People who play on Easy be like:>Hmm, I really want to read something light and simple to relax.>I suppose I COULD any of the millions of books that are already light and simple by design..>Nope! Instead, I’ll read a dumbed-down version of Ulysses by James Joyce, which removes anything too complex!>What do you mean there isn’t a simplified version of Ulysses?? Why are you being so exclusionary?? Some of us have a LIFE outside of books, you know!!
>>748090471so, what are you reading /v/?
>>748090554WaldenComfy read but I can't relate to>just build your own shack and live off grid broso his unc teachings are completely missed on me
>>748090554Chaucer, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Milton, Blake
You're joking, right? Every complex book always has a shorter and simpler version. For instance Ulysses has A Shorter Ulysses, Ulysses Abridged, and Easy Ulysses, pick your poison.
>>748090964Kill yourself, Aquafag.
>>748092056Funny that people always insult her but no one can ever counter what she posts. She is always posting truth nuke after truth nuke.
>>748090964You didn't read the book.Also for the metaphor it'd be more like these people demanding that James Joyce himself writes a shorter and easier version of Ulysses.
>>748090471
>>748090471I don't wanna read a book, I wanna do stuff that does stuff back, but I want more control over it than you want me to have but not complete control
>>748092415Stop blatantly samefagging and kill yourself, aquafag.>>748093075It sounds like you’re the one angry over the fictional scenario, desu.
>Y-you didn't finish the bookYes I did.
>>748090471Huh, you're completely correct.
>>748093574Lol
>>748090554Going through Cormac McCarthy, just finished the Border Trilogy and about to start Outer Dark.
>>748090471It's acceptable to play STGs on Easy because even on Easy they're still fucking impossible
>>748090471people really think "why yes I do want to spend three minutes depleting the common enemy's healthbar" and click on hard like the mindless drones they are
>>748090554middlemarch. eliot is (surprisingly) actually wildly talented and insightful, leading me to the insight that women can only make good art if they're ugly (physically or morally)also henry iv for like the 5th time because i listened to harold bloom talk about falstaff
>>748090471I do find it entertaining how many modern gamers "like to challenge themselves" which is allegedly why they play Nioh or Elden Ring or whatever, but when it comes to reading a challenging novel that's just "boring and pretentious" lmao
>>748095000everything Bloom says on Shakespeare is certified kinochecked btw
>>748090554been giving 2666 another try, got filtered on my first attempt
>>748094403Thoughts on Suttree?
>>748097257Haven't read it yet
Games are made to be beaten. They are beatable by default. The developers WANT you to beat them. They make the game in a way they are beatable.Patting yourself on the back for beating a hard game is all well and good but when you develop an ego over it, it's pathetic.
>>748090554The Complete Poems of Seamus Heaney (about 60% done) and Metroid Prime 1-3: A Retrospective (about 75% done)
>>748097428*A Visual Retrospective, it is an art book, after all
I only like sci-fiArmor was a cool concept but I lost interest when it shifted perspectives
>>748090964Why the hell would someone want a shorter, easier Ulysses?
>>748097579plotfags?
>>748090471I inherited some Archie comics and read them on the can. There was even a Wendy the witch one in there, tooThese arent mine, but i do happen to have the arm wrestling one :D
>>748097376>Patting yourself on the back for beating a hard game is all well and good but when you develop an ego over it, it's pathetic.But how else am I supposed to show off to people how much BETTER I am than them??
>>748098392yep, that's a kek
>>748098392>t.
>>748090554"4chan" by Anonymous
>>748090554Rereading Dune Messiah so I can shit on the movie properly
>>748090554Rose of the World. An interesting read. The author is evidently a very intellectual and well-read individual, but also clearly insane, even before the gulag.
>>748097507>do you like food>i only like bubblegum
>>748090471>>Nope! Instead, I’ll read a dumbed-down version of Ulysses by James Joyce, which removes anything too complex!>>What do you mean there isn’t a simplified version of Ulysses?? Why are you being so exclusionary?? Some of us have a LIFE outside of books, you know!!They're called audiobooks and I pity the plebs who listen to them
>>748090471OP be like: "having fun? fuck that!"
>>748100387>let people enjoy things!!!Let people be retards and society get even stupider than it already is!!!
>>748090471Not gonna lie, this book sounds like the most boring shit imaginable.
>>748100578>>748100452
>>748090554Desert Solitaireprose by a writer who loves nature - he mostly just talks about hiking, handling animals and drinking beer
>>748090471I read Ulysses with a commentary. What now?
>>748101180sounds kino. is it kino?
>>748090471I could spend my time reading a long book over the course of several days, or I could read a smaller version and finish it in a couple hours, and grasp the same message from either. The same applies to vidya. I could bash my head against a brick wall or I could enjoy myself. I'm sorry the very idea of someone wanting to have fun angers you, anon.
>>748100181pseud.
>>748090554Fellowship of the Ring Tolkien's writing is so pretty.
>>748102201Books, and stories in general, are more than just the message they convey
>>748090471>Video Games have Easy Mode>Movies have captions>Books have audio bookswhat are the easy modes of music and visual art?
>>748090554since I was only reading entertainment stuff recently (40k/battetech etc.) I brought out the big guns again
>>748090554The absolute lowest tier scifi slop
>>748102536you only read pulp popcorn flicks. you're literally a retard.
>>748102713Pop music
>>748090554Herodotus and various books of the KJV.I am growing increasingly disgusted with video games and the people who play them. I have one major goal I want to achieve that I always wanted to do then I think I'm just going to stop. Forever. No one even knows what a video game is any more, I'm tired of it. This is a dead form of media. There will never be a good video game again, so it's not worth investing time in. It doesn't matter if there were good video games before. No future means I don't bother.
>>748090554Currently nothing since I just finished reading all the books I had left laying around. I have started to eye up the 4 books of journey to the west, but 150€ is a bit steep. Maybe just the first 1 for now>>748100171This sounds interesting, but maybe a bit too esoteric for me
>>748103183>but maybe a bit too esoteric for meRegardless, I'd like to recommend Quasimorph, a game with a setting based on Rose of the World. It's a turn-based extraction shooter set in an anarcho-capitalist future of the Solar system.
>>748093574OP BTFO
>>748090471What the fuck is the Ulysses anyways?Is it like a gay homer fanfic?Is it the reason Americans are so obsessed with the Odyssey even though the Illiad is a million times better?
I post you’re shelf /v/.
>>748100452>play games on easy>more brain power and space for things that matter refute
>>748103183>I have started to eye up the 4 books of journey to the west, but 150€ is a bit steep. Maybe just the first 1 for nowhttps://archive.org/details/journeytothewestwuchengen1592
>>748103610Apparently, it's a story of a single day from multiple perspectives, based on the Odyssey. This and the fact that the title of Order of the Sinking Star is based on a quote from Ulysses is all that I know about that book.>And this gray spirit yearning in desire >To follow knowledge like a sinking star, >Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
>>748100452Yes. Only great minds play games well. Einstein couldn't probably even reach masters in Overwatch, what a bitch.
>>748090471I remember watching the Name of the Rose for an assignment about the book. That old hag never noticed it nyehehehe.
>>748090554Ironically, portrait of the artist as a young man.
>>748103668dude what the fuck
>>748102201brownest post ITT
>>748103668I'm not much of a reader. All of my books are old children's books and school books. The only exception is that Warhammer 40k rule book and Rose of the World.
The Bible is the only book we need. And we don't need to read it ourselves, just let the priests and pastors read it to us. We should trust them so much that we should cease to be literate, so we have no choice but to trust that they are being honest about what the Bible says.
>>748103668>first edition King of Elfland's Daughter>Pegana in a gilded case$100,000 shelf aint it
>>748103668whats that pink poetry review book at the bottom
>>748104072nta but based, great novel
>>748103842>yearning in desireeh?
>>748100067i've only read the first one but also want to read the next ones before watching the next movies
>>748104187it's a periodical containing a very early contribution of Gods of the Mountain by Dunsany. I picked it up this week actually, for $30. I also picked up a poetry periodical edited by William Stanley Braithwaite containing an unknown essay contribution by Dunsany. The Braithwaite-Lovecraft connection is glorious. Also $20.
>>748103068>I have one major goal I want to achieve that I always wanted to do then I think I'm just going to stop.Do you mean a vidya goal? What is it?
>>748090554Blonde by Joyce Carol OatesI wanted to compare it to the movie
>>748090471Then what do you think about the the author's other work?
>>748102713>easy modes of musicrap and most video game osts>easy modes of visual artmost manga and almost all anime
>>748090554Jerusalem, Delivered
>>748102201>why spend time watching kubrick when I can watch tik tok>why play elden ring or resident evil when i can play mobile wwe gatcha>why read faulkner or melville when i can read lore wikis
>>748098392leftist memes be like
>>74809055440K novels. I've read enough real books to be secure in my choices. Finished the Mike Brooks ork books a while ago, taking a break from Ciaphas Cain's series to read a Night Lords trilogy. All have been pretty good so far, Mike Brooks did a really good job with the boyz and Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas books are all excellent, obviously.
>>748090554Currently reading the king in yellow right before sleep. I've gotten to chapter 3 in a month.
>>748090554Harry Potter 3.It’s the only series worth readingWhenever I meet someone with a doctorate in literature, history, philosophies, etc, I always ask them:“Yes but have you read Harry Potter?”They are dumbfounded, clearly taken aback by their pristine, public ignorance on full display“But that’s a children’s book!!! What about Goethe?!!!?”Yes yes however “Cute. Please name the founder of Hufflepuff.”SilenceGobsmacked facesThen the tears comeEvery day I’m able to dethrone an elitist pseud who thinks they have any command of the written word by sheer factual knowledge of the greatest literary series man has created Not even mentioning the absurdly deep character discussions and analyses I often engage in with fellow intellectuals
>>748103695Of course I know about free pdfs, but I much prefer having an actual book to read
This is my book shelf. Mostly is filled with different bible versions/ study editions. Do have a shelf dedicated to astrology though which is weird for a christian to be an astrologer too. then a misc shelf with stephen king and other stuff
>>748104332An Irishman wrote that, be kind.
>>748104605>hard modes of musiccountry and most metal>hard modes of visual artmost marvel and almost all DC
>>748104878I'm not christian but I've read a lot of Leo Tolstoy and TS Eliot this year, so my respect for the religion has increased dramatically lately. Have you read them?
>>748090471idk nowadays I don't care about my "gamer cred" anymore and hard mode often just means enemies have more health and take 4x as long to kill so it's just artificially padding playtime
>>748104797Meant to mention, if anyone is looking for good sci-fi but doesn't care much for 40K, I'm also working through The Culture series and I can't recommend it enough. That said, I really, really recommend starting with the second book, 'The Player of Games' and reading 'Consider Phlebas' afterwards. After that you can read them chronologically, but I strongly consider TPoG to be a much, much stronger hook into that universe than Phlebas. I wouldn't say I was bored reading Phlebas, but TPoG just feels like it should be the first in the series and I do consider it the better book.
>>748103668Some stuff
>>748105020I'm a PC(USA) Presbyterian Christian, but I didn't even go to church today because I slept for 15 hours...I have not read Leo Tolstoy or TS Eliot tho, what books by them should I try to read?
>>748105132
>>748105214is that Finnish? what's your favorite Murakami book?
>>748090554Currently, nothing. Got the itch to finally stop sitting on my hands and write that damn story that's been knocking around the ol' noggin for forever.>>748090941>>748094403>>748102613Nice. Big influences for me.>>748103068There are still a few releases per year worth looking into, but shadow creatures really have taken over the medium.
>>748101254it's pretty fuckin kinoone of the best books I've read about the outdoors
>>748105214Ty for sharing
>>748104460>dem ct ligatures
>>748105214Damn, that's a thick book.>>748105373Yes, that's Finnish. The Sampo book is a bit on the nose, frankly.
>>748090554Right now I'm reading The Plague by Camus. I am also about a quarter of the way through Japan: A Short Cultural History but keep putting it on the backburner.There's also some comic books I read for more relaxing/easy stuff.
>>748105175For Tolstoy I started with his short stories, though War and Peace is my favorite that I've read so far. Father Sergius and The Kreutzer Sonatas are probably good starting points.Eliot is best known for Prufrock and The Wasteland, but for more religious poems, start with Ash Wednesday. If you like it, you can also check out his other religious stuff like Four Quartets, The Cultivation of Christmas Trees and Journey of the Magi.I find both of their worldviews and ethics extremely helpful and fascinating, and they were both men who lived as they preached, and their writing exemplifies that beautifully.
>>748105132>The RussiansI'm a Russian. What did you think of that book?
>>748090554I am reading /v/
>>748098392>words words words words I know we're in a literature thread but damn
>>748105373Wind up bird chronicles, it's the first book from murakami I read. Feels like his longer books tend to be a bit samey so I have not liked the rest as much.
>>748105429sounds tight, i might buy it later this year, cheers anon
>>748090471Are Ulysses and Finnigan’s Wake really the final bosses of literature that you need a college education to understand? Or do people just not read anything more complex than Twilight and Harry Potter?
>>748105721np brotha, enjoy
My Dunsany collection actually has a slight Ulysses/James Joyce connection. Can anyone guess how?
>>748102797Please tell me you've read and understood Kant. If you haven't, Hegel will seem alternately revelatory and nonsensical. But if you have, then Hegel will appear as nothing more than a cheap imitation. Same deal with the "innovative" philosophers of the early 20th century, many of whom just swagger-jacked Kierkegaard (who is, unlike Kant, fun to read).
>>748090554I reread Lord of the Rings trilogy every year between late August to mid September
>>748090554reading is for faggots
>>748104825To bad only the first story is spoopy and the rest are just random fiction with some supernatural elements
>>748105764>Twilight and Harry PotterThat was an entire generation ago.No one under 30 reads books (minus the intelligent/curious hyper minority). Kids can barely read twitter posts without getting bored.
>>748093574Is this what people who claim they read 300 books a year read?
>>748105589Well, I was honestly a bit surpriced by the mixture of apathy, resignation and agression I got from it, but it was written by an american journalist describing his time in the late soviet union, so maybe that was to be expected a bit. Well written atleast
>>748105764ulysses is hard but it isn't THAT hard. chapter 14 to me is very impenetrable, but other than that every chapter can be wrestled with once you understand what it's doing. what makes ulysses special is that every chapter is written in a unique style. some chapters are very realist/naturalistic, others are complete monologues, others are very surreal, impressionistic and metaphysical. this book is a challenge, but it is a very doable challenge, especially if you buy a student annotated edition. and the book is a lot easier (and also a lot more fun) if you've read many of the classics that it is in dialogue with (the odyssey, the divine comedy, hamlet, works of aristotle and aquinas, etc)finnegans wake on the other hand is BY FAR the hardest work of fiction i have ever read. it uses dozens of languages. it sounds like it was written by a schizoid drunkard at times. it has sentences that go on for over a dozen pages. you probably need several phds just to understand the first chapter. the syntax is completely fucking out of this world. like, i can explain most of what happens in ulysses, but i couldn't tell you the name of any characters in FW. ulysses is like a mid-game boss for literature; FW is definitely the final, final boss.
>>748097257Not him, but it is the only McCarthy I even somewhat enjoy. Not that he's a bad writer — he's my wife's favorite author and I see why — but it's just spiritually taxing. I guess I don't agree with his views on the fundamental depravity of humankind, despite sharing sympathy for his Gnosticism. Suttree can be very funny, however.
>>748104857Stop making excuses and start reading.
>>748106098>the mixture of apathy, resignation and agressionThat seems about right, especially for the late USSR.
>>748105764Ulysses's difficulty is overstated but if you are unfamiliar with stream of consciousness you will have a difficult time with it. One can pretty easily see how Dubliners became Ulysses and it feels like a fairly natural progression. You'll need to be familiar with some slightly niche bits of knowledge and/or Irish culture and language to get the full experience but it can be generally understood with minimal preparation and can be compared to something like Chaucer or Shakespeare in that the hardest part for modern readers is acclimating oneself to the language that the story is being told in.Finnigan's Wake is probably the final boss of literature because it is more or less personalized for Joyce. To understand it fully requires decently advanced knowledge of multiple languages (ie: there are puns that require knowledge of idioms across multiple languages) as well as various cultural, mythological, and historical references. If you do not have Joyce's specific life experience you will need to do A LOT of catching up. It is a novel that is not the least bit accommodating to a prospective reader and presupposes you know everything you need to know about it without explaining anything.The Wasteland and other modernist poetry of the early 20th century was also specifically designed not to be easily understood so magazines could buy exclusive rights to footnotes/endnotes that helped explain the meaning behind the poem. Literature in the modernist era was exclusive and heavily, in some cases artificially, gatekept. The term 'best seller' was originally a term of derision.
>>748106189TS Eliot is dog shite
>>748106060either that or all that shitty girly pulp schlock you see in all major bookstores these days
>>748090554Death Note
>>748090471>>748090554I don't read
>>748106189>>748106128Yeah I imagine it like writing a novel about 2020s America. So you don’t need to explain things like smartphones and Twitter. But some alien civilization picks it up in 100 years and is like ‘How am I supposed to know what a Tesla is??”
>>748106440i want to see that guy's bookshelf so bad
>>748103068I don't really care about videogames, they're for faggots manchildren but i don't mind them. My problem is that there is not a board where discussion is near as vigorous on literature and mystic topics as much as /v/ is talking about vidya and other frivolous bullshit. /lit/ is a desserted place with some bots left, /x/ is the designated botfarm of the site along with /pol/, and the rest is /r9k/ extension and does't lead too much space to barge in an stealth talk of more important subjects. I come here out of procrastination habit but i've started to frequent less and less each time.
>>748106484I assume you'd find a bunch of The Dresden Files books.
I don’t think I’ll ever talk to anyone on 4chan about books, because I know that whenever I find a novel that really speaks to me, everyone on here will tell me it’s normie trash or whatever.
>>748106603What does he think when he looks at them on the shelf? Does he think he wrote them? How does he explain owning a series of books about himself?
>>748105938And yet you are reading this sit. Curious!_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Your mom will definetively die on her sleep tonight and there's nothing you can do about it, moron._______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
>>748105764>final boss of literatureENTER
>>748103068>HerodotusI read The Histories this year, one of the best works of non-fiction I've read in 2026. I say "non-fiction" even though the stories of the flying serpents and the giant ants were obviously massive mythological exaggerations. But he has a cool attitude towards other cultures, especially the Egyptians and the Ethiopians. I see why historians and history majors like this book, reading it really does feel like you're getting a taste of what people believed 2600 years ago. Agreed on your video game rant. I still hold many classics in high regard, but the current state of the industry is just shallow and depressing.
>>748106795am i looking at textual histories or an editorial composite or what
>>748090554SST
>>748097428> The Metroid is in captivity, the galaxy is at peacewhat did Seamus mean by this
>>748106948no more metroids eating all the potatoes, the famine ended
>>748106695If it makes you feel any better, is not really about a topic in particular, but that 4chan is dead internet territory, and the algorithm will always take the contrary opinion of everything no matter if good or bad, or reinforce suicidal behaviour. 4chan is trash.
>>748106795quoi ca?
>>748106695There is always /lit/. I've never been there before until a few weeks ago, but it was pretty easy to find people to talk to. I said some thoughts on Rose of the World (the book I went there to talk about), and someone even sincerely responded to me, with a meme attached.
>>748106795>Litbros when i say my favorite book is Catcher in the Rye and not whatever the fuck this is
>>748106892whoops i forgot to change the filenamethis is a novel (?) called ZETTEL'S TRAUM, or Bottom's Dreamfun fact: the print version of this book is fucking immense. i think it's bigger than my riverside shakespeare
>>748107047>even insects have a gestalt spririt and inhabit bramfaturas and can ascend with enough timesure mr schizo soviet man
>>748107145>Bottom's Dreamshan't be reading a faggot book
>>748106892Shitposting in literature form.
>>748090554The Jerusalem BibleThe Lord of the Rings
I got memed into it, but I'll try to finish it. I did like Inherent Vice though.
>>748107360for me, it was the polish cunny cruise part
>>748090554Books that have slyscrapers at night on the cover
>>748105917it has been years since I read Kant and would not assume I "understood" everything, I read these books to give my brain a workout, to stimulate it, if it gives me some stuff to think about, it did it's job and I never read Hegel before so win win
>>748106352I disagree. I thought he did some good shit. I was never one for The Wasteland but I like "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" a lot and I am fond of bits of "Gerontion" and one more whose title escapes me right now but talks about not being old but certainly not being young and losing out on the advantages of both.Kipling is my favorite poet but I think Eliot is perfectly serviceable and leagues ahead of the garbage that passes for poetry these days.
>>748093574What is the purpose of cliffnotes? illiterate
>>748106465No. That's a pretty standard issue when reading old works.For Finnigan's wake it would be more like if you wrote something about some lesser known German philosopher that you came across in the footnote of a text your second year university art history class and used that to make a reference to your hometown's highschool football mascot. Personal references and intersections of knowledge/disciplines that are not common but were what Joyce experienced so he included them.
>>748107970To write book essays, before ChatGPT made it so you don’t even have to know the outline of the story to write an entire dissertation on it.
>>748107970They're literally study aids for school. They collate the contents of a book to have answers to quiz and exam questions.Firmly in the idiot territory opposite "Books exist to be read, not referenced."; but with standardized testing and education being what it is I can't really blame people for optimizing in a retarded fashion over contents they don't really care about. The fact they don't care is really the bigger problem.
>>748102834pseud
>>748107014i mean 4chan was always a place for trolls and what do trolls do? they insult you and say whatever you're doing is normie fag bullshit. i dont think bots have anything to do with thatobv the quality of posts and posters have declined over the years but i think you'd get the same gamut 5-10 years ago
>>748106060no those people use audiobooks while they're riding in ubers or subways
>>748102713>what are the easy modes of music and visual art?Spotify will explain lyrics to you as you listen. Paintings have plaques explaining the artist's intent and sometimes even tell you how it was painted
>literally 'tarded
>>748093574/thread
>>748107970>illiterateHow ironic.
>>748090554The Foundation trilogy by Asimov
>>748106948>Seamus sounds like SamusEven more interestingly, there's a place in Ireland known as the Aran Islands.
>>748104493It is something not many people can do and I don't want it to be tainted with 4chan.
>>748090471meanwhile, Hardcore Gamers:>I want to do something challenging with my free time.>Should I hone a valuable skill? Improve my mind with some deep and uplifting work of literature? Master a musical instrument?>Nah, I'll just sit on my ass, pressing plastic buttons and staring at a screen for hours on end.
>>748090471>Ulysses>not OdysseusPshh, fag
>>748093574based
>>748090554Your post.
>>748100452People have always been retards and society was never anything more than a Ponzi scheme writ large.
>>748104139Is this loss?
>>748112970Nah, he's right. Retards aren't the meek lambs people pretend they are and they will absolutely twist a knife in your back for not fitting in. Look at this place and how tribal and repetitive it has become.
Can you even consider yourself a hardcore reader if you haven't read the original, unabridged version of Night Land?
>>748106134Have you read the border trilogy? I didn't find the fundamental depravity of mankind to be that prevalent in either book, even though the crossing was very depressing (and also the by far best book of the trilogy).
>>748090471I unironically ask ai to summarize the themes and message of novels nowadays. It's all the same narrative and literary techniques anyway to decipher an understanding of the author's intent - like a fortune cookie sealed inside a rubix cube. Why bother when chatgpt can just directly give me the fortune cookie instead?
>7481132132/10
>>748112723Even funnier when most of the so-called challenging games they'll play is Dark Souls or Cuphead, not La Mulana or Noita
>>748113164>people hype it up as this unique difficult experience>it's just a good book written in a slightly more flowery languageTruly, the Dark Souls of literature.
>>748098392My recent pet peeve is pretty much anyone on youtube who not only cannot pronounce words or even try to work out the root of a word they don't know but will regularly have this problem and never try and do anything about it.It's cute your first month in but some niggers have 5 year plus accounts where their sole revenue stream is saying words, maybe learn some new words, or develop a routine of researching words before you do the show. Stop fucking going "I have no idea how to pronounce this" you fucking retards.
>>748114415Why does every woman aspire to be an OnlyFans whore above anything else?
>90% of thread is genre fiction>know for a fact most of the people here are normalfags in their 30s and 40sJesus man, /v/ is grim.....
