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On May 25 2014 15:34 zulu_nation8 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2014 07:53 corumjhaelen wrote:On May 25 2014 06:19 zulu_nation8 wrote:
every book in this thread has been english course text books or fantasy Ulysses is a novel, not a "textbook". I haven't taken any english, litterature or philosophy class in 3 years. Or you mean that if a book is studied in a class somewhere, suddenly one can only read it to learn ? No but I don't believe anyone who says they read it for pleasure, unless they've already had all the fun beaten out of them by lit. crit classes. I think to most, the recommendations in this thread can seem somewhat... pedantic. There's a lot of theory and a lot of classics. I'm glad everyone enjoys intellectual reading so much, but it'd be nice if there were more novels, not necessarily high brow but just... anything that's not taught in classrooms.
Pleasure is a relative concept. I don't get pleasure out of badly written third-rate fantasy novels; some here do. I do get enjoyment out of Joyce or Pynchon or Cortazar. Some people get joy out of terrible, useless self-help books. I get enjoyment out of philosophy. Some people enjoy Michael Bay movies, and I call those people stupid. Just the way of the world.
@Whoever posted Chandler - The Long Goodbye: great choice! I dont ever want to read Dashiell Hammett and all the other crime writers because I'm afraid they won't live up to Chandler anyway. :/
EDIT: Still reading nietzsche for a course, a book on taoism, and trying to get into barthes again. still dont like him that much, i fear.
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Ok I should've been more specific and say that, it would be nice if everyone didn't try to use this thread to reconstruct the Western canon, in particular the hip grad school 20th century European theory canon or the seminal modernist novels ENG4000 reading list. This thread has a bunch of pictures of bookcovers and little discussion, so it's a lot of people wanting to show others they are intellectually engaged, which is fantastic for you, but it can also appear as intellectual posturing.
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Baa?21244 Posts
I hardly ever actually post stuff I'm reading but usually I read stuff that's firmly in the western canon cause that happens to be what I like, but maybe some of the slightly less wide read ones. I mean they're still super popular but not like the tier 1 in terms of popularity...
I haven't read any theory in about a year and a half.
Reading Dead Souls right now.
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On May 26 2014 00:55 Surth wrote:
@Whoever posted Chandler - The Long Goodbye: great choice! I dont ever want to read Dashiell Hammett and all the other crime writers because I'm afraid they won't live up to Chandler anyway. :/
No, don't be afraid to read Hammett. I was sceptical at fist as well, but now I have read Red Harvest and The Dain Curse so far and they are fantastic. I maybe even like them better than Chandler. The only problem is that he has written so few book (only five novels), so I am getting them over a longer time span on purpose. I made the mistake of reading all of Chandler relatively quickly, so I have learned from that.
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On May 25 2014 15:34 zulu_nation8 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2014 07:53 corumjhaelen wrote:On May 25 2014 06:19 zulu_nation8 wrote:
every book in this thread has been english course text books or fantasy Ulysses is a novel, not a "textbook". I haven't taken any english, litterature or philosophy class in 3 years. Or you mean that if a book is studied in a class somewhere, suddenly one can only read it to learn ? No but I don't believe anyone who says they read it for pleasure, unless they've already had all the fun beaten out of them by lit. crit classes. I think to most, the recommendations in this thread can seem somewhat... pedantic. There's a lot of theory and a lot of classics. I'm glad everyone enjoys intellectual reading so much, but it'd be nice if there were more novels, not necessarily high brow but just... anything that's not taught in classrooms.
There are many many books that are taught in classrooms you know. I doubt it's a pertinent criterium. And I suspect you're skeptical of a more precise subtexts, for reasons you're not giving.
I say read it for pleasure and I'm a maths student, why would you doubt me exactly ?
On May 26 2014 01:06 zulu_nation8 wrote:
Ok I should've been more specific and say that, it would be nice if everyone didn't try to use this thread to recreate the Western canon, in particular the hip grad school 20th century European theory canon or the seminal modernist novels ENG4000 reading list. This thread has a bunch of pictures of bookcovers and little discussion, so it's a lot of people wanting to show others they are intellectually engaged, which is fantastic for you, but it can also be seen as intellectual posturing.
Why is it to "show others" ? The title of this thread is "What are you reading" you know... As for judging it's intellectual posturing, I'm not sure how you deduce that from a few posts on an internet forum...
And personnally what I enjoy the most are french novels from the XIXth century (including Proust at the tail end, which fits in your picture I guess, but the rest doesn't), which not that many people seem to read here. I haven't posted one in a while cause I've already read quite a few in the past ten years...
On May 25 2014 19:24 Paljas wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2014 15:34 zulu_nation8 wrote:On May 25 2014 07:53 corumjhaelen wrote:On May 25 2014 06:19 zulu_nation8 wrote:
every book in this thread has been english course text books or fantasy Ulysses is a novel, not a "textbook". I haven't taken any english, litterature or philosophy class in 3 years. Or you mean that if a book is studied in a class somewhere, suddenly one can only read it to learn ? No but I don't believe anyone who says they read it for pleasure, unless they've already had all the fun beaten out of them by lit. crit classes. I think to most, the recommendations in this thread can seem somewhat... pedantic. There's a lot of theory and a lot of classics. I'm glad everyone enjoys intellectual reading so much, but it'd be nice if there were more novels, not necessarily high brow but just... anything that's not taught in classrooms. I agree, it starts to hurt the variety in this thread, which is a little sad, because this thread was otherwise a great source for books which werent universally known or famous.
That's a bit more fair. But I'd say it's more cyclical than "in the past it was better".
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DOM Scripting
![[image loading]](http://img3.paipaiimg.com/00000000/item-0DB939D0-AB91D50400000000002B3AF4078AB6A7.0.300x300.jpg)
I'm more of a programming person than a scripting person, but this is actually kind of cool. I can make a website that has multiple pages and all of that stuff, but that doesn't require refreshing at all.
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Baa?21244 Posts
On May 26 2014 07:36 corumjhaelen wrote:
I doubt it's a pertinent criterium.
Criterium
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A criterium, or crit, is a bike race held on a short course (usually less than 1 mile), often run on closed-off city center streets.
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On May 25 2014 20:41 EquilasH wrote:
My last read was Thinking Fast and Slow, absolutely amazing book that describes how humans think and general decision-making. The author provides real-life applications and a lot of examples.
It's written by Daniel Kahnemann, a Nobel Prize winning Psychologist and Economist.
I also recently read Freakonomics, I found it really entertaining but I reckon most of you know it already.
Next I'm thinking of reading Nudge. Has anyone here read it? Would like to know people's thoughts on it before buying it.
I'd also love recommendations for any books similar to the ones I've listed.
Gladwell is a fraud and corporate shuckster.
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Has anyone here read anything by Ismail Kadare and would you recommend his novels?
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On May 26 2014 01:06 zulu_nation8 wrote:
Ok I should've been more specific and say that, it would be nice if everyone didn't try to use this thread to recreate the Western canon, in particular the hip grad school 20th century European theory canon or the seminal modernist novels ENG4000 reading list. This thread has a bunch of pictures of bookcovers and little discussion, so it's a lot of people wanting to show others they are intellectually engaged, which is fantastic for you, but it can also appear as intellectual posturing.
There is quite a bit of ego stroking in this thread, but most of the books are legitimately good!
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Have any of you read ? How is it ? Is it good for it's genre ?
Chronicles of Black Company - Glenn Cook
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rGBsN5j.jpg)
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On May 26 2014 08:06 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2014 07:36 corumjhaelen wrote:
I doubt it's a pertinent criterium.
Criterium From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A criterium, or crit, is a bike race held on a short course (usually less than 1 mile), often run on closed-off city center streets.
Criterion, obviously, my mistake 
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This is my reading list guys what do you think:
Homer - The Odyssey
William Shakespeare - Macbeth
John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
George Orwell - 1984
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
Collected Poems of Robert Frost
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'tis a sin to kill a mockingbird, but in this case we might have to make an exception.
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I highly recommend George Orwell's 1984, heard great things about it.
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One ought not highly recommend something they've not read themselves.
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Then I suggest checking out The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. To a bookworm like myself, there aren't too many novels I can recommend so highly.
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On May 27 2014 00:24 zulu_nation8 wrote:
This is my reading list guys what do you think:
Homer - The Odyssey
William Shakespeare - Macbeth
John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
George Orwell - 1984
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
Collected Poems of Robert Frost
Great satire. I'm laughing very hard. You've taken lessons from the greatest obviously.
Personnally I'm going to read Game of thrones and Malazan book of the fallen, does anyone have similar recommendation ? I'm thinking about Wheel of time, or maybe go wild and try Dune !
God, isn't this funny.
+ Show Spoiler +Van Gogh, The Man Suicided by Society - really not that great.
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On May 27 2014 00:40 zulu_nation8 wrote:
Then I suggest checking out The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. To a bookworm like myself, there aren't too many novels I can recommend so highly.
That'd make you a bad bookworm.
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EPT
