WCSA Request for Recommendations - Page 2
| Blogs > yamato77 |
swanized
Canada2476 Posts
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Starlightsun
436 Posts
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?14001 Posts
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PhoenixVoid
Canada16291 Posts
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and Consider the Lobster - David Foster Wallace (Essay compilations ranging from reporting on awards for pornography to English grammar and how a cruise is not relaxing and fun as it seems) | ||
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Tal
United Kingdom773 Posts
On December 17 2018 02:56 Jerubaal wrote: Well, I hate to bring up basic math, but you realize that 50 books is basically one a week, right? That's probably not going to be sustainable, even with several hours of reading a night. Secondly, could you give us some more insight into why you are reading and what you have read before? Are you just trying to keep your brain active or are you trying to enrich your mind? To reference an earlier argument in this thread, you only have so much life to read, and you should probably go in order of importance. I'm not sure the last 50 years is even worth touching until you have a thorough grounding in the stuff that's lasted for hundreds if not thousands of years. I'm also going to assert that Moby Dick is one of the few novels that you should not read. Listen to it on an audio book. One a week is very doable for anyone with a couple of hours a day. Agree that it's generally better to focus on older stuff, but there is a lot of valuable new stuff too. Can't imagine getting through the duller parts of Moby Dick if I couldn't skim read. These threads are better if people give reasons for their recommendations so: I recommend Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. It's a good amble through history and the future, and while you might not agree with all of it, his way of writing and thinking makes you think. | ||
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farvacola
United States15727 Posts
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Chef
10679 Posts
Japanese Tales - Translation by Royall Tyler, a really good collection of folklore from Japan in bitesize chunks that can be read in a flash. I Am a Cat (我輩は猫である）- Natsume Soseki; I love all his books, this was his first and it's a little goofy but it's adorable. The Master of Go （名人）- Yasunari Kawabata; I also love all his books. I have the Seidensticker translation, and I've enjoyed his translations. This is the only book by Kawabata that isn't about a shitty person cheating on his wife. Starting Point - Hayao Miyazaki; a collection of interviews of Miyazaki. More interesting than Turning Point IMO. Lilith - Fantasy book that's quite neat Solaris - sci fi book that's quite neat Spring and All - Interesting poetry poetry by TS Eliot - any anthology you care to pick up. The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories - really nice collection. Kappa - Ryuunosuke Akutagawa; My favourite book by him. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion - Book that introduced me to Mishima That's more than enough before I start recommending books on my shelf that were only a little interesting to me. Any of the Japanese authors would be worth looking into more if you like one book. I have found myself that I don't just read a bunch of books by various authors, but that I find an author I like that then I slowly read everything they've ever written. To me, that's the most effective way to not waste time looking for books you might not like. The other method being to get a good anthology of short stories, and look into the authors of the ones that were especially good. | ||
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