What are you reading?

[sartorialism]

Originally Posted by Lemmings

About 90% of the way through.

And what do you think? I have it on my shelf. Worth turning my attention to?

Originally Posted by UncleCozy

Read it too long ago to remember why loved it, but I do remember that I loved it.

Originally Posted by green bastard

The Brothers Karamazov

Aufbau Berlin/Weimar Verlag edition

The very best! But it might cause breakdown and depression. Just saying.

Originally Posted by Pinhas

Finally got around to start:

Anything I should keep in mind while reading or any other tips that will help me get through this? (haven't red a 1000+ page book in quite a while)

Originally Posted by Connemara

Protip: stop reading it now.

Do not stop reading it. First of all, even if you hate it, it's extremely relevant. You're effectively ignorant if you haven't read it"”even if only debate it. Amazon.com lists it as one of the best selling books ever. And though you'll find yourself often smirking and sometimes outraged at A.R., many of her ideas will probably effect you and the ideas will, in the very least, cause you to think hard about life, society and America's economic, political and social economies. I know that while I'm hardly A.R.'s greatest fan, the book effected my own (as well as many of my friends') worldview substantially. So read on and review it here when you're done.

Originally Posted by binge

Karl Marx: His Life and Environment by Isaiah Berlin.

Originally Posted by Matt

why do you hate our freedoms?

+1

 

[HgaleK]

Originally Posted by sartorialism

Do not stop reading it. First of all, even if you hate it, it's extremely relevant. You're effectively ignorant if you haven't read it"”even if only debate it. Amazon.com lists it as one of the best selling books ever. And though you'll find yourself often smirking and sometimes outraged at A.R., many of her ideas will probably effect you and the ideas will, in the very least, cause you to think hard about life, society and America's economic, political and social economies. I know that while I'm hardly A.R.'s greatest fan, the book effected my own (as well as many of my friends') worldview substantially. So read on and review it here when you're done.

Srs question here. It's been a bit since I've read Atlas Shrugged, but I seem to remember a badly written book that presented a naive, highly idealized version of capitalism. It's quite likely that I missed something, but I don't remember it being thought provoking or providing much of anything in the way of new or interesting material. I'm pretty damn fiscally conservative and very much for private enterprise and I still thought it was weak.

 

[green bastard]

That said, you can't compare the two. Dostoevski does probe the deepest recesses of the human heart, but that's not where Gogol or Chekhov (not to mention Pushkin!) go. There isn't much overlap between their respective literatures, and if you ask me, each responds to a different literary need. I know that no Chekhov could replace Dostoevski and that no Dostoevski could ever replace Chekhov.

I'm fully aware of the differences between a playwright and a novelist in general and even more so between Chekhov and Dostoevsky, thank you. Regarding Russian literature in general, at the point of the sword I would never choose Chekhov over Dostoevsky, that was my whole point.

Forgive me my woolly style.

Outside of Chekhov, this is my favorite piece of Russian literature. Get ahold of the Guerney translation if possible.

 

[limping_decorum]

 

[Lemmings]

Originally Posted by sartorialism

[In Cold Blood]

And what do you think? I have it on my shelf. Worth turning my attention to?


Yeah I thought it was great. Took me about a month to get through the first 100 pages, but once I finally got into it I was able to finish it off in a few hours.

It was interesting to finish it and then go online and see all of the actual crime-scene photos, mugshots etc. too.

 

[Master Milano]

Flapper and Great Gatsby

 

[Szeph el raton]

Got it as a gift at work.

This in parallel for pleasure reading.

 

[life_interrupts]

Just finished Losing My Cool, moving on to The Promise

 

[kipper]

I'm mid way through Less Than Zero. That book sucks the happiness out of me as I read it. I feel strung out myself after 60 pages.

 

[Bashmachkin]

If, in a sort of New-Critical or Russian Formalist way, you choose to consider literary works as autonomous texts, with the value of texts inhering solely in the texts themselves whilst issues of authorial intent, historical context and influence are secondary or entirely irrelevant, then I can see how you might look at certain works by Gogol, Dostoevsky and Chekhov and see three very different authors with different styles and subject matters.

I think there are similarities between the three authors even in this case; but the historical path of Russian literature following Pushkin seems to me a fairly clear one, with Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov all drawing upon their respective predecessors and being discussed in similar terms by the various critical schools of the time. Dostoevsky's early works were written in direct response to or as a means of elaborating Gogol's themes and perceived politics; and whilst there sometimes seems the perception that the format of these writers' works clearly differentiates them, it shouldn't be forgotten that Chekhov was just as much a short story writer as he was a playwright, whilst some of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy's best works were also short stories.

 

[kwilkinson]

Originally Posted by StephenHero

I

Vonnegut. Good ol' Indiana boy.

 

[dragon8]

People who eat darkness

 

[Thomas]

Just finished RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel by Matt Fitzgerald. I've read probably a half-dozen or so running books in the past, but this one really brought it all together in terms of the mind-body connection. It made me happy to train again, and brought home the point about managing your mind as you run.

Still working on Midnight's Children.

 

[watchcollector2454]

the sorrows of young werther - goethe

 

[clockwise]

Sapper - Bulldog Drummond (1920)