/lit/ - Literature

>>6279202
Carry on. Now get out there and read your ass off. I suggest you start with classics -- that was the accepted method until the deconstructionist Left started fagging everything up in the 60's. If Aristotle bores you (he does me), try something exciting like Xenophon's 'Anabasis' or Ceasar's 'The Gallic Wars'. Something. Anything.

A lot of modern academia may have discarded them, but the tools our fathers used are still there. Pick them up. Use them. Read something every day. Hard copy.

>>6278871
Try Xenophon's 'Memorable Sayings Of Socrates.' It will teach you by example how to think and how to master yourself, and illuminate you. It's also a nice upper. Old Soc was a merry soul.

No. If this man taught himself how to be (a) literate after a lifetime of slavery, and (b) became one of the most eloquent authors and speechwriters of his day, you can at least take what you've got courtesy of public edumacation and an affluent upbringing and improve upon it. You have no excuse. None.

War... war never changes....

>>6279138
At The Mountains Of Madness is a good place to start. It's like reading an old 1920's Natl. Geographic story that gets weirder and weirder and --

The Strange Case Of Charles Dexter Ward is also terrific. And for a look at the man's sense of whimsy, try The Cats Of Ulthar.

>>6279110
That's Saxon. Not Norse. And Old Saxon is an absolutely foul-sounding language.

That said, if you want that heroic vibe, yeah. It's a helluva story.

>>6278397
The term 'Greek tragedy' exists for good reason, OP.

That said, it's also a cultural memory of actual events. The more we dig up, the more we find how unnervingly accurate it was.

>dat face when reading how the Hittites had siege engines with four wheeled posts and assault ramps on the front
>dat face when they name them after various animals

Crafty old Odysseus must have done some travelling.

Wandering /k/ommando here: I came here to commiserate with the rest of you and find to my further sadness that the man has no memorial thread. Well... I aim to fix that. Post your memories, anecdotes, one-liners, and argue which was the best Discworld novel here.

>>6104411
Writing about sex and violence is boring.

Writing about what the participants are feeling and thinking -- and describing this for the audience -- is good entertainment and good writing.

And yes, R.E. Howard was peculiarly good at it. He remains a great source of inspiration for me.

>>6071748
>Men were assumed to be attracted to both males and females, and to express a preference for just one sex was considered eccentric.
Horseshit. Go back to /lgbt/, you prancing faggot.

>>5907624
>I've also included a completely unique historical document -- a transcript of the telegraph traffic on the eve of the Armistice as recieved by the British Home Fleet. In 1917, my grandfather ran away from home and joined the Navy as soon as he heard we'd declared war on the Kaiser. He spent the rest of the war working in the #2 magazine of the USS Arkansas, itself attached to the Sixth Battle Squadron, which in turn was attached to the Home Fleet. Pop-pop had a friend who was telegraph operator on board USS New York, the American flagship, and asked him to save this document, thinking it might be interesting to look at later. So -- despite a potential firing squad for both of them, since the war was still officially on -- his friend stuck these papers down his pants leg and walked off the ship with them. It contains a full account of His Majesty's address to the Fleet, the Brits and Germans talking urgently with each other about where everybody's minefields and submarines were, and the British and American task forces signing off to each other. (The British farewell is especially lulzy. 'Come back soon' indeed...)

>Pop-pop is long gone, as his his ship. But the document has survived, still held together by a rusty steel paper clip. There is very likely no other copy in existence.... except yours. Keep it well for me. (The original scan was of both top and bottom of each page, since the original stock was too long to fit on my scanner. Many thanks to the kind anon on 4chan who photoshopped them together).

Greetings from /k/. This is literature, of a sort, so I'll hazard posting this here. If the consensus is this doesn't really belong here, I'll delete it. Fair nuff?

>In late 1945, General Marshall made his final report on the conduct of the Second World War to President Harry Truman. The government decided to declassify his report and make it available to the general public, price $1. It tells you -- not with the polish of history on it, but at the time -- what the people running the American war effort were up to; what decions they made and why they made them. Strategy, tactics, logistics, weapons development and doctrine, the rations the GI's ate, why we never produced a heavy battle tank, why we didn't invade Normandy in 1943... everything, all in minute detail, including a lot of stuff that never seems to make it into the history books. (You'll never fully appreciate, for example, what a horrendously complex operation DE-mobilization after a global war is until General Marshall explains to to you.)

>They must have printed millions of these, each with its own advertisements for local businesses and a section of What Our Community Did During The War, but after a lifetime of haunting estate sales and antique shops this is the only copy I have ever been able to find. And now it is yours. I've scanned in everything in order, blank pages included. All you have to do is print out double-sided copies on heavy paper stock and have it spiral bound, and you will have a very fair copy of the original.

https://kickass.to/marshall-victory-report-naval-radio-traffic-on-the-eve-of-the-armistice-from-original-scanned-in-source-docs-t8901702.html

Around the Equator by Mark Twain has some fine nautical moments in it. Plus you get bonus Twain.

>>4905283
>apothecaries and old-time medicine
I dunno if by old time you mean 19th century or ancient Greek... but Guy de Chauliac's 'Great Surgery' is a great place to start. And yeah, it's still in print and you can grab a copy off Amazon.com.

>be Phil's grandfather, 1917
>run away from home and join Navy
>underagebannt, same age as century
>run away and join navy AGAIN
>don't get caught, wind up working in #2 magazine of USS Arkansas
>be holded into 6th Battle Squadron & placed directly under command of British Home Fleet
>dare the Huns to come out for Jutland 2.0
>faggots don't even try, never see action, major disappointment
>friend is telegraph operator on USS New York
>hey Sparky, can you save the telegraphs for the upcoming Armistice for me? Those might be interesting to look at someday
>Sparky shoves papers down his pants leg and walks off the boat -- could get a firing squad for both of them, but zero fucks are given
>papers stay in assorted dresser drawers and/or boxes for almost a century, held together with a rusty steel paper clip

/lit/, you are looking at an absolutely unique historical document. And now it is yours. All eleven pages of it.

https://www.mediafire.com/?tkdmucjuxlghmqe

>>4383648
>No. There is annihilation, but not eternal torture. You just cease to exist, like a piece of paper thrown into a fire.
Funny. The ancient Egyptians held the same idea. Along with worshiping the creator god in an empty space, and calling the evil archangel who rebelled 'He Who Dazzles', and so forth....

The Israelites brought a lot more out of Egypt than the cult of some golden calf. Maybe that's why Moses got so pissed off at them.

Accused? No. Actual? Yes.

I learned about Charlie Bateson's fate from a high school friend who had just gotten out of prison at the time... married the coach's daughter, beat her and treated her like shit, and she waited until she was drunk and asleep and shot him to death with his own gun. She went to women's prison. Everybody in town was terribly sympathetic.

I still smile when I think about it.

Physical bullies that postmodern faggoty administrators cannot and will not stop should be dragged down the street behind pickup trucks until they die. But getting shot by the wife is a good substitute.

>Could Communism work in Fantasy?
In what fictional universe to people not want their own private property for some reason?

>>2278081
You can install uTorrent in about ten seconds. Stop being such a baby.

A love of books and historyfaggotry oft go hand in hand, so here are my Yuletide offerings to you -- multiple gigs of out of print medieval/Renaissance CD's. Some of them may be older than you are. Grab them now, and keep them safe....

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3882819/Music_of_the_Middle_Ages_1
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3882824/Music_of_the_Middle_Ages_2
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3882827/Music_of_the_Middle_Ages_3
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3882835/Music_of_the_Middle_Ages_4
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3897086/Music_of_the_Middle_Ages_5
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3897094/Music_of_the_Middle_Ages_6
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3897099/Music_of_the_Middle_Ages_7
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3897111/Music_of_the_Middle_Ages_8
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3897120/Music_of_the_Middle_Ages_9
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3882864/Chants_of_the_Middle_Ages
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4113925/Religious_Music_Of_The_Middle_Ages
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3591204/Music_of_the_Ancient_World
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4109160/Music_of_Ancient_Greece__amp__Egypt

It's some of Lovecraft's best. Reads like an old National Geographic that just gets weirder and weirder and --

>>1024892
I have to admit, I kinda liked the latest film attempt. I like it even more now that I've been acquainted with the source material. Guy Ritchie must have read the books, all right.

>>1024886
He was a fall-down functional alcoholic, which had the same effect as it did on Hunter S Thompson... erodes his writing talent, and then his character, and then finally his will to live.

>>1024596
I just discovered the original Holmes stories, too. They're a treat.

Also, the book Watson is a brainy, resourceful ass-kicker and the book Holmes is more like this temperamental anal-retentive nerd. It's a refreshing change from the movie characters, where Watson is Scotty to the detective's Mr. Spock.