>Eventually the protag is attacked by the few remaining crew, kills them in self defence
>Protag panics and kills the alien as well
>Realizing that this will inevitably lead to an interplanetary conflict on earth, he deliberately crashes the ship into earth
It is left up to the reader's interpretation who was the killer, if any, and what their motivation was. It could be that the aliens wanted an excuse to start war, or it could be this one alien was just a radical. OR the protag was nuts all along. OR they really were just "accidents"
>>7518129
I like the idea of the alien subplanting the captain, I might work that in. The murdering I could do without.
>>7518024
Huh...
>>7518024
well put
>>7517924
I post sections from The Tunnel in critique threads and call out idiots who say it's bad.
>>7518011
Why don't you highlight growing tensions because of cultural differences?
If you can think of how much hatred racism produces, you can turn that up to eleven with cross species interactions
>>7517924
Dune
Grapes of Wrath
Stoner
Old School
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Inherent Vice
Severin's Journey Into the Dark
The Martian (no judgement plz)
The New York Trilogy
Oblivion
The Forever War
The Bell Jar
Story of the Eye
The Futurological Congress
My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist
Candide
The Peripheral
I, Robot
Cat's Cradle
The Three-Body Problem
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Kapitoil
The End of the Affair
East of Eden
The Stranger
My writing style has been deeply influenced by Tolstoy, Dostoievski and dank memes. I wonder what will come out of this.
>>7518274
wut
I intend to read Infinite Jest in 2016. It seems really interesting, despite the memering around it.
A pretty big part of the reason I read and write is because it's the one thing I'm good at and I know that somehow becoming famous or successful at it is the only way I'll ever get to have lots of sex
>>7518406
I am this guy.
>>7518336
>what is going on?
The revolution. This board is changing for the good.
>>7518399
please leave my thread
What the fuck was Nostromo really?
There were a few scenes when the old wife describes how alone but most is just boring.
I read to write.
I got a wikipedia page made about me. Feels weird, man.
-S
>>7517924
Im currently eating from the trash can of ideology.
>>7519171
Sorry, I would need 25-30000 words to explain the genius and majesty of that book.
Hint: myth of el dorado and colonizing south America. Think of the significance of silver as a crucial commodity rather than the gold that was lusted over during the el dorado days.
Soumission was the only new book I read this year.
I like John Green's books
>>7518420
you and the other guy will be shit, good luck trying to produce something worth evil thinking lot that
I don't "get" Rimbaud. He was a prodigy, yeah, but most of his works strike me as edgy for the point of being edgy.
>>7519527
Pls no
The only book I've read from start to finish this year was a Doors biography. Despite this I bought over 60 books throughout the year.
I don't even read books
I just shitpost on /lit/ for keks
>>7518420
We are this guy.
This year I attended a PhD-level seminar on post-modern American lit, since it was organized by my thesis supervisor.
I have never read a single book by Pynchon, DeLillo, DFW nor basically anybody else we've talked about. I managed to read Brief Interviews during the seminar, and get by with memes and wikipedia.
I'm still doing my thesis.
I tried to read 115 books this year and made it to 108
It really interfered with my real-life, adult responsibilities, time that I would have spent thinking about my goals and my next steps I actually spent on reading books, rushing after that 115. i won't repeat that 2016.i could have spent that time worse though
>>7517924
I've never completely read what I consider to be my favourite book, I've just seen a shit ton of adaptations and really love the story and the characters.
I just started reading the game of thrones series and they're really good so far
I bought over 60 books that I haven't read yet. my kindle should be coming today or tomorrow or the day after. I'm afraid too much availability will make me not read at all but I really get off on dirt cheap books and pirating.
>>7517949
You probably post pics from r/bookshelves too
Listened to an hour long lecture of Wittgenstein on youtube and fapped to traps later because I fell in love with him.
It's not literary, but it's a confession
>>7518011
The complete displacement of humans by aliens sounds too much like a Tom Cruise movie. You should just have the aliens assume control of certain political bodies and resources. And that way If you intend to shove a Aliens vs Humans conflict anywhere in the plot you can make Earth to be just one of the aliens' many protectorates, to which they're willing to say "fuck it" and abandon just like some shitty rebelious colony during the days of imperialism.
A classic device when you're dealing with any exemplary group of people is that the insertion of a foreign element is followed by a complete change of behavior of the group, either by direct influence of the foreign element or as consequence of a general aversion to it. Maybe his presence radicalizes some of the crew members.
You can also just limit the scope of the short story to whatever is happening within the perimeters of the spaceship (or wherever they are) and have the political tensions that follow become a topic of constant conversation among the crew members, which you can use as a device to explore the background through dialogue between the characters, the same way you can learn actual history by listening to educated people argue politics.
i don't read books yet i lurk on /lit/, picking up recommendations on books that i will probably never read, with the intention of getting knowledgable in things enough to strike up a conversation with a grill and maybe fuck her afterwards
