[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 382 KB, 1777x2244, 2012 visual book list online version.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3117050 No.3117050 [Reply] [Original]

Best: Catch-22, Joseph Heller.

Worst: Mason and Dixon, Thomas Pynchon (don't start).

Post your own.

>> No.3117054

People are going to insult you for this Sunhawk and I think you know it. Are you a masochist?

>> No.3117064

worst: Pride and Prejudice
best: Anna Karenina

>> No.3117065

I finished Catch 22 in January so I'll have to agree with you there.

Worst book? Had to be Catcher in the Rye for school

>> No.3117066
File: 134 KB, 1193x900, guidetobookfiction.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3117066

>>3117054

Are you new to /lit/? People go crazy when I say I hated M&D. People here think it's a 9/10 book or something, and Pynchon's best. People will insult me, and since it's me posting, if not that then something else.

>> No.3117068

Did you make that picture yourself?

>> No.3117071

>>3117068

Both, yes.

>> No.3117106

>>3117050
Hey, first of all I read fairly often but only visit /lit/ every once in a while. Just one question: is The Night Circus a good read? I just realized I've had this book for over a year and have not yet read it, what should I be expecting?

>> No.3117109

>>3117066
needs james joyce in top-tier

>> No.3117119

best: On heroes and tombs - Sabato
worst: In cold blood - capote

>> No.3117121

Best: Stoner by John Williams. No contest.

Worst: While I didn't hate it, I'd have to go with Ligotti's Teatro Grotesco. I've read a lot of good stuff this year, but this collection felt redundant. It's just the same theme again and again.

>> No.3117122
File: 1.09 MB, 1000x1350, read2012jj.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3117122

I can't really decide on the best.

Worst was Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs

>> No.3117138

Best: Infinite Jest (srsly)
Worst: uhh, I'm not sure. I guess Roadside Picnic was disappointing.

>> No.3117177
File: 2.05 MB, 960x1263, 2012 read - Copy.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3117177

I think my fave this year was revolutionary road
worst American psycho

Now I'm just stuck in a never ending genre fiction series but god is it fun

>> No.3117181

>>3117064

You too?

Worst: Pride and Prejudice
Best: Lolita (second time I read this masterpiece)

>> No.3117183

So far, the best book this year is White Noise by DeLillo (about 25% in). It's the first thing I've read of his, and holy Jesus, this guy can write.

The worst thing? A tie between Of Blood and Honey (Irish werewolves during The Troubles, what the fuck am I doing) and The Hero of Ages (reading thousands of pages of Brandon Sanderson, what the fuck am I doing).

>> No.3117186

>>3117122
>Worst was Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs

What? That book is nothing but fun.

>> No.3117187

>>3117122
How was The Life Cycle of Software Objects? I've only read Chiang's short story "Exhalation", but I was pretty impressed by that.

>> No.3117196

>Best
The Master and Margarita.
>Worst
Robinson Crusoe.
I know it was written in a different time but all I feel about it is that it is a racist idiot preaching about redemption and instructions on how to build a island house.

>> No.3117211

>>3117186
I didn't like it at all. I hardly remember anything about it (just is stupid stance on football and him having a shitty taste in music), he just came off as a generally annoying person with superiority issues.

>>3117187
It was really good. It's a short read (I finished it in a couple of hours) so it won't be a big investment of time. I can't remember reading Exhaltation so can't make a comparison.

>> No.3117243

>>3117066

>Vargas Llosa,, mid-high brow.

I'm not sure man, I'm from Chile and here we read Vargas Llosa at school. It's mandatory reading.

>> No.3117277

>>3117196
>but all I feel about it is that it is a racist idiot preaching about redemption and instructions on how to build a island house.

Sounds legit

>> No.3117289

>>3117121
> Ligotti is redundant
I agree with this, even though I recommend him to people looking for good horror. It's not just redundant, though--it's literally repetitive. Sometimes within a page he'll repeat the same phrase multiple times. I interpreted this as intentional, that he's trying to create a certain trapped, claustrophobic mood--but perhaps I'm being charitable and he just doesn't have a good thesaurus.

>> No.3117290
File: 598 KB, 759x682, 2012 Books as of Nov 4.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3117290

>>3117289
Forgot my pic. And seeing it now, I am so fucking lowbrow. Time to step it up.

>> No.3117292

>Worst: Mason and Dixon, Thomas Pynchon (don't start).

>h-h-h-here i go...!

wrong board, friend.

>> No.3117301

>>3117181
Yep, I hadn't read anything of hers besides Mansfield Park during undergrad and I decided to give P&P a go. Found it to be dull and the characters (especially Darcy) heavily underwhelming.

Funnily enough I also reread Lolita this year—his prose is fantastic but as a student of 19th century Russian lit Nabokov always slightly underwhelms me in comparison.

>> No.3117311

>>3117064
>>3117181
>hating on Pride and Prejudice

sure is Middle School in here

Worst: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Best: Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron

>> No.3117314

>>3117311
sure am a grad student studying Russian lit, like I just said.

>> No.3117367

>>3117311

>hating on Pride and Prejudice

>sure is Middle School in here

B-But anon, I'm not in middle school and I hated it. I had read 80 pages when I was contemplating suicide or returning it back to the library without finishing. It's almost like Jane Austen makes me ashamed of being a woman, while Emily Bronte makes me so proud (I fucking love Wuthering Heights).

Pride and Prejudice was such a bore.. only a few of the characters, such as Elizabeth seemed believable to me. I really tried hard to enjoy this book, but I couldn't.

>> No.3117407

sorry for bein a nub.
How are those book cover compilation images created? Is it from one of those sites like goodreads?

>> No.3117432

Best: Flow by Mihalyi WeirdHungarianSurname
Worst: Any Kafka book.

>> No.3117448

>>3117367

>btw im a girl
>girl here
>G-I-R-L

>> No.3117464

Franz Kafka - The Trial
Franz Kafka - The Metamorphosis
Virginia Woolf - To The Lighthouse
James Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Ernest Hemingway - For Whom The Bell Tolls
Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49
James Joyce - Dubliners
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
Peter Watts - Blindsight
William Shakespeare - Hamlet
James Joyce - Giacomo Joyce
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra - Don Quixote
Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
James Joyce - Finnegans Wake
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Jorge Luis Borges - Ficciones
William Shakespeare - Henry IV Part I
Samuel Beckett - Endgame
Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow
Dante - Inferno
William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying
Joseph Campbell - The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Dante - Purgatorio
Dante - Paradiso

Best: To The Lighthouse
Worst: For Whom the Bell Tolls

>> No.3117472
File: 8 KB, 276x277, costashza.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3117472

>>3117464
>Worst: For Whom the Bell Tolls

>> No.3117478

>>3117472
Correct. I didn't like it.

>> No.3117489

>>3117448

._.

>> No.3117492
File: 10 KB, 267x200, princegeorge.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3117492

>>3117478
>Preferring Pynchon, McCarthy, and Bradbury to Hemingway

Different strokes, I guess

>> No.3117515

Best: Sound and the Fury
(need to read more than once)
Worst: Bram Stoker's Dracula
(such a boring book)

>> No.3117524

>>3117290
>John Scalzi
what the fuck is wrong with you?

>> No.3117551

Best: Winesburg, Ohio

Worst: White Noise

Mason & Dixon is tied with GR as Pinecone's greatest, imo.

>> No.3117587

>>3117492

Pynchon's leagues above Hemingway

>> No.3117591

Zeno's Conscience Italo Svevo
Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov
VALIS Phillip K. Dick
Mother Courage and All her Children Bertolt Brecht
Bicycle Diaries David Byrne
Madame Bovary Gustav Flaubert
Lucky Jim Amis Kingsly
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler Italo Calvino
All the Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy
Austerlitz W.G. Sebald
Herzog Saul Bellow
In Patagonia Bruce Chatwin
Solaris Stanislaw Lem
Amerika Franz Kafka
Nightwood Djuna Barnes
Vertigo W.G. Sebald
Cosmicons Italo Calvino
Brighton Rock Graham Greene

I only kept track since summer.
Best: In Patagonia
Worst: Herzog or Brighton Rock

>> No.3117623
File: 793 KB, 1534x1176, 2012Reads.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3117623

Woaw, I just made one yesterday cause I was bored.

Best:
Satantango
Stoner
Too Loud a Solitude
Chess Story
Blood Meridian
Old Man and the Sea

Kind of hard to pick a best, most of my reads were high-tier for me. The above kind of stand out though. Damn it was hard cutting it down.

Worst:
I'm gonna get hate but Breakfast of Champions, I disliked a lot. The sci-fi were meh though, so in that sense they're the worst. BoC at least gave me a chuckle

>> No.3117625

>>3117591
What did you think of Bicycle Diaries

>> No.3117631

>>3117625
It borrows heavily from Sebald, essentially a Rings of Saturn lite. Enjoyable read though, Byrne's a cool guy.

>> No.3117650
File: 668 KB, 1158x2200, 2012.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3117650

Best is still "The Doll", which is a shame given I read it at the start of the year and nothing better has come along. It's a really excellent book though, it was always going to be hard to top.

Worst? "Super Flat Times", which was just dire. Not sure why I even bought it in the first place.

>> No.3117683

Best: The Scarlet Letter
Worst: Shantaram

A friend gave me Shantaram when he moved back to his hometown after he graduated in May. He thought I would like it as he loved it, and we have similar tastes in movies, comics, and music.

He's visiting on the 8th, I really hope he doesn't ask me about it. I don't think I can be honest if he does, he seemed to like it so much ;_;

>> No.3117702

>>3117683
Ahh wow, i've only ever heard really good things about Shantaram. I've also never heard of someone slogging through such a massive book they dislike so much.

>> No.3117721

>>3117702
Well I respect my friend a lot, and as I said we have similar tastes in other things, so I assumed there had to be a redeeming factor in the book and just kept plodding through.

Sadly I just ended up reading over 900 pages of bullshit.

>> No.3117733

Best: Gravity's Rainbow
Worst: Robinson Crusoe

>> No.3118176

>>3117524
He's not good, but he's funny.

>> No.3118265

Best: The Trial
Worst: Slaughterhouse 5

>> No.3118288

>I'm too stupid to understand Pynchon so he sucks

>> No.3118299

>>3118288

Protip: Pynchon would fucking loathe an arrogant little shitstain like you.

>> No.3118336

>>3117489
H-h-hey sweet cheeks w-what are you up to this f-f-ine ev-vening?

>> No.3118349

>best
Steppenwolf
>worst
Four Past Midnight

>> No.3118661

>>3117177
I marathoned the Miles series myself two years back, and I was exhausted at the end. But it was a good exhaustion.

>> No.3118676

HOLY SHIT SUNHAWK WHY DO YOU EVEN FUCKING COMING HERE GODDAMNIT YOU OBVIOUSLY DON'T HAVE ANY LITERARY TASTE OR TALENT WHATSOEVER JUST FUCK THE FUCK OFF ALREADY

FUCK!

>> No.3118769
File: 2.74 MB, 2334x3000, read in 2012.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3118769

>Best three:
Log of the S.S. The Mrs Unguentine by Stanley Crawford
The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz
On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Junger

>Worst three:
The Finishing School by Muriel Spark
The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
The Amorous Exploits of a Young Rakehell by Guillaume Apollinarie

>> No.3118815

>>3118769

what were your thought on that bill bryson book?

>> No.3118840

>>3118815
It was neat. I was on a history kick for a while and seeing as it's the most popular big history one I went ahead with it. The Bryson was the only one I've finished so far - also still currently reading Ansary's Destiny Disrupted and Gombrich's A Short History of the World.

It's probably a lot more useful of a book if you take notes on it as you read. I didn't, so I'll only remember anecdotes and bits of information from it randomly (though I did get a solid understanding of the "big picture" in a lot of the disciplines he covers). It went by surprisingly fast for something ~700 pages long, likely because of how conversational he makes everything. Apparently a big concern with it is the inaccuracies, but I looked at the complete list of them and they honestly didn't seem too drastic, imo. Definitely not for an introductory book that tries to cover that much stuff.

>> No.3118843

Best: Between Fantoine and Agapa
Worst: The Naked Civil Servant

>> No.3118850

Best: V.
Worst: The Alchemist, what a pile of crap

>> No.3119119

I love these threads, always find some good stuff.

>> No.3119127

>M&D
>bad

10/10 would rage again.

>> No.3120313

>>3118769
What was On the Marble Cliffs like?

>> No.3120340

>Best:
The Quiet American
>Worst:
How to Lose a Battle

>> No.3120357

Best: Cats Cradle- Kurt Vonnegut

Worst: (if comics count) The Death of Superman- Dan Jurgens
(if they don't): The 39 Steps- John Buchan

>> No.3120422

How did you guys make those booklists? Is there an online thing for it or just a lot of pasting and dragging?

>> No.3120436

>>3120422
just pasting and dragging.

>> No.3120460

>>3117464

You didn't like For Whom the Bell Tolls. That's okay, but rating anything from Franz Kafka or Ray Bradbury as more insightful, or even just more interesting than Hemingway reeks of trolling.

>> No.3120464

>>3120422

Goodreads.com is nice for keeping track of everything. It has a decent recommendation engine too.

>> No.3120475

Best:
>Samuel Beckett - Murphy

Worst:
>Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart

>> No.3120920

>>3120422
ms paint

>> No.3120954

>>3120464
Like all the random Arabic shit they keep recommending?

>> No.3120965

Best: Black Ajax - George MacDonald Fraser

Worst: The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

>> No.3120991

>>3120954
>Not arranging your selves for maximum recs
But yeah I still get random books in some form of squigggly. Have found some really cool shit through it though.

>> No.3120998

>>3120965
>>3120965
>>3120965
>>3120965
>>3120965
>>3120965
>>3120965
>>3120965
>>3120965
>>3120965
>>3120965
>>3120965
>>3120965
>>3120965
thank you thank you.

had to read that shit book in literature class end of last school year. absolutely cliche, legit made me angry when i finished it it was so bad, thought it was just me being edgy

>> No.3121100

>>3120998
if it makes you feel better, most of the things ive heard about it were not good

>> No.3121210

>>3118265
I found The Trial and SL5 to be really similar

>> No.3121219

Best: House of leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

>> No.3121229

>>3121219

>inb4 someone shits on it

>> No.3121934

>>3117464
To the Lighthouse was seriously that good? I've only head mediocre things about it

>> No.3122242

>>3118769
>On the Marble Cliffs

Did you read this in English or German?

>> No.3122251

>>3121934

I hated To The Lighthouse with a passion. boring, annoying, pointless, too short. Well...really, too long .

As for whomever asked about The Night Circus, it was dreadful. Almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I'm amazed it's a bestseller. God, my local Waterstones has it on the table of the staff's favourite reads. Wtf. Readers today, etc.

>> No.3122283
File: 27 KB, 326x500, Thebloodychamber1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3122283

Best: That's difficult, but probably Wuthering Heights or The Waves

Worst: The Bloody Chamber.- Angela Carter. No contest. Probably the worst book I ever read.

>> No.3122290

>>3122283
interesting, i really liked the bloody chamber. i'm surprised you didn't given that you like wuthering heights so much

>> No.3122291

posting in a sunhawk thrad

>> No.3122298

>>3122283

What is The Bloody Chamber about?

>> No.3122301
File: 127 KB, 999x668, 2012.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3122301

>>3122283
This year's books

>> No.3122313

Best: The Republic, Twilight of the Idols, Enquiry into Human Understanding

Worst: Ethics (Spinoza), Discourses of Epictetus

>> No.3122314

>>3122290
The prose really bugged me. It's too descriptive to the point where it seems like half of the stories could have been cut down by about a third without really losing anything substantial, and the description isn't even that good (to me, at least) and it's incredibly unsubtle whenever there's any sort of symbolism.

>> No.3122324

>>3122301
The Waves rules, man. I loved that book so goddamn much!

>> No.3122326

>>3122324
I know me too! It's so beautiful.

>> No.3122327

>>3117050
Best:
>Gravity's Rainbow
Worst:
>The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy

>> No.3122338
File: 172 KB, 798x695, readbooks.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3122338

My year so far

>> No.3122340

>>3122298

It's a collection of rewritten fair tales.

It's actually far superior to her novel The Magic Toyshop, but that's really not saying much

>> No.3122406
File: 644 KB, 1200x800, A-yeay-in-yeading.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3122406

I think this is a good list. Am I wrong?

>> No.3122418

>>3117050
I am starting, why the pynchon hate?

>> No.3122421

>>3122418

Because Sunhawk sucks

>> No.3122422

>>3122406

Not very imaginative but it's decent enough.

>> No.3122424

>>3117066
more Hemingway and Steinbeck in the green

>> No.3122432

I read the da vinci code

it was awful

;_;

>> No.3122435

>>3122421
hue...1969

>> No.3122446

>>3122301
Did you actually read that translation of Notes From Underground? I had someone find me a copy of it, and they brought that back - it's hideous.

>> No.3122458
File: 494 KB, 1248x694, books 6th november 2012.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3122458

Only started reading books which weren't non-fiction or trashy-reads this year. Any recommendations? I already have a stack of books to read and another 70 on an Amazon wishlist but every little helps.

>> No.3122513

>>3122458
How was The Helmet Of Horror? I have that on order, should be arriving in the next few days.

>> No.3122552

>>3122513

I couldn't really follow the plot to be honest, it was quite an interesting take on the traditional mythical tale, but wandered around a lot and characters started to blur (at least for me) so I got mixed up as to who was talking every now and then. Also the ending was equally odd, but despite all that it was still somewhat enjoyable

>> No.3122792

>>3117650

Never heard of "the doll" before, what's it about?

>> No.3122821

>>3122458
>Paulo Coelho

That's bad and you should feel bad

>> No.3122841

>>3122821

It was part of a bundle, read it in a single train-journey

>> No.3122853

Best: Blood Meridian

Worst: Rios de Sangue (Blood Rivers)
Great setting with a lot of potential executed poorly, the author attempts to write a historical romance that ends up as a poor history book and a convoluted novel