I'm beating the jannies to the punch for that sweet, sweet dramacoin
I'm reading This Kind of War a history of the Korean War recommended by Mattis. It's an older book so has some very dated terminology, and an older way of thinking. But pretty solid so far, very play by play.
I've been on a huge non-fiction kick recently reading Rampage (about Japan in the Philippines.) A book about the fall of Japan whose name I don't remember
and before that The Franco Prussian War by Wawro. I've liked all of them with Rampage being the hardest to read due to crazy Japanese crimes. I think the last fiction book I read was Medicus a Roman murder mystery that was really enjoyable.
Dramatards what y'all reading?
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Not trying to meme or be pretentious, but I just started War and Peace.
The only other Tolstoy novel I've read was Anna Karenina, but it's been interesting to see how Tolstoy's depicts the hypocritical morality of the aristocrats of his day in both. There are so many parallels with modern day virtue signaling and other social phenomena, but I guess that's why they're such great novels; the human observations are timeless. The more things change, the more things stay the same etc.
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That's actually been on my list of books to read for a while. I'll take this as a sign to finally get on it.
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I’m 3/4 of the way through Anna Karenina and it’s been great so far.
I highly suggest Dostoevsky then, especially The Brothers Karamazov for a read that touches communism+religion and Crime & Punishment for a read about nihilism. Obviously both books are significantly more interesting than the topics I mentioned, but it was funny reading TBK and seeing word for word the same shitty arguments for communism, except being mocked ~200 years ago.
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I just finished first volume and I'm very glad I finally gave it a go. Surprisingly easy read.
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Tolstoy + other rus writers are to intimidating to me, like a wide, massive bundle into my tight English Anglo Saxon hole. Are they really worth tackling?
I have the patience for some long books, especially the value in how they show timeless human observations, as you say. If you think it has helped you understand the world better, or if it was memorable somehow then I count it as an awesome read.
It’s also pretentious and all that but 1984
has been hitting me hard with how the thing Orwell observed is paralleled today. For me what was most worthwhile was the connections to warfare with the people and how that ties into the power/obedience stuff.
Reading that one might have broken my brain a little bit, too often applying the concepts and thinking that I might have gone insane by the way. Turing me from a no politics man into a politics everything man
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This is a hard question to answer because it depends on your skill as a reader, your patience for intellectual and creative exercise, and what you're looking to get out of it. A novel like 1984 wears its applicability on its sleeve, but you'll have to suss out the subtext in the great Russian works to really get a lot out of them, and some of their language and ideas are certainly more dated. I don't think it's worth it to force yourself to read them if you have no particular interest--that'll probably undermine their effect--but if you are serious about literature, it's worth trying to tackle them at some point.
If you're not exactly sure where you stand and want to give them a try, I would suggest a couple potential starting points. First, you could sample their short stories to get a feel for their individual styles, maybe something from Turgenev's Sketches from a Hunter's Album or Chekhov's About Love Trilogy. Second, if you're just looking to dive straight into one author, I would recommend Dostoevsky or Gogol. Dostoevsky's darker, sort of existentialist themes are less subtle than some of the other authors' works and might be more in line with what you want if you're looking for something that 'explores the human condition.' Gogol holds up as being very funny imo(I love his story The Nose), and his surrealist/absurdist style is probably the most striking and unique if that appeals to you. Nabokov's Pinin is also funny and one of his more approachable works.
Hope that helps.
That's the funny thing about the whole "everything is political" canard leftists like to use as a cudgel today. There's clearly some value in the idea, especially when it comes to analyzing artistic works, but they take it to such a blunt extreme that they destroy all its utility. Literature is all about patterns and emotions under the surface, and its hard to stop seeing them when you look critically at a work you're really invested in, but that becomes a useless exercise when you try and force everything into some overt mold of power politics.
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Reading Dox Quixote, laughing my butt off at the jokes because I didn’t realize a guy from 1500s Spain could be be so funny.
Also just a great book if you want internet/culture parallels, it’s really obvious in that story how media content (books about chivalry) can delude a person and drive them insane. Look online for a few minutes and you can see lunatics who are crazy in just the same way, thinking they know everything about the world because they have read some story or seen a meme.
Amazing how Don Quixote always has an explanation handy too, you can break his body but his spirit is constantly iron clad. You can’t convince him he’s not a knight, and everything that happens to him fits neatly into his chivalry worldview. Reminds me of someone I’ve seen online….
I like it a lot because it’s about illusion, perception and obsession, just like another book I love (Moby Peepee)
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I’m not actually reading anything at the moment, though I hope to get some suggestions.
The last military books I read were Guns of August, which is about WWI, and something like One Soldier’s War, which is an autobiography about a Russian soldier in Chechnya. Guns of August was good, though I think it limited itself in scope by only talking about 1914. One Soldier’s War was interesting and shows just how poorly managed the Russian military was (and probably still is). I felt bad for the main character until he voluntarily re-enlisted for the second war, which I didn’t understand at all.
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This was a great book. Really interesting view into Russian military culture. Author is out of Russia and persona non-grata now.
If you liked those two you'd love Storm of Steel. One of the best war memoirs I've ever read. Written by Ernst Junger about his experiences in WWI
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I started One Soldier’s War because of a dramanaut recommendation a few months ago. Might have been from you actually.
I’ll look into Storm of Steel.
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My only suggestions are All Quiet on the Western Front and Slaughterhouse Five
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All Quiet on the Western Front is good. I watched the Netflix movie recently but they really botched the ending.
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The book is so bleak but that's what makes it good
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Really upset actually about what happened to the Netflix movie. I loved the original in black and white, I feel like Netflix stamped out the anti war message and went for an action movie instead. To me it looked shot for shot like a remake of 1917 which I liked much better
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Read Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger. It is the absolute best book you can read to get a “feel” for a soldier in the trench of WW1. You also get a good feel on Junger’s persona if you decide to read into his later years and philosophy. Here’s a wiki overview of it:
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I'm reading Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. The first part is about his experience in concentration camps during the Holocaust and I think the second part goes into finding purpose and meaning in life and his theories on meaning in life called logotherapy. It's an interesting read and I'd recommend it. Finishing up the first part and about to start the second.
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Oathbringer
I zipped through the first two books pretty fast but kinda hit a wall on this one. I'll probably take a break from the series for a while once I finish it.
The Ministry for the Future
I like KSR but I dunno this one isn't really doing it for me. I'll finish it but it's kind of eh.
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Once someone pointed out that he's Mormon and doesn't write any romance then I lost all interest immediately and stopped. I know it's a weird reason but I was already finding the books slow and that was the tipping point.
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Omw trying his books out. Why would you ever want that, it makes it weird when reading it with your family
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Oathbringer is the one that actually has romance tho.
Personally I hope kaladin finds a worthy babe. So far I’ve been disappointed in the offerings.
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I’ve been looking to get into more fantasy books, and part of why I wanted this hole was to get some suggestions. Problem is so much of the genre is crap. Just crap.
Reddit circlejerk aside is Sanderson stuff actually good?
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The Stormlight Archive series is good overall, it's a bit wordy but I enjoy it. I've read some of his other stuff and I didn't think it was amazing.
Joe Abercrombie is probably my favorite currently active fantasy author. The First Law trilogy is phenomenal and even apart from that I've never read a book from him that I didn't love.
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i’ve been summoned
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It’s fine. Mistborn is good.
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Read the classics that everyone else apes. Dying Earth, Elric, etc.
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I've been stuck on Oathbringer (8%) for years. Do not care about Dalinar, and making me resent his gimmick of POV backstory characters every novel.
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Either Oathbringer or Words of Radiance is where I hit the wall with that series, and Sanderson as an author. It was weird as normally I am a contrarian and don't like things because redditors like them, but his work just started to grate on me and I can't stand it anymore.
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The Iliad, The Histories, L.E.G.I.O.N, and The Legion of Super-heroes vol 4 as part of my complete Legion of Super-Heroes readthrough. Anyway you guys shhould read the best comic book ever made Cerebus the Aardvark by Dave Sim. Its self published schizo lit kino its a complete 300 issue self-contained packaged that was finished in the 00s. I uploaded the whole thing to the internet archive where you can read it from the web page itself! No downloads required. Please show my favorite schizo Christian mysgonist some love
:
https://archive.org/details/cerebus-complete/Cerebus%20007/
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I'm reading Titus Groan now. As of like, 2 minutes ago. I've been procrastinating picking it up for months but this is an adequate goading to start. I generally don't care about what adaptations choose to do with the source material but stuff becoming popular ruins it and ruins enjoyment of it so I want to read the books before Gayman's treatment gets dumped onto streaming.
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The Wandering Inn. Epic fantasy disguised as Slice of life Isekai.
Actually the longest piece of original literature, up to 11 million words (like 3x Wheel of Time). Mildly obsessed with the series. Writing style reminds me of Terry Pratchett, dialogue flows more naturally than other series I find.
Very much a feel-good series for all the trauma in it. First Isekai and LitRPG I read after decades of regular fantasy, and this is my favorite series by far now. The LitRPG is very barebones, not as cancerous as other books.
I'd advise starting with the rewrites or audiobooks, author took a couple books to git gud. Author is the #2 on Patreon authors, I simp heavily for them.
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I read many books in parallel but the ones on my desk are Emil Cioran's "Razne" (meh, I expected essays got aphorisms) and Yukio's "Golden Pavilion" (pretty great).
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The Mysteries of Udolpho, but have breaked the last couple weeks to focus on my own writing (for some reason, I hate reading when I'm trying to write).
Ann Radcliffe wrote it in the late 18th century. Apparently it influenced Jane Austen.
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looked into the brothers karamazov, its really slow and not at all fun to read
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I read it in middle school it was very interesting and formative to my thinking
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Moby Peepee and Indian Depredations in Texas. Comanches were some sick fricks.
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Moby peepee is my favourite book of all time, literally #1 (the king)
Love love love all the crazy 1800s stuff, I felt like I understood a time and a place (America) so well after reading that book. I live landlocked but started to love the ocean after that one. As Melville said, meditation and water are wedded forever
Heck, my flair is a quote from captain Ahab! Such badass revenge, Ahab is my favourite antagonist in western lit since he’s “an ungodly godlike man” and we all have the potential to become something like that. I heard somewhere there’s an Ahab and an Ishmael in all of us
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I was expecting it to be grim the whole time from the TV versions I've seen, but it's so darn funny. "Clam or cod?"
The Old Man and the Sea made me love sashimi before actually trying it.
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I love that quote, "over unsounded gorges, through the rifled heart of mountains, under torrent's beds, unerringly I rush, naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way" - and all his ruthless determination comes to nothing in the end, that's very strong, I think.
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I just finished the picture of dorian grey, i have a lot of lame butt books i need to get through. Next is absalom absalom i guess.
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The Tin Drum by the homie Gunter Grass
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Didn't the mc toss himself down a set of stairs to be a dwarf or smth? Proto dramatard
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Born a genius and devotes his superhuman capacity to annoying the shit out of people by screaming and smacking a drum. A model dramatard.
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Gonna have to read this now
Have you read a confederacy of dunces?
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I feel my gland closing just reading this. Better get another hotdog to calm the beast.
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Asimov short stories
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I really liked The Martian Way, tickled my tisms. I also really like the Lucky Starr series even tho it's kind of juvenile
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Interesting… I think I read most of Asimov's stuff but never his short stories. Gotta hit a library.
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Most of them are very good. Hostess, The Martian Way, Sucker Bait and Nightfall are exceptionally good, and there's one who's title escapes me but it's about an alternate history alamo project and explains how they invented force fields, also very good.
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I'm going to give it a go, I'm a huge fan of SF short stories but somehow never considered Issac as an author of such.
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Have you read Burning Chrome? Gibson's short story collection. Absolutely mobs the rest of his work, excluding Neuromancer
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I could never get into Gibson, something about cyberpunk never clicked with me. One new addition to my reading list is enough. I still have a brick sized Borges collection to go through.
I assume you've read Peepee's short stories? I actually much prefer them to his novels (minus Valis, because it's peak shizo)
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I got through most of Peepee's stuff but imo his amphetamine addiction rly shows, the stories are disjointed and rushed and busy
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2666. But I'm only a short way in, and I don't feel like I've quite fallen in with it yet.
Also, more importantly, Warhammer 40k, Horus Heresy, Galaxy in Flames
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There are 40k books? Are they any good?
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Harry Bosch series. I hate how much I enjoy this type of airport lit but whatever. Its really good too
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teddy wayne
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HAPPY THURSDAY. YOU ARE A RANDOM SCATTERING OF GENETIC AND MEMETIC MATERIAL CULMINATING IN A HUMAN HOT AIR BALLOON FULL OF FARTS AND DREAMS. YOU ARE A CREATURE OF ABSURDITY AND INVENTION. GO LEARN NEW SHIT AND MAKE COOL STUFF AND LIVE THE BEST LIFE YOU CAN. GO CUCKOO!
Snapshots:
This Kind of War:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
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Ride the Tiger by Julius Evola. Sadly my university library doesn't have Revolt Against the Modern World.
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Currently reading "Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX" for which the title is pretty self explanatory.
Also just reread "Doctor Glas", a Swedish classic about a depressed physician. Probably one of my all time favorites
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