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WoG posted:Here's the list of recommendations one blogger got when she set out to read a book from every nation. Don't just google "Australian novels" - you'll generally find lists of books about white people in suburbs, ranging from He Died With A Felafel In His Hand, to Cloudstreet, to Praise, to basically everything by Nick Earls. If you're going to read Australian, don't just read about white people in the suburbs, even though that's most of what Australia is nowadays. Skim down here, which is a list my mother has been pushing at me for a couple of years now as a go-to place to find good Australian fiction.
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Apr 23, 2014 13:32
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Yeah, being just 'the recommendations she received', it's not going to be an exhaustively-researched or canonical list. (I can't imagine anyone associates Neil Gaiman with The Great American Novel.) It's an interesting resource for some of the smallest and most obscure nations, though.
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Apr 23, 2014 14:47
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rasser posted:Europe is a lot of cultures. Which have you covered/would you like covered? Yeah this is a totally fair point. I generalized Europe as "covered" just because I know I have read stuff from several countries (France, Italy, Spain, England, Poland, Germany) while I definitely have never read a single thing from Australia or India. That's why I thought it was better to start with regions that I had absolutely no experience with first. Whalley posted:Don't just google "Australian novels" This is definitely what I wanted to avoid, so thanks for the suggestions (everyone else as well).
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Apr 23, 2014 16:51
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Guy A. Person posted:Yeah this is a totally fair point. I generalized Europe as "covered" just because I know I have read stuff from several countries (France, Italy, Spain, England, Poland, Germany) while I definitely have never read a single thing from Australia or India. That's why I thought it was better to start with regions that I had absolutely no experience with first. I'd still recommend you read some Knut Hamsun though. Hunger and Growth of the Soil are great books, and the guy won a Nobel prize for literature. Henrik Ibsen's dramas are also a great look into 19th century Norway. The guy was hella critical of the society back then.
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Apr 24, 2014 06:09
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I read Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun, and I thought it was pretty strong. The scenes around the Biafran Independence movement work better than the soapier elements, but it's still good if you're looking for Nigerian novel.
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Apr 25, 2014 03:53
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ulvir posted:I'd still recommend you read some Knut Hamsun though. Hunger and Growth of the Soil are great books, and the guy won a Nobel prize for literature. Henrik Ibsen's dramas are also a great look into 19th century Norway. The guy was hella critical of the society back then. Oh yeah I am definitely not going to ignore any recommendations, I was just explaining my (admittedly totally rear end-pulled) original criteria. I am going to try to read everything people here have recommended because yay books, it is just a matter of working them into my queue.
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Apr 25, 2014 16:09
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Has anyone else read The Testament of Gideon Mack? It's a great not-awful novel about a Scottish priest and his conflict of faith, eventually leading to a meeting with the Devil.
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Apr 25, 2014 23:16
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I just started The Woman Who Lost Her Soul as my kindle was all abuzz with it being up for a pulitzer. The intro was phenomenal, anyone read and have an opinion? I haven't talked with anyone else who has read it.
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Apr 28, 2014 02:55
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Guy A. Person posted:Yeah this is a totally fair point. I generalized Europe as "covered" just because I know I have read stuff from several countries (France, Italy, Spain, England, Poland, Germany) while I definitely have never read a single thing from Australia or India. That's why I thought it was better to start with regions that I had absolutely no experience with first. I guess you're quite well covered then, although I have to second Hamsun and/or Ibsen. Tons of other good Nordic authors, but I'm not an expert. Obviously, there are stark differences between the countries, decades and authors, but at least you did a sample test. Edit: Add a Russian or two: Turgenjev, Gogol, Tolstoy, Bulgakov? Edit 2: Do read some Naipaul (By a bend in the river) and Rushdie (Midnight's Children is a must) if you need some post-colonial lit from Indian authors. rasser fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Apr 28, 2014 |
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Apr 28, 2014 16:27
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SketchesOfSpain01 posted:Has anyone else read The Testament of Gideon Mack? It's a great not-awful novel about a Scottish priest and his conflict of faith, eventually leading to a meeting with the Devil. I did, and I thought it was great. If you liked it, you should read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Private_Memoirs_and_Confessions_of_a_Justified_Sinner And if you're going to read both, you should read the older one first.
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Apr 28, 2014 16:35
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Seldom Posts posted:I did, and I thought it was great. If you liked it, you should read this: Thank you! Just purchased. Going to be my next read.
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May 1, 2014 04:30
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I'm reading The MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY by G K CHESTERTON and so far it is very good and surprisingly hilarious since my knowledge of G K Chesterton before this was: he was catholic and wrote a lot about how great being christian is and I just assumed that meant this would be really dry.
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May 25, 2014 13:08
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Chesterton's great. I'd also suggest The Napoleon of Notting Hill. It's just as fun and thoughtful as Thursday but considerably less deliberately cryptic.
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May 25, 2014 13:51
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Is anyone into Cesar Aira? He is a weirdo Argentine writer who improvises his novels. Like, he deliberately writes and edits all day, but the next day he won't change anything from yesterday, and deliberately writes himself into a corner as a "challenge" for tomorrow. His books are super manic and surreal, and easy short reads. Basically a cool dude.
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May 26, 2014 08:38
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acephalousuniverse posted:Is anyone into Cesar Aira? He is a weirdo Argentine writer who improvises his novels. Like, he deliberately writes and edits all day, but the next day he won't change anything from yesterday, and deliberately writes himself into a corner as a "challenge" for tomorrow. His books are super manic and surreal, and easy short reads. Basically a cool dude. Anything you recommend by him specifically? sounds interesting
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May 26, 2014 13:23
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Angry Fish posted:Thank you! Just purchased. Going to be my next read. Awesome. I'd be interested to know what you think of it.
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May 26, 2014 13:46
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CestMoi posted:Anything you recommend by him specifically? sounds interesting He has a ton of little novellas available in English but I enjoyed Varamo in particular.
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May 26, 2014 18:15
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb wields the Spear of Ages Fooled By Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb The very provocative Mr. Taleb strikes out at the modern world's over simplification of problems in the realm of science (which ironically comes about through a habit of categorical overcomplication) using the most literal Spear of Ages that any man has at his hands: The ideas presented in literature venerated by the most sophisticated societies throughout the human record. The author chose to become a full-time independent scholar after a period of service in the financial industry. Nassim Nicholas Taleb made a personal fortune as an everyday prop-desk trader by exploiting the vulnerabilities that large institutions and other traders made in their bets. He went on to serve in chief risk management roles. Mr. Taleb was one of the earliest heralds of the specific type of global financial collapse that occurred in 2007 (by the way, he is flashing warning signs right now). Now, that I say Spear of Ages may cause it to seem as if I am veering off into a discourse on Dungeons & Dragons, however, the metaphor is apt. In Fooled By Randomness the myopia of the modern method of approaching problems is skewered by a combination of specific examples from a timeline ranging the entire known history of philosophy, religion, medicine, finance, business, monetary history, mathematics, and the mythology of diverse peoples. The wide-ranging examples he presents are well cited and there are many footnotes. The grounding of the author's strong personality carries the wide span of the topics covered in excellent taste. Therefore I recommend Fooled By Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 26, 2014 18:19
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gently caress off. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 26, 2014 19:23
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acephalousuniverse posted:Is anyone into Cesar Aira? He is a weirdo Argentine writer who improvises his novels. Like, he deliberately writes and edits all day, but the next day he won't change anything from yesterday, and deliberately writes himself into a corner as a "challenge" for tomorrow. His books are super manic and surreal, and easy short reads. Basically a cool dude. I'm gonna put him on my big rear end list of books to buy and then sit in my to read pile for a long time before I get around to it. Lol, this is the one of the worst serious readings of a book I have ever heard you loving shill. gently caress off. You could not even hack it in the biggest hugbox here that is the lp forum. I am currently reading The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil and it is really good. It takes place just prior to WW1 in the Austro-Hungarian empire and follows a man who lost his way in life because one day he read that a horse was a genius in the newspaper and concluded that he was without any qualities. In part one A Sort of Introduction he gets a nymphomaniac mistress after being beaten up in the streets, visit a childhood friend he really doesn't care for who has a wife that denies him sex partly because he plays Wagner.
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May 26, 2014 20:12
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You're a fool of the highest caliber, Ricky Flamingo. If you really like the book, just say something about it and try not to link to your awful readings twice, okay? Okay. That aside, thanks to a friend liking the sound of one of the stories in it and borrowing it, I've rediscovered the joy of Ficciones and Jorge Luis Borges in general. Are there any other authors like him out there, in terms of writing style (like the fictional book essays and voice in his works) and ideas contained and confronted? I plan on getting his other works soon, so being able to binge on similar things and discover another awesome writer after those are exhausted sounds magical. And I'm not sure if this exactly fits here, but I am reading Paradise Lost now, and good God, I didn't know people could write that beautifully so consistently. Book III's descriptions floored me.
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May 26, 2014 21:27
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PatMarshall posted:gently caress off. 1 day probation reason posted:Low-content / content-less flaming / not funny or informative. Explain why you think the guy should gently caress off. User loses posting privileges for 1 day. Since you can not explain since your out for a day I will do it for you. RichardGamingo's post is one that has zero content, in that it says absolutely nothing because its as if he copy pasted sections of some literary reviews of different books. It is low content in that there is no real content besides the two links to the same youtube on both the opening and closing portions of his post. If you follow this link it goes to the sloppiest reading of a book by someone who has zero grasp on what he is reading other than that there are words on a page. If you look at the description there is a referral link to amazon where you can buy the book. You will find that this is his youtube account if you look at the other videos on this channel. Evidence being that he has multiple videos where he has his autism on display because he was laughed out of a subforum where the userbase had rushed to the defense of another lper who was emotionally manipulating a women and other people. I am all for giving people another chance, but this poster decided to pop in and openly shill for a book so that he can get some cash via amazon referrals, I think it is valid to tell that person to gently caress off. Now that I have written a paragraph in which I explained why the person should gently caress off like this was old gbs, let us look at if this was good thing to do. Really its not. Its long winded and gay. Lets look to Reymond Carver's earlier works to appreciate minimalism and perhaps embrace it. Brevity is the soul of wit after all. Two words like "gently caress off" encompasses everything that needed to be said, especially so if you look at the post he was referring to. So in conclusion, RichardGamingo is a fuckhead who should gently caress off and loving stop probating/banning people for dumb rear end reasons.
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May 26, 2014 22:04
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Stravinsky posted:Evidence being that he has multiple videos where he has his autism on display because he was laughed out of a subforum where the userbase had rushed to the defense of another lper who was emotionally manipulating a women and other people. I am all for giving people another chance, but this poster decided to pop in and openly shill for a book so that he can get some cash via amazon referrals, I think it is valid to tell that person to gently caress off. This is fine! This would probably also be a good reason to use the report button! If you do use the report button and say "this dude is spamming links for referrals" I'll be happy to check it out! If all you say is "gently caress off" I'm going to slap you down instead, because content-less flaming is against the rules of this forum. It's not against the rules of other forums, so if that's what you want, post there instead. The other reason it's important to use the report button is that I don't read every single subforum here so if some rear end in a top hat is being a shithead on another subforum and then comes in here, I'm not going to magically know the history. If you say "gently caress off, stop spamming your video links" that tells me to deal with the spammer. If all you post is "gently caress off" then all I see is some guy spamming "gently caress off." If you don't tell me what the problem is, I don't automatically know! quote:Now that I have written a paragraph in which I explained why the person should gently caress off like this was old gbs, let us look at if this was good thing to do. Really its not. Its long winded and gay. Lets look to Reymond Carver's earlier works to appreciate minimalism and perhaps embrace it. Brevity is the soul of wit after all. Two words like "gently caress off" encompasses everything that needed to be said, especially so if you look at the post he was referring to. So in conclusion, RichardGamingo is a fuckhead who should gently caress off and loving stop probating/banning people for dumb rear end reasons. Please don't poo poo up the thread with crybaby whining. If you don't like a decision I've made feel free to PM or email me about it. This isn't old gbs, this also isn't new gbs. We only have like three rules that are specific to this forum, follow them. One of those rules is "don't post empty flaming." If you want to tell a dude to gently caress off, just include a few extra words explaining why (i.e., "gently caress off and stop spamming your youtube links.") (Also you probably shouldn't use "gay" as a pejorative but w/e) Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 22:37 on May 26, 2014 |
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May 26, 2014 22:23
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I'll make another non-gay post here. My favorite books are strange little things that don't entirely qualify as poetry, or as essays, or as fiction. This comes out of my love for the interwar avant-garde; the Surrealists produced many of these kinds of books. I'm not just talking about "lyric essays" or whatever but rather books that really actively resist being genre-fied. Andre Breton's Nadja and even more so his Mad Love are great examples. The language is incredibly heightened, as you'd expect, but large parts of them are as dedicated to outlining a philosophical position directly as they are in demonstrating it aesthetically. The letter to Breton's daughter that ends Mad Love is especially affecting and memorable. Also out of Surrealism (Romanian rather than French) was Gherasim Luca, whose The Passive Vampire was translated and published in English in 2009. It starts with a poetic essay/confessional/prose poem on Objectively Offered Objects (OOOs) which were basically weird, psycho-sexually charged found-art-gifts he liked to give out to close friends. Then the "Passive Vampire" text itself is a crazy automatic prose piece with snippets of plagiarized black mass chants taken from Huysmans and tons of Bretonian Surrealist imagery. Louis Aragon's Paris Peasant, which I haven't finished yet, is a "novel" without plot or characters; large parts of it are elaborations on Surrealist theory or the politics of urban design in Paris at the moment. Gertrude Stein also serves as a possible example. Works of hers like "Wherein the South Differs From the North" are as much oblique essay as real verse. And of course when you just naturally write like Gertrude Stein everything you write is going to be hard to qualify as just an essay. Arkadii Dragomoshchenko's Dust is another, out of the Language school rather than Surrealism. It's a set of loose essays which are elliptical and intuitive and poetic. They have snippets of autobiography, literary anecdote, and metaphysical speculation all woven together. A.D. also has one of the best and coolest names in literature. Samuel Beckett is my favorite prose writer, and I have a particular love for his short prose, which people never know whether to classify as truly short fiction, prose poetry, or something else. Sooooooo if anyone is into avant or prose poetry stuff and can think of anything along these lines I'd be interested. acephalousuniverse fucked around with this message at 23:50 on May 26, 2014 |
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May 26, 2014 23:48
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acephalousuniverse posted:I'll make another non-gay post here. Um... Sebald? Maybe? He tends to blend essay and narrative and random facts he happens to know in an interesting way. Ezzum fucked around with this message at 00:52 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 00:50
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CestMoi posted:I'm reading The MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY by G K CHESTERTON and so far it is very good and surprisingly hilarious since my knowledge of G K Chesterton before this was: he was catholic and wrote a lot about how great being christian is and I just assumed that meant this would be really dry. I'm reading this too, and having known nothing about it going in besides the fact that it's 100+ years old, I'm also surprised at how fun it is and what an awesome premise it's got. Too bad reading eBooks on your iPhone is terrible. Also terrible: writing a sentence with two lower-case-then-upper-case-letter words. Hieronymous Alloy posted:Please don't poo poo up the thread with crybaby whining. If you don't like a decision I've made feel free to PM or email me about it. This isn't old gbs, this also isn't new gbs. We only have like three rules that are specific to this forum, follow them. One of those rules is "don't post empty flaming." If you want to tell a dude to gently caress off, just include a few extra words explaining why (i.e., "gently caress off and stop spamming your youtube links.") "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover  ."
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May 29, 2014 01:43
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Any of you familiar with Alvaro Mutis? I started reading a collection of his Maqroll novellas last week and I'm digging it. It's not quite what I expected, but I've been pleasantly surprised. Instead of something along the lines of what little South American fiction I've read (100 Years of Solitude, Julio Cortazar's short stories), this is a different angle altogether. It reminds me of Joseph Conrad, Dickens and Tom Waits: shady, colourful characters, digressions on books (both real and imagined) and a weary, melancholy vibe that runs through everything. And lots of sailing tales.
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Jun 3, 2014 16:02
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I'm thinking of adding Salman Rushdie into my already insanely long list of poo poo to read. Should I just jump straight into The Satanic Verses, go through the books chronologically, or are there any other recommended starting points?
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Jun 7, 2014 15:25
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ulvir posted:I'm thinking of adding Salman Rushdie into my already insanely long list of poo poo to read. Should I just jump straight into The Satanic Verses, go through the books chronologically, or are there any other recommended starting points? Nah, jump right in to SV. Some parts might make a little more sense if you know who Bollywood filmstar Amitabh Bachchan is, but that's not critical. Some of his films are on Netflix if you're curious.
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Jun 7, 2014 19:12
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I loved The Satanic Verses but it goes beyond magic realism to be practically genre fiction, with all the magical transformations and time travel.
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Jun 7, 2014 21:51
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ClearAirTurbulence posted:I loved The Satanic Verses but it goes beyond magic realism to be practically genre fiction, with all the magical transformations and time travel. if you could tactically place it on a coffee table to impress people you are allowed to post about it in this thread that is the rule.
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Jun 8, 2014 23:32
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I've read Dictionary of the Khazars and you shoudl too. I got it on Kindle because it was much cheaper and I wanted the androgynus edition but now I want to buy it in hard copy form so I can browse it easier and just sort of drop in and out rather than reading from start to finish like I did. It's very good and I would recommend it to you, reader of the no genre fic thread even if you like genre fic because it's basically a collection of good stories that even have magic if you want to say words like "oooh" and "ahhh" as you read and they're all tied together in a way that makes you do thinking about the book even when you're not reading it!!!!
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Jun 8, 2014 23:37
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CestMoi posted:if you could tactically place it on a coffee table to impress people you are allowed to post about it in this thread that is the rule. I always feel esteemed to hell when they see my Expanded Universe novels spilling off the table and filling the room.
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Jun 9, 2014 00:03
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I've started reading War & Peace around five or six times but could never finish it because I couldn't get into the story; it wasn't until I picked up the Anthony Briggs' translation that the flow of the story worked for me and I was able to finally finish and verify for myself that it's a pretty awesome book. For myself, the book changes 3 or 4 times during the course of reading so, while it may have started out like a novel and at some points I felt like I was reading a straight up history thesis. I'm curious if others have found specific translations into English of classic literature that worked for them; in particular, I've had trouble finding good Russian novel translations and even Briggs' other works aren't as good. I've started The Brothers Karamazov a lot of times and would like to finish it someday.
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Jun 9, 2014 18:58
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ulvir posted:I'm thinking of adding Salman Rushdie into my already insanely long list of poo poo to read. Should I just jump straight into The Satanic Verses, go through the books chronologically, or are there any other recommended starting points? Satanic Verses is quite good; Moor's Last Sigh and Midnight's Children are probably more "typical" Rushdie. Don't bother reading any of the newer ones he sets in NYC. For real Rushdie bragging rights, try getting a hold of Grimus, his first book. It is bad and entertaining (and kind of porny).
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Jun 10, 2014 20:25
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Furious Lobster posted:I'm curious if others have found specific translations into English of classic literature that worked for them; in particular, I've had trouble finding good Russian novel translations and even Briggs' other works aren't as good. I've started The Brothers Karamazov a lot of times and would like to finish it someday. I liked Ignat Avsey's translation of The Brothers Karamazov if you haven't tried that one yet. It's pretty good for a first reading, since he focuses on readability in English rather than trying to mimic Dostoevsky's writing style. The other two translations of it that I've read (don't remember the translators unfortunately) had too many overly long sentences and too much odd grammar, probably because they try to be as accurate to the original text as possible.
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Jun 10, 2014 21:22
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Lewd Mangabey posted:Satanic Verses is quite good; Moor's Last Sigh and Midnight's Children are probably more "typical" Rushdie. Don't bother reading any of the newer ones he sets in NYC. IMO Shame is also very good.
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Jun 11, 2014 00:15
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CestMoi posted:I've read Dictionary of the Khazars and you shoudl too. But what if someone judges me based on the version I bought? poo poo.
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Jun 11, 2014 01:28
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Stravinsky posted:But what if someone judges me based on the version I bought? poo poo. U should just get the man version because the only difference is in that one someone touches up a gun
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Jun 11, 2014 14:31
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Guy A. Person posted:So I am trying to expand my reading habits and one of those ways is trying to read more lit from other cultures/countries. I have Europe covered pretty well, as well as Russia, Japan and a little from China (Mo Yan mostly). Looking for any recommendations from South America (I got Marquez and Bolano covered), Australia, India, the rest of East Asia, the Middle East, ummmm, anywhere else you guys recommend. A little late to the party but you might want to try Janet Turner Hospital from Queensland for your Australia fix, I read Oyster and really enjoyed it. David Malouf is another Australian writer that's gotten a lot of praise, I read An Imaginary Life many years ago and liked it (in fact it may be time for a reread). I'd add Mario Vargas Llosa (Peruvian) to your South American list. Speaking of rereads, not sure if anyone here has read Bohumil Hrabal but if you haven't, I would give him a try. Too Loud a Solitude is probably one of my favourite books about the gentle madness of being a bibliophile: “My education has been so unwitting I can't quite tell which of my thoughts come from me and which from my books, but that's how I've stayed attuned to myself and the world around me for the past thirty-five years. Because when I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel.” It's a pretty slim volume that I admittedly pick up every couple of years or so to revisit because it's absolutely lovely.
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Jun 12, 2014 18:02
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