What are you reading?

[finji]

what?

[Muncey]

Recently finished John Dies at the End, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It & Albert Camus' The Stranger.

Currently reading Geroge Orwells 1984 and Friedmans Capitalism & Freedom.

[Johnlenham]

John dies at the end is such a bonkers book I powered through it in a day and by the end I felt like my brain was going to melt and slide out of my ears.

[Muncey]

John dies at the end is such a bonkers book I powered through it in a day and by the end I felt like my brain was going to melt and slide out of my ears.

Haha yeah I can imagine, have you read the sequel 'This Book Is Full Of Spiders'?

[Nihilism]

Recently finished John Dies at the End, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It & Albert Camus' The Stranger.

Currently reading Geroge Orwells 1984 and Friedmans Capitalism & Freedom.

^man has taste.

[Johnlenham]

John dies at the end is such a bonkers book I powered through it in a day and by the end I felt like my brain was going to melt and slide out of my ears.

Haha yeah I can imagine, have you read the sequel 'This Book Is Full Of Spiders'?

Nah didnt know there was another book! might look into it

[sixs]

Re-reading nineteen eighty four after picking up this saucy little number

Still need to finish Ballard's high rise, been putting it off for time

[Nihilism]

Because it was William S. Burroughs birthday this week, i'm reading Naked Lunch following with The Soft Machine.

[hubb]

Iain Banks' wasp factory is such a brilliant book if someone need a rec.

[wilson]

The Road Less Travelled. People frown on self-help I guess but it really is a good exploration of the human condition, think I'll gain quite a lot from having read it.

[Riddles]

Picked up Raising Steam for next week. looking forward to it

[hubb]

Could someone have a go at naming like 5 of the most important works in litterature? cheers, been having a discussion for a while irl.

[mercutio]

Could someone have a go at naming like 5 of the most important works in literature? cheers, been having a discussion for a while irl.

Deciding this on the basis of "importance" kind of limits the discussion I reckon. Instead of ranking works on purely their own worth you have to instead choose them based on the influence they have had on the canon in general and whether they represent important moments of evolution in the history of literature. I would say the Iliad, The Canterbury Tales, Songs Of Innocence And Experience, Bleak House and then any of Ulysses, Waiting For Godot or Beckett's Trilogy.

Obviously that's a really arbitrary list but I reckon it covers most bases of the western canon even though only either Waiting For Godot or The Trilogy would be anywhere near my list of either favourite or greatest works of literature. It's also hard to gauge if you should try and cover poetry, prose and drama or simply stick to one style.

EDIT:

You could also swap some of these for Paradise Lost, The Faerie Queene, Hamlet, The Wasteland or Gravity's Rainbow and still roughly cover all bases/not really cover anything at all.

[hubb]

Thanks -I would count in everything like even Marx or philosophy. But I like the notion of canon. I guess I mean in terms of paradigmes mostly - but the important bit for me is seeing what people believe you can't live without having read.

That list looks a bit anglocentric - but maybe it's just that I don't recognise the english titles?

[Lystric]

finished a song of fire and ice series. started The Shining recently, plan on doing the sequel after that too. anyone read it? still fairly new

[Shum]

Could someone have a go at naming like 5 of the most important works in litterature? cheers, been having a discussion for a while irl.

- but the important bit for me is seeing what people believe you can't live without having read.

Off the top of my head:

Don Quixote
Metamorphoses
Paradise Lost
The Brothers Karamazov
The Castle

no room for Borges even.

[Shum]

Well researched but lacking heart.


Hard to believe that this isn't fiction at times, the lives surveyed are that amazing.


Read this a while back but can't remember if i mentioned it earlier. A very easy, wonderfully charming read.

[nousd]

old newspapers
did yu know Gandi's dead?

[mercutio]

That list looks a bit anglocentric - but maybe it's just that I don't recognise the english titles?

Its almost entirely anglocentric but it seemed best to try and limit myself a bit otherwise it would be hard so hard to list only five books

My five books that everyone should read would be:

Lolita
His Dark Materials
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland/Through The Looking Glass
Beckett's Trilogy
Gravity's Rainbow

[Nihilism]

Could someone have a go at naming like 5 of the most important works in litterature? cheers, been having a discussion for a while irl.

- but the important bit for me is seeing what people believe you can't live without having read.

Off the top of my head:

Don Quixote
Metamorphoses
Paradise Lost
The Brothers Karamazov
The Castle

no room for Borges even.

Replace The Brothers Karamazov with The Idiot or Notes of the underground plz. And two Kafka titles? How much that i like the man, two titles in a list is a bit to much. You also should mention a writer from the Beat Poetry.