The results of the 2025 poll for /lit/'s Top 100 books.It was a lot of work running the polls and making the chart, but it's worth it to keep this board's annual tradition alive. Thanks for voting!
>>25011374The problem is the format of the voting. It's literally just a popularity / meme contest. This is why most award shows have like 30% of the vote come from judges.
The bible IMO being a flaccid cop-out aside, who even reads the bible in the penguin classics KJV version? It's weird and not spalted. Feels like a product created only to be sold to /lit/bros who feel Intellecktual and Edyucated by reading the epic EME bible as Literature.
>>25013714pick a better bible cover
>>25005827After you're done with the bible move on with the most authoritative word of God SWT, the noble Quran, revealed by God SWT to the infallible prophet Muhammadﷺ
>>25013730Richmond Lattimore or Robert Alter or Norton Critical
Average love story written by a man>Self insert author met a slighty average sweet girl that loves him. At worst shes a little too young for him but aside that its a vanilla love storyAverage love story written by a woman>Self insert is an average shy woman that keep switch hardcore sex between sociopatic billionaries, serial killers, vampires and so on that are all mean to anyone and use her as a fucktoy with some lovebombing in between. They are all also in the 0,30% top of male beautyWhat caused these two oppositive phenomenons? I read a lot of romantic slop books and can confirm these stereotypes are generally true
>>25002682Those are not "love stories" they are meant to be pornographic smut for women to get wet to, sometimes the author will be coy and not label it as such but everyone who takes even a glance the book knows what it is and what purpose it servesMore insidious cases are like pic related where the woman is writing a completely normal story and then out of nowhere inserts her blatant emotional wish fulfilment sexual fantasy despite completely in contrast to the tone of the rest of the writing.
>>25012665Retard you can get full immunity to all disadvantages of incest in 120 years max
>>25013671>in literary circles this is called a "woman moment"kek
>>25002682Both of these are written by women though
>>25013683>only 120 years of freaksBut why?
prev: >>25008315
Been going to sleep early and waking up early lately. It's a fuckin miracle.
>>25013631Why do you say that?
>I. By good I mean that which we certainly know to be useful to us.>II. By evil I mean that which we certainly know to be a hindrance to us in the attainment of any good. >VIII. By virtue (virtus) and power I mean the same thing; that is (III. vii), virtue, in so far as it is referred to man, is a man's nature or essence, in so far as it has the power of effecting what can only be understood by the laws of that nature. Spinoza, Ethics, IVSpinoza is very based and clarity-pilled
>>25013677More so I'm not delusional at all. I'm insanely lucid and pragmatic. Extraordinary circumstances just happen sometimes.
>>25013677Wasn't cryptic to me, I had similar thoughts after reading BGE.
what are some examples of books that are usually released heavily censored and nobody bats an eye?
>>25013292I would like to read the unrevised copy. Sounds interesting. Just a reminder that they changing the wording in Wodehouse novels as well. Yes....Wodehouse
>>25013303How the fuck would you publish a copyrighted text without authorization from the estate without getting sued?
>>25013292Carnegie still no beating the allegations.
>>25013303>>25013338https://socialskillswisdom.com/seems to be available here, not sure why the scummy site title and stuff, but the text seems to be there
oh shit he's rightthe 1936 version got a whole chapter on dealing with petulant wives lolhttps://masjidbsp.org.my/elibrary/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/HOW-TO-WIN-FRIENDS-AND-INFLUENCE-PEOPLE.pdf
Does /lit/ annotate their books?
>>25013169I don't get the point.If you're reading non-fiction that you're hoping to remember specifics of afterwards for a job or something, I get it.If you're reading fiction, I don't understand. What are you writing down?
>>25013169She is just writing "my heart" whenever something emotionally provocative happens and if something she doesn't understand happens she just writes "what?" Someone needs to tell her those aren't insights but just reactions and she can do that in her head.
>>25013169Only library books.
When I annotate, I write a lot of new ideas. I am adding to the text my own, higher-order conceptualizations. It is an exercise in elevating the material beyond the author's scope. Just the author = okay, plus my ideas = genius!
I don't take notes or annotate. I should probably start writing down my thoughts about a book after reading it though. I forget too easily.
New to HP Lovecraft, started with thisSome of the worst writing I've ever seen
>>25011367>He was not some high-level prose writer celebrated for his literary beauty or geniusYes he is. People wrote better in magazines a century ago than novelists did fifty years ago.
>>25007889what do you mean by "too many asides"?
>>25011377Victorian era is an unfair standard to set for English writing but it is the correct standard to set.
>>25006837Chthulu is pretty good but if we are to trash Lovecraft, I'd nominate At The Mountains of Madness, in which, like two thirds of the way through, Lovecraft's autism gets the best of him and he expounds the entire lore of the antarctic city, removing all the mystique to say that the aliens were basically like humans and had alien cattle and alien farms and alien wars. Read Moby-Dick instead, the real autist-genius New Englander;>"But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and Stubb's boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip's ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man's insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God."
>>25013694The Call of Cthulhu *IS* really good. I love the chapter with the police inspector in New Orleans breaking up the Cthulhu cult's ceremony in the Louisiana swamp. I wish more of Lovecraft's work had that voodoo angle to it.
>28.5 years since publication>Still BTFOs every attempt at logical counterargumentNotice how I wrote "logical" as there are plenty of retard tier counterarguments, the foremost being, "I simply do not care."
>>25013507Basically, your little table is saying that if I walked past a stranger without beating the everliving shit out of them, I'm actively comitting a good deed. Which is a retarded idea. Therefore, your table is wrong.
>>25012835>Their defective nature simply precludes them from accepting any rationalization outside of their own self-indoctrinationAs oppose to??? (not an anti-natalist retard)
>>25013523>your little table is saying that if I walked past a stranger without beating the everliving shit out of them, I'm actively comitting a good deed.No it doesn't. Solving a problem you created leaves you at net neutral at best.On the other hand, preventing someone else from beating the ever loving shit out of a stranger is a good deed. Which is what the chart is saying.
>>25013542>As oppose to???Incorporating new information and context without prior affirmation of the prejudice to which they cling.
>>25012645>as long as I stay within the strict bounds of my axiomatic thinking I'm always right
I put some scriptural credibility challenges (https://write.as/dvfi4zeyotiky.md) to a Christian apologist on X some weeks ago. The usual rigmarole followed in which he first accused me of being either Indian or Jewish (to pre-emptively disqualify me? Somehow?) so I had to post a photo where I touch bologna. Then came the physique test, to which I replied both Aquinas & Lewis were fat, disqualifying their works by his own rule. So it went, throwing things at the wall to see if anything stuck that would spare him from having to attempt a proper answer. Finally, he grew exasperated and said "Look, argument is a waste of my time & yours. Just go read Mere Christianity, Lewis answered all your questions decades ago."So I went and bought Mere Christianity. Leery, because this has happened before; a different apologist promised me my challenges were refuted in The Case for Christ, which turned out to be a snipe hunt; sending me off in search of something that wasn't there, to get rid of me without conceding. When I later confronted him, he was unremorseful, instead tickled that he'd tricked an atheist into reading so much apologetics. Then smoke bomb + ninja vanish.Now I'm halfway through book 3 of 4, in Mere Christianity. Parts 1 & 2 purported to reconstruct something close to Christian doctrine from first principles, but amounts to projecting human morality onto the universe (denying it's reducible to instinct, socialization or the superego) plus Lewis' misunderstanding of what the big bang & evolution entail. These wrong turns then compound, baked in as foundational dependencies in his chain of reasoning, errors carried forward. The greater problem however is that I'm now roughly halfway through the book, and there's no sign Lewis will ever address the credibility challenges I was promised he refutes. I begin to fear I was too trusting, and have been deceived by Christians a second time. I don't want to believe this is true, but the remaining chapter titles don't bode well. Should I conclude Christians are tricksters, and broadly untrustworthy? Charitably, maybe he didn't know, having never read Mere Christianity himself. It's "The Big Famous Christian Apologetics Book" that always receives glowing recommendations, he might've naturally assumed it would cover everything. The enduring popularity of faith promoting hoaxes also testifies to a tendency in this crowd not to investigate the basis for their beliefs if there's reason for concern that what they might find would be injurious to their faith. If there is some book that actually does answer my challenges, what is it? Also, how can I trust that I'm not being given the runaround for a third time?
>>25012913Not OP but it still works for me
>>25012913>Biblical cosmology & cosmogeny contain many wrong assumptions common to cosmologies of Levantine cultures in that era (such as Egypt & Babylon) & Yahweh leaving errors in scripture that would later turn away critical thinkers makes him culpable if he damns them for nonbelief. Explaining away issues like events being out of order (Earth before stars, birds before land animals) as metaphor doesn’t explain why the metaphor wouldn’t have worked just as well (or better) with an accurate order of events.>2.Early Christianity, when it was only Yeshua & 12 followers, was structurally a cult as we identify them today. This is the unlisted 4th answer to Lewis’ “liar, lunatic or lord” trichotomy.>3.Christianity contains a hidden viral formula, with a reward for belief, a punishment for disbelief, (both unfalsifiable as they occur after death) an ambiguous time limit to drive urgency in evangelism, & an invisible trickster who sows doubt, to pre-emptively bias believers against contrary evidence. The intended effect on believers is to make them afraid to doubt, & eager to convert others. (Easy In / Hard Out)>4.Lack of independent contemporaneous corroboration of the resurrection or any other miracles (or even corroboration within the NT itself for the shattered tombs & appearance of risen saints in town, noticed only by Matthew). Paul’s 500 are never named, nor does he record any of their testimonies. Scholars name-dropped by apologists like Josephus, Tacitus, Cephas & Pliny the Elder weren’t actually contemporaries of Yeshua & didn’t attest to his miracles, only his existence & what his followers believed. They were, in all cases, harsh critics of Christianity.>5.Yeshua himself, and Paul, repeatedly set unambiguous upper bounds on how long it would take for parousia to arrive. Christians cling to “no one knows the day or the hour” (i.e. not with precision) but ignore verses like Matthew 16:28 or say it refers to the destruction of the temple/transfiguration (refuted by the verse immediately preceding it, which describe events that didn’t happen at the transfiguration or temple destruction). Paul writes letters to the Corinthians, reassuring them parousia will still happen in their lifetimes, not to marry or plan for tomorrow, etc. Eisegetical rationales exist for “this generation shall not pass away” but again, that’s only one verse. Dozens more, taken together, point in the other direction. Deuteronomy 18:22 previously warned Jews not to believe in prophets whose predictions fail.(1/2)
>>25012913>>25013365>6.Besides how it conflicts with the Genesis creation story, evolution is also incompatible with core Christian doctrines. The crucifixion is said to have atoned for original sin all inherited from Adam. This requires that all of humanity descends from a single couple (& thus at least a partially literal Genesis reading) otherwise not everyone inherited original sin. Genesis genealogy traces from real historical figures back to Adam without indicating where it “becomes metaphorical”.>7.The Problem of Interaction precludes immaterial souls, or at least defeats Non-Overlapping Magisteria as a defense against requests for evidence of dualism.>Yeshua does not satisfy most of the messianic criteria found in the Torah except by huge eisegetical reaches akin to the ones Muslims make in asserting the “coming comforter” in the book of John is a reference to Muhammad. Treating prophecies as fulfilled because you take for granted that they will be following parousia, is prophetic perfect tense sleight of hand.>People die for things they’re wrong about all the time. 11 Mormons died rather than recant during the Mormon Extermination Order of 1838. Taru Singh, Mani Singh, and Mati Dass are examples of Sikh devotees who suffered torture rather than recant. It’s also not specified in most commonly cited scriptural examples of martyrdom that the victims were asked to recant first, just that they were tortured / killed.>10.Christianity, among the currently popular religions, has the most prolific history of faith promoting hoaxes. If Christians throughout history were willing to lie in an attempt to shore up belief & convince potential converts, why would this not also be true of the apostles? What prevents it from being a multi-century snowball of hoaxes upon hoaxes?
>>25013365>>25013368>Yahweh leaving errors in scripture that would later turn away critical thinkers makes him culpable if he damns them for nonbelief>Earth before starsEarth was formless, as in, not formed into the world we know today>birds before land animalsNot all land animals maybe>structurally a cultmeaningless word>hidden viral formulaThis is a reasonable criticism of Christianity in the hands of man, but it doesn't apply to the actual teachings of the Bible, which transcend that "viral formula" which actually holds the Gospel back.>Lack of independent contemporaneous corroboration of the resurrection or any other miraclesIf it is a thing of man it shouldn't be believed, but the Holy Ghost can confirm to you that the witness it inspires is true. Only with that is the truth, most teachers are insufficient.>“no one knows the day or the hour”Knowing the temple would be destroyed and the ordinances done away with at all was pretty good.Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>25012604>God isn't real because muh hollyLMAO
at the edge of the world editionASOIAF wiki: https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Main_PageBlog: https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/Old blog: https://grrm.livejournal.com/So Spake Martin (interviews): https://westeros.org/citadel/ssm/Book search: https://asearchoficeandfire.com/SSM search: https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=006888510641072775866:vm4n1jrzsdyGeneral search: http://searcherr.work/TWOW samples: https://archive.org/details/411440566-the-winds-of-winter-released-chaptersold: >>24975576
>>25012589>It was probably suppsoe to be cover for some other fantasy bookYes probably, sometimes stock images are even used, so multiple book end up with the same cover. This cover has nothing to do with asoiaf but at least it's funny to see.
>>25010357No. The fat fuck pulls Miura and dies because he spent too much time jerking his dick and milking the series. Miura died from jerking it too lolicon hentai, meanwhile Gurm will die from getting jerked off by 2nd rate TV show sluts. The end is all the same, somebody else finishes the series using author's drafts
Nobody actually believes he's done any work on TWOW in at least a decade, right?
>>25013692During covid lockdown he had literally nothing to do but stay home and write but it wasn't long enough to finish. When he's writing, he blogs about how happy he is to be writing and gives progress reports. Silence = No Writing. But I'm sure he thinks about the book every day.
>>25013692I believe he did. But doing work is a phrase that can stretch far, I did "work" at the gym yet I am still far from turning into Schwarzenegger. A Feast for Crows had 1000~ pages...
Can women be Nietzschean?
>>25013659they are communist because they got daddy issuesnietzsche had daddy issuesOnce more, before I move onand set my sights ahead,in loneliness I lift my hands up to you,you to whom I flee,to whom I, in the deepmost depth of my heart,solemnly consecrated altarsso that everyour voice may summon me again.Deeply graved into those altarsglows the phrase: To The Unknown God.I am his, although I have, until now,Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>25013588presumably nietzsche thought so-ubermensch is gender neutral and he was respectful and supportive of women in his personal life
>>25013680he had daddy not mommy issues, never escaped the shadow of his father and the early forced religious indoctrinationgod is just another dad to say no to
>>25013678>>25013690Being illiterate is frowned upon on this board.
>>25013690incredibly ironic to use freudian psychology to analyse the man who inspired freud
Vote for it here:https://forms.gle/LqHa5xS1q5CVikem6
>>25012778You can compare the Didache and the Catechism; the Catholic Church is a faithful bride to Her beloved Jesus and She does not change Her mind.>challenge authorityIf authority is powen then it's good. Keep in mind authority is only "bad" when it's abused to command sin or when it's neglected to allow too much vice. Authority in and of itself is from God. For example, a tyrant doesn't invalidate government like how a bad father doesn't invalidate marriage or families. In a similar way, bad priests and bishops and popes do not invalidate the Church.
>>25012804How bout the Trent catechism and the Vatican II catechism? Oh wait that's "Old Light" like Jehobah's Witnesses
>>25012729>>24968777>>24982847we're getting close
>>25012876>How bout the Trent catechism and the Vatican II catechism?Ask AI to see major doctrinal differences. Most heresies agaibst authority are truly quite new. The unity of the Church is presumed to be more democratic than you think. For example, the Orthodox and Catholic mutually recognize one another as fully have valid Sacraments but the Orthodox wrong deny the validity of the Pope. Almost all early dogmas are about Christology.
>>24962427If its a good book, then yes. If it's a bad book, then no.
Listening to audio books and calling it "reading" is equivalent to prompting AI slop and calling it "art", no?
>>25012549A great example is Dracula read by Christopher Lee. His voice is perfect for reading gothic horror and he did a fantastic job of it.
>>25012387But he DOES get paid to screenshot this thread and post it on Twitter/reddit/tiktok/wherever, probably
>>25012549I am German and one thing that Germans do so well is audiobooks and some are incredibly well read. I love audiobooks in general
Listen to Charlton Heston read The Old Man and the Sea and tell me the video has no literary merit.https://youtu.be/eB2l3DENCMQ?si=vO9gzzeuAEtvDxus
>>25012357I know what you mean but If you actually sat and listen to a whole audio book without doing anything else it would be classified as consuming the same as reading it. As mentioned in the thread, before in history when only few could read, people gathered and displayed stories with speech. The main problem with audiobooks is that everyone who listens does it while doing something else and with all the brain rot as if people did not have a hard time concentrating already this just makes it worse, they do not really listen its just in the background and when it is finished they do not recall the story, but still say that they read it, and no you did not multitask you just several tasks inadequately. The second problem is that with every book you read you also improve your reading, your vocabulary and your imagination, this is all way better when reading compared to listening.
None More Black Edition>Old:>>25000152>Recommended reading charts (Look here before asking for vague recs):https://mega.nz/folder/kj5hWI6J#0cyw0-ZdvZKOJW3fPI6RfQ/folder/4rAmSZxb>Archive:https://warosu.org/lit/?task=search2&search_subject=sffg>Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1029811-sffg
>>25013715>relating to a serial rapistSeek help.
Ebin bait.
>>25013221my middle school theater teacher recommended to me and in the first like 100 pages he rapes some girl
>>25013737It gets better. After the child born of that rape grows up, she wants to have sex with her father
>>25013709>>this book about a serial rapist is very profound, I swearanon...So the premise of Thomas Covenant is that it's a portal fantasy in which the MC does not believe is real. Long ago the MC had a great life but it all fell apart and now he's bitter, extremely depressed, and most importantly: incredibly guarded. He has leprosy, so has to be protective and hyper-aware of himself to stay healthy. Everyone in his town hates or fears him, so this protectiveness extends to every facet of his life. He's miserable.Then he's shoved into his portal world and his leprosy is magically cured, so he fears it's not just a delusion but is in fact incredibly dangerous, because if he lets his mind accept it then he'll lose that guard that has kept him alive this whole time. It's too good to be true.So he's denying his delusions, he's denying his newfound health, he's denying everyone smiling at him and telling him he's important and great and being incredibly lovely to him when in the real world he couldn't even mail a letter without people screaming and running away. Because if he accepts this, and then wakes up and it was all just a dream, how do you think he'll react? How would you?So he denies then, and they just laugh and shake their heads and call him savior.He eventually snaps. In an effort to prove to himself this is all fake and that the real world is still a profoundly ugly and terrible place, he commits his big crime. There's even more to it than that - the sexual frustration of the many years since his wife left, him seeking out pain and distress in an effort to 'wake up', and so on - but that's enough for a 4chan postThis one crime as rippling effects for the entire trilogy. The consequences of his act linger in big and small ways, in his mind and in reality. He's never forgiven for it, though he also knows not to seek it out. He deals with the consequences of his actions, analyzes what happens and why, and over time starts to realize how ugly begets ugly, how evil self-perpetuates even in Elysium, how being good and receptive aren't weaknesses but are in fact a strength that he's been denying himselfComment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>Chapters starting in the middle of a pageWtf did I buy?
Thr original layout
How does it measure up to the bible
>>25013013More practical than the Bible, less narratively cohesive than at least the OT part.
>>25013013- More repetitive than the Book of Numbers: describes or praises Allah every 2-3 verses. - Not in chronological order: first Muhammed, then Moses, then Jesus, then Abraham, then Adam, then Noah (then repeat, then again).- Contradicts itself: the Saheeh translation I read said in the footnotes that Allah made X law during the revelations to Muhammad, then abrogates it later. Also says People of the Book (Christians and Jews) can go to Paradise, but then says they can’t.
>>25013013Badly I'm afraidJust compare how the book of job for instance is told respectively, and you will soon realise that Muhammed must have been mentally impaired besides being barely if at all literate
>>25013013Similarly wise
King James and Arberry are the only good translations of the works. Otherwise both are pretty barren outside of their original languages
