/lit/ - Literature

King Lear (duh)

Wow, I totally thought that was Rachel Maddow as I scrolled.

I'm sure you have read through the thread in the archives on "anecdotes about writers," and I'm sure there are more interesting anecdotes. Let's try to get some new ones. I'll post one:

>Leo Tolstoy
During the Crimean War (1853-1856), Russian soldier were aptly stereotyped for voraciously having lots of sex with lots of women. Leo Tolstoy was a soldier during the Crimean War. According to A. N. Wilson, a respected biographer of Leo Tolstoy, the other Russian soldiers looked at Tolstoy with disgust because of how much sex he was having, thinking "that guy was way too much sex with way too many women ". Such was the dearth of Tolstoy's sex-life during the Crimean War.

I have a list of over 400 books I'd like to buy and read.

I won't get through it any time soon.

>>1292764
So you never go to the library, but you've read most of the more-known god-tier fiction and non-fiction books? So you've read all of the following?:
Gulag by Anne Applebaum
Lost Illusions by Honoré de Balzac
Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
The Fall by Albert Camus
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
Awakenings by Oliver Sacks
Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
The Castle by Franz Kafka

I doubt it. Anyway, here are some recommendations to meet the criteria of your OP:
Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang
A People’s Tragedy by Orlando Figes
The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War by David Gates
My Fantoms by Théophile Gautier
New Grub Street by George Gissing
Nan: The Life of an Irish Travelling Woman by Sharon Gmelch
Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman by Stefan Zweig
Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig
Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter
Zeno's Conscience by Italo Svevo
The Roman Revolution by Ronald Syme
Lincoln and His Admirals by Craig Symonds
Big Bang by Simon Singh
Chaos and Night by Henry de Montherlant
Contempt by Alberto Moravia
Embers by Sándor Márai
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
Gogol's Wife & Other Stories by Tommaso Landolfi

>>1290439
If every word is an obscure, 14-letter word: yes. If they speak eloquently, then no. There's definitely a difference. I'm sure you've heard someone with a conspicuously poor vocabulary speak. If that person called you pompous, would you believe it? Of course not. He or she simply lacks the degree of eloquence you possess. If, on the other hand, people seldom understand you, then yeah, you're pretty pretentious.

>>1289697
Read more varied literature.

It's not that obscure, but my favorite word is serendipity.

>>1290373
(From Merriam-Webster) the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for; also : an instance of this

In my opinion, his stuff is quite varied. Get a collection of short stories, Anna Karenina, and/or War and Peace and just wing it. They're all different enough, so you can read "the back of the book" and pick the one that seems most interesting.

>Last read
Pic-related

>Currently reading
We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch

>Plan to read
A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy

I really like "Life" by Charlotte Brontë (which can be found easily by means of a Google-search and read quickly ;-)).

I think Tolstoy rightly deserves the title of "Russia's Homer" for it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/wishlist/634DXNF6CTVU/ref=reg_hu-rd_add_wl_T2

>>1282835
>>1282893
>>1282900
These.

I read it years ago, of course.

>>1282819
Post results. If it goes well with you, I may decide to take another crack at it too.

>>1282391
He wants books set in medieval Europe. That's why he mentions Narcissus and Goldmund.

>>1282665

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson

The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic by Robert L. O'Connell

Sophia Tolstoy: A Biography by Alexandra Popoff

The Myth of "Bloody Mary" by Linda Porter

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz

Awakenings by Oliver Sacks

An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales by Oliver Sacks

The Island of the Colorblind by Oliver Sacks

Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks

The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks

The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

The Roman Revolution by Ronald Syme

Lincoln and His Admirals by Craig Symonds

Catherine of Aragon by Giles Tremlett

The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen by Anna Whitelock

The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology by Simon Winchester

The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard

The Great Hunger: Ireland: 1845-1849 by Cecil Woodham-Smith

How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James McPherson

The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic by Robert L. O'Connell

Sophia Tolstoy: A Biography by Alexandra Popoff

The Myth of "Bloody Mary" by Linda Porter

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz

Awakenings by Oliver Sacks

An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales by Oliver Sacks

The Island of the Colorblind by Oliver Sacks

Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks

The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks

The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

The Roman Revolution by Ronald Syme

Lincoln and His Admirals by Craig Symonds

Catherine of Aragon by Giles Tremlett

The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen by Anna Whitelock

The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology by Simon Winchester

The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard

The Great Hunger: Ireland: 1845-1849 by Cecil Woodham-Smith

The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic by Robert L. O'Connell

Sophia Tolstoy: A Biography by Alexandra Popoff

The Myth of "Bloody Mary" by Linda Porter

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz

Awakenings by Oliver Sacks

An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales by Oliver Sacks

The Island of the Colorblind by Oliver Sacks

Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks

The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks

The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

The Roman Revolution by Ronald Syme

Lincoln and His Admirals by Craig Symonds

Catherine of Aragon by Giles Tremlett

The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen by Anna Whitelock

The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology by Simon Winchester

The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard

The Great Hunger: Ireland: 1845-1849 by Cecil Woodham-Smith

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor

The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 by Antony Beevor

Leonardo: The Artist and the Man by Serge Bramly

Napoleon: The Path to Power by Philip Dwyer

The Road to Stalingrad by John Erickson

The Road to Berlin by John Erickson

Alexander the Great by Robin Lane Fox

Paddy's Lament by Thomas Gallagher

The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War by David Gates

Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy by John R. Hale

Stopped at Stalingrad by Joel S. A. Hayward

The Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert

Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Secret Exploration of Tibet by Peter Hopkirk

Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin's Dream of an Empire in Asia by Peter Hopkirk

The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk

A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 by Alistair Horne

We Die Alone by David Howarth

The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn by Eric Ives

Churchill by Paul Johnson

Richard the Third by Paul Murray Kendall

The Last Days of the Incas by Kim MacQuarrie

Scotland: The Story of a Nation by Magnus Magnusson

In Search of Ancient Ireland by Carmel McCaffrey

http://www.amazon.com/gp/wishlist/1JWLX9CMX4Y81/ref=reg_hu-rd_add_wl_T2

Bumpin'

>Black Death
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Decameron by Boccaccio.