Litizens of Lit York
We post our favourite authors and their works we feel should be read in the order of our preferation. And lets include an optional section aswell. Positive critique is allowed on others' comments but lets stay away from the negative.
I shall lead by example
Dostoyevsky
>Notes
>C&P
>Idiot
>Demons
>TBK
Optional: Poor folk, The double, The gamlber, The eternal husband, house of the dead and a writers diary.
Hermy Melville
>Bartleby
>Moby Dick
>Billy Budd
>Clarel
optional Pierre, Benito Cereno, Encantadas
>>7492676
Albert Camus
1. The Myth of Sisyphus
2. The Stranger
3. The Rebel
4. The Plague
5. The first man
If nothing else read the Myth of Sisyphus
>>7492686
Very good selection litrade, I do feel MD stands well on it's own but so do all masterpieces though so all in all a great addition.
>>7492712
I really want to get into Camus, haven't read him at all but he seems really interesting, did you feel you needed to read something before him to get an understanding of his philosophy?
Not OP but would really like to hear these kinds of thoughts on tolstoy, shakespear, nabokov, proust, kafka and perhaps steinbeck and hemingway.
>>7493221
Steinbeck has a better style.
>>7493221
>shakespear
(1) Start with Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Much ado about Nothing and the Merchant of Venice. (2) Then Richard II, Henry IV (both), Othello and Macbeth. (3) Then King Lear, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra. You can sprinkle in Romeo and Juliet, Titus Andronicus and Measure for Measure whenever. The last plays you have to read are Winter's Tale and the Tempest, but not because they're the best or the hardest but because they're like bookmarks for the end of Shakes.
Also watch them if at all possible. His sonnets you can read whenever.
>nabokov
1) Lolita
2) Symbols and Signs (short story)
3) Speak, Memory
4) One of the minor novels, the ones written in Russian (I recommend Luzhin, but pick any)
5) Pnin
6) Pale Fire
Skip Ada.
>proust
1) In Search of Lost Time (in order)
>kafka
1) Metamorphosis because you've probably already read it
2) The Trial
3) A Country Doctor (the collection)
4) Penal Colony
You can read The Castle too, but it's just a worse Trial. Skip Amerika.
>hemingway.
Skip him. Read A Moveable Feast if you're interested in his friends. A Clean Well-Lighted Place is the only thing he's written I've thought had any value.
>>7493276
Why did you not include Henry V after Henry IV? It's part of the henriad and one of the best imo.
>>7493284
Slipped my mind, but I don't know if I'd want it just after Henry IV. The play is on a whole different mindset from the previous two Henrys, and I didn't want to overload him with histories.
>>7493276
>>7493308
Thanks bro those are great, 2 questions though, is kafka one of those which you gotta read like baseline philo to understand but straight to the second, about richard 2 and henry 4, should I not read like from 1?
also you seem like you know your shit so perhaps you would enilghten me on tolstoy and steinbeck aswell good anon friend? :)
>>7493372
>is kafka one of those which you gotta read like baseline philo to understand
Not at all.
>straight to the second, about richard 2 and henry 4, should I not read like from 1?
Those plays are titled after their protagonists, who were kings of England, as in Henry the Fourth. There's no Henry or Richard I.
>>7493372
>also you seem like you know your shit so perhaps you would enilghten me on tolstoy and steinbeck aswell good anon friend? :)
I can't help you with them, I haven't read them. I've only read minor short stories by Tolstoi and nothing by Steinbeck, but I've been advised to start with "the death of ivan ilyich" and "Anna Karenina", but I don't know how good those recommendations are.
>>7493397
Ahh my bad, just figured since that other guy mentioned a henry V but your recommendations sound solid bro, thank you.
>>7493221
>Tolstoy
Novels: War and Peace, Resurrection, Anna Karenina
Novellas: Master and Man, Father Sergius, Death of Ivan Illych, Hadji Murad
Short Stories: After the Ball, How much land does a man need, Alyosha the Pot
>>7492676
Here's my own take on Dostoyevsky. I'm not saying it's necessary to read him chronologically, but it's an interesting way to see his development, so I've listed his works in order and then given them a priority ranking, from highest/essential [*****] to lowest [----*]. And it's not essential, but generally speaking I'd say the more before Karamazov, the better.
[----*] 'Poor Folk'
[-****] The Double
[---**] 'Mr. Prokharchin'
[----*] Novel in Nine Letters
[--***] 'The Landlady'
[----*] 'The Jealous Husband'
[--***] 'A Faint Heart'
[---**] 'Polzunkov'
[---**] 'The Honest Thief'
[-****] 'The Christmas Tree and a Wedding'
[--***] 'White Nights'
[--***] Netochka Nezvanovna
[--***] 'The Little Hero'
[arrest, mock-execution, imprisonment]
[--***] The Uncle's Dream
[--***] The Village of Stepanchikovo
[--***] The Insulted and the Injured
[-****] Notes from the House of the Dead
[--***] 'A Nasty Anecdote'
[--***] Notes from Underground
[--***] 'The Crocodile'
[*****] Crime and Punishment
[-****] The Gambler
[-****] The Idiot
[--***] The Eternal Husband
[*****] Demons
[--***] 'Bobok'
[----*] The Adolescent
[-****] 'The Heavenly Christmas Tree'
[-****] 'A Gentle Spirit'
[*****] 'The Dream of a Ridiculous Man'
[*****] The Brothers Karamazov
>>7493276
>A Clean Well-Lighted Place is the only thing he's written I've thought had any value.
Some of his short stories are very good. I read them a long time ago but I remember the Snows of Kilimanjaro being outstanding
Borges
Essential:
>works 20 pages or shorter
Optional:
>longer worksActually, if you find a work of his longer than that, let me know if you don't mind
>>7492676
Beside white nights, what are the best dosto short stories?
>>7493794
Subtract those I listed in greentext and you´ve got my take although notes also is a short story. You can also do the same to the star list our anon friend 3 posts above you listed and you´ve got his take on all of his works except, also subtract those 4 and you´ve got the short stories, thing I found with dosto though was that all his works are good, just not as good.
>>7493721
Would you say ficciones is just about all you should read or is there more?
Since you seem to know your short stories perhaps you could give us your take on chekhov gogol and pushkin?
>tfw no Pynchon
Crying of Lot 49 (good intro)
V
Gravity's Rainbow
optional: Mason and Dixon, Vineland
>>7494382
What does V stand for?
But also are those lines from GRR martin and especially the parts colored red real?
>>7494494
>But also are those lines from GRR martin and especially the parts colored red real?
yes
>>7492676
The best way to read pic related is, undoubtedly, chronologically.
>>7494331
Not OP but bumping the short stories for interest
>>7494382
Mason and Dixon is his masterpiece though. Not optional.
Roberto Bolano:
>Nazi Literatures in the Americas
>Last Evenings on Earth
>Savage Detectives
>Antwerp
>The Return (Optional)
>Distant Star (Optional)
>2666
>>7494331
I was being a little bit facetious in my post >>7493721, since all of Borges' fiction is in fact 20 pages long or shorter. So basically it's all essential. (He did actually co-write some longer pieces with Adolfo Bioy Casares and, from what I've read of it, it's quite good too.) As far as one single short-story collection of his, it has to be Ficciones since it has so many indispensable stories, which I started to list here but basically the entire Table of Contents. Another collection that's pretty obligatory is Labyrinths, which contains stories from Ficciones and The Aleph, along with some excellent non-fiction (or semi-fiction) essays. It seems like pretty much all of his writing is well worth while except some of his very earliest, which was focused in on Argentina and doesn't have a broader appeal.
I'm no authority on short stories, but I appreciate them. I don't know my Chekhov stories well enough to say which ones I think are best. For Gogol, two essentials to me are 'The Nose' and 'The Overcoat', the latter of which Dostoyevsky claimed as basically a fount of all Russian lit that followed. (Another anon has praised another story as essential recently, 'The Portrait' I think.) But Pushkin would be more foundational even, although beyond 'Eugene Onegin' I would have to defer to the experts on his other most essential stories. (For a more recent Russian short story author who's excellent but maybe not as well known, I would recommend Sigiszmund Krzhizhanovsky; Autobiography of a Corpse is a great collection.)
>>7495129
Thanks for a great answer mate, does labyrinths include all of ficciones and that extra or some of it and some others aswell?
Guess I'm just tryna ask should I buy both or just labyrinths but also if it's both, won't I have to skip through a few in labyrinths since I already read?
>>7495073
>No Midnight in Chile
>No short stories
Shameful display
>>7496724
Labyrinths has most but not all of he stories in Ficciones, and all of the most essential ones it looks like, so if you are just getting Labyrinths that's a good choice.
>>7492816
>did you feel you needed to read something before him to get an understanding of his philosophy?
not him - and i've only read The Stranger - but no, the writing is straightforward, i found.
Cormac McCarthy
1.Suttree
2.Blood Meridian
3.The Border Trilogy
4.The Road
Optional: Outer Dark, No Country for Old Men
