/lit/ - Literature

>>18396005
I don't read books I only wait 'til the movie's out to watch it then I act like if the book was better

The Hobbit got me into books, which led to me writing. It has been a journey. An unexpected one, if you will.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X. The drama of his life and death was the first time I really empathized with someone/something through literature. If you count that book as literature. Nowadays I can extend that empathy into a lot of things. And while I still don't know all that much, the book gave me the confidence to practice empathy and, a general (maybe even superficial) love of books and reading.

>>18396005
The Bible.

>>18396005
No, I don't read.

>>18396168

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Narnia, they were the first books I picked up when I learned how to read, I read all seven books in two weeks. It made me love reading, and I have read around 1500 books since.

>>18396005
One book did. It may sound gay but I read The Outsiders in middle school and it made me want to start reading.

>>18396005
Don Quixote. It didn't change my life so much as it changed my perspective on it

>>18396005
Every book I have read has changed my life.

>>18396005
your mom’s diary.
I never knew how much I meant to her.

>>18397279
Also this.

>>18396005
Write as you speak, that is, with the natural voice." I don't get it. What is the natural voice? A written word is very different from a spoken word. In a book you are not conversing with others, you are monologuing. But I don't talk to myself in everyday life. I talk to one person like this, to another person like that, at work in one tone of voice, in my private life in another tone of voice. What is my natural tone of voice? My working language or my private language? And why shouldn't there also be a book language that is different again. If the only connecting link is myself, then everything I say or write is my natural language. I write differently when I intend to write "naturally" than when I think of nothing at all and just write. If I just write, without thinking, then it makes a difference whether I read Poe or Hammett beforehand. Aaaaahh

>>18396005
no, not really. got everything right from the start

>>18396005
I read Ender's Game and its sequels when I was ten, and I've suffered from harsh Dunning-Kruger ever since.

>>18396005
yes

>>18396322
>literally empathizing with an obscene animal

>>18398312
>literally using the word literally

>>18396005
Yes

>>18397439
Have you tried reading something else?

all of them, but not in the practical sense you non-reader mean.

Genealogy of morals

>>18397222
I just bought this book and will be reading it after blood meridian, I didn’t realize how thick it was

>>18396005
Yes, a few.

>The Bible
I grew up in the Bible Belt where everyone was uber Christian or uber Jew. I had this constant dissonance. Sitting down and actually reading the bible cover to cover made me realize I am not a Christian nor am I a Jew. I walked away from the faith and I am a lot happier now.

>Night Shift by Steven King
Some of his less polished early work. It showed me where I could start and gave me some beautiful inspiration for current work. It showed me that even unpolished work can have merit and gave me hope for who I could become. I ended up as a professional writer because of this book.

>>18396158
remember to watch the youtube video explaining the differences so nobody will know that you have not read it

>>18396335
Based

>>18396005
Unironically Tao Te Ching and right now reading Zhuangzi and its just as based imo it basically gave me the mentality in OPs image in a competent coherent manner

>>18396005
Most of them do to a smaller or greater degree.
But reading Nabokov has certainly changed the way I view the world. Now I often stop to contemplate the flowers or the way a puddle of water reflects the skyline.

>>18396005
Book of disquite freed me.

Call for the Dead by John le Carre. It inspired me because he told a gripping story in a short space of time. I read it at time when my writing was boring and too slow paced.

>>18396005
Crime and Punishment kindled a passion for literature in me. Studying zen buddhism and taoism as well as practicing meditation has killed my anxiety over time. Over time, reading a wide variety of books has developed my own thinking in many different ways, and helped me understand and empathize with other people's feelings and perspectives.

I've read hundreds of books, but Finnegans Wake is uncomparable. I say that instead of incomparable, because it's so totally different to other books that a comparison seems pointless. It's cosmic, and changed the way I see novels. It feels like the modern literary equivalent of the Bible.

No, and I've read a great deal. I'm still reading.

unironically Catcher in the Rye

>>18398743
Me too. Reading the Salinger corpus switched me on to the idea that the written word could be fun, lively and irreverent.

>>18396005
Stephen King's The Talisman made me realize as a kid that some books are shit and don't deserve to be finished.

>>18396005
The Way of Men