/lit/ - Literature

Could be anything. Doesn't matter what book you like, but rather _why_ you like it.

How about the truth ?

>>3624090
I prefer living my life in a lie.
...No really, I do.

The Gay Science

>>3624091
stay pathetic

The Brothers Karamazov
Anything by Joyce
If you want to sound edgy but not alienating, namedrop Hemingway or Fitzgerald/

"Atlas Shrugged, I think it was called...Is that the one where the tigers run so fast they turn into butter? man, that's some crazy shit, right there."

The Master and Margarita maybe? Well that's my favorite anyway. I'm not sure if it's for plebs or what but whatever.

The true answer is the following, OP: try to figure out the predominant reading standards and tastes of your audience during the conversation, and from that you can guess which book will make the more favorable impression. There are few authors that impress everyone, and most of the time they are considere stockpile classics and liking them will not give you any special aura (saying "I like Shakespeare" is a bit like saying "I think the English language can be used to do literature", Shakespeare is much too revered to make you look intelligent by pickingh im).

>>3624112

TMaM is patrician-tier, at least in my humble opinion

>>3624171
Normal people don't know Bulgakov though, probably not even Nabokov. Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky are much safer bets if you're trying to impress.

Moby Dick

If they've read it, they will appreciate your choice as an intelligent and cultured individual. If they haven't read it, they will appreciate that they've heard of it, and are most likely familiar with the story, which on the surface is very unpretentious and quite exciting.

The Passing of the Great Race - Madison Grant

>>3624176
See that's the crux of the problem. Either you name something most people can recognize, but will fail to impress the literary minded, or you pick something more 'obscure' to please the latter but draw blanks from the former.

>OP asks this
>/lit/ responds

>>3624083
A good book.

>If I want to impress people when they ask me what my favorite book is

>yet not pretentious


Definition

>pre·ten·tious

>Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.

>>3624270
Is it pretentious to not want to seem pretentious?

>>3624270
>sounding not pretentious

Blood Meridian.

>>3624390
I was just about to post this

>>3624396
Damn fine taste, good sir.

>>3624402
Tha-

>good sir
no

Fight Club

>>3624083
That sounds kind of pretentious. Keep in mind, that if you name drop and the person on the receiving end has read the book you are fucked.

>Anon "What is your favourite book?"
>OP "Finnigeans Wake."
>Anon "In the name of the former and of the latter and of their holocaust. Allmen."
>OP "Haha, yeah..."
>Anon "You haven't read it have you."

Stick to a book you know.

One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Mainstream known, and /lit/ approved.

just mention some russian name. Or one of the beat authors, they're regarded pretty well and seem cool to the average plebian

>>3624427
Oh yeah.

>>3624106
lel
It's funny because it amounts to pretty much the same thing.

>>3624106
Oh, and to be specific, it was "ghee", not butter per se.

OP you are just going to get caught in a lie. . . don't lie bro. But if you're going to, pick a well regarded novelist, then choose one of their lesser known books, it will make you look like you have read their oeuvre and have discerning taste. Like telling someone your favorite Pixies song is U-mass when it's really Where is My Mind

You should speak from your heart OP, not a desire to impress.

Say Boku no Pico, and mean it.

I love A Song of Ice and Fire. You want to talk shit about my taste or give me a condescending look, I'll fucking cut you, m8.

Don Quixote

>>3624274
only if you do it by pretending to like something you don't like

captcha: pompous zurints

leaving this board forever

>>3626573
seconded, what a ridiculous thread.

>>3625762
if you haven't read a book you can't like it

Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde probably

Mein Kampf

The Book of the New Sun, because I really did enjoy it and most of them never heard of it. The Mote in God's Eye is another go-to.

>>3625233
keep misusing per se, buddy.

>>3624083
Ulysses, obviously.

>>3625233
Ghee is butter, clarified butter.

Don't become so pretentious, friend.

>>3624482
I second that, but only for the Russian name part. Preferably a longer one than "Chekhov" but still something that has at least one "K" in it; with of course Tolstoy as the only acceptable exception. Well maybe not War and Peace since you could be seen as an asshole but, hey, it's not like you aren't one anyway.

>>3624097
it's deeper than your plebeian thoughts sir

but you are not worth mentioning it to, since you would not be able to comprehend my notions and thought patterns which require a deeper understanding than "I prefer living my life in a lie."

Just check the book design,
You'll be able to judge the book by the cover.
Problem solved.
/thread

>>3628378
Too pretentious. Every wannabe wants to have read Ulysses.

You're all fucking insane if you think the average chucklefuck has heard of Joyce or Dostoyevsky or even McCarthy more than in passing, much less is familiar enough with their work to recognize that those're supposed to be books liked by "smart people."

OP just be like everyone else that's exactly like you, go with one of Hamlet's lesser known plays, a Hemingway novel, or just say you're into poetry. People are stupid and if you have read anything at all outside of school, they'll think you're brilliant anyway, regardless of what it is.

>>3628412
But few have actually read it.

>>3628371
>>3628418
These

>>3628418

>one of Hamlet's lesser known plays

And here I always thought he only ever wrote one.

>>3628418
>You're all fucking insane if you think the average chucklefuck has heard of Joyce or Dostoyevsky or even McCarthy

The chucklefucks around me have. They may not have read them, but they get the reference and the gist.

That said, I'm in the military. The average level of education here is higher than the civilian world.

>>3628439
That's what makes it too pretentious.

I always say An American Tragedy but I fucking hated it as much as I loved it. Its a question I also hate because G.Martin really just has my heart hooked but thxalotHBO~

Season 1 was spot on beautiful but season 2 makes me wanna vomit a little :(

>>3628418
> You're all fucking insane if you think the average chucklefuck has heard of Joyce or Dostoyevsky or even McCarthy more than in passing, much less is familiar enough with their work to recognize that those're supposed to be books liked by "smart people."
If that's the case, then people are going to call OP a pretentious twat the moment he says that he likes reading books.

A student of mine asked me what my favourite book is today.

I replied with Naked Lunch by Burroughs.

She asked what it's about (I did my best) and wants to read it now.

>>3624083
if you're so vain that you have to impress others with your reading habits, then pick something obscure but lamentably neglected so it won't be seen as pretentious but rather sympathetic and maybe a little eccentric but acceptably so. any lesser known 19c author or modernist or whoever you like. the truth is, it's not the contents of your opinions but the presentation of them that will most configure other people's opinions.

>>3624186
Then pick ones to suit both situations?!

>>3631896

The following can probably work for both:

Any of Shakespeare's tragedies
Anything by Hemingway
Anything by Mark Twain
Anything by Vonnegut

Etc.

The authors are well known (serves the first criterion) but people are so anti intellectual these days you can bet with good odds that they won't have read the actual works (fulfilling the second criterion).

When someone asks me my favourite book, I reply "The Prince... by Machiavelli" and then maintain eye contact for a solid 6 seconds, at which point they will either understand that they should fear my social weaponry or will not understand the weight of my response, a referential rouse meant to lightly refer to my dark, brooding, opportunistic mind-state that is totally unrelated to any moral code, Ha Ha!

I would say catcher in the rye or Alice in Wonderland.

Don Quixote was the most impressive book I read but I honestly didn't find it particularly intriguing.

>>3631906
>Shakespeare
No,
Out of these, Mark Twain is the best choice.

>>3631906
>are so anti intellectual these days you can bet with good odds that they won't have read the actual works
There's a fucktonne of books, man. I haven't read most of these works, either. Hell, I haven't even read the Western Canon yet.

>>3624083
You answer truthfully and stop being a faggot.

Lolita.

Be sure to add a wink at the end.

>>3631888
I hope for your sake her parents are cool.

Death of Ivan Ilyich