For math I have some stuff I had my old tutor recommended me.

Undergraduate Core:

A Concise Introduction to Pure Mathematics (Martin Liebeck) -

Analysis I (Terrence Tao) -

Linear Algebra Done Right (Axler)

A Book of Abstract Algebra (Pinter)

Introduction to Metric & Topological Spaces (Sutherland)

Analysis II (Terrence Tao)

Princeton Lectures Book 2 - Complex Analysis (Stein & Shakarchi)

Undergrad Extras:

An Infinitely Large Napkin (Evan Chen) - A rapid introduction to many fields of math at the undergraduate and graduate level. Heavily recommend supplementing the undergrad core reading with this.

An Invitation to Ergodic Theory (Silva) -

A sampling of Remarkable Groups (Bonanone et al.) -

Lectures on Fractal Geometry and Dynamical Systems (Pesin and Climenhaga) -

Geometric Group Theory (Loh) - An introduction to the study of groups using geometric/metric techniques.

The Knot Book (Colins) - A very informal introduction to knot theory.

Ramsey Theory on the Integers (Landman and Robertson)

Graduate Core:

Algebra Ch. 0 (Aluffi) - Graduate level Algebra.

An introduction to Measure Theory (Tao) or Measure Theory, Integration and Hilbert spaces (Stein and Shakarchi) - Graduate level real analysis, part 1.

An Epsilon of Room (Tao) - Graduate level real analysis part 2. Includes more on measures and some functional analysis.

Vector Analysis (Janich) or An introduction to manifolds (Tu) - Smooth manifolds.

Linear Analysis (Bella Bollobas) - Functional analysis.

Algebraic Topology (Munkres)

Topology from the Differentiable Viewpoint (Milnor) - Differential topology.

Graduate Extras:

Probability Essentials (Jacod & Protter) - Has measure theory as a prerequisite.

Brownian Motion, Martingales and Stochastic Calculus (Le Gall) - Stochastic processes & calculus. Has measure theoretic probability and functional analysis as a prerequisite.

Princeton Lectures Book 1 and 4 (Stein & Shakarchi) - 1 covers

Introduction to Dynamical Systems (Brin and Stuck) - General overview of dynamical systems, highly recommended.

Introduction to the Modern Theory of Dynamical Systems (Katok Hasselblatt) - Super in depth treatment of dynamical systems, good follow up to the above.

Introduction to 3-Manifolds (Jennifer Schultens) -

Introduction to Riemannian Geometry (Lee) -

An Introduction to Lie Groups and the Geometry of Homogeneous Spaces (Arvanitoyeorgos) - Lie theory.

Measure Theory and Fine Properties of Functions (Evans & Gariepy) -

Ergodic Theory with a view towards Number theory (Ward) -

Morse Theory (Milnor)

Differential Forms in Algebraic Topology (Bott and Tu)

For CHEMISTRY

A Primer of Drug Action, R.M. Julien, 13th ed., by Claire D. Advokat

Katzung, Bertram G., Masters, Susan B., and Trevor, Anthony J. Basic & Clinical Pharmacology, 12th edition. McGraw-Hill Profess. .

Undergraduate

Organic: Organic Chemistry as a Second Language, The art of writing reasonable organic reaction mechanisms

Inorganic: Inorganic Chemistry, Molecular Symmetry and Group Theory

Analytical: Principles of Instrumental Anlsysis, Fundamentals of Analytical Chemistry

Graduate

Organic: Advanced Practical Organic Chemistry, March's Advanced Organic Chemistry, Greene's Protective Groups in Organic Synthesis, Purification of Laboratory Chemicals, Strategic Applications of Named Reactions in Organic Synthesis

Inorganic: Advanced Inorganic Chemistry.

!bookworms

Bibliophile dramanauts, I was thinking about having a few recommendation threads according to genre, this one is Sci-fi but then we could go into horror, fantasy, realism, math textbooks, etc.

Here’s mine, or at least the few one’s I read.

HG Wells

“War of the Worlds”

Isaac Asimov

I robot

Foundation Trilogy

Frank Herbert

Dune

Dune messiah

Andy Weir

The Martian

Edit: I forgot about Robert Henlein, in his case “Starship Troopers”

!bookworms I'm thinking about reading “Confessions of a Mask” by Yukio Mishima, what are your thoughts on him and other Japanese authors? Personally I've never read a book by any Jap author so far (Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki but he's pretty much an Englishman through and through and his best book The Remains of the Day is the quintessential portray of British character).

I have a decent backlog of things that don't particularly interest me should be read so you can look down on people who haven't read them and scoff at how they aren't even familiar with the classics. It's time to start ticking more off of that list and none of them sound particularly enjoyable, so I'm crowdsourcing this to !bookworms and other homosexuals.

What first? This is by no means an exhaustive list but I've narrowed it down to what seems least unappealing.

https://rdrama.net/post/191312/while-we-wait-for-the-fix

https://rdrama.net/post/191311

Thanks everyone for your patience! I have sacrificed my place amongst my fellow entrants to judge and along with assistance fellow volunteer judges @HeyMoon and @Ninjjer, we have finally finished what the fish could not and we're pleased to announce the winners of the rDrama Fanfiction Contest!

Winners:

1st place $15000mb - @Pibbles - Bardy's House of Horrors

2nd place $10000mb - @JoyceCarolOates - Garry's Anatomy

3rd place $5000mb - @SexyFartMan69 - C.A.R.P.

Honorable mentions $2000mb:

+ Funniest - @911roofer - 911ROOFER'S SUBMISSION

+ Most Erotic - @StarSix - A night with Marsey

+ Most Violent - @sealkey_kong - The Black Swan of Garland

+ Best Writing - @Lappland - Lappland's Submission

+ Best Unfinished - @Bruhfunny_Thrall - The Tyranny of King Antichud

+ Best Audio Version - @DWHITE___________DYNAMITE - Dwhite Dynamite's Submission

Thank you to everyone who participated! It was a pain in the butt to track down all the entries outside of the main thread so if I somehow missed yours and you failed to get a badge, DM me!

!bookworms

Opted for the paperback myself which I don't do but it seemed more fitting for the material and I don't regret it. These are extremely high quality paperbacks with very nice heavy duty glossy pages, well-bound and with beautiful illustrations. Haven't checked the others yet but the first one has a really illuminating 20-page preface by Watterson explaining his life and how he ended up doing C&H and early, unpublished works and also pictures of his cat.

!bookworms you are LITERALLY LOSING MONEY by not picking this up

!bookworms !historychads

I'm eight months and 110 pages in (I'm slow, but also a first-timer). Yesterday, I gave the majority of my novel a readthrough and saw that virtually all of my small, sharp paragraphs moved at a pretty rapid pace and were full of friendly (and not-so friendly) banter between characters in an attempt at levity, even during tense and emotional situations.

I guess it sounded better in his head.

Tbh based on the full post it didn't sound that bad (just generic), but in a later comment OP posted a plot summary.

My novel is about a young girl in France during World War 1 who sneaks into trenches to aid soldiers as a Combat Medic... and who happens to weld the mystical healing power of Jeanne d'Arc's guantlet. It's just that she can be quite snarky and also has a friend whom she has excellent rapport with.

Just a quippy magical girl protagonist in the trenches of WW1. Maybe it works in context?

someone [can adapt] it into the next marvel movie 😆

I second finishing it, editing can fix a lot.

I'm an edit-holic; three hours of editing for every one hour of writing lol. So for the most part my chapters are looking extremely close to what their final version will be, witty banter and all.

Frick, not the one draft guys again. Line by line polish does not replace the need for rewrites because you need to respond to structural problems. A one draft story, even with outline, is essentially a random walk and can lose track of tone, get bloated or distracted, just end up married to ideas that don't work, etc (this is all an issue in my fanfic submission btw ). Making every scene "good" does not mean you have a good manuscript.

Marvel movies have only made, what, twenty billion dollars? There's nothing bad about having a book with broad appeal.

The market's right behind me, isn't he?

We don't write in a vacuum, and not everyone studies the classics. Our voices, methods, and priorities are influenced by what is in the air.

My literary influences are Marvel movies, isekai anime, and Bluey.

nothing wrong with writing marvel stuff a lot of my work was mostly inspired from anime I watched a mix of steins gate and jojo but the story still nothing alike.

Is that a fricking Jojo ref-

As usual, the problems with /r/writing are structural rather than comment by comment (sounds familiar ). In this case, the issue isn't whether quips are always bad. Rather, it's whether they work in context and whether they're appropriate for the story and setting. OP's setting likely meshes poorly with a wacky tone (and nobody seriously asked OP why the story suddenly felt bad to them, instead reassuring them that it's okay).

OP also gave away that they are not actually planning to do rewrites. So as usual, they came to the soyhaven to ask for affirmation about what they were already going to do.

Edit: I forgot to make fun of them for "devistated"

Simple request. Recommend unsettling stories of the ocean. This is a broad ask—Melville and Lovecraft both fit the bill, and anything in between.

Nothing pulpy though. Obviously no YA or mass produced garbo.

Oceanic horror kino is welcome too.

Jesus Christ, lady, I hope your book has paragraphs!

Let's chop this up a bit.

...it's in a fantasy setting, it also has a coming of age aspect to it and takes place over about 6 years, and they age from 12-18. im thinking hard about how to write them right in their early ages, like 12-14, and i feel like i'm doing it wrong. i'm putting more focus on their character and specific personalities but i'm wondering if, as a girl, maybe i'm accidentally making them too “girly” and “soft.”

i like to make them enjoy the simple things in life, like exploring and enjoying nature, and they also like to talk about their feelings and their hurts. but is that a thing boys do? im trying to make them realistic but sometimes i forget that i was never a boy and i'll never know what it is like to be a boy. and to top it all off, it's a gay romance (it takes awhile though, so they're just friends in the beginning). it just happened to be that way, i wanted a romance that wasn't straight and i felt my story didn't fit two girls (again, there's a difference but idk what it is!)

... i just want these characters to feel real and not how i “think” they're supposed to be. i can't decide if gender is just a construct and it doesn't matter if they're a boy or a girl, or if their outlook on life IS different and they should be written differently. both? what mistakes should i avoid in writing male leads when i'm not a male?

"Have you tried adding reason and accountability?"

Nah, it's a good question. Writing any type of romance you haven't been in is obviously challenging. Writing the opposite s*x requires observation skills, reading and engaging with their work (a bitter pill for moids), and a healthy imagination. You also have to be able to set aside your preconceptions about how people should work, and your desire to fix them. For example, in this case it's not just that men usually don't talk about our feelings, or that we feel uncomfortable doing so. Often, we don't want to. How do these sorts of things affect a developing gay relationship?

But as usual, /r/writing offers reassurance instead of seriously engaging with an OP who wants real answers. Many also get bogged down making very important points about gender.

It being a fantasy setting changes the answer. Boys/girls/men/women tend to be different but a lot of that is a result of the cultural environment in which they were raised. The jury is still out in exactly what elements are genetic vs environmental. But that largely doesn't matter because environment shapes how behavioural genetics do or do not manifest anyway.

Since this is your setting, gender roles and attitudes can realistically be whatever you want. If you even wanted to aim for realism in the first place. If you want boys to be soft in your setting then they are.

It's MY SETTING, and I get to pick the gender roles!!

If you were writing about two average adolescent boys growing up in Anywhere, USA, I'd say it's pretty unlikely they'd talk deeply about their feelings. Many of us aren't even taught to be aware of our feelings. There are exceptions, of course. But typically, they'd probably mull things over in the privacy of their own heads while doing some other shared activity, like dropping bigger and bigger rocks into a lake, throwing dirt clods at a hornet's nest, or building the coolest tree fort ever.

But this is learned behavior, and gender totally is a social construct. You get to decide what being "male" means in your fantasy world, and whether or not you want to make it analogous to modern western, Judeo-Christian culture.

Actual good advice to tell a story about boys erased in real time by genderslop.

Depends on what your fictional society expects of them and if your fictional society has gender roles they are expected to conform to.

In my fictional society, sexy women with big tits are expected to throw themselves at members of !bookworms and !writecel

Of course you can write a world with different social "rules." But the farther it diverges, the less it has to say about real people in our own world, and the more it has to say about the author's own desires and hangups. Might as well say some coomer's monster girl erotica is commentary about female gender roles.

Given your inspiration, I recommend you research homosexuality and pedecrasty in Sparta and Thebes. I'd also suggest looking at Afghan's Bacha Posh to explore the notion of gender vs construct.

This isn't actually out of nowhere because the full OP mentioned "The Song of Achilles," but lmao

... When writing either gender, it's easy to make characters unbelievably confident or strong in their emotions, knowledge, or physical abilities. Making a teen male emotionally literate stops you having a weakness to their character that would otherwise ring true.

Differentiate your characters from each other. Give them flaws. Let their differences and flaws produce tension. Two guys who are just soft and sensitive and slowly start touching peepees isn't a story. Even a hack writer would make one of them the emotional one and the other the moody, silent one or whatever.

A couple more people actually gave decent advice, like here, but of course low effort "You're perfect just the way you are!" advice is upvoted while interesting stuff is near the bottom.

As a straight man, I'll never understand this trend. If the men in your gay romance act like women, why make them men at all? Reading gay erotica should be a form of escapism where you can imagine loving relationships without having to deal with women. At least, that's why I read it.

A harrowing novel set in an alternative United States —a world of injustice and bondage in which a young Black woman becomes the concubine of a powerful white government official

Solenne Bonet lives in Texas, where choice no longer exists. An algorithm determines a Black woman's occupation, spouse, and residence. She finds solace in penning the biography of Henriette, an ancestor who'd been an enslaved concubine to a wealthy planter in 1800s Louisiana. But history repeats itself when Solenne, lonely and naïve, finds herself entangled with Bastien Martin, a high-ranking government official.

Me and who?

Most of the reviews feel like my parents reading the stories I wrote when I was 15. "Wow... This is certainly unique! Um, 4 stars?"

I did get a chuckle out of this one tho:

What happens when you cross a terrible idea - an erotic novel about a slave in love with her master - with an okay idea - an dystopian novel about an alternative United States where a second Civil War reversed emancipation? I guess you get the blueprint for The Blueprint, which is not good, but has potential to be even worse.

If Ms. Rashad wanted to write a more straightforward erotic novel, it would probably be pretty good, there are some genuine sensuous passages in "The Blueprint." If Ms. Rashad gets a little better at world-building, she has the imagination to author some compelling science fiction, her ideas are good but underdeveloped. But it seems like she considers herself too good for genre fiction, she wants to be the adopted daughter of Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood right now. And the result of such impatient ambition is phrases like "the room was washed in truth" and "I saw all the girls I was from fifteen to twenty." I'm guessing that wouldn't be quite so awkward in a romance novel, but in "The Blueprint," the romance is supposed to be a symbol of oppression, so I don't quite know why it's also a coming-of-age novel. It left me confused. Confusion is not always bad, but combined with incuriosity, it makes for an unsatisfying experience.

!bookworms !writecel

Book description

"Number of natural blondes in America: 1 in 20. Number of American females who dye their hair blonde: 1 in 3.

Blondeness became a prejudice in the Dark Ages, an obsession in the Renaissance, a mystique in Elizabethan England, a mythical fear in the nineteenth century, an ideology in the 1930s, a sexual invitation in the 1950s, and a doctrine of faith by the end of the twentieth century. With its powerful imagery of wealth, light, youth, and vitality, built up over thousands of years, it has woven itself into the most popular materials of the imagination. In art and literature, in history and popular culture, blonde has never been a mere color. For two and a half thousand years, it has been a blazing signal in code, signifying beauty, power, and status.

From Greek prostitutes mimicking the golden haired Aphrodite, to the Californian beach babe; from pigeon dung and saffron dyes to L'Oreal-because you're worth it-Joanna Pitman unveils the lengths to which women will go to become blonde. We watch while the blonde as erotic symbol, saintly virgin, or racial elite waxes and wanes throughout the ages, but never disappears. Why is it that blondes rose to prominence in Hollywood and in Nazi Germany at the same time? Why do young Japanese women today want to be blonde?

By looking at the world through the eyes of famous and infamous blondes and their admirers, we are drawn into an intriguing portrait of society. Weaving a story rich in drama, mystery, triumph, deception, disaster and curiosity, Joanna Pitman effortlessly combines the wealth of her knowledge with a sharp and clear-sighted view of the power of the blonde throughout the ages."

I thought the author was going to give a more global context of what blonde means to societies all over the world but instead she said blondes are wonderful, blondes are the most beautiful and innocent and sexiest of all women, and everyone wants to be like us. Hello!! That is the problem. Women of different ethnicities pretty much give up their culture to live the blonde White-American dream, and there is only one reason- to feel more accepted in our society because the closer you are to white the more society will accept you, and one way to do this is to dye your hair blonde. Instead of telling us what we already know, or better yet what society reinforces to us, that blonde is the ultimate beauty, why not tell us how this fascination has hurt society and women especially from different races. I am guessing it was too easy for her to spew off the gloriousness of blondeness- she being a blonde herself, than to search for something deeper because we all know sometimes the truth is hard to take, especially when you are on the inside looking out.

I feel like this book is saying if you aren't a blonde you agent good enough & your results will not be as good if you are not a blonde. Who allowed this author to write? I do not bleach or color my hair nor am I ashamed. I love myself let's all say it together. Other then that I enjoyed the history. A few famous brunettes: Sophia Loren , Angelina Jolie , Cleopatra , Elizabeth Taylor, Salyma Hayek, Sophia Vegara. Mmm what was that thing you were saying about brunettes? Oh yeah Diana would not have gotten an award for all the charity work if she had been a brunette. Okay I hate the writer. Anyway I think if you make up your mind to succeed in life you will. Unless everyone is like this author forget it .

One brave blonde woman stands up for her people

people need to stop harshing on blondes. i've had my hair every imaginable color, red for years, and resisted being a natural blonde because i hated the stereotypes. so now if people dont like my hair color the way it is, thats too bad. you could just as well write an intelligent book about the history of redheads, there is alot of stereotype and mystique surrounding red hair as well. i found that i attracted the most fascinating people when i was a redhead! i also personally think that dark haired women are the most beautiful women in the world, probably because im a blonde and i cant pull off a dark hair color, i've tried... i just wish people wouldnt take this book personally! if i were to write a book about hair it would involve all colors. certainly there is alot of cultural and historical info about it. mary magdalene is actually more often described as a redhead, queen elizabeth was red, not blonde! and red hair has always been associated with sorceresses...also how about snow white? i could go on, but ive made my point, i think. girls who are not blond may be hurt by this kind of book, but its also hurtful and depressing to be a blonde and have people stereotype you, cat call you, and hate you because of your hair.

Lots of inaccuracies in this book. Phryne was not blonde. She was known for her dark skin color! Phryne was depicted with black hair in Greek antiquity.

Recent western artists have changed that. Aphrodite was not blonde. This is the modern Western image. Aphrodite was always depicted with black hair in Greek antiquity. I am familiar with Greek literature and it was never mentioned that Aphrodite was blonde. There is no evidence that Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene were blond. I find it very irreverent that she just made this up. I cannot recommend this book because it is based on fantasy and not on facts.

There are a lot of successful brunettes so what is she talking about?

Message of the writer: blond beats brunette and is the best. A feel-good book for blonde girls. To read for fun and not for education.

This was a fun (and yes, intelligent) read on the history of blonde hair. It sounds like a boring read, but I had a good time reading all about where the stigma of "dumb blonde" came from. Perhaps I needed a break from "blonde" jokes, and just wanted a bit of honest history on the subject, if just for my own reassurance, (I am a natural blonde :) )

Edit: Some Reddit threads:

https://old.reddit.com/r/rpdrcringe/comments/1b6v2jm/you_can_buy_mien_kampf_on_rupauls_new_bookstore/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/rupaulsdragrace/comments/1b7gz9n/bunnys_correct_take_on_rus_bookstore_selling/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/RPDRDRAMA/comments/1b6wrbj/so_many_options_at_rus_new_bookstore/?sort=controversial