ITT: Recent purchases/additions.
What books have you recently added to your collection?
Houellebecq's Submission and The Map And The Territory
Williams' Butcher's Crossing
Woolf's To The Lighthouse
Foster Wallace's The Pale King and Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
Knausgaard's My Struggle (Book 1) [certainly planning on picking up the other volumes if I enjoy it]
Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveller
I think I got a nifty little bundle with this lot. What do you guys think of these books?
>>7922512
Bought To The Lighthouse too, hope we both enjoy it! I don't like buying multiple books at once though. In my experience it just serves to create bigger backlogs, reading one than buying another is ideal for me.
>>7922541
That's true, it definitely clogs up my backlog, but sometimes temptation just gets the better of me. Hope you enjoy To The Lighthouse too, anon - a few people I know on Goodreads said it's one of the best works they've ever read.
>>7922717
Pic related.
Ivyland by Miles Klee, bought it cause I found his modernist/retro-futurist shitposting on tumblr to be amusing and hey it was only 2 euro used on amazon
>>7922771
>modernist/retro-futurist shitposting
How so?
The Oxford classics confessions is 4.90 on amazon right now guys.
>>7922491
How much was this dog?
400 pages into IJ now
Just got back from the bookstore. Rate my haul, /lit/?
>>7924290
pretty good m8
The Oxford Companion to David Hume and,
Introduction to Frege by Anthony Kenny
>>7922491
Catch-22
The Fountain head
Great Expectations
Was in the mood for some non-fiction, I flip flop so much between to the two
>>7924290
>A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
Looks both comfy and funny at once, I'll look it up.
>>7924069
I got the Penguin Classics edition for 2 bucks on thriftbooks
so i found out i have a few audible.com credits, and not sure which books to get. was thinking thinking something either horror/scifi/fantasy, so /lit/ any suggestions
>>7924823
Buy Dhalgren and tell me how it is.
Bumping.
Usually these threads are packed.
>>7922491
i just bought cosmopolis by delillo. hoping it will be comfy to read during late nights of insomnia with whiskey
Got it yesterday for like 4 quid. Can't wait to read it.
Just got these today!
>>7925822
Haven't read any of those, but The Divine Comedy is supposed to be amazing, and from what I've heard on that book on how to read effectively, it would help you understand the former.
>>7922491
Why is thread so filled with positivity? It's making me feel weird.
Anyways:
Norton's Postmodern poetry anthology (not the actual name)
Nabokov's Lectures on Literature
The Book of Disquiet
>>7924223
a million dollars, very rare nice dog, we discuss kafka and we're both reading the cantos of ezra pound this summer break
>>7924069
Rousseau's? Already got it.
Last books I bought were;
Warlock-Oakley Hall
Paris Peasant-Louis Aragon
Mythologies-Roland Barthes
Satantango-Krasznahorkai
Journey by Moonlight-Szerb
That was a month or so ago, I've only read Satantango since then because I've been busy a little, I enjoyed it a lot, no sentence or paragraph really felt wasted. Was it justifiable splitting the movie into 7 hours? Feels like Tarr could've got more.
>>7924290
Please read Moby Dick soon; you will fall in love, anon.
>>7925832
I haven't read any of them either, but that is exactly why I purchased "How to Read a Book". It's my first time dabbling in 13th century literature, so I wanted to be somewhat prepared.
>>7925883
I've heard it's so stuffed chock full with minutiae on whaling that it's incredibly difficult to get through. I only really picked it up because it was only four dollars, plus I was hoping what I've heard was all memes. What's the truth, anon?
>>7925905
Read it and find out.
>>7925822
The Divine Comedy is beautiful but I personally found Paradiso very difficult to follow for the most part. Nonetheless, it's a mesmerising read.
>>7925833
Why not, anon?
Nabokov and Book of Disquiet are worthwhile purchases (not sure about the poetry anthology but I'll assume it's going to be good). Have a good time reading them, anon (well, as good a time as you can have reading Book Of Disquiet)
>>7925905
It is very full of details on whaling methods and whale anatomy, but it serves as a useful context for the more narrative-focused chapters that end up referring to details of the whaling methods. Plus, it's an intriguing perspective regarding whales which we are more well-informed about nowadays, but those chapters have been written with such a rationality that it's hard not to admire them.
The book isn't just an archaic textbook though: it has a very early but progressive perspective on varying cultures, races and religions; with Captain Ahab we are given a powerful and revealing insight into the man's psychology which is tainted with obsession that nears towards madness while also being able to empathise and somewhat sympathise with him; the book tackles grandiose themes so beautifully that it will have you question and regard subject matters you wouldn't expect; many chapters are full of convincing world-building, character development and even believable tension that you're likely to be glued to the book, even if you do not enjoy the chapters regarding whaling methods, sailing methods and whale anatomy.
There is so much to love about this book, anon: you're almost doing yourself a dis-service but not reading it.
>>7925981
Also I forgot to add, but: prose. Melville's prose is probably some of the most beautiful I have encountered while reading Moby Dick. I found myself re-reading plenty of my favourite passages just because of how wonderfully written it is. Here are a few examples of how brilliant the prose is:
> It is not down on any map; true places never are.
> Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
> ...to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee
Outer Dark - Cormac McCarthy
The Prophet - Khalil Gibran
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
Is anyone familiar with the work of Márquez? How does it hold up through translation?
>>7925962
That's definitely what I have heard, but I'm ready for the challenge.
I'm really excited to dive into it, when I've finished reading what I have right now.
>>7925822
>this weeks binge
>snapchatting books purchases
No worse than a Instagram whore.
>>7926023
Inferno isn't a challenge honestly, as long as you're at least aware of early Greek and Italian poets and philosophers (Dante has a few conversations with them and some are fairly obscure, but nothing wrong with googling who they are afterwards). Purgatorio also isn't particularly too challenging, but Paradiso is certainly the more difficult part.
>>7926025
Paradiso is when the poem becomes fairly abstract: in its geography (no longer is Dante going down deep into an abyss or climbing the tallest mountain, but now he travels on lit spheres through space); in its encounters (Dante's encounters along the way to God speak to Dante in a more abstract way rather than asking Dante to speak of them in the living world so they are remembered); etc.
Maybe others find Paradiso easier than I did but I'd still recommend reading it with some sort of companion guide or annotations.
>>7926039
You're just upset that you have no friends to snapchat your book purchases to.
Get over yourself.
>>7926047
I haven't read any early Greek or Italian literature, but like you said, I can just google afterwards who he is talking about. I'll probably end up purchasing their works in the future. I figured The Divine Comedy would be a decent starting point for early literature.
What companion guide would you recommend? I've googled a couple, but don't really know where to start.
>>7926113
Yeah, The Divine Comedy is almost like a crash-course in early Greek and Italian literature; I certainly found writers through it that I might not have discovered on my own.
I personally just read my Oxford edition of The Divine Comedy which has a huge section of notes and a basic outline and rundown of what happens in each canto, just in case if readers want to understand the poem more thoroughly (I even remember there being a table that briefly outlined what happened in each canto, although with this I still found it difficult to really understand Paradiso). If you can get a hold of that edition, I'd recommend it. Pic related. I certainly plan on re-reading it a few years from now.
>>7926127
I've found a Modern Reader's Guide, which I think might be useful (pic related). But the oxford edition of The Divine Comedy seems like it would have been a better purchase than the edition I have. Should have done more research. haha.
>>7926158
You'll probably be fine with that honestly, anon, don't worry. Any kind of guide will be more useful than diving into the poem blindly.
Almost bought The City and The City, but then instead I checked it out from my local library and read it in three days. It was decent.
Sort of feel bad for not buying when it's such a recent book. I want the print industry somehow still in business, unlike film or TV. Oh well, the author is a Marxist and so am I.
Anyone have any experience donating money to authors?
>>7926229
Sort of related: I bought a book from a local author who was doing book signings at my local Waterstones. He was polite and signed my book, but I feel bad for not having read it despite owning it for at least 6 years now.
I believe it's a mystery novel set in the seaside town that I'm from. It was published through some regional publishing house so I guess it's good that I paid for it to help out but still, I should really read it some time. I don't think it's even listed on Goodreads.
>>7926184
Thanks for all of your help, anon, I really appreciate it. :)
Also, sorry for all the bombardment of questions. haha!
>>7926293
No worries, anon: if there's a genuine question I'm able to help with answering, I'm more than willing. Whenever you find the time for The Divine Comedy, I hope you enjoy it, m8.
I've been on a real classics binge recently:
Don Quixote - Cervantes (about halfway through this)
The Idiot - Dostoyevsky
Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky
Dead Souls - Gogol
Roadside Picnic - Strugatsky (not really a classic like the others but I've heard good things).
>tfw just bought 50 books for 21 bucks
>>7926389
Which books, anon?
>>7926389
how and where, anon??
>>7926389
i doubt it but if true then that'd be cool
Fuenteovejuna by Lope de Vega
