/lit/ - Literature and Writing

>>6123
Not 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.

I've been reading the Magical Index light novels. I've read 10 so far this year. The setting is really creative, but they're obviously not for everyone.

>>6129
>they're obviously not for everyone.
Why?

>>6130
I 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 Translation
https://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 Translation
https://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.

>>6131
I mean, would most people who like anime/manga like it? Is it one of the must-read mangas?

>>6134
It'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.

>>6135
First 5 pages of the first novel (deleted first post because they were out of order)

>>6135
>>6137
I 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?

>>6138
Yeah 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.

>>6139
Sounds 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.

>>6141
Most 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.

>>6129
Finished the 35th novel in the main series. It was a nice change of pace. Kind of surprising the starry-eyed blonde girl is actually his deepest character so far.

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

-

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

-

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


-

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

-

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)


-

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)


-

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.)


-

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


-

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


-

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

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

>>6143
Late to the thread I absolutely love shokuhou, shes adorable and caring. One of my favorite fake-bitches in nippon-autism.

>>6143
finished 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)
>>6187
indeed

>>6189
Does Saten and Uhiharu from railgun ever appear in the novels, I love them a lot. Railgun's girls are just so adorkable.

>>6190
Uiharu has some occasional appearances, including two short stories where she is the main protagonist.
Saten's appearances are usually much smaller and rarer, though she plays a big role in one novel that was never adapted into anime, and probably in some others I haven't read.
And Kuroko obviously got her own novel that was adapted in Index II, which is where Uiharu first appeared.

>>6170
>Dubliners
Joyce's best work is unironically his letters to Nora where he talks about how much of a braphog she is. They are very beautifully written.

>>6191
I am pretty sure Railgun was originally meant to be from the not-lesbo, not-rapist's perspective but was changed to onee-samas later.

Nothing, but half-seriously learning the languages Pali and Sinhala to begin reading the Tipitaka without translations.

>>6193
Finshed volumes NT 13 and 14 a while ago, might finish 15 before the year ends
Seems like the author is really trying to shake things up recently; the plot is not playing out like how I expected it would go.
>>6193
It definitely was in the first novel featuring her, but by the time manga started it shifted to focus more on Misaka.
It's kinda interesting reading the manga, she isn't quite as rapey in it, seems like a lot of that was added by J.C. Staff for the anime.

>>6206
She was rapey in the begining but it got reduced as Shirai actually is one of the more serious underage police slave girls utilized by Crowley. exaggeration but he legally owns most people within the cities walls Her fights are probably my favorite in the series, also the most brutal where she almost gets killed in all sorts of fucked up ways. She is suprisingly creative with her abilities, still don't get how a small loli somehow defeats grown male terrorists but the rule of Toaru is the loli always wins, and less its Touma or a higher ranked loli.

I love Misaka because Rina Sato and her match up as ideal onee-sans, she was the perfect fit as her actress. She only ever breaks whenever Touma gives her the girl next door treatment. Touma seems to mostly prefer far older ladies.

I'm currently reading Leviathan by Hobbes and Time Loops by Eric Wargo. I finished Pedurabo and it was interesting, but convinced me that Crowley was indeed extremely narcissistic.

>>6230
>Time Loops by Eric Wargo
I've heard about this but never read it.
>I finished Pedurabo and it was interesting, but convinced me that Crowley was indeed extremely narcissistic.
I read Colin Wilson's biography of him years ago and came out thinking he seemed like a pretty big prick. I still like his iconoclasm and shitlordy tendencies, but he comes across as someone who would be pretty hard to like if you knew him in real life.

>>6231
> I still like his iconoclasm and shitlordy tendencies, but he comes across as someone who would be pretty hard to like if you knew him in real life.

I feel like I would probably like him at a distance, but I would personally dislike him. Some his writing is pretty good especially his essays on drug use and his weird fiction short story.

>>6230
>>6231
crowley's life reminds me of this pic

>>6232
>I feel like I would probably like him at a distance, but I would personally dislike him.
Exactly.
>Some his writing is pretty good especially his essays on drug use and his weird fiction short story.
I've never read any of his actual work, but I'll give him credit for inspiring Fields of the Nephilim.
>>6238
That was definitely the case in his later life when he was fat and out of shape. Would anyone really want to fuck this guy in the ass?

>>6246
>Would anyone really
Yes. No hesitation.

I finished another Toaru novel back in December, then decided to take a break from the series for a bit. Since then I reread Sophie's World and I've been working my way through Poe and Lovecraft's bibliography. Poe is some next level stuff while Lovecraft is more formulaic but also really good. Real hardcore super racist dude.
Sophie's World has a really strong first half but I think the second half is weaker.

>>6416
I read Poe as a kid, just a bit. I liked what I saw.

>>6416
2 more down.
I really liked NT Volume 16, and 17 was fun as well. The premise of Volume 16 is especially fun with an abnormal extreme heat wave and simultaneous invasion of otherworldly creatures forcing the denizens of Academy City into a desperate survival situation, wearing only their swimwear! Volume 17 takes place in the immediate aftermath.
>>6445
He wrote a fascinating and very brief story called Eleonora which doesn't get recommended enough. It's very unique.

>>6416
>Lovecraft is more formulaic but also really good.
What makes Lovecraft work so well for me is how adept he is at building up atmosphere. He gets criticized for his purple prose, but I think his writing benefits from it.

I've never read much Poe. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is something that's been on my mental backlog, but I really don't read much fiction.

Just binged a few detective novels by Keigo Higashino. Then I noticed that redditors have been up in arms for years about a more experimental book of his called Himitsu (known as Naoko in English translations). It's a very interesting read about a dude who's forced to live with his wife's soul being inside their daughter's body but I hated the ending. Not the lame "denouement" one but the real ending where the main character finally realizes what is truly going on and then I understood why the faggy Goodreads types suck it off constantly it's feminist propaganda, although they pretend it's just something normal and people who feel uncomfortable with the final twist must be chuds.

Finished another Toaru novel. NT Volume 18. In this one Kamachi integrates the biographical information about Aleister Crowley. Now, the mysterious man floating in the tube is confirmed as a serious pervert who used to attend orgies and write erotica. (His plans and motives are revealed as well.) This one was kinda strange because about a third of it was Touma experiencing visions from Crowley's past. Some of the vision segments were a bit of a slog, but overall I still enjoyed this one.

Twilight of the Idols by Friedrich Nietzsche

Lights in August by William Faulkner

And a book of poetry. Lights is easily the most overrated Faulkner book.

Toaru NT volume 19
In which the gimmick is making the majority of the story about a guy in a powered suit, while Touma basically goes on dates with a new girl. It was entertaining. There's a lot more going on but nothing more needs to be said.

Bakemonogatari vol 1
I went into this blind, knowing nothing about the series, and my expectations were met. The stories are clever, like you'd expect from a established mystery writer, but as the author himself says its mostly just about characters talking to each other. I picked up a physical print of the book for cheap. My only gripe with the official translation is that there was one sequence where they kept talking about kanji symbols, but didn't actually show them in the book.

My Vampire Older Sister and Zombie Little Sister Have Gotten Into a Pretty Serious Fight…Only in Virtual Reality Though
Despite what the name might suggest this is a cleverly written web novel that explores what might happen if a vampire girl and zombie girl were to engage in an all-out warfare. Veers in directions you wouldn't expect.
Can be downloaded in English here:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/hoa35gv0ljbubxu/My_Vampire_Older_Sister_and_Zombie_Little_Sister_-_Volume_01.epub

Poe's Murder in the Rue Morgue
Considered by some to be the first ever detection story. It holds up pretty well. The first half almost reads as a treatise or foundational text for the very idea of a detective story, and then the second half presents the mystery. It reads like he felt the need to justify the idea of a genius detective, since they weren't yet a common fixture in literature. I'd recommend going into this blind since there's a lot spoilers for the ending online.

My September reading list. Luckily, I read more than I expected, and the overall quality was good. However, some books I had planned to read were postponed. I wanted to spend September with some of my favorite authors to assess which ones no longer belong in that circle.
Italo Calvino, for example.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to read Philip K. Dick and Graham Greene, both of whom I enjoy.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein - 8/10

Palomar by Italo Calvino - 5/10

Factorum by Charles Bukowski - 7/10

Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald - 7.4/10

Dimensions by Jacques F. Vallée - 7.5/10

The case of Charles Dexter Ward by H. P. Lovecraft - 7/10 (reread)

Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy - 8/10

Waterloo: The True Story of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles by Bernard Cornwell - 8/10

Theogony / Works and Days by Hesiod - 7/10

Conan, The Barbarian vol.3 (A Witch Shall Be Born / The Servants of Bit-Yakin / Beyond the Black River / Man-Eaters of Zamboula / The Hour of the Dragon / Red Nails / The Vale of Lost Women) by Robert E. Howard - 8.3/10

The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima - 6.5/10

O Mandarim by Eça de Queiroz - 7/10

Twilight of the Idols by Friedrich Nietzsche - 9/10

Sarrasine by Honoré de Balzac - 7/10

The books by Mishima and Eça de Queirós were the weakest I've ever read by them, but still good enough.

Several of these Conan stories fall into the categories considered racist by faggots. Most fall into these categories of good, underrated and based, with two being weaker (A Witch Shall Be Born / The Servants of Bit-Yakin, the first due to resolution and lack of payoff, and the second due to bad passing.)


>>6560
>Poe's Murder in the Rue Morgue
I'll see if I can reread Poe this month; generally speaking, I've never been a big fan of his detective stories.
That's one of his good ones; if you're interested, read his "The Gold-Bug".

And there is a tribute made by Clive Barker to the story, called New Murders in the Rue Morgue.
I would say it's above average, but nothing spectacular or memorable like some of his other stories, or Poe's original.