No.6127
>>6123Not much at the moment. I finished Jesus from Outer Space by Richard Carrier a little while ago and am slowly making my way through the Old Testament. I'm trying to finish it up. I started the Old Testament many years ago, stopped, read the New Testament, and now am trying to read more of it. Right now I'm in 2 Chronicles. To makes things worse, I started of with the KJV just because I liked the sound of it. That was a problem as far as clarity was concerned though. I don't even remember much of what I read, so I might have to go back and reread all that earlier stuff.
No.6130
>>6129>they're obviously not for everyone.Why?
No.6131
>>6130I really like it, but most people who don't like anime probably wouldn't like it, and some people see the Japanese writing/translation as awkward.
That said, here are some links for anyone who wants to try them out:
>Read Online<Fan Translationhttps://archive.org/details/toaru-majutsu-no-index-light-novel/https://web.archive.org/web/20140804182224/http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index<Official Translationhttps://archive.org/details/a-certain-magical-index-ln_202306/>Download:https://www.reddit.com/r/Toaru/wiki/index/lightnovels/Old Testament is the first series.
No.6134
>>6131I mean, would most people
who like anime/manga like it? Is it one of the must-read mangas?
No.6135
>>6134It's worth checking out.
It's the best light novel series I've read, but it's also the only light novel series I've read a lot of. (I tried reading one called "86" and it was awful, and I read the first Overlord and it was just okay.)
They are actual novels and not manga. There are manga spin-offs and adaptations, but they are not as good as the original novels.
The overall closest English reference point I can think of are the Percy Jackson novels, though these are much better.
The series' premise is basically that there is an technologically advanced walled autonomous city in Tokyo called Academy City where students openly develop psychic powers, and elsewhere in the world there are various secret wizard cabals and religious organizations scheming and battling for power. iThe protagonist has a mysterious power that can negate any other supernatural power, no matter its origin.
No.6138
>>6135>>6137I was under the impression a light novel was basically a manga with lengthier dialogue. So it's more like a novella with a few pictures here and there?
No.6139
>>6138Yeah there's about 10 pictures per novel, with all the color illustrations at the start.
Lengthwise the novels range from about 250 to about 550 pages, but the idea is that they aren't supposed to be strenuous reading like a serious literary novel (but very few authors still write those). The series is also very long, with over 50 novels at this point. The author basically struck a creative goldmine with the setting that allows for endless stories to be told.
No.6141
>>6139Sounds interesting. I have the anime series in my backlog, and I'll probably check out the light novels since you recommended it. I like the idea that it's not heavy reading, since there are so many books to it.
No.6142
>>6141Most of the anime is a pretty competent adaptation, especially the first 6 episodes, but Index III (season 3) is considered to be really bad since they went from adapting 6 novels per season to speeding through 10, so the general recommendation is to just ignore that season and read the novels or manga instead.
No.6170
OP here, it's good to see these replies, I'll read and reply your posts another day.
My reading list for this year so far is this (not counting audiobooks or manga);
January - 7 books
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - 8.5/10
Black Poems by Jorge de Lima - 2/10 (a wigger who had a fetish for black people, poetry collection)
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers (reread) - 7/10
Under the Dome by Stephen King - 5.5/10
Capitães da Areia by Jorge Amado - 7/10 (Brazilian novel)
Der Untergang des Abendlandes by Oswald Spengler 8/10
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February - 6 books
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury - 7/10
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain - 6/10
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind - 7/10
Books of Blood, Vol. 2 by Clive Barker - 7.5/10
Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald - 8.5/10
The Golden Bough by James George Frazer 7.5/10
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March - 7 books
Weird Western: Vol. 2 by Robert E. Howard- 7.5/10 (short-story collection)
Ancient Cities by Fustel de Coulanges - 7.5/10 (nonfiction / history)
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon - 7.5/10
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin - 8/10
Ray Bradbury anthology - 7.5/10 (short-story collection)
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka - 8/10
Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima - 8.5/10
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April - 5 books
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville - 8/10
The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov - 8/10
Lieutenant Kizhe by Yuri Tynianov - 7/10
Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello - 7/10 (play)
The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein & Charles Murray 7.5/10
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May - 12 books
The Early Stories of Truman Capote - 5.5/10 (short-story collection)
Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - 7.5/10
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami - 7/10
The thieves of Val da Buia by Hipólito Machado - 6.5/10 (pulp crime novel)
Collection of H. G. Wells short stories - 6/10
Animal Farm by George Orwell - 6.5/10
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli - 8/10 (nonfiction / political theory)
Shadows Linger by Glen Cook - 7/10
The White Rose by Glen Cook - 7/10
The Quiet American by Graham Greene - 8/10
Junky by William S. Burroughs - 6.5/10
Queer by William S. Burroughs - 6/10 (pederast)
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June - 9 books
Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick - 8/10
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie - 7/10
Dubliners by James Joyce - 6/10 (As usual, another Irish writer who is overrated.)
Doctor Sleep by Stephen King - 4.5/10
Recursion by Blake Crouch - 6.5/10
Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction by Murray B. Stein - 7/10 (nonfiction / psychology)
The Suicide Club and other stories by Robert Louis Stevenson - 6/10
Complete Works by Arthur Rimbaud - 4.5/10 (poetry collection, such an overrated fag.)
The Undivided Self: Selected Stories by Will Self - 7/10 (short-story collection)
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July - 9 books
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson - 7/10 (underrated novella)
The Call of the Wild by Jack London - 6.5/10
Can Such Things Be? by Ambrose Bierce - 5.5/10 (short-story collection, overrated writer, of the 24 stories, only about four are really good.)
Jade City by Fonda Lee - 6/10
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov - 5.7/10 (short-story cycle)
True History by Lucian of Samosata - 5.5/10
The Man in the Moone by Francis Godwin - 5/10
Our Ancestors (The Baron in the Trees) by Italo Calvino - 7/10
All plays by Anton Chekhov - 6.6/10 (Chekhov is good. Two of his plays are truly above average.)
-
August - 11 books
Still Life by Louise Penny - 4.5/10
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - 6.5/10
The Flood (Blackwater #1) by Michael McDowell - 6/1
The Levee (Blackwater #2) by Michael McDowell - 5.5/10
O Cortiço by Aluísio Azevedo - 8.5/10 (Brazilian novel, I recommend this one to see the degeneration of a man and how 19th-century Brazil compares to the USA and Europe from today.)
Anthology of ghost stories by Henry James - 5.2/10 (Henry James was a pompous idiot, a 19th-century midwit who spent more time seething about writers better than himself than actually producing anything good.)
A double-edged dagger by Fernando Sabino (reread) - 5.5/10
Battle Royale by Koushun Takami - 7.5/10
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut - 6.5/10
Post Office by Charles Bukowski - 7.5/10
My Heart Laid Bare / Mon Coeur Mis à Nu by Baudelaire - 7/10 (collection of notebooks, fragments & aphorisms.)
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September - 9 books
The Tempest by William Shakespeare - 6/10 (play)
The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin - 7/10 (white manly dudes ruined everything!)
Firestarter by Stephen King - 6.5/10 (Stephen King is a cringe pedo)
Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis - 7/10 (overrated Brazilian novel)
White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky - 6.5/10
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - 7/10
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe - 6/10
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick - 8.5/10
Men Among the Ruins by Julius Evola 9/10
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October - 8 books
Solomon Kane by Robert E. Howard - 6.5/10
Challenge to Science: The UFO Enigma by Jacques Vallée - 5/10 (nonfiction)
Our Ancestors (The Nonexistent Knight) by Italo Calvino - 6.5/10
The Collector by John Fowles - 6/10
Horror collection - 6.5/10 (Various authors from 19th century and early 20th century: Rudyard Kipling, Ambrose Bierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne, H. P. Lovecraft, Elizabeth Gaskell, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Arthur Machen, Robert W. Chambers, M. R. James and F. Marion Crawford.)
Supernatural Horror in Literature by H. P. Lovecraft - 7/10 (nonfiction/essay)
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - 7.5/10
Hyperion by Dan Simmons - 8.5/10
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November - 2 books
Songs of a Dead Dreamer by Thomas Ligotti - 6/10 (short-story collection, overrated)
Dracula by Bram Stoker - 7/10
The Crisis of the Modern World by René Guénon
No.6177
Hello, please consider nominating some for the book club themes, as well as reading what we have going on there. Recently, Naked Sun you would like probably.
Age of Anxiety was absolutely great and maybe you would 9 out of 10 it depending on your literary level
Mein Kampf is nothing new but it's grassroots effect is inspirational
Molloy/Malone Dies/The Unnameable is another complete masterpiece work of art
No.6187
>>6143Late to the thread I absolutely love shokuhou, shes adorable and caring. One of my favorite fake-bitches in nippon-autism.
No.6189
>>6143finished NT vol 12, it was good
it has an interesting take on the historical figure of St. Germain, who isn't really talked about (it was my first time hearing bout him)
>>6187indeed