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No. 186683
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>>186682Could i get a french book recommendation please? I am fluent in it but i dont know where else to ask in real life or online. Haven't read any book that wasnt supposed to be a mandatory read at school… So now i would like to be more well read. My favorite is sans famille if that is any reference, but i like any biographical books and would prefer female protagonists if that is possible, if not that is okay too. Thank you in advance.
No. 186688
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this site is awesome
https://abooklikefoo.com/you put books you like in there and the site suggests other books you might like
No. 186703
Farmers tell me some interesting nonfiction titles you've been reading recently, especially if they're psychology books.
>>186688Is it good for nonfiction too?
No. 186707
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>>186703I recently read Never Enough by Judith Grisel. A really good read and her personal experiences with addiction add a lot to the book. In the end, I just wished there was more of it, because it's not super long.
I'm currently reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and I feel like I'm learning a ton about the way we think and make decisions, but progress is slow since the book isn't super captivating for me.
My favorite nonfiction book of all time is The The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, this book really opened my eyes to what non fiction could be, it's this really interesting blend between history and biology, that's not just fascinating, but also tense and gripping.
No. 186727
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>>186699>Can anyone recommend an interesting autobiography?I know she's famous so maybe not what you're looking for, but I enjoyed Maya Angelou's autobiographies. At least she was popular for her writing, activism and artistry and not being a social media celebrity. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first book. I found her voice to be passionate, accessible and inspiring but she's thoughtful enough to reflect on her weaknesses as well.
No. 186729
>>186683Here are some with female protagonists:
>Un coeur simple, by Flaubert (in Trois Contes)Short story about the entire life of a maid in Normandy , very realistic
>Une Vie, by MaupassantNovel about the entire life of an aristocratic woman, very realistic
>La Cousine Bette, by BalzacNovel about how a spinster decides to ruin her happy cousin's life
>Bonjour Tristesse, by Françoise SaganI don't even remember what happens in this one but I loved the style
>La Maison de Claudine, by ColetteA bunch of autobiographical short stories from the author's life
>Zazie dans le métro, by Raymond QueneauAn actually funny novel! How unusual
>Thérèse Raquin, by ZolaThérèse is a criminal!
>Thérèse Desqueyroux, by MauriacThérèse is a criminal!
No. 186731
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>>186699Clearly not for everyone but certainly interesting, in this one the hunter Jim Corbett details how he tracked and shot several man-eating tigers. I recommend it especially to fans of the witcher
No. 186734
>>186732are you using some sort of web protection? google
web protection software you're using + URL exceptions to get a guide how to make that link an exception. if it's just your browser go advanced>then whatever comes up that isn't ''back to safety'' and you should be able to access it
No. 186751
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Does anyone know any books like this one that goes more in-depth? Or just any good cult books in general. Thanks!
No. 186807
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i read this book and it was pretty good. i finished it in less than a day. some parts made me feel a bit nauseous though, though i can’t say i didn’t expect them. i wonder how the movie is going to turn out, i have a feeling there’s a certain scene they’re not going to include
No. 186816
>>186754The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar - Edgar Allan Poe
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - Ursula K. Le Guin
The Yellow Wall-Paper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison
maybe also The Sniper (Liam O'Flaherty) and The Destroyer (Tara Isabella Burton)?
No. 186831
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>>186682any books similar to this in terms of female autism
and not in the meme way?
also please recommend some books about female loneliness that dont go into the whore territory if that is possible
No. 186834
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>>186831have you read this one?
No. 186842
>>186754The books of blood by Clive Barker are a bit like this but with demons
Kino's Journey is a lot like this, but I just watched the anime and didn't read the light novel
>>186832Do read a guide if you're stuck at the last level, getting the good ending can get a bit convoluted
No. 186867
>>186707>Never Enough by Judith Grisel.This is exactly up my alley, thank you! I really enjoyed In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction and would love to read more about addiction.
>Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel KahnemanDoesn't sound captivating for me either, seems very general. I guess I'll stick to making bad decisions like I always have!
>The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha MukherjeeThis sounds like a really good read. I don't think I'm in a place now to appreciate it, but maybe in the future it'll spark my interest.
>>186853You sound very well read! I usually stick to topics that relate to current day issues I find interesting like about suicide and addiction.
No. 186900
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>>186703Behave by Robert Sapolsky is very good, it's more on the neuroscience end of behavioural psychology but it's very thorough and he emphasises the limits of his field of study. it's a bit dense but i found him to be an engaging writer and charismatic while being straight to the point.
No. 186902
>>186901 anon, most psychologists have "last names like that". For years psychology was relaged to Austria/Germany/Poland universities with the occasional french popping out. And then it was dominated by american universities populated by WWII refugees. Psychology is male-biased, and always would be. And like most social sciences, it was used to justify truly horrible shit. That doesnt mean we should/can ignorate these "
problematic" authors because we can/should use their contribution to built something better or what they said doesnt exist/is invalid. For example, that Freud was 99% wrong about women's mental health it doesnt mean that women doesnt have mental problems. And even worse, it doesnt mean we can forgot it happened, because at the very least is a compendium of things we don't need to investigate again, and we can move to greener pastures.
you REALLY sound like a poltard No. 187289
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>>186867>Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction Addiction really interest me too, I'll put this one on my reading list.
>Doesn't sound captivating for me either, seems very general.It's central thesis is about how we can understand the mind as having two decision making systems. And the book is mainly about how they interact and what influences them.
On the topic of addiction, I also read Empire of Pain which is about how the family business Purdue caused much of the opioid crisis in america. The psychology of addiction isn't discussed, but they do go over the reasons Oxycontin is addictive and how it was developed and skirted lawmakers.
>>186853>Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl That sounds intense but really intriguing.
No. 187328
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I read My Dark Vanessa a year ago on my kindle, and I decided to check out the audiobook from my library and listen to it. I remembered it pretty well for the most part, but there were a few things I forgot or missed, like how Henry admitted to reading Vanessa's blog. Not a very important detail, I'm just a bit surprised I didn't remember it.
I always see people saying how they hate Vanessa, and on my first read through I didn't really get it, but I honestly get it now. I didn't hate her as a teenager, just as an adult. Like how she would NOT stop defending Strane, even after she knew he was grooming girls in the same way he had groomed her. She still kept trying to convince herself she was special to him. I think she told herself he was grooming those girls because they reminded him of her or something like that, and romanticizing it because she didn't want to confront what it would mean if she was really abused, but you'd think at 32 she wouldn't be able to keep lying to herself like that, especially given she blatantly resented Strane at many points in the book. At some points I just wanted to shake Vanessa and be like GIRL. In my first read through of it I also didn't realize it was pretty obvious Strane was attracted to Jenny, maybe even preferred her, but chose Vanessa because she was more vulnerable to his manipulation.
I also got mildly confused at the end about Taylor's situation. She accused Strane of groping her, that's what got him in trouble. But she said that she and Strane kind of had a relationship and that he had her read Lolita, and he was telling her about Vanessa and how she was "just a rumor" and that he waited until she was "fully groomed" to tell her the truth (or tell her something else, I can't remember exactly). If she was "fully groomed" why did she get so upset at him touching her leg? It never really went into detail about his relationship with Taylor so I'm not sure if I'm missing something
Anyway, I really liked this book. Vanessa reminded me of my teenage self an awful lot. Feeling isolated and having low self esteem, no friends, I was also obsessed with older men and was almost groomed by one at one point (though it didn't happen thankfully because it was over the internet) but some the things Strane said to Vanessa were almost the exact same things the guy said to me. The giddyness she felt from Strane's attention really brought me back too. Strane pissed me off so much, I don't know if I've ever wanted to a-log a fictional character this bad. I think it was a really good depiction of the grooming process and I liked the honest bleak portrayal of Vanessa as an adult, and that it had an uplifting ending but not a perfect happy one.
No. 187352
>>187346I downloaded the book for free from z-library, you can get it there. Yeah her ideas are common sense, but I had fun reading her book because she talks about the different ideas about cleaning she tried throughout her life and talks about the people who she helped to clean up their homes.
But I learned some things too, for example she talked about how horrified she was when she visited a lady and all her socks were rolled into balls… and I thought… I do that too, that's how my mom taught me. She says it makes no sense because they take up more space that way and the elastic gets stretched out and your socks get ruined over time. And she is totally right, I started just folding my socks instead, I have lots of socks that have become so loose they slip off my feet while I walk.
No. 187443
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What would you recommend to someone who feels lost and struggles to find meaning in life?
I'm not really looking for self help, I moreso want to read other peoples throughs and experiences who have gone through or are going through something similar. I'd also consider philosophy, but I'm a bit worried that I'll be worse off after I read something like Nietzsche.
No. 187447
>>187328First of all, I'm sorry for your experience and glad that it hasn't gotten worse…
>she would NOT stop defending Strane, even after she knew he was grooming girls in the same way he had groomed her. She still kept trying to convince herself she was special to himRead Tiger, Tiger if you can stand a real memoir on the topic of the psychology of a grooming's
victim. The author of MDV lifted some details from it, if I remember correctly. It's gonna be painful, but enlightening. Also Natascha Kampusch's one.
It's not that they are defending their predators, but have complicated feelings toward them.
No. 187466
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>>187443I’m mentally in a near constant state of nihilism, but there have been a few books that alleviated it for a time, if brief. Warning: they may not do the same for you. Siddartha and Damien, both by Hermann Hesse, made me think of life in different ways. I’ve seen a lot of people say they’re boring and that’s
valid, but they were good for my mental health. Also, The Stranger by Camus. Not a positive story, but had a positive effect on me. I apologize for my absolute scrote taste in books. If it helps, I always find similarities between myself and main characters which makes it easier to self insert when I read, no matter the gender of character.
No. 187482
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>>187443>>187466agree with your recommendation of siddartha. it is a bit boring at times, but i think it is one of the few pieces of classic lit that holds up regarding the purpose of life.
would also peter camenzind also by herman hesse. bit of a blogpost, but i read this book in my late teens and along with siddartha it completely changed my outlook on life. peter camenzind is also a bit boring at times, but that's kind of the point imo
No. 187485
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>>187482I’ll definitely have to read that one. Have you read Beneath the Wheel? Also called The Prodigy. It really devastated me because I was in very much the same place in life as Hans at the time I read it. I love when books catch you at the exact right time. It has a much bigger impact.
No. 187539
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i just finished picrel and i cried at the end. i'm honestly surprised how well written grady hendrix's female characters are. i read only two so far (horrorstör and my best friend's exorcism) but apparently people also praise southern book club's guide to slaying vampires and the final girl support group. maybe there's hope for scrotes after all?
No. 187566
>>187466>>187482I actually already read Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf and Siddhartha and got a lot from the experience. I didn't mention it because I didn't want to influence the recommendations too much.
I'll check out your books, thank you so much for your input <3
No. 187590
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it's fujoshi torture porn in many respects, but her writing and imagery is so impressive i can overlook a lot of stuff wrong with this book
No. 187613
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>>187443Have you read Man's Search for Meaning? Maybe too obvious of a pick but it's one of those classics that is worth the hype imo. The Book of Joy centered around conversations between the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu was also a great read, I'd be surprised if you weren't able to take at least a few useful perspectives from it.
No. 187650
>>187328I read MDV when it came out and loved it, I'm also planning to reread it this year because I feel like I've forgotten a lot of the details. Anyway, I agree with everything you wrote in your post! It's easy to be frustrated with Vanessa, but as someone who was groomed I also see myself in her in some ways. I don't really have any fondness left over for my abuser, but I really feel that need to be special and different even if you know deep down you were just another girl of many. It's kind of an uncomfortable truth and the book really made me think about how I deal with my past in a new light. I like the book for not having a perfect main character tbh, because perfection doesn't really exist in real people.
I'm sorry to read you had your own brush with grooming nona, I wish you all the best.
>>187539I fucking love Grady Hendrix! I can see him becoming a sort of Stephen King-like figure if he keeps it up, but thankfully one that can actually write women. Speaking of King, has anyone else read anything by his son, Joe Hill? I enjoyed parts of his books, but I can't get over how he writes like he hates women.
No. 187703
>>187590i hated it.
the prose was bad and sappy, the characters were cardboard cutouts and the way she was trying to tug at the heartstrings was really obvious.
i thought it was a terrible piece of literature overall, content aside the writing's not even good
No. 187734
>>187650>>187539Thirding Grady Hendrix love! One of the only male writers I trust to write women well. I actually didn't love Final Girl Support Group, but a lot of other people do, so it's worth checking out. But yeah, I love Best Friend's Exorcism, We Sold Our Souls, and Southern Book Club. Post-MBFE he's mostly written about middle-aged women, which really secured my support. I think there was a discussion last thread about this, but in the intro to Southern Book Club, he talks about how he dismissed his mom growing up and then realized how hard-working and amazing she was as an adult, and decided to pay tribute by writing a book about her taking down Dracula. Tbh King could never
Re: MDV – I totally agree w/ all this. I was so struck by how nakedly that book portrays how fucking pathetic a person can end up being when they're that groomed (no judgement at all, I've been there) and desperate to believe they were special. Like, her digging through her Photobucket to send him old pics of her as a teen, and the AIM relationships later on, and the way she defends him with the "actually it's hebephilia" thing…the gut punch of those moments. It's so rare for someone to really, really dig into that shit, but I think it made the eventual peace she finds all the more powerful.
No. 187847
>>187734I could never hate Vanessa because of what she went through.
Need to reread the novel too, as much as I found it underwhelming and generic description of grooming, it was enjoyable
No. 187854
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i'm reading rest and relaxation for the first time and i can't help but find it annoying how she's constantly talking about how hot she is, that she looks like a model, that she's depressed and doesn't take care of herself but she's still sooo beautiful. it sounds so "hot girls have problems too"-y to me.
i still enjoy it though and the therapist is hilarious.
No. 187862
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>>187858I’m so annoyed to see nonnies unironically recommending this book that I went and found a review that reflects how I feel. Btw the main character condescends to Siddhartha Guatama and decides he is much smarter than him. He shows how much smarter he is by uwu accidentally getting rich (again) and then gambling and drinking. Then he decides that the other people who do that are pathetic and instead getting his dick wet is the real meaning of life. He knocks up a woman and goes “oh haha have fun with that, I am way too smrt to be a dad byeeee” and fucks right off.
No. 187870
>>187866kek i had to look up coequette, is this like lolita aesthetic but a little more grown up?
i do enjoy the book and how weird the narrator is and maybe it's a tongue in cheek thing (maybe that she's full of herself and actually not that pretty, but she sees herself that way) but whenever it's mentioned it annoys me a little bit.
No. 188029
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currently reading this. it’s the second nabokov novel i’ve read, the first being lolita of course. in many ways reading this has put lolita in perspective. nabokov is a very skilled writer and very good at incorporating eroticism into his stories. i know some people like to swear up and down that there’s nothing erotic about lolita and if you read it that way you’re missing the point but having started reading ada i think i disagree.
it’s quite hard to read, much harder than lolita just based off the prose and the writing , though lolita is a much tougher subject matter.
anyway i’m curious if any other anons have read ada or ardor and what they thought about it (no spoilers though)
No. 188083
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>>188029I am still salty I saw this book for like 2 euros in used bookstore and didn't pick it up.
No. 188227
>>188029I read Pale Fire by Nabokov because of Blade Runner 2049, and it's one of the best books I've ever read!
Don't know shit about ada or ardor though lol sorry
No. 188295
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currently reading pic related, liking it a lot so far. it's about two mongolian twins looking for the new dalai lama in the mongolian steppes, it's pretty good so far imo. i've also never really read anything that takes place in mongolia so it's interesting to read about some of the cultural nuances
No. 188352
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Any book recs about drug addiction? Either memoirs or other nonfiction? I just finished picrel and really enjoyed it. As someone who has gone to naranon family groups it made me very emotional at parts.
No. 188406
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Reading One Hundred Years of Solitude and shocked at the amount of rape, incest and pedophilia in just the first thirty pages.
Is the whole book like this? I've seen it recommended many times and I love magical realism, but the amount of degeneracy in it is putting me off and frankly ruining the beautiful ambiance. One of the main charactes rapes a prepubescent girl who is screaming in pain at having to "take it" and I can't go on anymore.
Nonnas who read it, what are your thoughts? Is it worth it in the end?
No. 188419
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>>188406Sorry to say but I think that contrary to Nabokov, Marquez was an actual pedophile
No. 188444
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>>188419I can't believe this man doesn't get half the shit that Nabokov does. At least Nabokov made it clear that he never wanted Lolita to have a cover with a little girl on it. Marquez is out here writing about women and children being raped and enjoying it.
No. 188448
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>>188419Surprise! He’s an average scrote.
No. 188463
>>188419>>188444Nabokov himself was likely sexually abused by his uncle, so I don't understand how anyone could read the book and view it as being pro-pedophilia
its literally from the perspective of a delusional pedophile who is a rude jackass to everyone and creates outlandish scenarios to make himself look like the good guy
Its absurd that the discourse around the novel never mentions it and also he spent decades in interviews talking about what a vile worm HH is.
No. 188491
>>188448This is just a joke about him being a cheater, not argument against Marquez being a pedo… right?
>>188469I would love to read it, please look it up! I would even try to DeepL it
No. 188494
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>>188491samefag, I pray this isn't the only one because it sounds like edgy bullcrap. I know that there was some libfem modern rewriting of Lolita from Dolores' POV, but I never read it
No. 188516
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>>188352Rather detailed (fictional) account of addiction and going to the AA in it, but it's also a berry big book about many other subjects, with 400 footnotes and execrable french translations in it
No. 188529
>>188516nta
i never knew it's about anything at all, so now im curious of it and kinda want to read it
No. 188540
>>188529It's about movies, a satire of the near future of the 2010s (somewhat predicted skype and the need for filters for self-conscious people), competitive tennis schools for child athletes, AA, and a plot involving québécois assassins in wheelchairs as well as various spy operations
If you ever decide to read that massive doorstopper in physical form, it's advised to read it with two bookmarks, as it fully plays into the late 20th century trend of an extensive use of endnotes to flesh out the narration
No. 188562
>>188520I think there's a bit of clowning on it because it's so ubiquitous, but really, I think a lot of us here do like MYORAR. There's def a recurring refrain of anons looking for bleak, obsessive depressed-woman lit.
I really liked how the book handled Reva too – some of my favorite unreliable narrator use in recent years. She's such a bitch to Reva in such a cutting way that's hard not to respond to, at least a little bit, and then you're left realizing how bullshit that opinion actually is. It's why I actually like the fact that the MC is so hot, though I get why another anon was criticizing it elsewhere – she really is that perfect, sad-in-a-hot-way mess whose emptiness is glamorous because of her judgmental attitude and especially her perfect body, but this book isn't actually interested in just doing that smeared-mascara "oh god i'm sad and have perfect tits" traumafest: you get your nose rubbed in the fact that this is actually still squalid and pathetic and embarrassing.
No. 188564
>>188540is there any lighter read by Foster Wallace I could start with? The horrible man interviews maybe…? I don't have a copy of TIJ, I will look for it. Thank you for warning me!
>>188562Yeah I was weirded out, I thought that most of us like MYORAR and other books - by Moshfegh and similar. Pretty sure we were into that one before it became a meme. Maybe that's how it got some backlash.
No. 188589
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I'm currently reading The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein, and I'm amazed at how it has everything I want in a story (so far): tragic, broody MC who's obsessed with his too-pretty half-brother and also wishing to kill/betray him to take their father's kingdom for himself. The vibes are immaculate. Chef's kiss, even.
Only a few chapters in, but I'm hoping it keeps being amazing. Also: the art I'm sharing has nothing to do with the novel, except I'm imagining the characters as vaguely resembling the drawings here.
No. 188590
>>188029>i know some people like to swear up and down that there’s nothing erotic about lolita >and if you read it that way you’re missing the point Could you explain this,
nonny?
No. 188598
>>188590NTA but i’ll do my best to explain for analysis i’ve read and my own experience reading the book. Lolita is essentially supposed to be a horror story, we read it from Humbert’s perspective, and it’s pretty established that he’s an unreliable narrator, that his vision of Dolores is not how she actually is but how a sick pedophile views an innocent little girl, thinking she’s being flirtatious or sensual when she isn’t, twisting he actions to fit this narrative of her trying to seduce him, he reaches and over examines what she does to fulfill his own fantasy, he doesn’t see the real Dolores but this “Lolita” nymphette version he himself has deluded himself into believing. It’s how pedophiles say children are sexual and can consent, not because they are and can, but because they twist kids actions to fit their own sick desires. Ultimately reading Lolita as a love story or a sexual story takes away from the original intent behind it, which is to show us the inner workings of a sick man who ruins a little girls life because he has completely misinterpreted her actions and their relationship. He manipulates Dolores and her mom, he twists everything is revealed to the reader to make him seem like the good guy and a savior who is ultimately good for Dolores. The closest Humbert gets to being self aware is this
>A North American girl-child named Dolores Haze had been deprived of her childhood by a maniac.The book makes the reader, against their will, see things from Humberts perspective and maybe even sympathize with him at some points, and that’s supposed to scare you, because Humbert is a sick fuck, but being forced to read the book from his perspective he is also manipulating the reader. And this brings me onto my next point, the people who read it as love story, the ones who were successfully tricked by Humberts flowery words and incorrect retelling of events and find their relationship “erotic” and sort of “pure”, those people aren’t able to critically analyze how they have been manipulated along with Dolores.
Now I don’t care for Lolita, I just pulled all of this out my ass to try and rationalize the different ways people see it so yeah take it however you want.
No. 188607
>>188590>>188598i was the one who made the original post about ada or ardor and i agree with everything you said about lolita however i mainly meant to comment that nabokov has an undeniably erotic tinge to how he writes these things and i would say your job as a reader is to see through it. what makes lolita work as a believable novel is how realistically depicted humberts pedophilia is and nabokov doesn’t shy away from getting right into the mind of humbert and depicting his attraction. it makes it an uncomfortable read but also means some people (mainly men) read it as a love story or sexy thing. ada or ardor is a story about sibling incest between a 12 year old girl and her 14 year old brother and the story is unbelievably erotic and shocking in that regards. lolita is like a walk in the park compared to ada. i haven’t finished the book yet as it’s quite long but i also imagine that it would be a hard story to tell without diving right into the relationship and making the reader believe in it too (i just want to clarify that the characters do not know they are siblings when it begins, the think they are cousins which is still gross but yeah)
ugh i don’t know if i’m explaining this well enough.
No. 188611
>>188607i get what you mean, i think – if you blindly go along with it simply because it's convincing, then you've lost his game. if you can understand that it's still disgusting even if being swayed by the pretty language/set up, then you've won.
is that what you meant? because that's how i interpreted your post.
No. 188629
>>188564I think also, like….anything that enough women like that it can recognized as a trend gets labeled so it can be made fun of, and women learn quickly to distance themselves from it. Like, yeah, there is a noticeable influx of lit about 20-30something women hollowed out by modern culture, that often contrasts filth and beauty, sex and loneliness, desire for self-reinvention with harmful patterns of social impulsivity, etc. MYORAR, The New Me, Social Creature, etc. But like…so what? Not to get too ranty lol, this is just something that really bugs me. Men get to have movements and trends and new ideas approached from lots of angles, but the minute women do something en masse it's cringy, and none of them are ~really~ into it, they're just doing it to seem ~deep~ or w/e. Even if some Insta models are posing with the book without reading it, so what? Men have gotten to write all the books for thousands of years. Let us write whatever the fuck we want for a while.
No. 188649
File: 1646981059376.jpg (161.81 KB, 315x475, 25883848._SY475_.jpg)
I'm not a manlet chaser or anything, but Jesus the way the mc constantly goes on and on about how teeny tiny and smol she is and how big and tall the love interest is, I fucking my lose shit
because it happens the entire book, I get it he's tall, no need to make it a fetish
No. 188784
>>188564If you're into Lynch he wrote this piece:
http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/lhpremiere.htmlSome of the quirkier elements of his style (such as putting 4-5 conjunctions/adverbs in a row, like "but if when hence anyhow") aren't present in it however
No. 188797
File: 1647022715511.jpg (137.21 KB, 725x900, 157565.jpg)
>>188703You're so right! I'm so sick of media getting written off because "girls like it". (Of course this author should absolutely be written off, but for a whole other reason.)
I mostly read contemporary fiction written by women. I love the current wave of sad girl lit, like MYORAR, and I refuse to apologize for that. No man has ever been made to feel bad for reading 99.9% male authors.
>>188629 made some great points in regards to this too. As soon as something starts taking off among girls and women - be it Twilight or One Direction - men and pickmes need to shit on it.
No. 188940
File: 1647101894561.jpg (25.21 KB, 318x453, 40716739._SX318_.jpg)
Anyone read Yuzuki Asakos Butter? What are your thoughts on it?
No. 188950
File: 1647108002390.jpg (495.7 KB, 1400x2100, 81-nl1E4n-L.jpg)
If you're into animation, Starting Point is a dream. I read it on my commute to work everyday and it was LOVELY,the writing is so expressive and the way Miyazaki's animation is described is perfection. You can see exactly what they're talking about in your head if you've ever watched a ghibli film.
No. 189086
Nonas, please recommend me books. I just recently after years got back into reading again, so no matter what you'll recommend me, I'll probably not have read it if it came out in the last few years. In the past two weeks I read
>Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
>Kim Jiyoung, born 1982 by Cho Namjoo
>The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
>Breast and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
None were worse than ~okay~, and I especially liked The Remains of the Day. I liked the way Kim Jiyoung was structured, as in, following her over the course of her life, so books like that would be great, too. Can't stand murder mysteries and crime stuff. Not keen on fantasy-settings either, but stuff like animal protagonists, vampires and wolves and shit are fine. I think I like magic realism, but I can't stand the majority of Haruki Murakamis novels (not even the realistic ones like the Naoko one or the story about that guy searching for some arcade machine). The only one I liked was the short story about the woman who lost her ability to sleep and read Anna Karenina (a book I liked; Please no Tolstoy or Dostoewskiy recs, pretty sure I've read all of their novels (no short stories yet, am looking into them though) already.) plenty of times. I also had to read Perfume by Patrick Suskind, which wikipedia describes as magic realism, for school and liked it. Horror and thriller are fine as long as it's realistic, so no haunted houses or Stephen King (any stephen king. please god no stephen king) please. I'm not sure I like romance; I like media like k-dramas and the majority of games I own are otome games, but so far I couldn't ever get really into romantic novels (I haven't ever read any of the classics yet though, so maybe that'll change once I read my first Jane Austen?). I don't like space stuff or aliens, is all sci-fi like that? I read The Martian by Andy Weir (I liked The Egg) a few years back, and while it was fine the technical stuff bored me to death. Don't like YA and cyberpunk. Dystopian stuff is fine as long as it isn't "We've got to overthrow the government and free the population of it's dictatorshipish regime" in typical YA fashion. All of this has been fiction, but I'd like to get into non-fiction too, so feel free to recommend anything into that direction too, as long as it's not True Crime or WWI and WWII related. Please no series. I'm planning on reading either Wild Swans by Jung Chang or The Vegeterian by Han Kang after I finish Klara and the Sun.
Is this anything to work with? lol
No. 189096
>>189086>following her over the course of her lifejane eyre! it's a classic and follows the life if the titular character, it's very atmospheric and also has romance in it, but it isn't cheesy like your average hallmark movie. i dislike cheesy, gooey romance, but jane eyre is amazing. i also recommend wuthering heights, which isn't cheesy, gooey romance either, and more like psychological drama/trauma.
>horror and thriller are fine as long as it's realisticyou might like the woman in the attic, the wife between us or the girl before.
>so maybe that'll change once I read my first Jane Austen?jane austen actually isn't supposed to be peak romance, it's more about the complications surrounding women's lives and how romance is supposed to be #1 in their lives and how society stifles them. her novels are kind of misunderstood as being extremely cheesy and romantic because of all the movie adaptations. i myself find her writing boring and tedious, because characters always have these long winded conversations about the most boring subjects, but this again is done to poke fun at society of the time. anyways, i have no recommendations for this because i just steer clear of novels that have romance as their main genre, because i don't care about shy, studious ainsleigh refusing to have sex with beefy chadbert from the varsity football team…
>don't like space stuff or aliens, is all sci-fi like that?the luminous dead is about a woman exploring a cave in exchange for mad cash, also features a very complicated relationship to another woman whom she is dependent on and who guides her through the caves. it also counts as mystery/thriller/horror.
>Dystopian stuffthe handmaid's tale, maybe?
>non-fictioninvisible women!!!!
for general crazy bitch novels: necessary people, the new me, the paper wasp, anything by gillian flynn, my year of rest and relaxation…
No. 189105
File: 1647204870456.png (50.38 KB, 1552x158, twp2.PNG)
okay, so i'm done with "the winter prince". that was a good book even if it was rough in places. anyone else have good gay fantasy books (preferably with some sort of complicated dynamic like incest or hate/love, etc.)
No. 189117
>>189112i don't know what makes something 'midde grade fiction' but the writing doesn't feel childish at all. if you love lush descriptions, this book has them in plenty – some passages feel very poetic.
now the plot itself is ok to decent, in my opinion. i'm not a professional writer myself but it does feel disjointed/rushed sometimes, and that's probably because it's a debut novel.
>>189110could you be talking about this?
https://original.lolcow.farm/m/res/8561.html#q154970 i just went to google and typed "site:lolcow.farm "anonymous incest diary" btw
No. 189126
>>189105Great taste nonna.
I recommend danmei novels by MXTX. All the relationships are complex (the teacher/student being my favorite) and the story, worldbuilding and humour is just great. And of course Captive Prince if you haven't read that.
Most western gay and lesbian fantasy books I've read lately are just so concerned with being as "wholesome and unproblematic uwu" as possible, it's boring as fuck.
No. 189144
File: 1647215735298.jpg (39.62 KB, 326x500, 749802375921.jpg)
>>189086You might like Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. It's a story that follows two family lines over generations that stemmed from women who were kidnapped and sold into the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Since there are basically no artifacts from first generation migrants, I thought it was cool how she gave a voice to women whose stories have been lost to time. Then it gets into eras which we have more knowledge of, such as the Harlem Renaissance and the lives of contemporary Africans, many of whom are dealing with their own pain regarding lost family. It was Gyasi's debut novel and still won a lot of awards. There are some minimal magical aspects, kind of hinting at intergenerational memories and a few cases of happy coincidences, but I didn't find they detracted from the story at all.
No. 189146
>>189126yeah the "uwu good rep!" trend needs to fucking die already; it's utterly boring.
i've still got mxtx on the backburner because i'm too lazy to seek out good translations. do you have any to rec though
No. 189161
>>189117>>189110lmao, "unlikable female protagonist" op here – oh god, to have The Incest Diary be the only one that someone remembers! But yes, ty nona, that's the post I made! I also wanna second
>>189144 – I really liked Homegoing for exactly these reasons.
No. 189210
>>189146SVSSS and MDZS have the first book out in an official translation, while TGCF already has 2 (totaling about ~900 pages) here:
https://sevenseasentertainment.com/series-danmei/ TGCF is like an epic adventure and is really good, I recommend it.
If you wanna continue reading and can handle some janky fan translations (you get used to it fast though), I'm sure the old complete fan translations are still floating around under epub or pdf format on Libgen.
No. 189251
>>189221Thanks! Just saw the /m/ archive thread. Thought they are gone for real. That's a real relief. Will look for my other favourite threads.
Wonder why admin hasn't restored /m/ if it's not been wiped clean…
No. 189338
File: 1647288098449.jpg (624.76 KB, 1500x2339, 91akSJDFobL[1].jpg)
>>189086It's from a series, but the order's not that important (it's the 17th book and the one I started with). Got me hooked on the first page, then couldn't stop until I was done with the 40 or so other books. Yes it's fantasy, no it's not like any other fantasy book
No. 189385
File: 1647297794300.jpg (154.8 KB, 828x821, tumblr_12e1a889931df2934b75636…)
can anyone rec good horror? preferably something written by a woman – and nothing misogynistic, of course.
No. 189390
>>189385NTA but seconding this.
I read The Hunger by Alma Katsu but didn't really like it.
I've been meaning to read Mexican Gothic by Silvia-Moreno Garcia and True Crime by Samantha Kolesnik.
No. 189529
>>188029well i finished ada or ardor and i can’t say i necessarily recommend it. it was really slow and felt aimless. it kind of got annoying only really hearing from the man, van, about how much he loves his sister and how he’s devoted to her (but also can’t help himself from sleeping with every woman and child prostitute he comes across). it was too long and just too impossible to read but i’m sure nabokov felt very clever writing it. i think the best parts were the first part of the novel when you see how van and ada started their incestuous relationship
and the part toward the end where lucette commits suicide but aside from that i probably wouldn’t bother reading this. one of the more disturbing parts of the book, aside from the amount of descriptions of attractive barely-pubescent girls was when
van visited a brothel and nearly had sex with a young boy except the boy was suffering from digestive problems which produced unpleasant outcomes for any man wanting to fuck him. just disgusting idk overall it just felt like lolita but more long winded and just plain worse
No. 189795
File: 1647438594595.jpg (623.37 KB, 1706x2560, 91ZOrAgmdrL.jpg)
i'm reading her body and other parties right now and i really liked the especially heinous story. i'm surprised that so many people disliked it. i feel like it would make a really good horror podcast, similar to the magnus archives, maybe? i'm glad i gave this book a go because i didn't like in the dream house by the same author.
No. 190421
File: 1647636251949.jpeg (1.07 MB, 2560x2560, 06FAAA12-6672-44D5-A774-0BD5DD…)
I’ve been listening to the audiobook for this and It’s so upsetting (the content). I do highly recommend it to nonnies who enjoy history and women's history though it’s extremely eye opening.
No. 190498
File: 1647655956136.jpg (224.2 KB, 564x472, valley-of-the-dolls-back-row.j…)
Does anyone have a good book (or even graphic novel/manga) rec for something like Valley of the Dolls? I own Helter Skelter and just looking for more to read in this genre of women and the dark underbelly of showbiz
No. 190514
>>190498I suspect you've already had this recced (possibly by me on some thread somewhere, lol), but definitely check out Moyocco Anno's work – I'd say Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen especially, though it's more "dark underbelly of 'glamorous' courtesanry."
Another comic: Snotgirl, which I think is three volumes deep. Very anxious, snarky, cutting look at a mega-famous LA influencer who is privately a whacked-out mess who is also becoming obsessed with a bizarrely perfect girl who's new on the scene.
Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates is a huge undertaking
and has also been adapted into an apparently heinous movie starring ana de armas and it gets pretty weird, but I also think it has some genuinely fantastic writing and really captures the glamour/fucked up edge. Fictionalization of Marilyn Monroe's life.
The Final Revival of Opal and Nev is less glamorous, but I really liked it. Don't be fooled by the title – it's definitely Opal's story. Framed as an oral history of a cult-fave art-rock '70s duo made up of Nev, a lovably-dweeby British dude, and Opal, a super avant-garde young black woman from Detroit. Nev went on to become Elton John-ishly famous, Opal didn't hit those heights but has had a solid career. Their time together is intertwined with a violent incident (think Altamont Free Concert) even they don't yet know the whole truth of. It covers a lot of ground, but what I loved the most is how well it captures the way fame is especially fickle for women. If you'd like something that doesn't totally destroy the heroine who looks the abyss of showbiz in the face, this is a good choice.
If you're at all interested in poetry, Amber Tamblyn's Dark Sparkler is a collection about dead actresses. Tamblyn is an actress herself, which makes this especially interesting – and not in a "oh neat" way, she's a genuinely great writer.
This was everywhere a few years ago, but still worth mentioning: Daisy Jones and the Six. Like Opal and Nev, a faux oral history about a '70s band. Looks at the drama and crisis and triumph behind their success, especially their era-defining album. If you're at all into audiobooks, the cast for this one is amazing. Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by the same author might also be worth a look, though tbh I think it's a weaker work.
Don't remember its details super well, I remember liking Ella Berman's The Comeback. Young actress who had a big messy downfall attempts to make, yes, a comeback, while also having to face her Dr. Luke-ish manager.
Dietland is less showbiz exactly, but I think it has that demented/brilliant edge Valley of the Dolls captures. A woman considering lap band surgery ends up entangled in a bonkers plot involving teen magazine advice columns, someone/some people who are possibly a feminist terrorist cell murdering high-profile rapists, and fad diet empire heiresses. Really searing satire of the beauty/diet industry, but also just really pleasantly insane (there's a bit that's like, four straight pages of increasingly absurd lipstick shade names).
Also slightly adjacent to showbiz, but If I Had Your Face. About four women in modern Seoul, very focused on the beauty industry, plastic surgery, hostess bars, etc.
Delayed Rays of A Star – tbh I remember thinking this missed a few marks, but I did still enjoy it, and admired its ambition. Probably the most literary book on this list, in that you might find it a little pretentious, but if it clicks, it clicks. Based on an actual photograph taken of Leni Riefenstahl, Anna Mae Wong, and Marlene Dietrich – charts their lives before, during, and after it was taken. Really interesting contrasts and overlaps.
No. 190578
File: 1647688269334.jpeg (494.49 KB, 1680x2560, outlawed.jpeg)
just finished outlawed, really loved it. any other recs for something of a similar vibe? (also any westerns that are different from the normal 'cow wrasslin' folk' story)
No. 190641
File: 1647709557842.jpg (67.47 KB, 488x488, GUEST_83a3135b-c661-4bf6-ae3f-…)
>>190578ooooh i've been eyeing this one for a while but have been turned off but the "western" aspect of it. would you mind giving me a brief synopsis anon?
i just finished reading upstream by mary oliver. i liked it and got what she was going for, but probably would have enjoyed it more if I knew a more about naturalist writings
No. 190680
File: 1647719457244.jpg (731.48 KB, 1653x2476, snow crash.jpg)
started reading snow crash yesterday. ngl the writing is kinda 'off' at times. I wouldn't go so far to say that it's corny…but it's kinda corny. I still like it though
No. 191425
>>191396You should give it a shot, nonna. There's no gender bullshit in the book at all, so you don't have to worry about that. The romance is good and twisted, and the female side characters are written like actual people, so no ftm internalized misogyny. I really loved it.
>>191418Glad you're enjoying it so far. Have you ever come across anything else similar to it btw? I can't find anything else like it.
No. 191572
>>191565it's the same for me. i think it's because flipping pages, readjusting the book, readjusting your body's position, re-focusing on the text actually takes up more time than we think. when i read on my e-reader, i only move my eyes and click a button to flip the pages. when i read a physical book, i constantly have to flip pages, then the book tilts forwards or backwards a little, i have to readjust my position because my arm fell asleep or the book is so chunky to hold that it gets uncomfortable fast, etc.
i like seeing the visible progress through the pages when reading physical books, but ereaders are just way more comfortable when lying down.
No. 191776
File: 1648105304035.png (256.03 KB, 286x470, 580948309534.png)
>>191584YA but imo enjoyable even as an adult - the Old Kingdom/Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix. Also The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington, which is kind of Alice in Wonderland-ish but the protagonist is a 92-year-old woman.
No. 191787
File: 1648110074855.jpg (221.34 KB, 1463x2400, 71PEVpZOtDL.jpg)
Talking about unhinged female protagonists, what are your thoughts on Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn?
I watched this first as the HBO series and it's absolutely one of my favorites. Wanted to give the book a try since I love Gillian Flynn, but the tone is a bit different from the series - less serious, reminds me of MYORAR which I read recently.
No. 191799
>>191787It's the first book I have read from her. I wanted to watch the series because of Amy Adams because the plan gets procrastinated constantly.
Anyways, I think the book is great. I don't really have much complaints about it. The decisions the protagonist makes can be understandable with how she is, except the fact she slept with a minor iirc, wtf. Also the ending was weird. Every page has the protag drink and in some way I felt my kidneys begins hurting from reading through it.
I can't review it properly considering it's been years since I read it, sorry.
No. 192110
File: 1648221350800.jpg (562.11 KB, 1642x2560, 91Z2xVsAzRL.jpg)
Any recommendations for good social history books by/about women? Just finished picrel which is about the lives of the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper and liked it a lot for the dignity and insight it gives into women's lives at the time, so I'd love to find other stuff about re-analyzing what I would say is "well-established history" with a more feminist lens, if that makes sense.
It's been described as true crime which I normally don't enjoy either, but if there are any similar books about modern cases where the focus is on the victims rather than the perpetrator, I'd be open to that too.
No. 192169
File: 1648235707977.jpg (14.64 KB, 220x289, 7493274032842.jpg)
>>192055Hypatia is a very famous one. She was a mathematician, teacher, philosopher and the last curator of the Library of Alexandria. Unfortunately it's difficult to piece together facts about her from so long ago. I've heard Flow Down Like Silver is good but not super academic and incorporates some fictional storytelling, where Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher tries to only recount what is actually known.
No. 192191
File: 1648242018910.jpg (779.35 KB, 1600x2436, 91PL GE3ElL.jpg)
this book was really weird
No. 192214
File: 1648247293092.jpg (976.85 KB, 1500x2359, 91EWBiFTnGL.jpg)
Has anyone else read The Secret History? I'm about halfway through and enjoy it a lot. I love books that are really atmospheric (describing the scenery, the daily lives of the characters, putting detail into what the characters are eating, etc.) Does anyone have an "atmospheric" book they recommend?
No. 192221
File: 1648250741037.jpg (352.72 KB, 1695x2560, 8632685268.jpg)
Another one for the unhinged women pile. Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan, about a woman who's unable to find validation outside of a man. It's a little painful to read about her being so obsessed with some idiot guy, but it's told through a lens of self awareness. I thought it had some good things to say about the way men behave and how it can influence how women see themselves. It was very cathartic to see her find some peace away from men at the end.
No. 192255
>>192055Some of my favorites are Hannah Arendt, Bell hooks and (controversial I know) Ayn Rand. Rand and Arendt are both political philosophers that talk a lot about totalitarianism. Rand had some really dumb opinions, but she has a lot of really great anti-religion writing and some things she's written about the value you should place on your own happiness really speak to me as a woman.
Arendt was a holocaust survivor and wrote about a lot of different things, but is most known for her analyses of how people are able to do terrible things when put into certain environments.
Bell hooks is definitely best known for feminism and anti-racism, but she also has written a lot about other philosophical topics. All About Love is really well liked.
No. 192275
File: 1648267859477.jpg (151.51 KB, 1000x1533, 71IVvncsP7L.jpg)
Here's a rec if you're in the mood for a good ugly cry. I enjoyed it but it is extremely sad. Can anyone recommend me books with similar themes of the relationships between generations of women, but more upbeat? It'd be dope if they're somewhat autobiographical or surrounding actual historical events, but I'm open to pure fiction.
No. 192278
>>192214The way I've heard some people talk about this book was like it was mind blowing and they'd sell their souls to read it for the first time again. I was a little bit underwhelmed but I did like it. It got me into learning about ancient Greece and Rome.
I just read Catherine House and even though I didn't like it that much it was pretty atmospheric. Also gothic novels tend to be pretty atmospheric.
No. 192287
>>192266Not OP, but I had a big Rand phase and still have….I guess I'd call it a certain fondness for her.
I would rather die than talk about her with men though I agree w/ OP in that approaching her work specifically as a woman is rewarding, even when I disagree w/ her. And honestly she'd probably fucking hate that we're discussing reading her "as a woman," but uh, sorry, Ayn, it was always a factor. Selfishness: The Unknown Ideal is the one I'd point to, and the biography Goddess of the Market. Can't speak for OP, but it's like…in some ways, she represents the worst version of myself I could have become if I'd stayed extremely nlog-y. But there is still something arresting about her. There just really isn't any other intellectual female figure quite like her out there – she's not a trad-y conservawife, she's not even all that culturally "American" (though she'd disagree). Her opinions mimic ones we encounter a lot in the mainstream, but came from wildly different life experiences, and she did not feel beholden to fitting them into certain common shapes. Tbh sometimes I'm not sure where my interest in her as a person begins and my interest in her ideas ends, but either way, I think she's worth spending time with – even if you do spend a lot of that time kinda mad at her, lol.
No. 192917
File: 1648495510943.jpg (114.85 KB, 1438x1080, f9405e523f651dd73ed098674ffd66…)
This is oddly specific, but are there any fictional books about hardworking career women? Can be any time period or any kind of career.
No. 193119
File: 1648570782576.jpg (503.77 KB, 1700x2560, 81HA6TJ5K-L.jpg)
Have any of you read this? If so is it worth reading before the movie comes out?
No. 193229
File: 1648595057647.png (520.09 KB, 510x835, STOR_CHART.png)
>>192221>unhinged women pileI get a lot of my recommendations for these here and I know other anons ask for similar reads pretty often so I went through the old threads and tried to compile books that were described along these lines in a chart. Hopefully this is a little more convenient to other nonas
No. 193277
>>193229Omg. The nona we need AND the one we deserve right now – this is going to come in so handy. Honored to see some of my picks on here.
>>193239Ooh, ty for reminding me of Nightbitch–I've been meaning to read it for a while but totally forgot it'd come out. I'm betting this'll be another one to add to our Unhinged Woman Pile.
Food recs….Like Water for Chocolate is a classic. Also, it's a graphic novel, but Lucy Knisley's Relish. If there are any recipes in it you can eat with your diet, def try them out – I think I've cooked everything except the lamb in that book, and it was all good!
No. 193327
>>193229>>193239supper club by lara williams and sweetbitter by stephanie danler could belong on both the unhinged women pile and the food descriptions recs
>>193229also sympathy by olivia sudjic, animals by emma jane unsworth and problems by jade sharma have got to be on here
No. 193397
>>193327Problems definitely fits in. I was sad to hear Jade Sharma passed away a few years ago. I think Problems was based heavily on her life. I'll check out your other recommendations!
>>193229Thanks for making this, nona!
No. 193819
File: 1648801693474.jpg (868.44 KB, 1696x2560, 91cNL0UY8lL.jpg)
I finished this book a few days ago. I don't really know how to feel about it. I read Home Before Dark last year and wasn't very impressed. I think Lock Every Door was better but still kind of just.. eh. Some moments were really suspenseful and creepy, yet when the reveal came I still just felt underwhelmed somehow.
There's something about Riley Sager's writing that I just don't vibe with. It's hard to articulate but it feels kind of like he tries really hard to rationalize everything in the book. Like he's writing the book and sitting there trying to think of every possible hole a reader could poke in the plot and then debunking it and it doesn't feel subtle. But Idk if I'm just imagining it.
I also didn't appreciate how self deprecating the protagonist was in the beginning of the book. She had multiple monologues just about how undesirable and poor she was. At one point a guy flirts with her and she's like "this kind of guy NEVER even looks at me". Not that women don't have thoughts like that but he just went over the top with it. It really felt like man-writing-a-woman-syndrome at those points.
Idk, it feels like I've been let down by pretty much every "thriller" I've ever read. The only one I was ever blown away buy was The Turn Of The Key by Ruth Ware.
No. 194386
File: 1648979383146.jpg (453.2 KB, 1237x2044, the last wish.jpg)
so I finally finished this. I have been wanting to play the games for years but kept telling myself I'd read the books first. I started reading this book 2 years ago and then forgot about it. I finished it it just a few days ago.
gotta say I really didn't enjoy most of it. I found most of the book to be extremely boring. I only liked the ending parts with yennefer. also, I must be retarded because I was confused about some things about the ending and had to look them up. I'm still a little bit confused about some of the things tbh, but I guess it doesn't really matter if you get the big picture. ngl, the part at the end with geralt and yennefer making love got me horny
No. 194389
>>194386Yennefer is the best part of those books. Adore how Geralt is crazy for her even though she's a stone-cold bitch that doesn't take his shit and fucks around if it suits her purposes (which is what Geralt deserves, for being a manwhore). I love them together and (scrote) Trissfags can KYS. They all want an uncomplicated waifu that has no life beyond being obsessed over them.
Pickme literally fucked her best friend's long-time love interest (an on and off one, yes, but still).There is a lot to criticize or dislike about The Witcher, but it's really nice that the female love interest is a mature and powerful woman who has as many issues as the scrote protagonist, and not some naive ingénue (aka Triss).
No. 194435
>>194389>some naive ingénueAgree with you in general but this is just the thing, Triss is not even naive but knowingly sloppy and manipulative. Choosing to fuck your supposed friend’s man by
”convincing” him to have sex with you via magic (some people read this as rape which I’m inclined to agree with) is next level evil bpd psycho. All while playing the innocent of course. People can say what they want about the books overall but Yen is one of the most admirable and truly strong women in fantasy fiction. Hate how the show focused so much on a made-up traumaporn backstory that’s literally only mentioned in passing once in the books. She is shown to be vulnerable and fallible but primarily she’s a hypercompetent, intelligent heroine in her own right.
No. 194884
File: 1649151060328.jpg (783.06 KB, 1347x1987, 91 QoCPevVL.jpg)
This book was more sad than anything
I've read 4 of her books now. This was one of the better ones tbh. But the protagonist was not the brightest and made some dumb as shit decisions near the end of the book. At one point I was actually like "nooo" out loud at something she did.
I don't think I'll be reading any more of her books anytime soon.
No. 195035
>>194435Isnt she only doing
rape by magic in the games, or have I forgotten about it? I've read the series over 10 years ago, so I may have forgotten it. Wow, that would make book Triss even worse and make her behaviour in the Witcher 2 game in character (when I found it OOC in the past).
I want to high five you in regards to everything, but especially the shit TV series. Hardly could watch it, the first season was shit and didn't bother with the second. Also Yennefer's actress really didn't fit, she was too young and didn't have the cold femme fatale energy (someone like Eva Green would be what I'm thinking about).
I usually would be irked about a female character's arc partially being about desperately wanting to be a mother, but it has never bothered me with Yennefer. Maybe because it's only a facet od her story and personality. Also she can be cruelly competent about it, like in the Shard of Ice short story. Her relationship with Ciri felt natural and sweet to me too, I loved it.
No. 195165
File: 1649241025682.jpg (81.68 KB, 267x400, D3C53330A6FA60DABFA9645A3FD085…)
>>195055I can't recommend a good book on historical witchcraft in pre-Christian Europe, but I've found a few that might be of interest from digging around. Myth and Symbols of Pagan Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson looks genuinely interesting and seems to provide correlations between Celtic/Scandinavian traditions. She's done a number of her books on the beliefs/mythos of the Anglo-Saxon/Norse/Celtic. I'd start with her if you're looking for a general history of the folklore of that time. You can find some of these books on Internet Archive if that helps. Another place I'd look into;
http://www.neopagan.net/Witchcraft-Rec-Books.html. They have a lengthy rec page of paleopaganism that can be found on this page.
No. 195169
File: 1649241720039.jpg (33.68 KB, 300x450, 9780345497529.jpg)
Just got this in the mail, very excited to start it
No. 195552
File: 1649349662093.jpeg (21.88 KB, 255x391, BE3B8942-C1BC-4766-AD49-69A23A…)
I really liked the HBO adaptation so I picked the book up. So far it’s alright but it’s verging on just being a edgy moid ‘woe is me’ kind of thing. Any other nonnies read this? I do like that it gives way more info on the Drinkwater family than the TV show did.
No. 195554
File: 1649349845331.jpg (163.06 KB, 1200x801, isleofdogs.jpg)
>>195518I feel that
nonny, I started reading more novellas and nonfiction and also graphic novels/manga, right now I'm reading the Isle of Dogs book which gives bts look at the making/inspo from the film, it's really nice, and those sort of books that give these kind of tidbits and inspo behind films or anything are what help me when I'm feeling so tired from reading fiction!
No. 196063
>>195165wow I came here to post the exact same book lol
>>195055if you want to know more about celts specifically peter berresford ellis and b.c. cunliffe have a lot of books on that. I haven't read them but I think they are pretty solid. don't know a lot of books about the other religions though
No. 196408
File: 1649621072825.jpeg (339.9 KB, 3000x3000, 38783554-A8AF-479E-B2B7-C7DF59…)
Wings of fire anyone? I just ordered the new book as it apparently similar to warrior cats
No. 196414
File: 1649624769924.jpg (92.27 KB, 640x458, 1c4e7897fa0af8ded3d1c3c559f7e4…)
>>196408What a coincidence, I was just wondering if the warrior books were worth getting into
No. 196544
>>196414I highly recommend warriors cats they are so good maybe you find cockweed
For real there so good there is a few mangas & bunch of special books & field guides
No. 196556
File: 1649665616441.jpg (17.06 KB, 266x400, 18869970.jpg)
I wish I could say I was more well read when it comes to classics, but the constant misogyny and racism make them really unpleasant to read (yeah, I know I sound like an sjw).
A couple years ago I read Rebecca and absolutely hated it. Probably mostly because it had been extremely hyped up to me and it wasn't what I was expecting at all, but even if it hadn't been I think I still would have hated it (not necessarily because of misogyny, although I feel like you could argue that book had misogynistic tones in it).
Recently I decided to give Du Maurier another chance and read My Cousin Rachel. I only made it like 1/8 through the book but I swear every other character was always going on some rant about women and how terrible they are. At one point Ambrose even describes himself as a "woman hater". I mean I can stomach a certain amount of misogyny but it just gets tiring when it's in book after book after book.
No. 196591
>>196556Have you tried any of du Maurier's short stories? I've always found them way better than her novels. My fave collections of hers are Don't Look Now and The Breaking Point. I can't really remember what they're like for misogyny though (sorry)
But also, don't feel you HAVE to read "classics" if you're not enjoying them. Unless you're studying literature, reading is just a pastime and the "canon" is meaningless, life is short so just read what brings you pleasure
No. 196693
>>196556I personally file classics under "They simply didn't know any better" according to their year of publication, whenever there's misogyny before women acquire the right to vote, and whenever there's antisemitism before the shoah
>published in 1951Ouch!
No. 196776
File: 1649726849558.jpg (211.5 KB, 1867x1400, Yoshitaka Amano-Illustrations.…)
Sorry wasn't sure where to put this under but does anyone have rec for a good art book I could find on Amazon canada in the vein of the studio Ghibli film art books? Like bts of an animated film/show or even vidya? I have all the ghibli ones available and also a lot of Amano's work (his Illustrations books is so beautiful) but wanted to know if theres a book I have to buy, thanks nonnas!
No. 196815
File: 1649749809069.jpg (283.53 KB, 1024x691, dodo by thomas herbert.jpg)
I'm finally done with Thomas Herbert's Travels in Africa, Persia, and Asia the Great, a massive book with a massive amount of footnotes. It's a travelogue from an Englishman who went on an embassy trip to Persia and India, and all the other places they went on the way, in 1630.
To me the most interesting thing is that when it was first published it was a slim book and a straight forward travelogue by a young man. But over the years, the final edition came out forty years later, he continually added to the book from what he read about the places he went to and its history. He didn't travel anymore, but he read extensively all the latest books on the relevant sections and included the material embedded in his own travels. So, the short and matter of fact travelogue grew in great size by his added erudition.
An interesting experiment, but I think it was a failure. His digressions are much too lengthy and don't serve to really teach you much about the history of Persia and India, even when there are literally hundreds of pages of nothing but regurgitated history books. And since he wasn't really a scholar and his sources were limited at that age, a lot of the material is distorted and just plain wrong. It tried to combine a travelogue and a history book and it didn't work out well. It's a shite history book, a tertiary source too. But I do think it was an interesting idea and I'm glad I read an execution of it.
I also want to bitch about how my edition omitted dozens of sketches and engravings he did. This is a super scholarly edition that costs $200 retail and you can't even include all the pictures? AND WHY DID THEY OMIT THE PICTURE OF THE SHAH BUT INCLUDE SOME RANDOM SHITE ABOUT SOME RANDOM ISLANDER'S GARB HE SAW OFF THE SOUTH AFRICAN COAST WE TALKED ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THAT FUCKING SHAH'S DYNASTY FOR LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF PAGES AND YOU OMIT HIS PICTURE???? I think that was a mistake.
Here's his version of a Dodo. I was surprised to hear they didn't taste good. Out of all the places he went to, he probably had the most fun at Mauritius which is kind of funny.
No. 197240
>>197237I read it when I was 14 so take this with a grain of salt, but I liked it more. In fact it was one of the rare books I read at a decently fast pace as someone that rarely ever read books as a teen.
I know in online places people will tell you it's better in portrayal of a dystopian society than 1984 because it's less outwardly dystopian, which I thought was true when I read it.
No. 197312
>>197237I think it's more interesting than 1984. 1984 is more about how a surveillance state controls its citizens by brainwashing them and repressing them, Brave New World is about how citizens can be subdued by giving them exactly what they want. I think 1984 really can't be applied to today's society (it's more about nazi germany and stalinian russia than cameras in public parks and NSA), while BNW hits the nail on the head about how easily available mindless entertainment renders a whole society apathetic
Of course 1984 criticizes the state while BNW criticizes citizens, so it's easy to see why 1984 is the more popular one (this and the Apple ad campaign). The often forgotten third major dystopian novel is We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, which some (including Orwell) thought influenced BNW (which Huxley denied)
No. 197515
File: 1649999580762.jpg (59.52 KB, 440x637, spiritual taxonomies.JPG)
Just finished this. I wasn't crazy about it itself, but it made me really want to read Origen, Porphyry, and Iamblichus and it gave me an excuse to re-read two tractates from the Nag Hammadi codices. Earlier this year, I read a book on different perspectives of the Song of Songs which prominently featured Origen, so I was already interested in Origen. I decided to bite the bullet and I ordered a copy of On First Principles. But damn it's going to be pricey to get a library of Origen.
No. 197525
Does anyone else set yearly reading goals? I want to read at least 50 books this year, read at least 5 books published in 2022 (since I mainly read backlist titles), and finally read the entire LotR trilogy. I'm in a bit of a reading slump right now so I'm not making much progress on any of these goals, but it's nice to have something to work towards. I feel like otherwise I wouldn't read as much.
>>197515I didn't understand a word you just said but I'm happy for you nona
No. 197536
File: 1650005353682.png (1.13 MB, 695x900, 3F4F9CEB-72E3-4427-97A1-7F9A23…)
Read part one of Faust. It was pretty fun, and I managed to catch the references to alchemical and occult concepts. After reading I watched bits of performances online (the Walpurgisnacht scene is my favorite, kek) then found some quirky fanart by Harry Clarke, pic related. Not sure when I will get around to part two since the library doesn't have it. I'd rather read a physical version. I don't mind postponing since I heard the second part is vastly different to the first
No. 197664
>>197525I don't make yearly reading goals because I'm really neurotic and I know I'd put too much pressure on myself and start feeling bad if I didn't accomplish them lol. I'm also a mood reader which means I'm extremely fickle about what I read. I can be all excited for a book and then start reading it and get bored immediately.
I've also been sticking to audiobooks as of late. I live with my family who is loud as shit 24/7 and I need dead silence to read. I can listen to audiobooks at work though so that's how I consume most books. The thing is my library has a rather limited selection of audiobooks so a lot of times what I listen to is based on what's available. I also tend to absorb audiobooks better than reading with my eyes which kind of sucks because I actually prefer reading with my eyeballs but it's whatever.
I'm thinking of maybe making general goals though. Like "read 1 nonfiction a month" because I think I could accomplish that. The problem is I tend to set goals way too high.
No. 197678
>>197515If you can bear digital books most of Origen's writings can be found here
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Origen>>197523That's normal, neoplatonists are practically unknown today
No. 197680
File: 1650060115564.jpeg (40.84 KB, 333x500, 51sTlqah8dL.jpeg)
My friend recommended I read this book and its sequel, Hunting Adeline, which I'm about 80% of the way through. It's about a 26-year-old writer who falls in love with her stalker, a man who owns a company working to dismantle human trafficking.
It was alright, but you can tell the author used to write fanfiction because she has a crutch adjective ("feral") and refers to eyes as "pools" or "orbs" quite a bit. BookTok is going nuts over it at the moment, which is why I'm posting about it here. I believe it was even free on Kindle for a while there.
No. 197684
>>197547It is largely overhyped. There are several somewhat interesting parts in it but Proust has an absolutely horrid writing style. I'm french so I read the first 2 books in the original french, and I found the english translation actually much more understandable, since a translator's first concern is to make a text readable and Proust is incapable of it. It's still an important series of books, as it spawned numerous authors with similarly unreadable prose (for instance Marguerite Duras, perhaps even helped the creation of structuralism and post structuralism), but reading it is a chore. Proust "enjoyers" usually just read Du côté de chez Swann then drop the rest, and while the first book is a popular read it'd be very hard to find someone who has read all seven books.
However it's possible that something about Proust's style clicks with you, so I recommend to give the first book a try. He may be a pain in the ass to read, but Proust is by no means dull or witless
No. 197686
File: 1650063747858.png (65.46 KB, 554x440, 4328409328407553.png)
>>197680I really stopped being into yanderes and the whole "rape and abuse just means you're irresistible to him" attitude past puberty. Sounds like Twilight and 50 Shades for zoomers but even more violent. I get it most women have their mentally ill fetishes but it's sad a lot of them go on to accept that dynamic in real relationships too
No. 197715
File: 1650073938139.jpg (439.05 KB, 800x1065, song of solomon egon tschirch.…)
>>197678Sadly, I am too autistic for digital. Also, I want my future children to inherit my library.
>>197532Song of Songs: A Biography. It summarized a lot of different schools of thought on the poem throughout the ages, from religious to secular and ancient to modern. It started with Akiva and then Origen. It compared the differences in allegorical readings and then later literal readings. It was an interesting bibliography, basically. Also talked about its influence on Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Toni Morrison.
I got a lot out of it, so I'd say it's worthwhile.
No. 197830
File: 1650114930239.jpeg (449.16 KB, 1125x1398, 0B2CBBF9-037F-4168-9D2F-B1BAFF…)
I wish I knew what the exact word for this is besides just being very descriptive but my ESL ass loves books that contain like full on paragraphs describing clothes, foods, etc and wondering if anyone knows a book that has those lush descriptions (better if it’s more realistic and not fantasy) My fav that I just read and looking for similar books basically is Justine by Forsyth Harmon (picrel) - it gave Rivers Edge by Kyoko Okazaki vibes - and was wondering if anyone knew similar books?
No. 197855
File: 1650125004102.jpeg (803.04 KB, 1170x2190, 3029DC7B-09CE-4949-B88D-698F76…)
>>197830The Game of Thrones series has a reputation for being extra descriptive of food, banquets, etc.
No. 197859
>>197830I was reading Fellowship of the Ring (LOTR) and every few pages in the begining of the book they were stopping to describe some big feast or party. It also describes the scenery of the landscape in great detail when they arrive at new locations.
>>197841Kek
No. 197869
>>197855>>197859Thanks nonnas but I’ve read them and that’s why I was asking for more realistic not fantasy works!
>>197841Double kek
No. 197995
File: 1650163024789.gif (1.25 MB, 498x498, wuv.gif)
>>197890>>197936Ohh I had a friend rec Anne Radcliffe but is there any authors you rec as a good starting point also? kek is this what it takes for me to finally properly learn french?
>>197989Love Carter (just re-reading the Bloody Chamber actually, Morrison and Nabokov, so I'm totally checking out White Oleander
Thank you to every nonna who responded, this gif is for you all!
No. 199032
File: 1650450227617.jpg (337.63 KB, 853x1200, la sagrada biblia.jpg)
I got my Spanish Bible in the mail today. I'm going to read 1-3 chapters a day and I should finish it in 2-3 years.
Pic related isn't my copy, but it's the same version.
No. 199050
>>199032No shade,
nonnie, but why is this exciting for you? Are you learning Spanish and wanted to read it, or were you feeling religious?
The cover is really pretty.
No. 199102
File: 1650475386516.gif (75.88 KB, 250x250, thanks for lifting me up nonny…)
>>198658I haven't read Mrs. Dalloway in over a decade, but downloading a copy again and thank you nonna! I only only Marquez who horrified me and turned me of the genre but can trust women so I'll check out your recs!
No. 199107
File: 1650477453851.jpg (30.41 KB, 312x475, 45363333._SY475_.jpg)
Not sure if there's a better thread for this, I couldn't find an alt right lolcow thread. This book is written by an angry young man who has taken literally every black/red/? pill imaginable and is now lashing out in a suicidal rage. The author used to work for Breitbart and is connected to Milo Yiannopolous and Baked Alaska among other alt right figures. Some highlights:
>Praises domestic and international terrorists like ISIS and Kaczynski for "taking action"
>Explicitly calls for mass murder of anyone who isn't white, male, and fit
>"Ironically" suggests people carry out mass chaos and incite anarchy by destroying cell towers, destroying electronics with homemade EMPs, give machetes to the homeless, give 3rd world slaves weapons and send them into major American metropolitan areas, blow up buildings, to name a few
>Has violent, descriptive fantasies about killing women, gay people, jews, black people, Chinese people, and cops. Examples include shooting up a concert, shooting up a gay nightclub, curbstomping women, stabbing his female hairdresser, crushing a woman with a bookshelf
>Whining about the death of God but proclaiming himself a Christian
>Chapters on women range from him admitting he wants a mommy figure to soothe him to calling for a 'whore holocaust'
>Praises /mu/core artists and says that only straight white men are artists. Included references are John Maus, Ariel Pink, Homeshake, Mac Demarco. The author has made music and has a soundcloud.
>Patrick Bateman-esque, strict adherence to lifestyle - only eats pure unprocessed food (raw dairy/meat/vegetables, no alcohol, no energy drinks), lifting weights and screaming to the point neighbors are concerned/cops are called
>Goes on about what expensive clothes he wears, is revolted by people whose outfits cost less
>Bitching about how New York City smells bad and how disgusting homeless people are
Basically advocating for acceleration, genocide, a "hard reset" and retvrn to the woods. A few parts were funny, but most of it is just schizoid ramblings of a disaffected zoomer. I don't disagree with some of his takes on modernity and the industrial revolution but this is pretty disturbing to read
No. 199146
>>199107I was considering reading this out of curiousity but sounds like a slog.
>stabbing his female hairdresserclassic. man can't cut his own hair and fantasizes about killing the woman who does
>Goes on about what expensive clothes he wears, is revolted by people whose outfits cost lessi wasn't expecting this. fascinating.
No. 199153
>>199107fight club was a mistake kek. male retardation really never ceases to amaze. useless, disposable creatures.
still waiting on that sheltered storm update after lanza's youtube account got dug up. it changes a lot. I wonder if it'll ever come.
No. 199180
>>199107I hate tech and want return to monke, but this is so retarded. He thinks if the world was chaotic and laws relaxed he could be on top, not realising they used to be, and it wouldn't just be subjugating based on sex, race, orientation etc., and that men would be subjugated by other men and one man with enough strength and resources gained by using that strength would just hoarde everything and have harems. He's a seething weak man.
>Only men can be artists.>Writes this.I think he disproved his own theory.
>Has a sound cloud.KEK. How embarrassing.
Just another failson reeing that no one recognises how special he is (read; views himself as like a narc).
No. 199232
File: 1650515021985.jpeg (1.01 MB, 1638x2442, C8FA5088-9050-4B3D-9A4B-AA7E88…)
I’ve been skipping all of Levin’s parts after the beginning because fuck, he’s so boring and pretentious. He thinks he’s better than everyone else just because he lives in the country? Dude doesn’t even do anything important half the time (I read the chapter summaries.) I won’t rag on the age gaps because we all know how it was 100+ years ago and this was written by a scrote, so.
No. 199314
File: 1650556722357.png (101.4 KB, 694x741, eOEugQH[1].png)
>>197995French novels are reason enough to start learning french, but 19th century novels (whose figureheads are Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Stendhal, George Sand, Gustave Flaubert and Honoré de Balzac) aren't a very good starting point if you have a beginner level in french, just as 19th century english novels aren't a good starting point for reading english novels.
I'd say you could start with authors Jules Verne (who has trouble writing women who aren't damsels in distress, but has a style simple enough that he's considered children lit), Marcel Aymé (notably Les Contes du Chat Perché), or even Alphonse Daudet and his Lettres de mon moulin, a collection of short stories among which La Chèvre de monsieur Seguin is a grade school classic (pic rel is a lush description of a goat having fun in the mountain)
Except Marcel Aymé all of these authors should be available on wikisource (
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Lettres_de_mon_moulin)
No. 199612
File: 1650664730023.jpeg (83.21 KB, 735x910, 693D1077-1968-499A-ADF2-D0ADCB…)
Nonies, how do you feel about Stephen King’s books? I used to be a huge fan growing up, but I’ve been rereading It out of nostalgia and I’m a little shocked at how… bloated it feels, and very clumsily written at times.
No. 199712
File: 1650702647155.jpg (107.23 KB, 1024x838, EZl0ImXU0AAJsrY.jpg)
>>199612I tried to get into his stuff and I just couldn't. I read Cell and somewhat enjoyed it but thought surely The Shining is going to be miles better. Started it several times and just couldn't finish it. I feel like his works have a bad case of samevoicedness, the characters all sound the same and don't have a distinctive language of their own. Also the way he writes women is ridiculous (see picrel, not my screenshot). I'm still thinking about picking up Salem's Lot because I like vampire stuff
No. 199718
File: 1650705127132.png (287.83 KB, 485x812, stephenwritingbreasts.png)
>>199713Ikr. I feel like he is incapable of writing women without objectifying them. Whenever he writes about a female character, the first thing he writes about is their breasts. Picrel is King's breast-writing compilation, which includes a guy thinking about fondling a dead body to see how hard her breasts are
No. 199719
File: 1650705569969.jpg (628.42 KB, 1347x2128, 915sRfi3ZwL.jpg)
I like Stephen King and he's an author I come back to a lot because I know what I'm gonna get from him. He has a few shorter novels that are more tightly written, but in general his novels are full of fluff - personally I don't mind this, but I wouldn't try to get into him if you aren't down for 30 pages of backstory on some old guy down the road that has no relevance to the story. It does annoy me how he can't seem to stop objectifying every female character, especially because King probably sees himself as a feminist. There's also a lot of weird borderline racist stuff in a lot of his books.
No. 199741
File: 1650713647409.jpg (55.33 KB, 323x500, uweytywt.jpg)
>>199734Yes, this annoyed me very much in Salem's Lot especially. There's one meaningful female character in the entire book and she's killed off pretty early while all the men get to participate in the final fight. I did think Rose Madder was very good though, and it's a rare female protagonist from him. It's the book that actually made me like him as a writer. It's been a couple years since I read it though and I wasn't as woken up about feminism then, but at least I remember it fondly.
>>199720Me too! I wish they'd come back in style. Especially for horror.
No. 199767
File: 1650723560364.png (1.2 MB, 800x808, eyewear.png)
>>199720God if there's one thing I hate it's modern book covers, I can't stand the monotonous, bland, washed out pastel covers they keep incessantly pumping out. So lazy and boring. I'd love to see more detailed illustrations come back, not just for horror
No. 199799
File: 1650730613190.jpg (54.07 KB, 1200x1167, Minimalism-2.jpg)
>>199767I feel like book covers nowadays are either overdesigned (too loud and colorful) or take the minimalist (picrel) route. I hate the too busy covers because…well, since most of book covers nowadays try to catch your attention, none of them will because they just disappear into a uniform, colorful mess. Minimalism I feel ambivalent about because on one hand, it works really well against the overdesigned ones (empty spaces draw attention) and they usually attempt to capture the essence of the book in a visual way, on the other hand lately I have been feeling that I grew tired of seeing them because they are trying to be overly smart with the design and I find this irritating. There was a simplicity to the 70s/80s covers that I really enjoyed because they weren't trying to be smart or attention-catching, they just communicated the mood of the book in a simple way
No. 199915
File: 1650752863644.gif (115.1 KB, 112x112, 576993364571062278.gif)
am i dummy for enjoying "my year of rest and relaxation"? i wasn't aware it was adopted by the "coquettecore" crowd (which i dislike because it's just lolita shit re-branded).
i get that the protag is a terrible person but i can't help but to understand her/like her as a character because i do see a bit of myself in her. namely abusing anti-psychotics for sleep and thinking i'm so far above my normie friends (i'm trying to break out of these modes of thought, but yeah)
No. 199923
File: 1650754753202.jpeg (75.82 KB, 500x764, 34BA2E6D-2D8A-4572-908F-739CEB…)
>>199799imo to the worst book covers out there are the ones like your picrel, where they’re trying to be all wink-wink-nudge-nudge clever, and ones like this where it’s barely more than a stock photo and/or is super unmemorable.
No. 199924
File: 1650754834756.jpeg (53.02 KB, 626x626, 63C8FCFA-01BA-4FBD-A6DC-A063E7…)
Samefag, here’s a modern book cover I really like that is simple but not snarky, and looks like someone actually put some thought into the art and the book when making it.
No. 199928
File: 1650755125468.jpg (225.74 KB, 1600x900, l-intro-1628872647.jpg)
can someone recommend me homoerotic vampire stories? preferably nothing in first perspective.
No. 199929
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>>199924Oh also, the Thai Harry Potter covers are super loud with a lot going on but at the same time they’re really well-done and memorable so I like them.
No. 199935
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>>199923Hate stock photo covers, but also for no real reason I hate these kinds of illustrated covers, maybe because they remind me of Tumblr-y art in how cluttered and literal they look. I guess it suits the genre since most of them are YA, but I've recently seen classics rebranded with similar cover art, see picrel with Pride and Prejudice.
Probably the worst of both worlds is when it's just a cover based on the movie adaptation though.
No. 199971
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>>199928>>199943you've probably read it if you're into homoerotic vampire stories but carmilla
No. 200007
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>>199767My favorite book covers are from the Discworld novels, where they just crammed as much shit as possible
No. 200009
>>199915>am I allowed to like a book about a bad person even though that's the whole point and that farmers loved long before coquettcore was a thing??? Am I???You sound like a newfag and a twitterfag at that. We adore uNlIkAbLe WoMeN here (it's high time we got stories like that after we've been brainwashed into empathising with awful scrotes for years), coquettes don't own this fucking book or anything and as mentioned, if you browsed previous threads plenty of nonas related to it.
Asking for permission and explaining how you aren't supporting
pRoBlEmAtIc protagonist makes you look retarded.
No. 200221
>>200009Cmon anon, lay off a litle. No one's obligated to read old threads, and we've all been the self-conscious girl bracing for the "NO YOU STUPID BITCH WHO LIKES STUPID THINGS!!!!" hit.
>>199915 As you can probably tell anon, plenty of people like this book here. And lol, other anon IS right, anyone who acts like this book is uniquely awful when we live in a world with 24093059 Patrick Bateman books is ridiculous. I think MYORAR is especially good at skewering the protag's superiority complex – it's not something you see much in books by/about women, but it's real and it manifests in ways that are interestingly different from men's superiority complexes imho.
No. 200657
I can never finish books because I start them, read them fast, put them aside to do other stuff like idk, sleeping, eating, going to work, and after that I just procrastinate. I'm considering rebuying the HP books but i English this time (the French translation was good from what I remember but now that my English is more than good enough, why not) and I'm considering continuing the Captive Prince books I started years ago and forgot about. I also want to get back into The 12 Kingdoms because I read the first 3 arcs in French in middle and high school and couldn't afford the rest of the series because I was a poorfag. Aside from that I don't know. I want to go back into reading but I never know where to start because being super busy and tired in high school and uni turned me off reading anything except manga. Maybe I should go back to some French classics I liked like Arsène Lupin, Au bohneur des dames, etc, and I'm interested in le Compte de Monte Cristo, but I feel like I'd dislike most of these authors other books as well. I also want to reread some of Roal Dahl's books for nostalgia's sake, especially Mathilda.
By the way, since finding good josei manga with translations is kind of difficult, what novels would you recommend that are about working women's daily life that aren't pure depression or 100% about romance? I liked the devil wears prada when I read it long ago, so maybe I could look for similar novels. I'm ok with them if they're urban fantasies too btw.
No. 200692
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>>200657For working women I really liked Nina Stibbes novels, especially her auto bio and Paradise Lodge (which is part of a trilogy tho and does feature romance but in a funny not very centred way,) and also Sourdough by Robin Sloan (programmer/baker daily life in San Francisco) and Blood Sisters by Yideum Kim (quite sad and depressing though but a personal fav of mine.)
No. 201642
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Been reading this lately, I'm big into folklore studies and stuff like that and I find it in comparison to other fields, tends to have a decent amount of female authors. I find folklore / mythos authors/scholars in general tend to not to be as drenched in misogyny, which after a long time of reading philosophy, became exhausting to pull myself through.
No. 201828
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>>201642I feel the same way, anon. Do you like Tell My Horse so far? I love Their Eyes Were Watching God, so I'm definitely intrigued. I've been reading picrel lately, and it's pretty interesting – definitely mostly rooted in Western fairy tales, as that's the author's specialty, but it's still really expansive. She has some very interesting ideas about what the "shape" of the proposed "heroine's journey" might look like, as opposed to Joseph Campbell's hero's journey.
No. 202049
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I found this little book hiding behind a bunch of others in the feminist section of my local second hand bookstore last year. It always makes me smile, and I'm very glad I was able to find it (the sticker on it said it'd been at the store since 2007!)
No. 202652
I just found out the US military has reading lists
https://www.usni.org/press/military-reading-listsMost of them are what you'd expect (there's even Starship Troopers in one), with a surprising Invisible Women in the air force's list
No. 202661
>>202049I love this!!!
>>202001Do it,
Nonnie No. 202700
I sold the five first volumes of the 12 Kingdoms last year or two years ago iirc, despite liking them when I was in middle school. I'm considering rereading them as well as volumes 6 and 7. No way I'll be able to find a copy of the next volumes because they cost at least 300€ or something so if I can pirate them I will. No way I'm ordering the books in Japanese either, they have been reprinted not long ago and I studied Japanese in university but it's a fantasy story inspired by Chinese mythology so I'd be completely lost if I tried to read it and I remember reading the books in French way back and already being lost with some of the explanations about kanji and names. Should I buy volumes 1 from volumes 7? They're fairly cheap.
I'm also considering reading Battle Royale since it's such a classic and I remember liking some of the manga volumes I read long ago. Did it age well?
>>200692Thanks for the reply, I will look into this. What kind of vibe did these books give you? Were they funny, depressing, relatable? I'm honestly ok with romance as long as it's not the focal point of the book. Like in the devil wears Prada, when you see the MC's breaking up with her bf and meeting another guy but it's just a subplot and part of a larger story for example.
No. 203079
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>>202747Is The Wheel of Time series worth reading? I started the Amazon series recently and it has its flaws but I thought the premise was interesting and I like the female characters so far.
I’m a little apprehensive because I’ve been looking for a high fantasy series but most of them seem too moidy for my taste and WoT was written by a man so don’t want to be disappointed again… If anyone has any other questions recs along these lines I’d appreciate it too!
No. 203178
>>193229>>192221Unhinged women anons, I just finished Acts of Desperation based on these recs, and wow. Loved it. It's such a completely naked look at that state of totally abject, totally pathetic need so many women can end up in over a guy – which I found a really interesting contrast to a lot of the other books in our unhinged women pile, actually. Like, a lot of them deal with this, but in a slightly different way – often imho more openly angry (Animal, Any Man) or more abstracted, like degradation from men is just one part of the puzzle (MYORAR, Social Creature, Earthlings, Gillian Flynn's stuff). But Acts is just IN IT the whole way through, and jesus, it's so raw.
Ciaran was so well observed – I don't think I've seen a better portrayal of guys who hate their gfs for being doormats but also repeatedly seek out doormats because they don't actually want an equal relationship. Also, this goes so against show-don't-tell, but I really loved the parts of this book (and others in the pile) that were just her musing and even straight up ranting about why she does the things she does, and how they're pretty understandable and even rational choices to make in the context of most straight women's lives. Seeing how often this approach pops up in a lot of these books kind of has me circling an idea that like…this is kind of a unique and worthwhile literary device in this little canon. I think a lot of women actually do have these little rants going in their heads, which can honestly be something that keeps you sane in an unfair situation b/c it keeps you tethered to the knowledge that this is bs and you're angry for a good reason, and putting it directly on the page is a really vivid representation of that. Kinda still chewing on this idea, but I think there's something really interesting in the divide this highlights between thought and action, and how lots of women, like our unnamed gal here, do things they don't like and KNOW they don't like but don't really know how NOT to do. That final sex scene with the wheedling dude was such a potent example of this.
So, so glad it ends with her alone. I really love that towards the end, she ends up having good, even idyllic times with a few different men – it made that final scene so strong. And I love too that it even kind of faces the loneliness she's feeling in Athens – like, this is hard, and there were comforting alternatives presented, but she's still fucking off.
No. 203251
>>202700For Nina Stibbe, her books her just really funny to me, there's some sad/melancholic moments here and there but overall I like how it's (Paradise Lodge one,) basically the story of a girl growing up and it's nice to see her maturing book by book. Blood Sisters was very raw, like it basically calls out the unfairness and misogyny in Korean society and the ending is just so out of left field and not happy but it's got good female friendship and despite the sadness not trauma porn or anything like that at all! Hope you can find the 12 kingdoms btw
nonny, making me want to play Suikoden now
No. 203257
>>203079>>203250The thing about the female characters only existing to be love interests is not true at all. The books are far from perfect when it comes to female representation but there are some strong female characters that play pretty important roles.
The problem is more the "gender wars" aspect. Some the female characters are insufferable, at least in the earlier books, usually because of how bullheaded they are. And a lot of them will say things like "Men! They can't even tie their shoes without our help!" And then the men will complain about how difficult women are etc. These books have been criticized both for being sexist towards women and men lol.
Other things about this book series is that the plot is slow moving, and there's a bunch of plots and subplots, a million characters, a ton of shit to keep track of and tons of filler in some of the books. Jordan is also overly descriptive with everything, like pages and pages of just fucking describing people's outfits and stuff like that.
>A lot of people say book 4 is the bestBook 4 was my favorite lol. Imo it didn't get good til about halfway through. I just finished book 13 (there are 14 books, not including the prequel). I have a lot to say. I can come back when Im done and write a blog post about it if you guys want lol.
No. 203262
>>203085>>203250AYRT, thanks for the replies, nonnies. I was mostly concerned with the “gender war” aspect
>>203257 mentioned because idk how nuanced a male author could approach it, but might pick them up for the cool world building anyway and see how it goes just as a fun series.
>>203257Definitely post an update! Appreciate how in depth your thoughts are.
>>203178I read this one but didn’t like it as much, but you’ve convinced me to give it a reread. I think it was just difficult to read because of how raw it was and how degrading and humiliating her relationship with Ciaran is. With stuff that’s more abstract or angry like you mentioned, it feels more removed and surreal, like parts of Any Man and Earthlings. So in a way I guess Acts is more uncomfortable because it’s more « mundane » in its subject matter and there’s not this explosive cathartic conclusion, but your post made me reconsider the ending more in vein of what kind of story it is.
No. 203564
>>203262Acts anon here. That's a really interesting distinction – I didn't think to think of Any Man/Earthlings/etc as being more cathartic b/c they're more abstracted, but that's totally true. And I love that tbh, and can def see how a lot of people wouldn't love Acts for being comparatively mundane – not saying this is you, but like, I have some friends that just really don't have it in them to get THAT up close and personal with this kind of degradation, and honestly, that's fair.
But yeah, I think there's really something to its ending being a cascade of shit – I think I really like that there's a contrast between Ciaran being his absolute worst and then the wheedling guy being "better" but infuriating her in this totally new way. It's like she's realized this is all on a continuum, which has trapped her in an awful cycle for years, and even the "nice guys" pull shit – but she can just step out of it. And I think it's especially powerful b/c the book is SO open about how degraded and pathetic this process can be for women, how much it makes her into someone we'd honestly maybe post about here….but it still ends on her side, with her enjoying the ocean because it helps her connect with her body in a way that has nothing to do with men. She can still come home to herself, despite everything. Report back later anon, whether or not you agree!
No. 203584
There's this book called The Idiot, and it is needless reading it because if you looking at it is exactly like reading it. It's kind of like getting into philosophy. You read a bunch a shit and you don't come out of it any better. Basically, you come out of it the same as someone who's been banned from an imageboard at least three times. Or it's like diarrhea, with these books: the first shit isn't distinct from the others. It's a coming of age zeitgeisty (Sally Rooney, if I find you it's on fucking sight, you better know how to run) book called the Idiot about a Turkish-American girl from New Jersey who goes into Harvard. Now, with one person pointing a gun at you, and the other covering your eyes: can YOU – the nonny reading this – guess the identity of the author? Yes, yes, oui, it's a Turkish-American Harvard graduate….from fucking New Jersey. Just how much this state will continue to launch upon us an assault of complete retards? Just like Sally Rooney was a Trinity college graduate studying literature. And a Marxist, KEK. Fucking self-inserts. These are are being heralded as contemporary greats right now – self-inserts by literary women, obsessed with the liminal space between adolescence and adulthood almost to a point of fetishization, all solipsistic and obnoxious and, most of all, boring. Here's a radical statement for once: your individual experiences don't matter. And if this trend continues I will start kidnapping publishers and I will gouge their eyes out. "I didn’t have any other life I could write about.” Don't fucking write. Put down the pen. You're better than that. Oh, and don't get me fucking started on the pop culture references. Oh, Mrs Self Insert listens to Fiona Apple? Regina Spektor? Of course. "Navigating adulthood", kek – navigate the physics of my fucking baseball bat
No. 203636
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I picked up this book and really enjoyed it. What are some books like it? (quick f5 search itt tells me it's a tiktok aesthetic book? fuck me)
Also, I spotted a book in a bookstore earlier this year and forgot to write down the title and now I can't find it anymore. It was something about a woman accusing a charismatic man/professor of something and something to do with greek mythology or greek statues? Vague I know that's all I remember, anyone recognize it and can tell me the name of the book?
No. 203675
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>>203579Bumpety-bump? Anyone read her stuff?
No. 203680
>>203675I have Piranesi, I read the first few pages and then forgot about it. I want to keep reading it but haven't yet. But from what I read it seemed really bizarre (in a good way). I've heard really good things about Piranesi across the board though. No interest in reading Jonathan Strange lol.
I'd suggest reading Piranesi first. Even if you don't like it it's a short book.
No. 203686
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Has anyone read the book the show Made for Love was based on? Is it any good? I like the show but I was wondering if the book differs largely in tone or plot
No. 203691
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Nonas, how do you go about finding new books to read?
No. 203693
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I've been in a major reading slump the past few months, but I recently read Jillian by Halle Butler and I liked it a lot. I believe it's been mentioned a few times in this thread in the context of unhinged women books. The protagonist works a job she hates and she has a heavy dislike for her co-worker Jillian. It really spoke to the depressed spiteful part of me that hates everyone and everything.
>>203686It's a quick read, and it's worth it in my opinion. It's pretty different from the show and a lot weirder, I like both.
>>203178I'm the anon who originally posted about Acts of Desperation - I'm glad you enjoyed it! You articulated a lot of my thoughts on it a lot better than I could have.
No. 203705
>>203693oooh this sounds so good
and somewhat relatable KEK, I'm gonna check it out. Also love the book cover
No. 203737
>>203693I liked this one too, I related to the protagonist for the same reasons kek. The parts from Jillian’s perspective were really good. I read The New Me by the same author and I liked it as part of the unlikeable-female-protagonist genre but it felt almost unfinished in comparison and I think having another main character made the narrative a lot more compelling. I feel like I’m digging myself into increasingly specific requests, but I really want to see more books about unlikeable, directionless older women like Jillian more often.
You might also like Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh if you haven’t read it already.
No. 204081
>>193229Thank you for this chart, I just finished Animal by Lisa Taddeo and I feel like I got the wind knocked out of me. At parts it was difficult to read, not necessarily because of the content, but just because of how gratuitous some of the details were. But I'm glad I finished. I'm starting Convencience Store Woman tonight and I have high hopes.
>>203079I stopped reading on the sixth book but I plan to finish it. There's some sexism, but it's not violent or anything. I often can't read books that I find too misogynistic and I didn't have any problem with WoT. If you like fantasy go for it. The series is long enough that it ends up feeling comforting to return to it, at least for me anyway.
No. 204087
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>>204055Couldn't agree more. You've reminded me of this bell hooks quote, which I think about a lot. If the only books published by women for ten years were Sally Rooney books, that would be a grain of sand compared to the ocean of navel-gazing bs men have produced. And I'm so much more concerned about women writers who'll stop themselves from writing b/c it might be omg cringe than I am about, idk, there being a lot of books by women I'm not into? I can read other things. Luckily, we're living in an age of women writers in a wide variety of genres.
No. 204154
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so I read this book because I just wanted some entertainment/hot trash and it delivered (I mean, it's well written, but the subject matter is hot trash) it's about a sugar baby/sugar daddy relationship gone wrong. I liked the twist at the end too. it kind of took the opposite turn from what I thought.
but one thing that stuck out to me is the main character is a 21 year old NYU art student. the book was written in 2019 and set in modern day. it mentions her art student friends and how liberal and anti gun they are and they all have tattoos and piercings etc. yet when they find out she's a sugar baby they're disgusted, they disown her and call her a whore. but in real life wouldn't they be like "hell yeah, SWIW, get that bag girl!!" or am I wrong? that part just felt kind of unrealistic imo
No. 204162
>>204155>How similar is Hunger Games and Battle RoyaleNot super similar, not sure what the weeab teacher means. Both only really have the concept of a battle royale between children and government/class commentary in common.
>Aduly Urban Fantasy ReccomendationsI read a lot of Urban Fantasy and have a big back catalogue, though I'm not sure about recommendations. I really just read everything and don't have a super high standard. Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko is good and probably the 'deepest' urban fantasy I've read, though not many so far I've read have been introspective. It is also translated from Russian and a little stilted/different in a way I enjoyed from English novels.
Mark of The Demon by Diana Rowland reminds me of the Shin Megami Tensei series, as well as Archangel Protocol by Lyda Morehouse, and World's End by Mark Chadbourn if you're into video games.
The Restorer by Amanda Stevens and the rest of the series is a decent gothic urban fantasy I enjoy about a woman who works restoring graveyards and often gets involved with the goings on in the places she works.
Anons have recommended Come Closer by Sara Gran for something less pulpy about a woman who gets possessed.
Wither is a good witch novel about a group of women and one girl bonded by a witch who was killed in their down and has become the central selling point of the town.
What kind of Urban Fantasy are you looking for, anon?
No. 204212
>>204155Imo pj is a lot less readable than hp and did not stand up to the test of time as well. Riordan has this thing where he makes a lot of 'witty' quips and pop culture references in his writing. It gets worse in later series and makes them basically unreadable, but in the og percy jackson books it can still be pretty annoying. I loved them when I was in middle school but they lost their appeal fast and I don't think I'd try to re-read them again. Honestly apart from being childrens/YA and having a setting with magic, they're not similar to HP at all.
Comparing hunger games and BR… They're pretty similar in plot but not so much in execution. I don't think it's plagairism though, and probably not even inspiration. Battle Royale wasn't popular in the west until after the Hunger Games iirc. But definitely read Battle Royale if you get the chance, I read it while on lockdown from a shooter so maybe it seemed worse to me but that book was one of the scariest I've ever read.
No. 204237
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just finished this up. i thought it was alright, the ending was totally expected imo. to me it's one of those books that get shilled as deep when it's really nothing new or revolutionary
No. 204240
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>>204214Yep he's serving a life sentence! I wasn't in any immediate danger or anything hence why I could read.
>>204233I haven't read the books in a while but yes, it's pretty bad, especially in the later spinoff series. At one point Apollo got snapchat and that was when I stopped reading. I think the first series is still alright though and you might enjoy them enough to get over the cringe.
On the subject of bad books, has anyone read picrel? I'm tired of writing full sentences so:
>Lesbian mc constantly talks about porn >Set on a space ship in a different world where necromancy is real >Still has multiple pop culture references for some reason>No world building, nothing is ever explained>15+ characters introduced in the space of a few chapters >First two thirds of the book involve nothing happening while the mc walks around not knowing what's going on>Ending consists of multiple twists showing various characters have been dead/reanimated this whole time and then main character dies killing a villain that was literally just introducedI started reading the next book in the series, Harrow the Ninth, because why not
>One of the main characters literally says "choke me daddy" within the first three chapters>God is introduced as a character >God is all powerful but also doesn't know everything but also knows everything and is also a guy>More random unexplained magic >Everyone is immortal now yadda yadda yadda>Every single likeable or funny character from the first book has been killed offI'm going to finish it out of pure spite. Will probably end up reading the next book in the series too.
No. 204242
>>204240>At one point Apollo got snapchat and that was when I stopped readingObviously I have no context for this but this gives me some "how do you do fellow kids" vibes. Isn't the writer also the guy who bragged online at some point because unlike JKR his books are inclusive and have trans characters? Or something like that? I'm morbidly curious now, maybe I'll pirate the movie adaptations because I'm too lazy to hate read anything.
>lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!kek that's already too much for me
No. 204245
>>204240I refused to read that purely because the author claims to be a lesbian despite having a whole ass husband she isn't leaving
she was also called out for writing child rape fanfiction tho I'm not 100% sure about that no way someone that crazy could write a decent lesbian story. Ty anon I feel vindicated by your post kek
No. 204274
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What non-fiction books have you read recently? Finally read Invisible Women after seeing it recommended so much and I loved it!
I went to read reviews on Goodreads which was a mistake. So many people reeing about inclusivity and troons>>204240I read Gideon and liked it but it's definitely not for everyone. Shame that the author is Like That
No. 204275
>>204240I bought this book because I heard a lesbian had wrote it and I was really excited to see some rep. Then I discovered that not only was that a lie but the book itself is just mediocre. I agree with your points nona.
I'm about halfway through and I don't know if I can take it anymore kek. I feel like I can get into any genre if I'm told a good story, but this just isn't it. I'm pissed that this was shilled to me.
No. 204286
>>204245I googled this and damn you're right. I understand thinking you're straght and realizing later in life you're gay, I understand thinking you're gay and then realizing later in life you're bi (did that myself kek), but I don't understand realizing you like women and men and deciding to call yourself a lesbian. Why not just say bisexual? I wouldn't give a shit if a bi in a het relationship wrote some lesbian romance, I wouldn't even give a shit if a straight girl wrote lesbian romance. But there's something so skeevy about her calling herself a lesbian while being in a happy relationship with a man. Like lesbian is just a funky aesthetic for her, not a real sexuality.
Still going to finish hatereading the series though. I started it because a girl I like recommended it to me, so if these books kick off one actual girl/girl relationship I will forgive the author for her homophobia.
No. 204323
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I get anons' concerns, but I'm gonna stick up for these books. I was pretty sure I wouldn't like them, but tbh the memey jokes only really bugged me a few times – this is a world with comic books, fast food, and electricity, so imho it fit to have modern slang present. I also get people's irritation with her husband and tbh I don't know what's going on there, but I'm also fucking shocked by how really unabashedly female-centric these books are. I keep bracing for gender shit and it never comes – the focus really is on a wide range of female characters, the lesbians really are lesbians, and Gideon really is butch.
Harrow the Ninth is a HUGE departure, so I'd encourage anyone who isn't 100% on board with GtN to at least check it out. But honestly I loved it way more, and I think she's actually doing something really interesting with the God Is A Normal Guy Now thing. This gets a little lost in the marketing imo, but I think the series plays around with religion as worldbuilding in a really unique way. I don't wanna say too much and spoil anyone interested, but there definitely seems to be an endgame in mind with all her weird mixing of pop culture, Catholicism, and classics stuff. We'll have to see where it lands, but for now, it really doesn't feel quite like anything else I've read – and with such a huge focus on women to boot.
No. 204335
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This book was fucking terrible.
No. 204364
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Just finished this one, I think the author managed quite well to give the feeling of someone obsessing over a lost love and distant memories. It also describes quite well the overwhelming feelings you get as a teenager when you feel strong sexual desire for someone for the first time. It was better than the movie IMO.
No. 204415
>>204393Nta but here you go
nonny. Not a pdf though but it can be converted.
https://b-ok.lat/book/11304167/724251 No. 204432
>>204323I'm currently listening to this as an audiobook while I work. I like it okay but I'm having the same problem with it that I had the first book–it's strangely confusing. I don't think it's a me problem because I've read plenty of objectively harder books with no problem. I feel like the author never explains things enough. On the other hand I'm not used to listening to audiobooks so that might be the problem lol.
>>204335Why? I love hearing about bad books.
No. 204459
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>>204155A Fine and a Private Place by Peter S Beagle is one of my fav comfy urban fantasies. He's one of the few male authors I genuinely stan for since his novels, like his more famous The Last Unicorn are just good fantasy with intriguing characters. I recommend both. The latter is more high fantasy but it's also one of the few high fantasies I genuinely think everyone should read.
No. 204469
>>204459I second you on both of those books. They are wonderful.
I sadly dropped Innkeeper's Tale – what's your opinion on it?
No. 204535
>>204469NTA, I read the Inkeeper's Song a long time ago. I remember liking it overall, but other than that I hardly remember it.
It does have multiple sex scenes in it though, including one weird orgy scene with like 4(?) people having sex. In my memory the scene seemed kinda random too, like there wasn't a lot of/any build up. Another thing that I've heard people say they don't like about it, well, it's kind of a spoiler, so without mentioning specific names
a male character uses magic to appear as female. He has sex with a female character who thinks he's someone else in the orgy scene. Later these two characters have a romanceIt didn't really bother me all that much, but it did feel kind of strange and unnecessary.
No. 204543
File: 1651996838270.jpg (29.58 KB, 300x424, peter-s-beagle-a-fogados-eneke…)
>>204469I bought it for the cover back in the day because it was designed by a local illustrator that I liked, but the book itself I didn't have strong feelings about tbh. As this
>>204535 anon said, that one orgy scene was so random and uncalled for.
I can't recall specifics about the plot but it had that 'stillwater' feeling that magical realism usually has and I felt like it was as adventurous as I would have liked it to be
No. 204719
File: 1652064326689.jpg (284.13 KB, 2622x2622, 52969580._UY2622_SS2622_.jpg)
Just finished picrel and to be honest, I was a bit disapointed. I like it, but it felt like it never really started. All the elements for it to be a new favourite were there but none of them came together in the right way. The ending where she doubts whether her mother is faking dementia in order to manipulate her was the best part, but then obviously it was over, and nothing could be elaborated on. I feel like literary fiction walks a thin line between being thoughtful and being boring and this book crossed that line.
No. 204740
File: 1652076370480.jpeg (396.27 KB, 800x593, 76E52FBD-319B-4F08-9D01-86466F…)
>>204738I don’t even know what does keikaku means, I will never be able to read the novels.
No. 204898
File: 1652130154958.jpeg (40.39 KB, 183x276, 128C9FF8-EC7F-4087-B0A5-165BB3…)
Just finished this and it was boring asf zzzzz I’m surprised I managed to finish it. Watered down Twitter thread type of feminism. Booooooring
No. 205563
File: 1652378480487.jpg (135.31 KB, 1280x720, maxresdefault.jpg)
I'm almost finished Harrow the Ninth and I just don't like it at all anymore. The first book was better for me since it felt more fun, like I didn't have to worry about taking it seriously so I didn't notice the flaws. But the second book really wants me to take it seriously, and when I do take it seriously I have to confront the fact that it's just not good. I don't like or care about any of the characters. Every single character could die and I would feel exactly the same. Tamsyn really committed to using the second person voice for certain chapters which was an interesting choice. Not good but interesting. I don't like to not finish books so I'll finish it but at this point I'm forcing myself to. Maybe it will get interesting in the last 10 chapters?
I feel like I have a problem of being too critical of books I read. But for me, hating a book is almost as good as liking it, and even books I love I want to criticize. So being boring is worse than being bad.
>>205556>>205559I googled those books and they look interesting. I hope they arrive in good condition. Are you reading them in japanese or is it an english translation?
No. 205830
File: 1652466402223.jpg (38.21 KB, 466x700, dune2_1200x1200.jpg)
I need help from someone who's read Dune
I went to a bookstore and asked for dune, the cashier told me they only have this book which is part one of a spin off series. Apparently original dune has a different cover and they didn't have it. Is it a spin off? Or was the cashier wrong?
No. 205879
File: 1652480889691.jpeg (27.08 KB, 324x499, 69A950B0-E7A1-404D-BB12-AE032D…)
Am like 90% through this one and honestly it’s kind of dragging. I thought the first half was fantastic — and I thought it was going to end up being more of a psychological thriller than a legit horror. It might have even been better that way. After that first half though, it just gets kind of tedious and meandering. Hats off to the legit unhinged autist protagonist though, she is definitely not a stock character kek
No. 206354
File: 1652626644821.jpg (571.18 KB, 1600x2489, 91ASDKVdAEL.jpg)
i've been reading anne frank's diary for the what feels like 100th time since they released a special anniversary edition (picrel) two weeks ago. the cover is supposed to look and feel exactly like the actual diary anne wrote in.
now that i'm older it hits me even more how sad it is… she's so hopeful and optimistic about the future, talking about kids and getting married and life after the war, but you know it's never going to happen. it's so depressing.
it's taking me forever to read it though, since i started a full time job over a month ago and my reading habit has basically vanished. it sucks because i spend two hours commuting every day but i get sick when reading in a moving vehicle, ugh.
No. 208612
File: 1653327962789.jpg (19.53 KB, 331x499, deathinherhands.jpg)
I just finished picrel. I don't know how I feel about it but I guess I liked it? For a lot of the book I found it boring and wondered when it would get started. Then the ending felt like everything happened at once. Maybe it's one of those books you have to chew on in your mind for a bit before you can fully appreciate it. I was expecting to like it a lot more because the author keeps getting mentioned in reviews for books that I loved. Slightly related but I get so tired of reading about how evil men are sometimes, like yes it's true but I don't always need to be reminded.
>>206303This is what I use goodreads for. 99% of the books I read are ebooks and it's nice to be able to see all the covers in one spot, like a virtual bookshelf. The stats are nice too, showing how many pages you've read each month and so on. I also like reading book reviews but only after I've finished the book. Otherwise I find they kind of ruin it for me.
>>207885I'm not sure if I have any recs for exactly what you're looking for, but there are a lot of memoirs from people who've left cults and religious groups that I enjoy reading, and if you've ever been rejected by family you might relate to them.
No. 208651
>>208612>>208613>>208612>>208613I liked DIHH, but I get what you mean where the ending pulls it all together and it’s sort of boring until then. I kept starting it and putting it down to finish later because it’s so slow going. I would say DIHH is Moshfegh’s least popular work for that reason, maybe you’d like Homesick for Another World, a collection of her short stories, more.
The older female protagonist living in the woods alone was a pretty cool premise though, wish there were more books about older women that weren’t horribly depressing.
No. 208717
>>208651NTA obviously – I have found this book a giant waste of time. Nothing happens through it and then the ending
is a "it was all just a dream" type bullshit which rendered the story even more pointlessI liked the short parts about heroine's fucked up marriage though. I also agree that it's cool to see a book about an old lady.
No. 208733
File: 1653374094909.jpg (189.58 KB, 1280x1280, Return from the Stars, by Stan…)
Nonnies, do you have any good recommendations for e-book reader that can easily receive illegally downloaded books ?
No. 208813
>>208778For public domain books either Project Gutenberg or Wikisource, for other books libgen
If you live in a country that blocks libgen, changing your DNS to Google's DNS should bypass the block
No. 210514
File: 1654020171101.png (361.73 KB, 1040x595, 3Z0oVcs[1].png)
Now I'm not saying that Edgar Allan Poe was a bad writer, just that I could have written it better
No. 210577
File: 1654035030326.png (424.75 KB, 940x458, Screen Shot 2022-05-31 at 6.09…)
>>210514completely unrelated to your post but I remember the summer before sophomore year of highschool the honors english students had to read Fahrenheit 451 before starting the school year and we everyone one of us as students agreed the premise is interesting and fascinating but reading it was a chore because of picrel,
i got the book from the teacher on june 4 and Ray Bradbury the author died the very next date No. 210820
File: 1654116385916.jpg (183.33 KB, 750x745, prewciousbb.jpg)
Nonna's what is the most moid hating book that you rec? One that just drips with disdain for the lesser sex?
No. 210831
File: 1654118843862.jpg (8.51 KB, 269x369, SCUM_Manifesto_cover[1].jpg)
>>210820That's an easy one
No. 211371
>>211321The latest two I've enjoyed were Guns Germs and Steel and The Better Angels of Our Nature, the first one is about why some civilizations progressed faster than others and the second is on why the current era is the safest humanity has ever been
Both clearly have their faults (GGaS has been criticized by historians for oversimplifying many events, notably the spanish colonization of the americas; TBAooN introduced some esoteric bullshit as fact at some point) but the gist makes sense and they will change your perspective on humanity
Now that I think of it The Selfish Gene is also perspective changing…
If you're interested in history I recommend the r/AskHistorians reading list, which is exclusively made of serious books written by historians, on nearly all topics and for all reader levels
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books No. 211742
File: 1654382442264.jpg (555.71 KB, 1684x2560, 91DUejN hAL.jpg)
is picrel actually good or is it just overhyped reddit moid stuff?
No. 211785
File: 1654387130978.png (702.09 KB, 893x420, 054045f48d75d227d92c8dfa6f03ed…)
well nonnies, looks like we got a new title trend coming, even though smeyer did it first with the short second life of bree tanner.
No. 211906
File: 1654415664942.jpg (46.05 KB, 228x347, The_Immortal_Life_Henrietta_La…)
>>211785I thought the first one was this one (released 4 months before the short second life)
No. 212153
File: 1654494880898.jpg (41 KB, 292x450, 9781984825070.jpg)
so this book is about why alcohol is bad, particularly for women. I've seen more than one woman talk about how she quit drinking because of it. it peaked my interest, because even though I don't drink myself (not for moral reasons, I just don't like it) pretty much everyone I know besides immediate family loves drinking and I'm interested in the science of addiction in general.
I checked out the audiobook from my library, and it's narrated by the author who has a really annoying vocal fry voice. also in the prologue, before the first chapter even starts the author refers to herself as a "non man", after that point I couldn't take it seriously so I just quit on it. not to mention she involves a bunch of social justice issues with it too somehow like black lives matter, even though I'm not sure how that's related.
I did find an extremely short summary of it though, and from what I've gathered she criticizes AA and 12 step programs and from the summary it seemed like her criticism was mostly that "AA and 12 step programs are patriarchal and not made for women". that's not a bad criticism I guess (I also don't get how she can say "bad for women" when she calls herself a "non man" but I digress) but I don't think she said anything about the fact that both of those things are rooted in religion and not science which IMO is a more important thing to address. in fact, the guy who founded AA founded it after he had a belladonna hallucination.
I guess she also talks about how alcohol is a neurotoxin and other reasons why it's bad. overall I think it probably had some good bits of information but not worth reading for me.
No. 212675
File: 1654699277252.jpg (47.47 KB, 722x722, shrimp.jpg)
Send Virginia Woolf book recs my way please! I don't know where to start, would like to hear your first entry recommendations with your reason for suggesting them.
No. 212779
File: 1654713566341.jpg (50.35 KB, 590x421, 6e708054-9b71-4208-b661-706f32…)
i get that ferrante's neopolitan novel covers are supposed to be "kitsch" to contrast the vulgarity/reality of its content but they're just so goddam ugly. probably puts a lot of people off from reading them
No. 212792
File: 1654716459015.jpg (57.26 KB, 360x558, 9788252185904.jpg)
>>212779The covers of the Norwegian translations are much more tasteful, if a bit boring. I was kinda shocked the first time I saw those. They look like nothing I'd want to read.
No. 213018
File: 1654790464646.jpeg (141.51 KB, 764x1181, 0E22311B-37F6-4A56-B13F-6722DF…)
currently reading this. i’ve also read confessions of a mask. homie had some serious problems i think
No. 213040
File: 1654792912366.jpg (59.17 KB, 931x313, tumblr_a8683d02c2197af6b240e91…)
anyone have good books that follow depressed, friendless, etc. protagonists? i want something that doesn't end in a perfectly happy ever after, and explores their feelings and (failed?) attempts at connecting with others.
No. 213099
File: 1654800453492.jpg (1.02 MB, 3264x2448, dbppr2dy0pp21.jpg)
>>199924I have the same exact book! But I would love to own the Folio Society cover one day.
No. 213133
File: 1654810897758.jpeg (8.46 KB, 184x274, download.jpeg)
Night Film is absolutely brilliant. And as a bonus, there is 'transphobia' which it obvs got criticised for but makes me like Pessl more. She also has a short book called Neverworld Wake which is great.
No. 213385
File: 1654929377002.jpg (611.88 KB, 1710x2560, thepush.jpg)
>>213078>>213089I'm getting mixed signals and I think I'll pass lol. I already know about pedophilia, I don't particularly want to subject myself to that for 350 pages.
Unrelated, has anyone read this book? I really enjoyed it. It gave me We Need to Talk About Kevin vibes (another book I loved). At some points it gave me such strong WNTTAK vibes, in fact, that it seemed perhaps… more than coincidental. Not that I have anything to go off of, but these are the similarities:
>Main character is a mother of a violent child>No one else sees how evil the child is until it's too late>Evil child is close with oblivious father>Mother is close with youngest child>Evil older sibling attacks a classmate in elementary school and gets away with it >Evil older sibling seriously injures and then kills younger sibling and other people>Unreliable narrator>Husband(s) eventually divorce their wives, thinking they're crazy, until the wife is revealed to have been correct this whole time and the child they hated for no reason really is EVIL! Ok I can't remember if that last one happens in wnttak but I'm pretty sure it does. Anyway I still liked this book, possibly another one for the deranged female main character stack.
No. 213391
File: 1654934378869.jpg (948.34 KB, 2816x2111, cat book.jpg)
Anyone know how to get a coupon for Thriftbooks? All the coupon websites lie to me.
No. 213394
File: 1654936620254.jpg (33.27 KB, 333x499, 51hUglzanFL._SX331_BO1,204,203…)
>>213380Haven't read them, but The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe by Brian P. Levack, Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas and Thinking with Demons by Stuart Clark are said to cover the subject
No. 213493
>>213425The pdf is right here
https://en.fr1lib.org/book/21372717/5a3987Nona's in luck, it includes a complete bibliography of about a thousand reference books on the subject at the end (all pre-1964 however)
No. 213616
>>213499Our experiences differ - I didn't find it relatable or emotional enough.
IMO it's paint by numbers. You can tell author did her research (hours of it) but didn't actually go through that shit. I remember thinking that some small parts seem inspired by the experiences described in Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso. MDV didn't feel like it brought anything new or personal to the table, except explaining to the retards why
victims act(Ed) "stupid". Basically teaching empathy by example, I guess. Otherwise it feels like an extended Very Special Episode about a Real Issue with generic characters.
Maybe I would judge it less harshly had an anon (IDK if you or someone else) didn't gush about it before the novel was published, heightening my expectations.
No. 213975
File: 1655146193105.jpg (54.4 KB, 1080x1080, tumblr_oc2j1whdRZ1u3vf9lo1_128…)
I posted at the beginning of the year that I picked up Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetralogy, and I was hoping /m/ would be back by the time I finished reading so I could post my final thoughts (as an anon asked) on the book thread but I guess it's never coming back kek. Anyway, if you're still here nona, here are my thoughts! Also there are unspoilered spoilers below if anyone ever plans on reading.
>Spring Snow
I read the full plot beforehand and kept referring to the Wikipedia plot to make sure I wasn't missing any important events or details, so some things didn't have as big of an impact as when I went in blind.
Didn't really feel a lot of sympathy for Kiyoaki, up until he travels to Nara kek. He's such a little wishy washy bitch baby the whole time and is the root of his own problems starting from when he got mad at her question at the beginning of the book. Looking back on it, I think Mishima perfectly encapsulates that internal push and pull of young, stupid love. Maybe I hated Kiyoaki because I saw my own young bitch baby self in him. If I didn't spoil the book for myself, I think the foreshadowing of reincarnation would've been a really big "holy shit" moment.
The climax of the book felt very abrupt, especially with the little fanfare surrounding Kiyoaki's death, but it was still poignant. As I continued reading on, reading how it affected Kiyoaki's family, Honda, Iinuma, etc, it kept bringing back a sense of melancholy and felt weirdly like I was missing Kiyoaki too.
>Runaway Horses
I forgot most of the plot that I had read in advance, so aside from Isao's inevitable death and knowing his next reincarnation is in Thailand I went in blind.
Isao is really something isn't he kek. It's hard to not separate the ideals Isao held from Mishima himself, so it also makes me think how Mishima uses Honda as a vehicle of valid criticism towards his own ideals yet at the same time ended up dying for his ideals like Isao. Did he just not give a shit?? Who knows.
Isao is just as insufferable as Kiyoaki is, in his own way. Kiyoaki was a little idiot in love who just didn't know how to properly communicate, meanwhile Isao is at that "I'm smarter than all the adults around me" stage of insufferable. His obsession with purity and going so far as to kill himself because he still believed himself to be righteous and pure is peak stupid. I love it in the same way that I love Mishima's unhinged wackiness. It's pure retardation. This and the first book are my favorites.
>The Temple of Dawn
I felt like I was starting to drag my feet. I wanted to continue going in blind but I just got so bored at some point that I read the full plot halfway through so I could convince myself to just finish it up.
Having a female reincarnation was the absolute fucking worst choice. The voyeurism and constant attention on Ying Chan's body is fucking gross. Honda trying to chase after him and his wife's resentment towards him for it is the nail in the coffin for me. Easily the worst fucking book out of the entire series, it's so uncomfortable to read.
>The Decay of the Angel
I felt a little pity for Honda here, but just because I'm a softie and seeing old people get abused makes me sad. The voyeurism scene quickly reminded me that my pity is misplaced though. The book is… fine. I mentally checked out halfway through Temple of Dawn so maybe that's why I don't have much of an opinion for it. Toru is, like Kiyoaki and Isao, insufferable. But I don't enjoy any part of him that makes him so insufferable, but I guess that's the point of his character.
My whole reason for picking up the series was to read the end, because I was reading a review of Evangelion and someone likened the last two episodes to the final scene with Honda and Satoko, but I just didn't enjoy it. Well, I didn't entirely enjoy the last two episodes of Eva either, so I guess it's not too out of place. But, again, my enjoyment of the series was ruined with the last book so. lol.
I'll probably reread it sometime, but I'll probably only reread Spring Snow and Runaway Horses. I get why Ying Chan's story is necessary - for Honda to chase after another reincarnation to set up for the disappointment of a fake in the last book, but god I just fucking loathe the 3rd book so much.
No. 214016
>>213616the author of MDV has said that she did go through it though, iirc
>>213133I loved this but can't remember the transphobia, now I wanna reread it kek
No. 214040
File: 1655158871170.png (7.36 KB, 2560x1707, jp.png)
>>213975It's me,
nonny! I'm glad you read them, although surprised you spoiled yourself so much. We all have our own different ways of reading, though, so don't worry about it!
In your review, I see clearly you perceived there's two halves to the series, pre-war and post-war, the first two books and the last two books. The pre-war books are very nostalgic and the post-war books are lurid and seedy. Mishima himself was a student of both pre-war and post-war literature and I remember he said that he felt his poetry was "obsolete" even when he was still very young. Despite this, later in life he became very worldly and aware of contemporary international literature, which as you know during the second half of the 20th century was incredibly lurid. During that time, the works of Marquis de Sade and Bataille among others were championed by the literati of the world and Mishima was amongst those circles. Do you remember in the later books that one dumbass writer that wrote that bizarre incest sci-fi story? That's the type I'm talking about. So given in mind there is a clear division in the Tetrology and within Mishima himself, you can't really separate his life from his final work.
The first book is a nostalgic romance. If it reads autistically that's because that was just the state of Japan at that time. The high social classes were just autistic in everything they did.
Isao from the second book is clearly a bit of wish-fulfillment on Mishima's part. As a kid, he was too sickly and weak to be allowed into battle during WWII and clearly that stuck with him throughout the rest of his life. I was very glad to learn about the state of attempted right-wing uprisings during Imperial Japan. It was very interesting and something I knew almost nothing about. I just blindly assumed Isao was going to become a kamikaze pilot, but his actual trajectory makes more since considering his personality and beliefs.
The treatment of reincarnation really struck me as beautiful. That line about "I'll see you under the falls" and then Honda understanding what Kiyoaki meant really got me. Honda's criticisms are probably Mishima's own criticisms like you say. But elsewhere Mishima wrote about the value of the "irrational" when it comes to national belief and the cult of emperor. Of course his own coup attempt and seppuku were performative.
Like you, I always hated The Temple of Dawn, at least at first. It is just disgusting. The sudden luridness from such an upright character as Honda shocked and repulsed me. I see now the value of the decaying, degenerating second half. I hope you do, too. Honestly, I hate most 20th century literature because of the overwhelming tendency of depravity in the highest echelons of "intelligentsia," so the sudden horrific shift in the series really appealed to me. All the more impressive since Mishima died in 1970, but the writer had really been on the wall since the end of the first World War with all that soulless, annihilating Dada bullshit. I won't sperg about that, though. You're right, very uncomfortable to read.
Toru being the absolute worst and illegitimate to boot I think summarizes well the absolute decay and stagnation that Mishima wanted to cover. Everything in the plot became so seedy and debauched it really culminates with him ending up being a fake reincarnation.
I had been waiting for Satoko to reappear and I was especially anticipating her at the very end. As to what the actual meaning means, who can say? Since he wrote it very shortly before killing himself, it serves as his final word in a way that an extremely formulaic death poem can't. But I honestly can't offer any suggestions.
Of the books, I liked Runaway Horses the best in terms of plot, personally. The story taught me a lot and of all the characters, Isao had the clearest and most defined character. That his character is very different from our Western perception was especially satisfying to me since I like to see strange and different viewpoints. Of all the 4 central characters, Ying Chan is clearly the most enigmatic, which makes sense considering she is both foreign and a woman. And in the latter two books especially Honda serves as the bridge between the past and the present. I think the title "The Decay of the Angel" is the perfect summation of the series.
No. 214052
>>214040ntayrt and it's been years since I read it so I probably forgot some stuff, but I thought TToD served a purpose of setting up Honda as unreliable, in terms of perception. There is absolutely no insight into Ying Chan's character, all we have is Honda's deformed view of her. It's Honda's own decay that is at the front of the last two books imo.
He takes Toru and forces him into the "world of passion", but Toru ends up figuring out, pretty much says fuck this shit and cheats his way out by blinding himself, which frees him from his remaining desire and most importantly his physical aversion towards Kinue's body (which was his only obstacle from truly "rejecting the world"), and allows him to live with her in her delusion, in heaven. And you are left wondering if he is truly that rotten, maybe even this degenerate parody of enlightenment is still better than Honda, whose pretense of reason turns out to be completely pointless.
I also think
>>213975 is right when she calls him a vehicle of criticism but, the last two books are the refutation of that criticism via what is essentially an ad hominem attack. One could take this as the final lesson on the "value of the irrational" I guess. Though "pure retardation" as the first nona said might be a better way to put it.
My take might be a shit take though, this is baby's first book interpretation
No. 214073
>>214052I don't think it's a shit take,
nonny! Thanks for posting your thoughts! It's also been years since I read them, so I am hazy on some of the details. I remember the parts that really resonated with the sense I got from the books and naturally forgot some of the others. I honestly don't remember the fourth book as well as the others. I agree The Decay of the Angel as a title could be about the individual Honda, I was just universalizing it a little bit since he's our central protagonist throughout the books.
I'd like to hear more about what you mean by
>the last two books are the refutation of that criticism via what is essentially an ad hominem attack. No. 214292
File: 1655235660516.png (374.42 KB, 889x830, Capture.PNG)
Sorry that this doesn't completely fit with the thread but god has anyone else seen the complete hatchet job trailer for Persuasion? Can you imagine writing arguably your best novel right before you died to then have it get turned into this two hundred years later
No. 214378
File: 1655251086924.jpeg (57.12 KB, 600x600, 57EE848E-9FEA-429B-AC9D-CB4107…)
I picked this up at my local used bookstore for less than a dollar and, after having read 3 chapters, it feels like I wasted my money. This guy is trying way too hard to be poetic. I often wondered if he even had an editor. He’d use the exact same word so repetitively through one paragraph that I’d get sick of seeing it. This is what I get for stepping outside of my usual preferred reading. Although, one positive thing that came out of wasting my time, I’ve gained more confidence in my own writing abilities. If this guy can get praise for such garbage, then I’m sure I can squeeze out at least one best seller.
No. 214383
File: 1655252153738.png (616.85 KB, 1170x2532, 5BB9974B-97C1-4AE7-966D-086253…)
>>214378Samefag, goodreads reviews are not to be trusted.
No. 214486
>>213133I read her other book Special Topics in Calamity Physics last year and loved it, even though the narrative style choices were kind of strange. I've been meaning to read Nightfilm for literal years but never got around to it. I started listening to the audiobook but decided the book is probably better if you read it with your eyes as it has a more interactive writing style (like fake blogposts, news articles etc). I have no idea about the transphobia though, I've never heard anyone say that about it kek.
>>214464Oh I'm sure there's tons of those, but I'm not well read in classics at all. Catcher in the Rye maybe?
>>213040>anyone have good books that follow depressed, friendless, etc. protagonists?Just look up books in literary fiction, there are tons of books like that in that genre
No. 214655
>>214464Obligatory have you read Frankenstein? Victor is pompous broody and self obsessed. Frankenstein monster is hurt, obsessive, and broody with sad growth ending. It’s one of my favorites.
Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories tend to have those vibes or Maupassant. Maupassants voice is soothing when he writes. I like his work a lot.
No. 214817
File: 1655367719861.jpg (58.32 KB, 691x432, wila, loaves.jpg)
>>214464Epic of Gilgamesh
>>214751Huck Finn
No. 215475
File: 1655621491388.jpg (63.76 KB, 520x604, fernando-botero-mona-lisa-prin…)
I had been meaning to read the da vinci code series for literal years. I finally broke down and bought the audiobook of it, but the narrator has a hot voice so I can't listen to it without getting horny. ugh
No. 215508
File: 1655640343611.jpg (201.45 KB, 1200x1096, 1200px-Laver_and_toast[1].JPG)
>>215424I'd eat saltrice any day over british food
No. 215520
File: 1655649214223.jpg (35.78 KB, 274x378, Обложка_Роман-газеты_1928_г.jp…)
I was bored and decided to read a classic (Тихий Дон / And quiet flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov). It was okay but I feel like this novel (and many other similar works) could be renamed "Scrotes abuse women, fuck up their life, and then proceed to blame women for their own inadequacy". Like seriously, there's a bit where an old man is too much of a lazy drunkard to stay awake while riding his carriage, and the horse, being old and blind, falls into an ice hole. The guy wakes up just in time to save his ass and of course decides it's the horse's fault, after which he insults her (since she's a mare) by calling her a bitch and a cunt basically. Peak moid moment.
No. 215533
File: 1655656095539.jpg (91.24 KB, 644x508, a3de66571041b93ac2e86eece6cd9e…)
>>215519It is laverbread, usually eaten with cockles in a welsh breakfast
No. 215740
File: 1655729836715.jpg (30.72 KB, 298x450, lapvona.jpg)
it's released tomorrow. are you excited?
No. 215750
File: 1655736382247.jpg (51.63 KB, 900x900, 1648143203887.jpg)
I want to gift a book to a woman that is obsessed with her looks on an unhealthy level, and I feel bad for her. She is insecure, down to not being able to take out the trash without winged eyeliner and going full makeup. She is also obsessed with her weight and body while doing jackshit about it (she is obese but doesn't work, study, doesn't do anything but sit in moms basement). I wanted to buy her Virginia Wolf's Beauty Myth book but people told me she is anti-vaxx and one or two facts of hers are not true, so I am looking for something else. The only issue that might occur is that she is a NLOG larper (because she is a desperate attention seeker), but I don't care anymore, I will just slap this book at her on Christmas morning and wish her all the best.
No. 215920
File: 1655780630404.jpg (33.01 KB, 564x550, dvosdjv;.jpg)
>>215750I don't understand why you're trying so hard for a woman obviously content to roll around in her metaphorical filth,
nonnie. Put that gumption to good use somewhere else.
No. 215994
File: 1655817162598.png (45.2 KB, 175x266, image_2022-06-21_171210200.png)
>>186682reading the third book in this megabook its "The Clergyman's Daughter" Orwell is quite the writer…
No. 216399
File: 1655977974227.jpg (79.47 KB, 1200x800, AnimalLisaTaddeo.jpg)
Finally got around to reading Lisa Taddeo's Animal. It starts off quite slow but I ended up staying up until 2am to finish it.
Reading it feels like a truck hit me because it's so raw and I feel so naked and seen that it's painful.
Has anyone read Taddeo's Ghost Lover yet?
No. 217243
>>216448I saw another scrote agreeing with the review on tiktok that’s how I know about this. From the name I assumed the reviewer was a woman and was disappointed but it makes sense now cause of course it had to be a scrote choosing to cancel a female author out of all these actually
problematic male authors. I don’t care about this author and I haven’t read her books but it just doesn’t sit right with me whenever there’s an (male instigated)attempt to ruin successful women’s careers.
No. 217396
>>216456>he wrote a book about how being female is about having a gaping asshole and no thoughts.I'm sorry what?? Moids are so fucking nasty, it really is all about being their own fetishized version of a woman for them to constantly jerk off to, so disgusting
>>216638Oh thank god, I thought it was just me being esl but I knew it was just the worst pile of shit dumped as a "review" I ever seen in my life
>>217243Right?? Where's stephen kings cancelation or brandon sanderson? someone moids would start foaming at the mouth if they ever got a whiff of them being canceled? why is it always women? I mean we know why, scrotes will suck each other off always
Back to book, I just read Moshi Moshi by banana and it was nice except for the ending ruined it with the useless hookup, does anyone have a similar book in vibes without a romance or romance that isn't young woman/older man?
No. 217445
File: 1656358935510.jpg (19.17 KB, 333x500, 41rbBTuLL4L.jpg)
Have anyone read Beauty and Misogyny by Sheila Jeffreys? Would it be a good read for insecure ''normies''?
No. 217475
>>217445I'm curious about this one myself, I've passed by it a few times skimming feminist book titles in general.
I'm looking for books on overcoming sexual trauma. I've read The Body Keeps the Score and other books on trauma in general, but there is not as much on sexual trauma specifically. Anyone have any suggestions?
No. 217527
File: 1656389582091.jpeg (456.41 KB, 707x943, 8BAE4C1A-8438-488E-9FD3-B76F7C…)
Read this recently and really found it valuable. I believe it is one of the most incisive pieces of feminist writing of our time, tying together common feminist criticisms of transition with further analysis of our culture and her personal insight. Robinson incorporates references to other feminist writing and nonfiction books in a way I thought worked well.
No. 217536
File: 1656394528439.jpg (113.3 KB, 486x750, 50706646.jpg)
Lots of weird Frankenstein shit going on in this book. I liked it though.
No. 217674
File: 1656448348686.png (852.75 KB, 1200x630, 1652987436-1652987436_goodread…)
Late by a month, but anyone saw the goodreads member top hits of 2022 (so far)? Any recommendations?
https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/2302?ref=srtopbooks22_eb No. 217914
>>217680Based. Goodreads lists make me wait to throw up then shriek then throw up then shriek then throw up then
>hears Colleen Hoover’s name mentionedIf I can put that woman on public trial for the havoc she has wrecked snd continues to wreck on the adolescent female psyche. If only.
No. 217917
File: 1656521992767.jpg (29.45 KB, 333x500, 410tQUSXlpL.jpg)
I was excited to read this because I was expecting some fucked up old man torture but it was a huge buildup to a huge letdown of maybe like 3-4 pages of actual fucked up torture. The ending sucked. I was actually rooting for Asami.
No. 217945
File: 1656531906548.jpg (46.04 KB, 475x475, 14009._UY475_SS475_.jpg)
>>217536oh this is on my to read list, is it worth it overall? i know its pretty long
does anyone read mercedes lackey? i want to read the Darian's Tale trilogy, but when i was looking into it it seems to be apart of a larger series within the same world as a different set of books by mercedes lackey and i dont know if i need to read the other books to understand these. i really want to read some of her stuff, but i have no idea where or how to get started
No. 218075
File: 1656596138774.jpg (18.06 KB, 250x400, 56373.jpg)
I'm half-way through this and fucking loving it. Anybody have good recs for more wlw period novels??
No. 218104
File: 1656610675414.png (218.91 KB, 576x397, hippopottoman.png)
Okay the year is half done now. What did you read in the first six months of 2022?
Log your reading here!
No. 218115
File: 1656612281839.jpg (9.33 KB, 262x262, 49dfdfda1ab275c93426c24c4771f2…)
>>218104i started my new job in april and was busy apartment hunting in march, so i almost completely fell out of reading, but here's mine.
* necessary people (1/3)
* such small hands (1/4)
* my cousin rachel (1/8)
* emma (1/14)
* the island of dr moreau (1/15)
* passing (1/16)
* the time machine (1/16)
* the thirty-nine steps (1/17)
* the great gatsby (1/19)
* the invisible man (1/20)
* the great god pan (1/22)
* the war of the worlds (1/23)
* horrorstör (1/24)
* a certain hunger (1/25)
* wuthering heights (1/29)
* the jungle book (1/30)
* harry potter and the order of the phoenix (2/7)
* jane eyre (2/19)
* a handful of dust (2/23)
* the woman in the attic (2/25)
* house of hollow (2/26)
* sisters (2/27)
* 13 ways of looking at a fat girl (3/1)
* the destroyer (3/2)
* my best friend's exorcism (2/7)
* my year of rest and relaxation (2/10)
* her body and other parties (2/20)
* harry potter and the half blood prince (5/??)
* the diary of anne frank (5/??)
No. 218119
>>218104this semester was weird for me so I didn't get nearly as much time as previous years
I recently finished the ACOTR series (5 books, the 2nd the last sucked)
-Uprooted by Naomi Novik
-The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien
-Breaking Free by Rachel Jeffs
-Hawksong
-Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall
-Train to Pakistan
-Honeymoon in Tehran by Azadeh Moaveni
-First they Killed my Father by Loung Ung
and a bunch of Dear America books that I've begun to collect
Any recommendations besides better taste???
No. 218187
File: 1656627935474.png (3.89 MB, 2742x1004, books2022.png)
>>218104too lazy to type all the titles so have a goodreads screenshot. I'm pretty happy with my reading this year although I could be doing more.
No. 218188
File: 1656628091788.jpeg (166.22 KB, 510x835, 2C4F0BF8-3A03-403F-89D7-A16B4B…)
>>218187samefag but I've been looking for an excuse to post this anyway kek, I've been working my way through the reading list one of the anons here made. I love it so much, if anyone has any similar suggestions we should make a pt. 2.
No. 218273
File: 1656653757231.jpeg (62.82 KB, 263x400, Anaïs Nin .jpeg)
>>218075a bisexual woman who owned a bookstore told me to read that (I did, it was good) & she also told me to read some Anaïs Nin books so I guess I would recommend you look into that but it's not all woman on woman
No. 218314
File: 1656679178001.jpg (48.67 KB, 600x400, beefer.jpg)
>>218104Middle English Romances
El tunel (Spanish)
Ruhnama
Stripped Bare: The Art of Animal Anatomy
Life and Death at the Pestera cu Oase
Found in Translation: 52 Hebrew Words to Enrich your Bible Reading
Akiva: Life, Legend, Legacy
The Song of Songs: A Biography
Maimonides and the Merchants: Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World
Poet in Spain (Spanish)
Travels in Africa, Persia, and Asia the Great
Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority
The Lost Books of the Bible
The Wisdom of the Middle Ages
The Collected Works of Gonzalo de Berceo
De amor y otros demonios (Spanish)
The Quest for the Christ Child in the Latter Middle Ages
Poeta en Nueva York (Spanish)
Junky
Queer
Genesis (Spanish)
Exodus (Spanish)
No. 218475
>>216399"Hit like a truck" is 100% how it felt for me too. There were so many moments that felt like that, but I often find myself remembering the bit
where she asserts that her mother knew her father's greatest crime, which is that he didn't love either one of his families more than himself. So simple, but so devastating. I've started Ghost Lover but not finished it yet. It's really, really intense – just hugely raw portrayals of miserable women. I don't think I'm going to like it as much as Animal, but it's still really interesting. Huge focus so far on middle-aged women freaking the hell out about not being fuckable anymore. There isn't the specific rage at men in it that there is in Animal, but I think that's absolutely on purpose – she's capturing the tragedy of the fact that these women haven't reached the place Joan has.
>>217527I agree, this book blew me away. Insanely good blend of scholarship, analysis, personal reflection, theorizing. Robinson and her gf are really brilliant, you should check out more of their work if you haven't already
No. 218790
File: 1656840349929.jpg (21 KB, 254x391, Cloud_atlas[1].jpg)
Just finished Cloud Atlas, it's about nested stories that all reference in-universe the previous one, and they're all written in a different style with a different protagonist. Rather interesting way to build the novel, it also helps in building a theme between the different stories, as I don't think they could stand on their own if the book was structured as a regular collection of short stories
No. 218818
File: 1656851049368.jpg (42.81 KB, 620x388, jim_2380718b[1].jpg)
>>218802I'm watching it right now and I really don't think casting a white actor in an asian role was the best possible choice
>Critics were polarized, causing it to be included on various "Best Film" and "Worst Film" lists. No. 218927
File: 1656881192486.jpg (356.77 KB, 1659x2560, 81hUtjq7adL.jpg)
Anyone else read Matrix? Probably not for everyone, as it's a bit slow, but I just finished it and really liked it. Loosely (REALLY loosely) based on Marie de France, it's about a group of 12th century nuns led by an abbess who makes them into a proto-feminist separatist community. It's really weird and dreamlike, and avoids a lot of dumb modern feminist apologia – Marie is pretty ruthless and even manipulative, but it never feels the need to apologize for this or pretend this makes her just as bad as the men of the church. Just a really interestingly weird meditation on female ability, ambition, and spirituality.
No. 219389
File: 1657035497960.jpg (10.31 KB, 225x225, download.jpg)
I just finished moshi moshi by banana yoshimoto. i really enjoyed it up until the main character realized she had feelings for her dad's best friend and slept with him but i did really like the description of food and the shops in her neighborhood. I especially loved how she wrote about the power of a good meal to heal and comfort people.
this is only the second book ive read by banana yoshimoto (first was kitchen) and i'm not sure if i really like her novels? she seems to make her female protagonists rely on men to realize something about themselves/their lives
No. 219465
>>218927This sounds really interesting, going to try to read it soon.
>>219389I felt the same about the
part where she gets involved with her dad's best friend. It's extra disappointing when a female author writes that kind of thing. Iirc Yoshimoto also talks about an age gap relationship in another book of hers, N.P. and I thought it was more nuanced but I read it a long time ago so maybe I'm just misremembering because the older guy in the relationship dies before the novel begins in N.P. I liked the relationship between the mom and the daughter in Moshi Moshi and it made me want to cook more, but I think that's what most of Banana Yoshimoto's books do for me lol. I second
>>219430 about reading Asleep though.
No. 219531
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lol
No. 219615
>>219531Honestly shocked they didn't include Harry Potter considering the type of people who make
problematic/red flag displays.
No. 219679
>>219613c&p is about a tortured lonely young man who decides that he can commit any crime if it's meant for a greater cause, so at a surface level and without going further than the first chapters it's a bit like fight club and american psycho
>>219609It's about a bunch of men being wise asses
No. 219751
>>219531Why is Frankenstein a red flag lmao
>>219682>DazaiHe made a suicide pact with a woman in real life but somehow only she died, get the hint.
No. 219925
File: 1657205650476.jpg (152.62 KB, 1650x2550, emratabook.jpg)
Has anyone read My Body by Emrata? I'm tempted to pick it up, it should be interesting by I don't want to waste my time reading a libfem manifesto.
No. 219931
File: 1657207780445.jpg (50.93 KB, 288x441, NEOBK-355199.jpg)
>>219389Same
nonny! Loved and hated it for those exact reasons, that ending was really so not needed, my personal fav from her is The Lake, it's like the most awkward meet cute story but it's inspired by a real life cult in Japan so it's quite a few things but probably the best I've read from her!
I also a fan of Nara's illustrations for her covers, wish the English versions had them besides Hardboiled Hardluck
No. 219944
File: 1657216358315.jpg (74.63 KB, 640x984, bbx.jpg)
Anyone have recommendations similar to Jennifer Worth's 'Call The Midwife' series? I adore the TV show (it's my mom and I's bonding show), but I wanna read more books set in the past about caring women that make a difference in their community and aren't snotty about it. Reading Worth's trilogy (especially about the workhouse descendants) made me incredibly sad and I want to know more about women in the past that made do with their lot in life in the past. Books about caring nuns or anything to do with supporting fellow women would be wonderful. I've been feeling too down lately to read books on how the world has and continues to suck for women.
No. 219955
>>219627Since it's kind of an autobiography I found nlh really interesting. I always felt like that line about not seeing prostitutes as people was projection because he assumed a very passive/feminine role in life which is shameful for a man, hence himself not feeling human, akin to a woman.
It's interesting that this is known as a book where a lot of readers admit feeling bad for a man who went through life being an object of desire, possibly molested as a child, being seen as weak etc. when this is a common experience for many women and most of us grin and bear it as opposed to becoming miserable addicts.
No. 220037
File: 1657262777006.jpg (30.78 KB, 294x450, 9780143128489.jpg)
so I just finished this. the synopsis I heard was something like "a girl who grew up fat finds that the world treats her differently after she becomes thin" or something. Idk what I was expecting, some quirky contemporary I guess. it was kind of like that at the beginning but just got more and more depressing as the book went on, and the synopsis I read was pretty misleading as the book was basically just about the main character's struggle with an ED and how it controlled her life etc. it kept a lighthearted tone and I don't regret reading it but I'm not sure what the point of it was. maybe I would if I had struggled with an ED before and I haven't, but I also think this book might have triggered my ED if I had one.
No. 220093
File: 1657278876865.jpg (26.12 KB, 400x500, convenience.jpg)
I just finished Convenience store woman. I don't think it was the autor's goal but it kinda read as a horror story to me, the dehumanizing way people spoke to and about her, her wanting to fuze with the convenience store, hearing the "song of the convenience store", she seems so nonhuman… It made me feel uneasy.
No. 220211
File: 1657304570665.jpg (243.59 KB, 1400x2159, 58438589.jpg)
I read this expecting a tale of two female best friends navigating a time loop, their dying friendship, and the end of the world. It was not that. The book is mostly about her relationship with this guy who basically stalks her through the entire book and tricks her into being in a relationship with him for most of it. And then at the end she somehow chooses to be with him. I fucking hated it and I don't get it. Just had to come here to rant, not sure if any of you have read it. I do not recommend.
No. 220235
File: 1657315718728.jpg (96.13 KB, 828x1398, fc470d0010ebbfeb3da2d89c8cecad…)
Read this recently.
I didin't really like it, it felt too lolsorandumex-dee and having lived through 00s internet I'm kinda over that. There are more books though and I don't know if I should give them a chance.
I was surprised to see how many references I knew from the book before I even read it.
No. 220266
File: 1657331753426.jpeg (36.78 KB, 452x678, 45E964F9-90D8-47AE-98F8-49BE8A…)
New Sayaka Murata dropped 3 days ago. It’s a collection of short stories. I think my favorite book of hers is Earthlings, because it’s the one that spirals out of control the most. I was so-so on Connivence Store Woman because it seemed reductive in a very reddit-y manner, but I enjoyed the capitalist-modernity-female-fluorescent-horror-this-bitch-needs-to-pop-some-ecstasy-ishness of it. It was clinical in a very dehumanizing why without being “cynical”. I find that when contemporary lit tries to clinical, or portray the clinical nature of certain aspects of modernity, it edges on the try-hard 90s male-coded cynicism, which is just incredibly trite, juvenile, and uninteresting. And even though it tries hard, it doesn’t try hard enough.
Overall I find that Murata is best when she goes maximalist. Like goofy, surreal maximalist, Satoshi Kon-style. My favorite story might be Time of the Big Star—or was it Time of the Small Star?—despite it being very simple and short. However, the most Morata-esque of these stories was Life Ceremony. [spoiler]At times, it came across as reductive. Ultimately, it’s a story about the dissonance between our broadcasted idealized personas, and our inner lives (which, a lot of the time, tend to be empty). The characters muse about how the internet facilitates our narcissistic impulses: “I guess everyone becomes the character they want to be on the internet. If you have some kind of ideal of the person you want to be seen as, I think you can be easily drawn to it—on social media too.” It’s so much easier to signal our carefully curated personas on the internet. This actually presents a problem for the main character: she doesn’t want what character she’d want to signal online. She has five. Does she post pictures of Anna Karina and tweet Francoise Hardy lyrics, a cultured and sensitive Francophone art hoe? Or switch it up for anachan content, romantic poetry, paragraphs of Nabokov (she’s never actually read anything more than some Lolita paragraph screenshots), listen to Lana Del Rey, and talk about how she’s a totally vulnerable skinny cigarette smoking coquette self-infantilizing feminine nymphette it-girl? Our protagnist doesn’t know whether to use a cutesy picture (to signal for her girly airhead persona) or another, more neutral picture (to signal for her mysterious work persona). She opts out of social media. Like a customer at an aisle, she’s bogged down by too many options.
Basically it touches on the same points on Satoshi Kon’s Paprika touches on—the incoherence that arises as a result of the inside noy matching the outside, and the existential confusion and the loss of epistemological certainty that goes along with it especially if you’re not sure there’s an “inside” at all—but I found it a tad bit reductive and juvenile. Sure, women tend to be more agreeable due to socialization/nature/whatever you call it, and it can be an interesting subject to explore, especially with how the protagonist comments about how that being agreeable is the natural thing to do to survive in a community—this was a really good angle. Agreeability in women can function excellently as a protection tactic since it has always protected from the mob and the community and the collective, which has been largely patriarchal. But the story doesn’t focus on this angle too much. Instead it opts for an adolescent understanding of people: they are phonies! No one is authentic. We’re all consoomers signaling and broadcasting our carefully-made up personas. After all, how can the main character’s five personas be so different? Nuance is a thing, but like most of Murata’s characters, she just doesn’t get it. The ending is reminiscent of Ingrid Goes West: she makes up a sixth character, with a neat little backstory to support her. Her fiance quickly accepts the neat explanation, especially with how it’ll let him play the savior. It’s exactly how he wants to be seen, exactly the persona he wants to broadcast and be affirmed. It’s the opposite of what happens in Paprika, where the main character faces the hybrid nature of her identity, and reaches a final synthesis between Paprika and herself. In the end, the outside might not exactly actually match the inside, but she stops caring about the outside at all. The inside remains independent of external feedback that might meaningfully affect her identity. She is, finally, herself, whatever that means.[\spoiler]
No. 220329
File: 1657356787283.jpg (275 KB, 1669x2560, 81YBZevDsML.jpg)
I really liked this book, it's probably the best thriller I've ever read. I am a little bit tired of the plot twist it used unreliable narrator, basically but this book did it pretty well at least imo. it's better than riley sager bullshit at any rate.
No. 220453
File: 1657416830317.jpeg (2.24 MB, 3611x2868, 575CDCBA-F66A-4377-A615-F17219…)
Have we posted our shelves yet?
No. 220566
>>220496It’s this definitive edition!
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/dracula-the-definitive-edition-barnes--noble-edition/37137876/all-editions/>>220545I know, I’m sorry. Tender is the Night is also not with the other Fitzgerald books. Kek I haven’t organized it in a while and am getting close to being out of space. My local used bookstore and thrift stores have really good selections, so I end up getting four or five books at the very least whenever I go, which is not helping
No. 220680
File: 1657485924471.webm (5.59 MB, 504x1080, 657485794.webm)
>>219531reminds me of this tiktok i just saw
No. 220855
>>220689The problem lies with the author not the content itself. They consider Sylvia Plath to be
problematic.
No. 220875
>>220680>>220766She says:
>Fahrenheit 451Yellow flag
>The Great GatsbyGreen flag
>The FirmGreen flag
>1984Yellow flag
>The Catcher and the RyeRed Flag
>The BibleRed flag
>East of EdenYellow flag
>The HobbitGreen flag
No. 222350
File: 1657981089858.jpg (58 KB, 360x600, 152687.jpg)
Are Terry Pratchett's books good? Should the Discworld novels be read in order? I'm eyeing picrel because I like vampire stuff
No. 222355
File: 1657982518387.jpeg (140.53 KB, 426x650, 76860ACB-5C40-46FE-93D2-CF02EF…)
CP in the anime figure/nendo thread so bumping with my fav author, anyone else a fan of cozy books during the winter?
No. 223018
>>222433A few recs that are all pretty different, so hopefully you like them:
>Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall KlimmererCollection of personal essays that link the author's field work with moss with broader reflections about motherhood, the environment, and her indigenous heritage. Really beautiful writing and much better than I can describe.
>The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha MukherjeeBasically the title, it's been described as a “literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist.” This one is on every nonfiction list but I always recommend it anyway because I couldn't put it down.
>Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Carolina Criado PérezEveryone who reads this thread has probably read this already, but illuminating read about how misogyny affects the very structure of society.
>The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie RubenholdHistorian delves into the societal context and individual lives of the infamous five women killed by Jack the Ripper. Harrowing and tragic, since the end is a foregone conclusion for each section, but great piece of social history.
No. 223219
>>222350The Discworld entry book I've seen the most recommended is Guards! Guards! to get a feel of Pratchett's style, as the very first book (The Colour of Magic) is generally seen as less well written than the others
If you want to start with the witches subseries Equal Rites would be the first book. The shortest path to Carpe Jugulum would then be Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade and then Carpe Jugulum, as there is an actual story and character development across all books of the same subseries
No. 224304
File: 1658676451211.png (1.56 MB, 972x1216, heaven2.png)
I think Mieko Kawakami has been mentioned in these threads before but I'm not sure. I finished her novel "breasts and eggs" a while back and liked it a lot. The plot in the second half was quite slow but her voice was enjoyable to me for some reason and I finished it quickly. Now I'm reading her first (?) novel, "heaven." It's moving at a much faster pace and the plot is honestly depressing, just brutal descriptions of bullying that borders on torture. I think her voice as a writer was definitely less developed and improved a lot in the ten years or so between the two novels. Sections of "heaven" feel almost like middle grade fiction. I guess that makes sense when you consider the characters are 14-15 but it's still very much an adult novel. If any nonnies have read either I'd love to hear your opinions.
No. 224793
>>224694I enjoyed the first couple of books, mainly just one protagonist and his storyline because I'm into training arcs and underdogs rising to the top. Also I listened to the audiobooks, it was more of an audio drama with music and sound effects etc so that was fun. But the world building and magic just got too convoluted for me eventually, and it switches perspective a lot but I wasn't equally interested in all the characters.
I don't think it's flaws are particularly scrotish if that's your concern. As anon said, the author is prudish af but I'll take that over hypersexual coomer shit and in terms of gender stuff I wasn't particularly offended at any point. It's more just unsophisticated I guess? If you're after something seriously well written I wouldn't bother, if you're looking for relatively fun fantasy without overt misogyny it's fine.
No. 224919
>>224774>>224793>>224899AYRT Thank you, nonnies! I read a couple of chapters and don't think I'll continue. The prose feels really juvenile, I'm surprised it isn't listed as YA or even middle grade (although to be fair, some middle grade fantasy is better written than some of the "adult" stuff kek). The linguistic elements are what annoy me the most. I don't think Sanderson is good at naming things or places. Tolkien had such an ear for naming places and people, this just feels so amateurish and phoned in by comparison. Like, Chach? Shash? Paladin with a K? Baby's first D&D campaign type shit. I can only take so many instances of "two regular words smooshed together and capitalized" before I go insane.
Any fantasy recommendations for something better? Would love to know what your favorites are.
No. 224964
>>224694>>224774Currently reading the first Mistborn book. It has about 550 pages, the word "frown" and variants are used 200 times, the word "smile" and variants are used 252 times, roughly once every two pages. If it wasn't for the heist plot I think I would have dropped it weeks ago
>>224919Discworld. Right now! I also liked The Black Company when I read it ages ago but I can't remember if it aged well…
No. 224991
File: 1658953505271.jpg (3.22 MB, 2090x4926, 1307836551252.jpg)
>>224919This reminded me that I had that chart lying around with no mention of any Sanderson book on it, how about that?
No. 225818
>>225812I recommend My Sweet Audrina, a one-off novel that is at least as good as FITA.
Also the VC Andrews fandom is a rabbit hole. A biography came out recent-ish and apparently the guy (a VC Andrews ghostwriter) stole the info from dedicated fans who did their own investigation. Andrews was mysterious as hell and for the longest time there was almost zero information about her.
No. 226514
File: 1659543694004.jpg (181.76 KB, 1160x1200, E35gxjbUYAMH6yv.jpg)
>>226256i recently got back into reading, after finally settling in at my new job! currently reading picrel, i'm on gothel's book rn. they're fun, easy reads.
No. 226531
File: 1659547621101.jpeg (239.51 KB, 700x1053, DD5EB2E1-BCF8-4E53-A9B3-C7BA0E…)
I think I heard that some people read this in high school, but I never did. Recently picked this edition up at the thrift store and holy shit. This woman could write so beautifully. It’s almost a work of poetry. In fact, this might be the most gorgeous prose I’ve ever read put to paper, and I’ve read most of the classics that are considered top tier. I look forward to reading more of her works.
No. 226555
File: 1659552401533.png (434.75 KB, 443x750, 3FC8C325-9A04-4B54-BC40-5E854B…)
>>225812Have fun
nonnie! But honestly I would stop reading after the second one in the series. That being said, Petals on the Wind is my favorite. My Sweet Audrina and Heaven are both just as gothic and pulpy and definitely worth reading too.
Don’t read anything from her ghostwriter. He’s disgusting.
No. 226713
>>226332we who are about to by joanna russ.
>>226555which ones are by her ghostwriter? i've been thinking about picking up the rest of the series, so far i've only read flowers in the attic.
No. 226747
>>226309Currently reading Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb
>>226581How are you liking Gardens of the Moon? I've been thinking of starting the Malazan books
No. 226991
File: 1659634810090.jpg (171.97 KB, 1400x1050, BRIDGERTON_108_Unit_01959R.jpg)
Decided to start reading the Bridgerton series for fun since I liked S1 of the show. I've only read the first two books so far.
I thought I'd like the first book the most and would have a hard time reading the following books, but after finishing the second, it made me realize the first book is so lackluster kek. The whole "love triumphs all" is cheesy and I don't mind it, but it's really… not great in Daphne and Simon's relationship. Simon has held a lifelong grudge against his father, then Daphne appears and they twiddle their thumbs together, then bam! Grudge is gone. I just accepted that that's how these books would go, but seeing the similar "love triumphs all" play out between Anthony and Kate made me realize how awful it is in the first book.
Anthony and Kate was much more fun to read. The back and forth between them was a lot more fun. I loved their internal struggle to come to terms that they were in love with one another.
I'm taking a break to read another book before I start on the 3rd book. Have other nonnies read the books? How do you like them?
I also haven't watched S2 and honestly don't really plan to (but really want to watch them play pall mall). I read the episode summaries and it's just so much more over the top and dramatic for no reason. I looooved reading about Anthony and Kate's relationship post-marriage, and S2 ends right as they get married.
No. 227139
File: 1659656546091.png (1.02 MB, 1278x350, summer reading 2022.PNG)
My summer vacation has ended, and thus my consumption of romance novels must as well. Convenience store woman was by far my favorite read, thank you guys for the recommendation. Any suggestions on what to start on next?
No. 227662
File: 1659778052630.jpg (905.32 KB, 1536x2629, dickens.jpg)
I now see where Pratchett found his inspiration
No. 228221
File: 1659968574123.jpg (385.98 KB, 1688x2560, 81 DF -yMqL.jpg)
About halfway through this book and I'm really enjoying it! It's pretty funny, but has its moments as well.
No. 228248
>>226514I started reading these too I found one in my attic and I liked it and bought few more have you read the twisted tales yet? There a few of them there like the what if Snow White never woke up ect there pretty good.
Ps congratulations on getting new job
nonnie No. 228251
File: 1659976589303.jpeg (71.19 KB, 715x1080, 68D6D3CE-4DE6-4461-AE8D-BF4742…)
Anyone pre ordered Jeannette mccurdy book? I’m pretty hyped for it. It coming out next month. Hopefully it spills more beans on the pedo ring in nickelodeon studios and her mother was gross af
No. 228273
File: 1659981845925.jpg (1.47 MB, 3000x2250, il_fullxfull.2776856082_n6sa.j…)
Major flash back I found one these at a free book stand I started re reading and collecting them of amazon
Did anyone ever read the mini books of sabrina the teenage witch they were pretty good some them were really random like she ended up being a becoming a pirate to finding a new love interest
I love to know if anyone else read these growing up
No. 228296
File: 1659988089447.png (236.7 KB, 796x457, 01.png)
recently rereading Lolita and like I'm impressed by how horrific and pitiful nabokov managed to portray Humbert despite him being the POV character who controls the narrative of the story, like he is absolutely pathetic in every way, as he tries to convince the reader of his harmlessness despite the horrible things he has done. he is at his core an pitiful and abusive man, hateful towards all women, unpleasant and rude, its almost comical in how many way finds excuses to make the women in his life into lessers.
No. 228313
>>228251I was thinking of picking it up! And other
nonnie is right, it releases tomorrow. I really hope it exposes some pedo ring stuff too. We need a lolcow book club so we can all read it together
No. 228443
>>228320They have the most random plots lol the only connection to the shows is few charters names part from that they don’t connect and there is no order to read them in.
Every couple books has a different writer so each book has a different writing style too which is cool. They good quick day read
No. 228446
File: 1660027803447.jpeg (247.02 KB, 1381x2054, 7E893679-18C2-469B-8993-9FCC64…)
I read this book and I cried with tears cause I was so glad it was over kek…. Guess I’m not a Stephen king fan
Unpopular opinion - his books are over rated I read a bunch now and I just find them boring and predictable is that just me?
Potential Trigger warning ?!? Maybe
Also yes I had the older copies where there was a gross underage gang bang why the hell would he write and publish that (he has a lot this shit in his books and short story’s no one talks about it very odd)
No. 228927
File: 1660135577801.jpeg (43.66 KB, 223x344, 1656390406313.jpeg)
>The Men by Sandra Newman
>From the author of The Heavens, a dazzling, mind-bending novel in which all men mysteriously disappear from the face of the earth
I can't even begin to describe that disappointment I felt when I finished this book, the premise seemed so interesting but it literally never went anywhere, despite men disappearing globally it still felt like nothing was happening outside of what protagonist personally see's, we hear about a woman becoming pope and the Korea's reuniting but we aren't told how this happens and what it means for these religions and nations, it just lingers on, the explanation of how men disappear is also really needlessly elaborate, like the book switches back and forth from it being just a framing device and then to almost providing an explanation and then not giving it
And the worst part of the book that can't be ignored. I'm not gonna even spoiler cause I think people should be aware of this, so the main character is a disgraced female dancer who did something awful that ruined her reputation, in about mid-way through the novel its revealed she was groomed by an older voyeuristic man, in too having sex with underage boys while he masturbates to them having sex, after that. I literally could not focus on the story, cause like why would you include that, like I get that it wants to be serious about grooming but its both ridiculous and fucked up and we are supposed to feel bad for the MC but like no, you willingly had sex with a 12 year old boy, you are a bad person
No. 229014
File: 1660144182601.png (574.9 KB, 820x1867, CAPTURE.png)
>>228927wow you weren't exaggerating, like Jesus fuck who thought this was a good idea
No. 229172
File: 1660157477801.png (87.66 KB, 919x607, troon tears.png)
>>228927The butthurt trannies reviewing this book are a goldmine. I'm still ignoring this one because of the reasons you listed. Gross.
No. 229201
>>228446He has a few good ones, but all his work is plagued by being same-voiced. Wow, is the main character a male author who is described to sound exactly like King himself? What a surprise! (and he mentions in his memoir he doesn't base any of his characters off real people, kek). I also think he's a creep for writing Carrie, I didn't think it was very good and I don't see why no one thinks it's WEIRD that a grown man decided to write about a teenage girl's period as his debut novel? Part of me wonders if his wife actually wrote it, since she's the one who saved it from being tossed (should have left it in the bin), but I haven't read any of her work to compare to it. It's also been a very long time since I've read Carrie, but I stand by my opinion he's a creep for writing it either way.
I didn't realize newer copies of IT removed the creepy gang-bang scene though? I have the copy in your pic and it's "newer" and still has the scene in it.
No. 229270
File: 1660187911996.jpg (48.54 KB, 400x602, High-Rise.jpg)
Read High-Rise by J.G. Ballard. It's about the inhabitants of a 40-storey high rise basically going crazy and devolving into tribes and Mad Max post-apocalypse squabbles inside the building. Literally nothing is wrong with the outside world, but things gets crazy inside. Pretty neat novel if you like stories set in one place or about societal collapses.
No. 229271
File: 1660187913367.png (347.57 KB, 820x945, Screenshot 20.png)
>>229172I honestly didn't expect, that book is super sympatric towards TIMs(and one mention of TIFs) multiple female characters talk about how they were unfairly taken away with the men
No. 229598
File: 1660246147744.jpg (36.99 KB, 750x750, Witch-cover.jpg)
I got this for shits and giggles and I'm a bit unimpressed. More interestingly, the author, Lisa Lister, is borderline cow-levels of unhinged. I signed up for her mailing list out of perverse curiosity and it's just heaps of unfocused ramblings about energetic portals, manifesting, and bumming around France with her overweight, balding moid whom she's dubbed The Viking and who also sells a series of guided prosperity manifestations/meditations for the low, low price of £21. She comes off as grifty at best and self-obsessed at worst. I'm probably going to leave my copy in a local lending library and farm the inevitable TRA/libfem outrage. Also bump for gore, be careful anons.
No. 229662
File: 1660254022707.jpeg (3.09 MB, 4032x3024, F46A0DDA-EB4E-485F-AC81-CD2C25…)
>>228251Ignore the photo from my kindle but lord, the things this poor woman went through…it’s no wonder she never wanted to continue on acting after that Sam & Cat shitshow.
No. 230026
File: 1660317261487.jpg (116.42 KB, 1022x1521, cKOoINI.jpg)
haven't seen that new movie, but is this book any good?
No. 230071
>>230061They could've filed taxes or sumthin, why does Stephen King think kids
exploring each other sexually suddenly
not make them children anymore, does he not know about csa? I hate that book
No. 230149
>>230026I just read it recently before the movie came out and enjoyed it. It's very character-driven, which I liked, although there was one character who I spent the entire book hoping would be torn apart by wolves or at least die in a fire.
The ending was just a wee bit too convenient, but I still liked it. Just going by the trailer, it's clear that the movie is only loosely based on the book. I still haven't seen it and now feel no urgency to do so. Books rule.
No. 230331
File: 1660378949234.jpg (1.37 MB, 1687x2559, A19thzDvzfL.jpg)
So I am not a huge YA reader but I read this book because I heard it had some pretty creepy moments and it did. It's a retelling of 12 dancing princesses which is a fairy tale I never heard of before this book. I actually did enjoy this book though and it was kind of dark and sad for a YA book. Not gonna lie a got a bit confused by some things near the end though.
No. 230359
>>230071idk
nonnie, it's just how i read that bit but i agree with you. it could've been anything
No. 230911
File: 1660545222451.jpg (9.6 KB, 344x344, 9780062373663.jpg)
I finished this book a few weeks ago and I just want to rant. this book was… I don't even know. I read it because I really liked the book special topics in calamity physics and when I looked for similar books this one kept coming up. and let me just say if you liked STICP this is probably not a good book to read lmao. the only similar things about them is that they're about solving a murder at a school. this book also got really dark/depressing/twisted at points, but that's not why I hated it.
the plot is that there are two sisters, a year apart in age, and the younger sister is murdered and somebody is framed. the protagonist realizes the guy who is now dead so he can't defend himself was framed and is trying to solve the murder as the cops are totally incompetent and useless as they always are in books. the reason I hated this book was because of all the weird sexual stuff in it. good lord where do I even begin. well first of all there are many times when the main character (I think her name was grace but I don't even remember) describes her sister nica in a really weird sexual way. there was more than one descriptions like "her bouncing nipples under her black lace bra" or describing her body in a really sexual or her panties etc etc.. the younger sister, nica, was 16 by the way. there was also a description of the mother's bouncing breasts at least once. the mother of the sisters was a photographer and her daughter nica was her only subject. she started taking pictures of her when she was a little kid and kept taking pictures of her up until she died. the mom would literally take nudes of nica and she'd take candids of nica and one of them was of nica naked, masturbating under a dora the explorer blanket and just like… why. none of that even ended up having to do with the plot, at least not directly.
but it doesn't end there. grace goes to a party dressed up as her dead sister and gets really drunk and/or stoned out of her mind as she has a pill problem. she wakes up later and finds out she was raped and has 0 memory of it. then she dates a guy and falls in love and then finds out he was the one who raped her. he confessed and said she was whispering things to him and goes "if I was talking I wasn't unconscious".. then after that she gets mad at him and accuses him of raping her but her internal monologue goes "it was a lie, I knew he didn't rape me"… but like.. he did???? how is that not rape? there was also a borderline sexual assault scene between grace and another girl. I actually started to get scrote vibes from this book but the author is indeed a woman.
all of the characters in this book were awful too. I feel like there was more awful shit in it but I can't be bothered to remember. I'm not even sure why I finished this book lmao.
No. 231134
File: 1660615919195.jpeg (77.91 KB, 828x174, 87666F1D-FD31-434A-B541-6B8D5A…)
>>230964i just looked at the reviews on goodreads and kek. why do they gotta list homosexual sex along with these other warnings
No. 231185
Some mid 90s-early 00s graphic design books I've started hoarding, haven't read through them all yet. All available on the Internet Archive/online:
Big Type (2002), Roger Walton
https://archive.org/details/bigtype0000unse/mode/2upMusicdot.com (2001), Roger Walton
https://archive.org/details/musicdotcom0000unse/mode/2upPage Layout: inspiration, innovation, information (2000), Roger Walton
https://archive.org/details/pagelayoutinspir0000walt/page/n151/mode/2upType: no borders, no boundaries, no limits (2002), Roger Walton
https://archive.org/details/typenobordersnob0000unse/mode/2upThe big book of typographics (Typographics 1 & 2 c.1995/96) (2002), Roger Walton
https://archive.org/details/bigbookoftypogra0000unse/mode/2upTypographics 3: Globalvision (2000), Roger Walton
https://archive.org/details/typographicsthre0000unseTypographics 4: analysis+imagination=communication (2000), Roger Walton
https://archive.org/details/typographics40000unse/mode/2upTypographics 5: graphic fusion (2003), Roger Walton
https://archive.org/details/typographics5gra0000unseGraphic Design for the 21st Century (2005), Charlotte and Peter Fiell
https://b-ok.global/book/1281481/b4432dThe new graphic design school (1998), Alan Swann
https://archive.org/details/newgraphicdesign00swan/mode/2upThe complete guide to digital graphic design (2002), Maggie and Bob Gordon
https://archive.org/details/completeguidetod0000unse_n8i3/mode/2upFly: the art of the club flyer (1996), Nicola Ackland-Snow
https://archive.org/details/flyartofclubflye0000acklNot a design book per se but it definitely has some cool illustrations and layouts:
Lovely Sweet Dream (1998), Hiroko Nishikawa
https://archive.org/details/lovelysweetdream No. 231193
>>230964>>231134I wonder if it's as disturbing as Dead Inside. I got scarred just reading the synopsis of that and I didn't even read the whole synopsis.
Actually no nevermind I don't want to know.
No. 231276
File: 1660657898404.jpg (14.87 KB, 183x276, lagoon.jpg)
has anyone read lady from the black lagoon? i'm halfway through and i'm not sure if i like it or not, kek
No. 231584
File: 1660754438100.jpg (27.38 KB, 260x400, 22588.jpg)
Just finished Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick!
I really enjoyed the disjointed writing style, it reminds me of the feeling of racing thoughts during mania (which makes sense considering how Dick was mentally). I'm not sure I fully followed the plot because I read it in very short segments during lunch breaks. I somehow entirely missed that Tagomi had died until I finished the book, wondered where tf he had got to, and then went back to reread the last 3ish chapters. That's probably user error on my end for not being a more attentive reader, though. The concept of the oracle was very interesting too. I definitely want to check out more of PKD's writing, especially stuff where he has more room to worldbuild - once I've finished the 20 books I promised myself I'd read next, kek.
No. 231611
>>231280Talking to My Daughter About The Economy was a really fascinating history of credit and debt. The only plot is that he's structured it like he's writing it to his teen daughter lol, but that just makes it easier to read.
Behave by Robert Sapolsky is also great if you watch like a 10 minute youtube video on how nerves create signals, to go with his appendix.
Idk it really depends what you're into, go look up some bestseller lists in the genres you want?
Personally I'm annoyed with the trend for nonfiction writers to add in memoirs or nonfiction. I don't trust americwn tv documentaries for the same tendency to overdramatise. Let the facts be facts!
No. 231758
>>231589It's Courtney Love The Real Story.
Sad that Poppy trooned out, though it's a typical fujo to Aiden story
No. 231816
File: 1660809333509.jpg (33.04 KB, 258x385, Exquisite_Corpse_(novel).jpg)
>>231709Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite kek, unironically. It is beautifully written but oh so degenerate.
No. 231823
File: 1660810342483.jpeg (139.75 KB, 2000x1333, Interview-with-the-vampire.jpe…)
Are there any Anne Rice enthusiasts?
I wonder if the new Interview With The Vampire TV show is gonna be any good and canon. They look extremely goofy. Is that how the characters are supposed to look like anyway?
No. 231829
>>231825>sucklel
there used to be a whole thread for vampire discussion before /m/ got nuked, not sure if it got remade or not
>>231709are you okay?
No. 231833
>>231823Changes they made to the characters and settings makes absolutely no sense. At some point, why not just make original vampire series. I would love to see/read something original rather than rehashed "but this time we changed the original to the point of no recognition!!! fans gonna love it".
Sage for nonproofread sperg.
No. 231849
>>231829>>231823The thread is here
>>193190 and there was some discussion about Internet with the Vampire. I wouldn't necessarily jump into assuming right off the bat it's going to be a bad adaptation as I don't think minor changes and race swaps are what make bad adaptations; from the trailer it seems main actors have a good chemistry so I'm actually cautiously optimistic. Or at the very least, interested.
No. 231912
>>231709boy parts by eliza clark!
>>231280i recently read "the mind fixers" which was a nonfiction book about the history of psychology. you might enjoy that.
No. 232013
File: 1660879863008.jpg (21.64 KB, 500x500, 414K5fA5npL._SL500_.jpg)
I only read the first chapter of this and it's already intense. I'm so thankful for my freedom
No. 232076
File: 1660912681734.jpg (124.23 KB, 534x900, 1646280048811.jpg)
Looking for recs of books about wizards/witches/magic either fantasy or studies of magic and wizardry through cultures. Trying to get back into reading and wizard of earthsea was one of my favourite books growing up. thanks in advance, nonnies.
No. 232114
>>232076I recommend the Pratchett Witches series
>>223219Do read Macbeth if you haven't yet
No. 233325
File: 1661361107390.jpg (443.52 KB, 1200x1772, a-tale-of-two-cities-431[1].jp…)
What the hell? I just noticed Victor Hugo stole the ending of A Tale of Two Cities when he wrote the ending of Quatrevingt-Treize. The fucker must have gotten away with it because AToTC is basically unknown in France, and so is Quatrevingt-Treize in the english speaking world. I feel like this is pretty big, but I doubt Hugo scholars would be ready to admit that one of France's most beloved writers wasn't above plagiarism…
No. 233649
File: 1661456926192.jpg (1002.7 KB, 1491x2308, 91y L9kb6LL.jpg)
Anyone else read this? Picked it up at a charity shop for a few cents, never having read any of Margaret Atwood's works. The plot sounded interesting, dealing with a woman reflecting on her childhood and the complicated sort of friendship she had with her bully. It was well written, but I found the main character be kind of insufferable and incredibly unlikable. She was so passive throughout the entire novel, when it focused on her childhood I thought it was because she was a child. But as it focuses more on her adulthood, she's shown to be this woman who seems to lack much agency or will of her own. Simply falling into her two marriages, and pregnancies. The only choice she seems to actively make is to become an artist. I also found her kind of pathetic with how much simpering she does for men, seeming to hold them up as either amazing mysterious alien beings or else poor easily frightened animals to be coddled and forgiven or somewhere in between. Meanwhile almost every other woman is either an ugly shrill old matron, airheaded floozy or otherwise shallow NPC compared to her. It'd be one thing if she thought like this as a young woman, but when it gets to her in her middle age, she doesn't seemed to have changed much. She seems to have this subconscious desire she never got over of wanting to be the mean girl, stemming from being the bullied kid in childhood. There's also one scene in particular that I thought made her irredeemably awful, even the character herself admits how ghoulishly cruel it was to think that way.
No. 233708
File: 1661475677763.jpg (484.21 KB, 1318x2000, OVXllKT.jpg)
anyone read this? is it any good?
No. 233923
File: 1661551913028.jpg (74.31 KB, 700x525, 79650845-e2f2-4005-ae74-ec34ce…)
Anyone else really like when books have illustrations inside like picrel?
No. 233930
File: 1661553042926.jpg (3.48 MB, 1552x1936, Frère_Jean_défend_le_clos_de_l…)
>>233923I think nearly all Jules Verne books have illustrated editions, I remember having a big ass edition of 20 000 leagues with gorgeous stuff in it
It's really too bad it only gets done for younger audience books nowadays, if at all. In the 19th century most books had them…
No. 234034
File: 1661596286921.jpg (320.3 KB, 1400x2117, the it girl.jpg)
so this is probably the best murder mystery I've ever read.. I enjoyed every minute of this as it was very suspenseful. I've read all of ruth ware's books except two, and all of them were kind of underwhelming except this one and the turn of the key. I really enjoyed the turn of the key which is why I kept reading her books. I almost didn't bother with this one but I'm glad I did. ruth ware is really good at building characters too, in fact sometimes I wish she'd write deeper stories than just murder mysteries/thrillers
No. 234253
File: 1661656665475.png (218.31 KB, 885x400, lol.png)
>>233708kek I went to download it and unsurprisingly it has a 1 star rating on that site
No. 234254
File: 1661656800207.png (546.28 KB, 946x5852, lol2.png)
>>234253Also the comments are hilarious (based radfem at the end)
No. 234557
>>234254This is so tiring. I wonder where the hell these people live where trans people "are lynched and murdered everyday" (probably america, canada or some english speaking european country, the most liberal places for troons).. Where I live women are murdered everyday or every few days and this is not an exageration.
Also kek at that random portuguese comment
Anyway I'll be downloading this book now, thanks troons.
No. 235404
>>225812I know this was posted a month ago but yes I've been reading the Flower in the Attic series! I'm on the third book currently (If There Be Thorns). I'm nearly half way through and I'm waiting for some serious dramatics to happen kek. I really liked Petals on the Wind though. It may end up being my favorite of the whole series.
I am planning on reading the prequel Garden of Shadows. I know it's written by a ghost writer but he used Andrews notes for the storyline so I'm willing to give it a shot. But other than My Sweet Audrina I probably won't read anymore V.C. Andrews books.
No. 235437
File: 1662039733678.jpg (70.83 KB, 400x480, 1599697766827.jpg)
>>232076I gotchu covered nonna! (sorry for 13 day late delivery, i had flies to catch lol)
-The structure of magic: a book about language and therapy (book on NLP, very interesting real world applications being studied)
-Holy book (of your choosing, could be any, or just go for Aradia)
-Vurt (trippy dreamscape science fantasy rollercoaster, highly rec'd!)
-mythology book of choice (might I recommend something Egyptian for the good month of September?)
-Vampire's Way to Psychic Self-Defense (good basic rundown on how to get bad shit to go and stay go)
-Llewellyn's Complete Book of Ceremonial Magick (cheeky compilation of fascinating articles, will give you some food for thought if you are interested in pursuing further studies down the line!)
-Chainsawman (unironically good intro to demonology)
I can assemble a rar or something of epubs/pdfs if you'd like btw, no hassle at all.
Take it easy
nonnie, stay hydrated.
No. 235493
>>235477The concept of fears being personified/deified etc into egregores which possess real life "powers" in essence, is chaos magick 101 more or less. But on this, I do not mind agreeing to disagree, I apologise for inserting undue levity into my post, I should have really thought this out more.
Part 2 shaping up to be pure suffering, pure suffering, I'm eagerly awaiting new chapters tbh ladies.
How about Hell Girl? That shit rocks.
No. 235543
>>235493I think comics by Alan Moore (Promethea) or Grant Morrison (The Invisibles) would be a more explicit introduction to the arts, Moore quoting concepts directly from hermeticism and the Ars Goetia and Morrison being a bona fide chaos magician
So far it looks like part 2 is going to be a love story, just like part 1 looked like it was going to be a shonen… it's really hell on me when csm skips a week lol
No. 235991
File: 1662246325067.jpg (39.26 KB, 291x475, 11286.jpg)
Currently reading picrel and if he mentions breasts one more fucking time I'm going to lose it. I really loved The Terror by the same author (the show is amazing as well, highly recommend it) but he sexualizes the woman in that story too. Scrotes gonna scrote, I guess
No. 236086
File: 1662284772956.png (105.17 KB, 640x480, 1604039616892.png)
>>235991Yeah I read this a few years back, waste of time imo but had some interesting concepts I suppose.
I liked Hyperion though! It's inspired by The Canturbury Tales and it was miles miles better than CC. Also reminds me of my favorite Japanese novel series that's now in English, Legend of The Galactic Heroes, it's the name of milord Yang Wenli's flagship.
Oh and when I was a kiddo, I adored Anthony Horowitz' fiction, he did this series of detective parodies for kids and they would have me in stitches, but he has done really chilling horror too. I'm so glad that when I was growing up in the countryside at a small school we had a nice selection of books, it really fed all of our brains, I fondly remember waiting for the next in a series to be returned so I could read it.
Thinking of investing in a new Kobo when Christmas comes around! There's one that you can edit and make notes with so that would be amazing for college (that I have finally returned to after being a hikkineet for approx 10 years, yeah… I am la eremita).
No. 236093
>>236086Lotgh nona is back! Good luck on your
military history degree!
No. 236112
File: 1662299973712.jpg (13.84 KB, 276x183, Z.jpg)
>>235991>>236000Update: He has, indeed, written about breasts again. Fuckin idiot. Picrel is a different author but same concept. In Carrion Comfort he also (light spoiler)
writes in rape a few times but I was willing to overlook it because it is contextually relevant.
>>236086AYRT, thanks for the rec! I'd like to read Summer of Night by Dan Simmons but he legit is a retard for not keeping his stupid shriveled dick away from his storytelling.
>>236098Sigh No. 236120
File: 1662301251649.jpg (215.98 KB, 768x1024, sexy_scene.jpg)
>>236115Got u covered sister. (Not my pic)
Her boobs boobed boobily, as they say.
No. 236125
File: 1662303433779.png (Spoiler Image,102.74 KB, 1148x767, pillars-of-earth-follett.png)
I want to rant about The Pillars of the Earth. So this is "one of the best books of all time" I've heard so much about? I understand that William is an irredeemable shitbag and we are meant to hate him, but why was there a need to make this scene so graphic? It continues on for another page and gets more detailed as it goes on, describing vividly how William rapes Aliena until she passes out and it's implied that his friend then rapes her as well while she's unconscious and my question is, why did Mr. Follett decide to put this in his book? The fact that he chose to to depict rape in the same detailed way that he writes sex scenes makes me think that he and other male authors get off to this shit, especially those who write fantasy and historical fiction. I swear they're writing these scenes with one hand. Looking at you, GRRM.
The women in this book are either young and pretty heroines or they are ugly, evil, bitter, scheming crones. Their attractiveness and youth is what determines whether they have the author's "respect" or not. They are not allowed to have flaws and weaknesses like their male counterparts, they must be perfect at what they do and look like supermodels while doing it. The book has an overall inconsistent tone and historical inaccuracies galore but it's his portrayal and treatment of women that angers me the most.
Honestly I don't know why I even continued reading after another character's wife died during childbirth and he groped her breasts and then had sex with another woman, beautiful and half his age of course, hours after his wife's death because I knew at that point that nothing good would come of this book. Not to mention that Follett, like many other male authors, introduces every female character by first describing her breasts. So many unnecessary sex scenes, cringy descriptions of women's bodies, and graphic sexual violence. Historical fiction moids are the worst.
No. 236149
File: 1662311024631.jpg (252.21 KB, 1500x2413, 71RUCoZRhbL.jpg)
I'm a big fan of Limmy and Limmy's Show and all that so I thought this would be interesting. It was. It was honestly a bit offputting how relatable a lot of it was. He's very relatable but also incredibly insufferable at some points, but those instances were also relatable in a way. After reading, I was left with the impression that he's a great guy to know if you're just acquaintances but anything deeper than that and he's definitely a fucking nightmare to deal with. I thought the work years and comedy chapters were neat, not all the shit about being a crazy alcoholic during the work years but just how he ended up going into comedy and how he made it and all that. He would say how he never knew what he was doing at any point in time but it was so very interesting how he prepared for everything and what it all resulted in.
In my opinion, I don't think he has adhd or autism. I think he's just anxious as fuck. Maybe that's me projecting because I relate so much to him, but even the worrying about having adhd ot autism just strikes me as a very anxious person looking to excuse his weird behavior. He admits it, too, toward the end of the book. Crazy guy.
There is something I have to ask because it was bugging me while I was reading. Gonna spoil it because there are some spoilers, whatever.
He talks about doing a lot of acid when he was younger. So much acid that he was known for doing acid. What gave me pause are the couple of times where he'd describe hearing an "evil" voice in his head that wasn't his, or he'd get really frightened by some sort of "evil" presence. He said at one point he felt an evil presence right in front of his face. These instances were when he was sober, except I think one instance where he heard voices because of a delayed ecstacy pill. He also talked about how he was suicidal and how the thought of what would happen to his soul after he died (if he'd go to hell and all that) snapped him out of it. He's an atheist. My question is what the fuck went on there? Was that some kind of psychosis or something? Surely it had to have been because of the acid/ecstacy/alcohol right? But seriously what the fuck was all that? What's the simplest explanation? That was weird as fuck kek.
I enjoyed it. He's a weird guy. Some parts were harder to get through than others but it was a very entertaining and enlightening read.
No. 236195
File: 1662322522818.jpg (71.79 KB, 1200x675, limmy[1].jpg)
>>236155It's Limmy, that's the way he looks
>>236149Extended use of MDMA can lead to paranoia yes
No. 236393
File: 1662392640667.jpg (2.51 MB, 4096x3072, sciencestack.jpg)
To keep the thread rolling, let's post our current stacks ladies! Always interested to see how you arrange your books/ereaders/stationary and what not, gives the thread a bit more colour too.
Going back to college from 11 year neet exile in a few days so im revising highschool sciences and reading some comfy science fiction. The Dostoevsky is just because as a depressed slav I can relate to his worldview, it's comforting like some steaming shchi and dumplings served with hot tea.
No. 236401
File: 1662394837690.jpeg (242.71 KB, 744x1200, A5579E16-EC87-478E-89D8-B55B8D…)
>>236393I try to keep it to one book at a time. This is the one I’m reading now. It’s quite short, so I’m sure I’ll be posting something else in a day or two.
No. 236402
File: 1662395307809.jpg (71.35 KB, 474x719, OIF.jpg)
Anons who got the Ink Black Heart, have you finished it? What did you think?
No. 236409
File: 1662397581836.png (168.2 KB, 780x319, trip.png)
>>236125I say watch the show. I liked it, my mother found it melodramatic, lol.
I don't have memory of the show having a rape scene, overall it felt "clean" and naive to me. But it has been couple of years since then so please correct me if I am totally wrong Also has Reddie Edmayne in it.
No. 236473
File: 1662417466104.jpg (346.88 KB, 1000x746, eqtjf48j7.JPG)
>>236393Currently reading. I usually have a manga volume going as well but I'm waiting on the next volume I need in a certain series to come in at the local bookstore.
No. 236646
File: 1662481182815.jpg (2.83 MB, 4096x3072, 20220906_170457.jpg)
>>236473Oh, respectable stack
nonnie, gonna note down these for later, the Jared Diamond one looks especially interesting given my own interest in, I suppose, using lessons from the past to build a better future for us all.
I went on a nice stroll around all the bookshops and appreciated some colourful street art, as yesterday I got a little overagitated at the kiwifarms drama and sperged out to some poor nonnies on Discord. Ah well, my bad, my bad.
Here's some of the insert photography from "Lady Death: The Memoirs of Stalin's Sniper", proof that you can be a strong independent murderstacy while being wholly relatable to the rest of us ladies. Love women in uniform tbh, military garb is cool as all hell.
No. 236661
File: 1662485061996.jpeg (32.55 KB, 333x500, 845D8450-7824-4256-AE00-B4FC06…)
i started this one with low expectations but it’s pretty good, i really needed a book like this right now in my life
No. 237270
File: 1662637987388.jpg (713.71 KB, 1662x2560, verity.jpg)
so I just finished this book and it was not an enjoyable experience in the least, and I would not recommend reading it lmao.
I originally bought this book a couple years back before all of the hype around it (or before I was aware of it, anyway). I bought it because I heard the synopsis and it hooked me (the synopsis is that a famous author can't finish a book series because of her injuries, so the publishing company hires a new author to finish it, and when the new author goes through the famous author's notes she finds some shady shit). I only just now got around to reading it. I absolutely hated this book though, for multiple reasons.
for starters the protagonist was a massive pickme from start to finish, I couldn't stand her as soon as her character was introduced. the love interest has less than 0 personality outside of being a totally handsome perfect chivalrous dream man. when I first bought this book I had never heard of colleen hoover before and didn't know that she was primarily a romance writer (who is heavy on the smut if this book is any indication of that). there were way too many sex scenes, of blowjobs specifically, that I never needed to read. smut scenes in general annoy me because of how they're usually written but blowjobs are another level, I didn't want to have to read about swallowing cum that many times, even if it was relatively vague. at one point a character is talking about trying to swallow during a blowjob but has trouble because there's too much semen.
this book kept feeling like it couldn't decide if it wanted to be a thriller or a smutty romance. at the end of the day it's a thriller I guess because there was no actual reason for the characters to be in love.
the worst part though was the ending. you might have heard people say they're "team manuscript" or "team letter" and that's because (vague-ish spoiler) there's an ambiguous ending, and those are different interpretations of it I'm team letter by the way. there's other reasons to hate the ending but I won't get into it.
I usually don't rate books but overall I'd give this 2/5 stars, maybe I'd give it 3 if it weren't for all the scenes about swallowing cum. it was a pretty short read at least.
No. 237428
File: 1662691198791.jpeg (26.21 KB, 331x500, 41IsoKYEgRL.jpeg)
Finished My Dark Vanessa recently and honestly, I'm obsessed with it.
Weirdly Vanessa was super relatable to me even though I am an adult. Also warning this book is about a 15 year old girl being groomed by her English teacher.
No. 238046
>>237428Yeehs, rough subject material I had nonce teachers assume I was fresh meat because I possess a very neotenous appearance (big head like an alium desu), it's not a fun time ladies, not a fun time at all.
As for me, I am slowly reading the second Three Body Problem book, The Dark Forest. I love the insect-like aliens with utterly bizarre yet rational culture and philosophy.
No. 238393
File: 1662977196720.jpg (141.26 KB, 660x1057, 71 WFTjvLFL.jpg)
This book gave me heart problems
No. 238495
>>238416*predictable slog with too many blowjob scenes about swallowing cum
and yes, goodreads sucks. a lot of people seem to treat it more like personal blog than a book review site. you know how when you go to look up reviews for a book and they're all really, really long with shitloads of gifs and pictures and quotes and shit and hardly actually says anything about the book? like is this a book review or a fucking tumblr post
No. 238591
File: 1663052409555.jpg (9.6 KB, 448x337, 306673305_1246660812750922_156…)
Nonnas, do you guys have any reccomendations for comfy books? I have some free time now and want to read some sweet and comforting books about cooking or maybe slice-of-life themes to take my mind of things.
No. 238600
File: 1663055661745.jpg (54.78 KB, 786x1200, 786x1200.jpg)
>>238591This feels like long nature documentary. I really liked it.
No. 238615
>>238591The Hobbit
The Last Unicorn
The Neverending Story
The Starless Sea (didn't finish it but I feel like it fits this category)
The house on the cerulean sea(never read this but I heard it's cozy)
Sorry I don't have more, I just realized I mostly read anxiety inducing books
No. 238632
File: 1663065110670.jpg (4.19 MB, 4480x6720, pexels-karolina-grabowska-4197…)
>>238615>>238600Thank you kind anons, I'll make sure to check them out!!!
No. 238658
File: 1663071763747.jpg (30.95 KB, 306x423, 31a19e46a9cdcc3499df63039df7db…)
Anyone have recommendations for books by mexican american latina stories? About childhood trauma and family? (sorry if my wording is bad haha)
No. 238843
File: 1663110007897.jpg (41.57 KB, 400x379, sixtudorqueens.jpg)
>>238510I've never purposefully done a challenge like this, but I tend to read a lot of works written by women as it is. Jane Eyre is a favourite of mine.
If I can recommend anything, definitely Alison Weir's Six Tudor Queens series. That author has quite a number of non-fiction works on the Tudors, but that series mentioned is historical fiction. Definitely the best of sort out there on the queens.
No. 239069
>>238510seconding
>>238843 i also read mostly women writers. i also don't understand this weird notion that EVERYONE only ever reads books by men because i have a lot of bookworm friends and they all read mostly books by women. i think it's mostly men that are obsessed with books by men.
jane eyre is definitely one of my favorite books as well! i also recommend wuthering heights, it's hilarious and frustrating at the same time. definitely not the love story that people assume it is.
No. 239520
File: 1663253469528.jpeg (669.04 KB, 828x1196, C2F85339-B4FC-4B59-8E6A-F9C220…)
well i started reading american psycho and i’m about halfway through. i haven’t seen the movie so all i know about it i’ve absorbed through osmosis from all the patrick bateman memes. honestly i was kinda shocked that girls on tumblr are obsessing over him. i’m not sure how much of this is adapted into the film because ppl seem to stan him like hannibal lecter but in the book he vehemently despises women, anyone non-white, jewish people, gay men and the homeless. and yeah. this man is crazy.
that being said there’s been some funny/shocking moments that made me laugh at loud in laughter/disgust including
he tries to kill a man who is dating the woman that he’s cheating on his girlfriend with? said guy thinks he’s coming onto him and flirts back. he gets so flustered/disconcerted he doesn’t kill him. he also walks into a jewish restaurant in a daze and tries to order food with dairy which they won’t serve because they’re kosher. gets incredibly angry and can’t understand them and storms out calling the manager of the restaurant a cocksucking k*ke. refers to an asian person as a zipperhead which cemented that as being an actual slur (i know some people were debating this in one of the fakeboi threads). also he’s a loser who jacks off to lesbian porn and pays prostitutes to reenact it. autistically obsessed with what people are wearing and gets anxious when he can’t see people’s shoes. seemingly walks around will blood spatter on him and everyone just accepts that it’s chilli sauce or something
also he literally kills puppies and other small animals and says he finds nazis not entirely unsympathetic. oh and he seems to be a pedophile too. i really don’t get why people find him so iconic
overall just a deranged psycho. i have no idea how this is going to finish but i’m definitely along for the ride. can’t wait to watch the movie afterwards as well.
so far it seems to be a pretty unexpected look at how misogyny is accepted in society and the fact that men are so attracted to sexually dominating the women that they also hate. this was all over the place whoops
No. 239522
>>239520If you weren't aware, the film is very different from the book. The book was written by a misogynistic scrote
venting while the movie was directed by a based woman and it shows.
No. 239554
File: 1663260887369.jpg (122.93 KB, 259x400, 61058915.jpg)
>>238591Cackle by Rachel Harrison! It's a very witchy comfy Halloween read. Spooky vibes, but not actually scary. Perfect for this time of year!
>>239069When I was young and pretentious going through the phase of mostly reading classics and stuff like Haruki Murakami I indeed did read mostly male authors. For obvious reasons, those are the books that get praised in certain literary circles mostly consisting of men. Anyway, I grew out of that and these days I mostly read women and I tend to enjoy female writers a lot more.
No. 239753
File: 1663301779724.jpg (1.28 MB, 1576x2402, A15cUJfTISL.jpg)
I was thinking about reading this but I am probably too much of a wuss
No. 239891
File: 1663344030619.jpg (292.29 KB, 736x1204, 8378c3a1a6a9897f74a12b35e0a9b2…)
>>239878Anything by Lovecraft? My favorite is the color out of space.
No. 239898
>>239878>I visibly gagged when the guy at the bookstore rec'd Manhunt.Wtf? I thought that was some self-published shit only TRAs would buy.
>>239891This and I recommend Edgar Allan Poe as well.
No. 239913
>>239898NTA, but I also really thought it was the kind of thing you'd only be aware of as a tra or a
terf, I only know it exists because someone on lc talked about it, I think normies just wouldn't know about it by the very nature of being a normie, maybe bookstore guy is a troon in the making.
No. 240703
File: 1663705522077.jpg (19.74 KB, 250x384, WitchChildrejacket.jpeg.jpg)
>>240680If you don't mind YA, I recommend Witch Child by Celia Rees
No. 242898
File: 1664288632396.jpg (527.42 KB, 1080x1714, Screenshot_20220927-072203_Fir…)
>>239522>>239523I went to a reading by Bret Easton Ellis of Lunar Park and during the q&a, a woman asked him to comment on the misogyny present in his books and he literally said he never thought about it and didn't notice it. Idk which is worse- if he was lying or if he was telling the truth. Asshole. I swear he flirted with my bf too. After I got my book signed and stood off to the side to wait for my bf and my friend to get their books signed he looked at me like, why are you still here? Dickhead. Not surprising in the very least, however.
>>238393>>237270>>237428I put these on my kindle at your suggestion, nonnas! Looking forward to reading them!
I have a question- I am reading What Moves the Dead & the protagonist talks about "binding his breast" as a boy. What does this mean? It is definitely not a tranny thing kek. The setting is Europe, if that helps. Pls no spoilers if you've read it, I'm still in the beginning of the story.
No. 242904
File: 1664289284333.jpg (571.37 KB, 1368x2081, 91W-I1j1xxL.jpg)
>>199612Old post but you're so right, although I still enjoy reading his books. I heard he mostly (secretly ofc) uses ghostwriters now smh. Anyways, Insomnia was really comfy. I thought I wouldn't like it because it's about old people but it was pretty good. I'm revisiting it via audiobook as I fall asleep lately.
No. 243183
>>243001>>242943??? There is absolutely no mention of this. Did I miss something? Or was that the clue? Did you both read this book?
Edit: I googled it welp. I guess it makes sense then why he spoke about women joining the Gallacian military. Omg and all the shit about the weird pronouns in his language. Oye, thanks nonnies.
No. 243566
File: 1664489494249.jpg (382.59 KB, 1544x2176, 38496725._UY2176_SS2176_.jpg)
please recommend me any creepy, spooky or scary books set in new england. can be modern or historical. pic related is on my list
No. 243586
File: 1664499056581.jpeg (92.35 KB, 531x800, 101D76B3-5466-4CFD-B246-32C76F…)
I got this one from the thrift store a couple days ago and it’s intriguing so far.
No. 243634
>>238393I'm about halfway through this and it's pretty good! Definietly keeps me turning pages and difficult to put down!
Does anyone else sideload books onto their Kindle? I was thinking of getting a Kobo instead because apparently it's easier and more functional than loading
pirated books on a Kindle.
No. 243661
>>243634I bought an onyx boox e-reader because of this reason, it's basically an android tablet but e-ink instead of a regular tablet screen. It's also handy since it's google play you can read books from other apps like kindle and Libby on it. The catch is that they are rather expensive depending on what model you get, I got the nova 3 for about $185 used. You can also draw on your PDFs with them with a stylus. But if you want that feature make sure you pick the right model because not all of them have it. And there are a million models which can get confusing. I have heard kobos are a good budget option for reading PDFs though and some of them also have the stylus note taking feature, so you might be better off with one of those.
Before that I used my nook (which I still use moe, tbh) which was horrid for reading PDFs but it reads epubs really well. I've heard that kindles read mobi files better, so you might try converting your PDFs to those if you haven't
No. 243675
>>243566The cover of this is gorgeous! Please let me know how you like it
nonnie!!
No. 243724
File: 1664560815251.jpg (99.85 KB, 470x591, thisonewasmyfavoritecover.jpg)
I want to learn more about Jeanne d'Arc, because all I know about her is based on Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, so please recommend me books about her plus points for female authors
No. 244940
File: 1664951450366.jpeg (156.94 KB, 1120x2000, received_549558973605690.jpeg)
I got an infinite jest tattoo, pls bully appropriately
No. 244963
File: 1664965863776.png (25.78 KB, 527x409, 1465454564723.png)
>>244959ntayrt but put effort into your bait next time
No. 245016
File: 1664987638632.jpg (473.77 KB, 1586x2551, 81w8gCb4vCS.jpg)
Anyone read Mieko Kawakamis Heaven? What are your thought on it?
No. 245131
>>245016I just read it and really enjoyed it. I like the explorations of cruelty and suffering, and the character monologues were strong and profound. I like Kojima and Momose as foils, and Kojima as a character was just lovely. I found her so spirited and cute kek, I'd want to be her friend IRL. The protagonist was also surprisingly charming to me, he seemed like he'd be very easy to get along with.
Spoilers for the ending:
I usually prefer tragic stories but I'm really glad this one had a happy ending. It feels earned and thematically appropriate. The final scene where the protagonist has had surgery to heal his eye and he finally sees the other side of the road really spoke to me. I think Kawakami was saying that you are never as powerless as you feel, that you can take meaningful steps to thrive and move forward in life. It's a nice marriage between the worldviews of Momose and Kojima. Momose believes people do what they can, nothing more, nothing less— the protagonist can have surgery to fix the problem that causes him endless stress, and he chooses to do so. Meanwhile Kojima believes that one day they'll reach heaven and all the pain will make sense— the protagonist finally sees the other side of the street, and finds it beautiful. I can't help but think it's a metaphor for finally having hope for his own future.Anyways I really liked it. I'm going to read everything else by this author now. Thank you so much for introducing me to her work!
No. 245161
File: 1665021162047.jpeg (676.87 KB, 828x1238, 76139460-DB7F-4148-AC27-7B370D…)
any raven-cyclers on here prepared for the end of an era? i’m in the middle of a reread of call down the hawk/mister impossible and im burning for answers
No. 245686
File: 1665232952419.jpg (280.32 KB, 1650x2475, 56732449.jpg)
randomly happened to see this in some library kek is this supposed to be like 50 shades or after but reylo? the cover sure does look like it LOL
No. 245719
>>245686I wanted to read a trashy light-hearted romance novel cause it's my guilty pleasure, and so I read this cause I saw it all over tiktok. It's so incredibly bad, even for someone who was intentionally looking for low-tier romance.
The author is constantly trying to create these cheap Wattpad "there's only one bed" type scenarios but they're done so badly it just ends up being cringey and offputting. I'm baffled she managed to write them so badly cause those cliches are like a tried and tested formula, especially when it was exactly what I was seeking to read. But alas I was proven wrong. I'm going back to AO3 to indulge in some good old trashy fanfiction cause this shit was bleak.
No. 245749
>>245708oh no i meant in the "obvious fanfic but with the names changed to avoid copyright strikes" way kek
>>245709LMAO.
No. 245942
File: 1665352198914.jpg (24.24 KB, 329x500, 41TMXm kG7L._AC_SY780_.jpg)
I finished this book and I can't help but feel disappointed. I read it because someone I follow was raving about how brilliant it was… Idk, maybe I'm just stupid, but I didn't feel that way. first of all this book was trying really hard to have some kind of brilliant social commentary. for example it would be like "amanda thought something vaguely racist… but that wasn't racist, right? character tries to justify to herself why it's totally not racist" it did that so many times throughout the book, and at times I couldn't even tell if it was trying to be woke or anti woke. it was definitely woke, though. there was also some weird sexual stuff in here like a scene of a 16 year old boy masturbating and a few other scenes. I also didn't like the way it didn't it jumped from character to character instead of sticking to one character's perspective at a time, I got genuinely confused more than once but that's more of a nitpick on my part.
the plot of this book is that a family - a married couple with 2 kids - rents out an airbnb somewhere in rural new york where there's no reception. the couple who owns the airbnb comes back while the people are staying there saying there was a huge blackout in the city and so they came out here to be safe. no one is really sure what's going on, they can't get on their phones to check. I can't remember if the house had wifi or not, or if it mentioned that. the thing I hated most about this book was that it never explicitly said what was going on. it alludes to the US and other countries trying out new airplanes and other technology. so WW3, I guess? but there was also some characters getting sick and their teeth falling out, and deers and flamingos migrating and it never explained any of that either. it was just such an unsatisfying ending
No. 246090
File: 1665426794066.jpg (387 KB, 788x1200, 652511_102_1160_OTQxOTczODMtND…)
Any suggestions for novels that are set in a similiar time period and setting (Europe) with a female lead like Pride and Prejudice? Not looking for that kind of storyline necerssarily, just wanna read some fiction about people with grand estates and beautiful dresses and nature and no technology and that's the only book I could think of as a comparison lol.
No. 246102
>Call of the WildA great book, full of adventure and a thrilling albeit inaccurate look into the Canadian gold trade, and how it involved dogs. You'd think it was a kid's book because the dog is the main character, but it's shocking, terrifying, and will leave you in tears. Still, worth it.
>>245942Honestly so many books that recently came out that are so ambitious, but jump narratives and introduce new things without explanation, as if that will make the book interesting. How Far We Go in the Dark sounds similar- narrative jumping so quickly you won't properly know the characters, overly ambitious and poorly outlined plot, and constant dismal events. And yeah, I don't like social commentary in my books either, like stfu author i'm trying to relax.
Anyway, you might like The Count of Monte Cristo, it does narrative jumps really well and it so fricking addictive and rich in detail.
No. 246321
File: 1665487155726.jpg (11.35 KB, 183x275, download.jpeg-1.jpg)
I'm
>>235991 back to say holy shit I am fed the fuck up with men writing about women's bodies and sex allll the fucking time for no reason. I'm reading picrel and every woman in the story is into the main character who is a nobody loser. And the author wrote in a complete pickme woman who constantly talks about her ass and is often naked in front of all the men who live in their apartment building. For no reason. He's always describing all the women's clothes and the thickness of their shirt and other dumb shit. At one point the pickme reaches up to dust off a lightbulb and he described it as, "her tits pushed against her bra" when she reaches. I think it's because these authors are nerds so they live vicariously and gain access to women's bodies through their writings. I'm going to start exclusively reading works written by women from now on, this makes me so mad. Even worse is these scrotes are never criticized for adding this dumb irrelevant shit into their books. It's so retarded and is literally bad storytelling.
It's not just books either, I'm playing The Witcher 3 and it's actually insulting how the angles are always from the ass up for every single woman and they're all wearing literally impossibly tight pants that just look like legs and ass colored in a different color to represent pants. AhhhHHHH. Same thing with House of leaves, although it does somewhat fit into the story, as
one of the characters has massive mommy issues.
No. 246344
File: 1665497869549.jpg (80.5 KB, 650x752, 1587304529902.jpg)
>>246328same thing
nonnie. 90% of the books I read now are exclusively women. Honestly think most of the best modern writers are women.
No. 246363
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>>246344>Honestly think most of the best modern writers are women.Could you list some examples? I feel like ever since The Hunger Games got popular, most books being shat out constantly have the same vibe and treats the audience like a bunch of retards. The books that are being recommended generally online or which get popular, is usually based on how diverse the characters are and has no real theme, motif or anything for which you need to use your brain a tiny little bit. It's not even that I have anything against dystopian fiction, I love it actually. It's just like they don't dare to actually write dystopian fiction, because zoomers think that if an author writes about something, it means that they promote it or agree with it. Even though it's literally done by the baddies or as a consequence of the baddies and it should be fucking obvious that the author doesn't think it's great AAAAAAAAAH. Like Atwood would've been cancelled if she had written the Handmaid's Tale now and zoomers do treat her like she's on thin ice.
No. 246416
>>246321I've also made the switch to reading only female authors and I absolutely recommend it to everyone ITT. So glad to see other anons have already embraced it. It's so nice to be free of scrote shit in my personal time.
That said I read House of Leaves before committing to literary separatism
kek and really loved it. IIRC the disgusting scrote shit was confined only to one character's perspective, and I'm pretty sure his promiscuity is meant to be a negative trait.
The extremely graphic sex scene actually interrupts an otherwise deep and important part of the narrative. The point is that he's a fucking insensitive loon, right? But of course the author is a moid so who knows what he cares about, and it's been years so I really can't say for sure.
Not my hill to die on. My hill is a gigantic pile of books lovingly penned by women.
No. 246627
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the plot of this book is that a housewife and mother of a 2 year old boy believes she's transforming into a dog. I really want to finish this book eventually but I was having a hard time getting into it. it's not really the fault of the book though, I'm just a mood reader. also I think I should not have kids because the kid in this book was so fucking annoying I was getting way more irritated at something fictional than I should.
No. 246756
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>>246416Fun fact: Mark Z. Danielewski is the brother of the singer Poe
No. 246777
>>246476Idk as a
problematic women connoisseur I don't have that problem
No. 246782
>>245707There's recent stuff like Book Lovers or Bridgerton series, or could check out Georgette Heyer's books for stuff you find fun.
>>245719If you want fun trashy romance you need to find the stuff with the super girly and cutesy covers, not this trying too hard shit.
No. 247306
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>>246363>>247188you could probably add mona awad to that list, I think her books are really interesting. I just read picrel and have no idea what to make of it lol but I still enjoyed the ride and it's definitely not a generic hunger games ripoff. I also think lisa taddeo's books look really interesting but I haven't read them yet
No. 247358
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No. 248244
File: 1666081515911.jpg (Spoiler Image,41.07 KB, 324x499, BWn3Q1K.jpg)
What I wanted: A shocking horror novel to read for Halloween.
What I got: Shitty rape porn written by a fat chick who spent half of her life on alt.sex.stories.
No. 248567
>>237270Samefag, but recently an extra chapter of this book was released.
Jeremy is confirmed to be a total psycho by killing another woman on a whim because she might have spread gossip about them. Lowen (the main character) is shown to be mentally unstable and can't stop obsessing over Verity and comparing herself to her even though she died a year ago. After Jeremy killed the woman now she's afraid of him and doesn't know if she should leave him but she still loves him and tries to convince herself he's not a psychopath. I still think it's a shit book for a variety of reasons but I think it redeemed it a little bit instead of trying to pretend like Verity deserved her fate
No. 249083
File: 1666282775552.jpeg (72.15 KB, 600x800, D1D6CD40-05F2-4123-B821-3FF85C…)
I beg. Anything you guys liked from the Audible Plus catalog??? All these glowing reviews seem fake af. Fiction/detective/fantasy preferably, female voice highly preferred, but if you like something outside of that I’ll try it.
No. 249176
>>249083Not sure if this is what you're looking for but I listen to a lot of "thriller" novellas on audible plus like the devil of black creek by Victor Methos and one little mistake by Lucinda Berry.
Some other titles that are currently included that I've been meaning to listen to are the lake if dead languages, powers of darkness (this is the original version of dracula), between two fires, the queens gambit and some trashy thrillers. Audible is also really good for classics, I'm listening to Carmilla right now.
No. 249867
File: 1666522944238.png (1.41 MB, 800x800, LOI3bks-3_800x.png)
what are you reading right now, nonnies?
i'm reading the land of ingary trilogy right now. i don't think i ever watched the ghibli films, so i only know stuff from tumblr gifs. i do wanna watch them afterwards though.
No. 251032
File: 1666915360221.jpg (218.17 KB, 934x1167, Tumblr_l_36317191692240.jpg)
I fell into an all tomorrows rabbit hole and I can't get out
No. 251038
>>249957Im also looking for more books like this. Fantasy even written by women is so male dominated its frustrating
I started to read the fifth season but it's not grabbing me so far
No. 251624
>>249957>>251038I really liked The Bone Shard Daughter. The main complaint is that it reads like YA. I didn't think it did though, and I think the people who say that only read the first chapter and put it down after that. It does have a very straightforward writing style but I found that to be a nice change from most famous fantasy series that go overboard with descriptions and other needless details.
You might also want try try Katharine Kerr (specifically Daggerspell) or Mercedes Lackey. I can't really attest to whether those are good or not cause I haven't read them though.
No. 251637
File: 1667155541475.jpg (167.81 KB, 314x475, 30199414._SY475_.jpg)
just finished marlena by julie buntin. these stories about dysfunctional female friendships, usually involving drugs, alcohol and questionable sexual experiences, always make me so sad, yet i can't stop reading them.
No. 251721
>>251624I'll give it a try nona but if it does read like ya I might not be into it. Tried to reading the locked tomb series and similarly couldn't get into it for that reason.
Thanks for the recs
No. 251862
>>251839sure!
- necessary people
- my best friend's exorcism
- paper wasp
- the new me
- zoe letting go
i think a lot of "unhinged woman" books might fall into this territory as well, like my year of rest and relaxation.
No. 252519
>>246627i read this book and i hated it. the way the narrator referred to everyone was so annoying, "the father" "the boy" oh my god it gave me an aneurysm. i love books about mothers who hate their role in life and resent their children so i thought i'd like this but it felt… heavy-handed. like ooooohh do you get it she's a dog, she's a bitch which is a WOMAN dog, she's crAaAaAazY because she's a repressed woman! then the ending
where she makes an art project of running around like a dog on stage?? was so stupid. but at that point in the book i had stopped caring kek.
No. 253646
File: 1667767721044.jpg (46.15 KB, 295x475, 1632110.jpg)
>>246627>woman transforming into a dogEven though it's probably very different this reminds me of a book I probably shouldn't have read as a preteen called Carmen Dog.
The plot is all women are turning into animals and all female animals are turning into women and the main character is a dog.
Very some kind of feminist and philosophical, but also sort of whimsical.
No. 253770
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>>253714haven't finished this one yet but it seems pretty solid, it was a rec from my therapist. you might also look into robert firestone's books, I haven't read them yet so I can't vouch for them but they seem promising enough.
No. 253900
File: 1667852707026.jpg (46.39 KB, 600x747, CBT workbook.jpg)
>>253714Maybe try a basic Cognitive Behavioral Therapy workbook? I like CBT.
Very popular:
http://library.lol/main/4457AE55F48039DFE62FE1419EAF6FDAMore on libgen:
https://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Cognitive+Behavioral+WorkbookDidn't find as much on audiobook sites if you like audio format, but this author had good reviews and a few workbooks designed for self-help:
https://xaudiobooks.com/tag/william-j-knaus-edd/ No. 253915
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No. 253992
>>253926Nta but I found it quite boring to be honest, and generally it's more focussed on PTSD that CPTSD.
(If anyone wants a good CPTSD book, Paul Weller's book From Surviving to Thriving is much better in my opinion - it goes into a lot of detail on CPTSD-specific symptoms and how to heal them).
No. 254002
>>253926Yes it really helped explain some things to me/validate the issues I have from an
abusive childhood.
No. 254006
File: 1667869900594.png (1.41 MB, 836x1268, Pete Walker - Complex PTSD Fro…)
>>253992>Paul Weller's book From Surviving to ThrivingI couldn't find a book with that title by that author. Is it this one by Pete Walker?
No. 254445
>>253992>>254006Bump because I would like to know this too
>>253915Isn't the author of this book controversial?
No. 254470
>>254445I have to assume that's the book she meant. I read some stuff on his website and it's very good
http://www.pete-walker.com/codependencyFawnResponse.htmI'm considering actually buying the book instead of stealing it.
>>253915Started listening to this audiobook and it's validating but I'm in the section where he's talking nonstop about areas of the brain and I don't care at all. It's more just an interesting read, the book is not a self-help tool exactly but I can see how people get something out of it. Author seems like he cares but is also a little full of himself.
No. 254493
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>tfw you read a book recommended by a friend that turns out to be so laughably bad it reads like screenplay first draft for a Netflix mini series
It’s horrible, it’s so horrible I can look past all of the overused tropes of 2012 dystopian YA novels but the lackluster writing really just did it for me.. disappointed in my friend’s taste but I still love her
No. 254777
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Long autistic rant incoming. Strap in cause this is a long one. I don't have goodreads so I had to post this somewhere, apologies in advance.
I have a really bad habit of forcing myself to finish books I'm not enjoying. Idk why I do that, I need to stop. Anyway, this might be the worst book I've ever read, it's right up there with Verity. Idk where to even start.
I'm not a romance reader in general, but I do like to dabble in different genres occasionally. Originally I picked up this book because I heard it was "wild" and has a bunch of wild sex scenes (it only had about 2, iirc- most of the other sex scenes were basically just rape) not even because I thought I would enjoy them but just for shits and giggles, as they say. I read one other book by this author and thought it was generally bad (not horrific like this one, just lazy, bad, predictable writing) but I did kind of like the smutty scenes in that one. I knew this book had quasi-incest in it- the character has a romance with her step cousins who she has never met before the book. What I didn't know was that the protagonist was 17 (later 18) in this book, and that the dad of the two cousins, her "uncle" is also a love interest. Had I known those 2 things before picking it up, I would not have read it. I found this book to be genuinely disturbing and in some ways sad, and what's even more disturbing is how many women/girls like it and just talk about it like it's a normal romance book. on top of that, it's just a badly written book with a lazy predictable plot and boring characters, although that I could have guessed.
>book starts with Tiernan, a 17 year old with A-list celebrity parents who have both committed suicide because the dad has cancer and the mom doesn't want to live without the dad
>it's made clear over and over and over (and over) and over again how Tiernan's parents were super indifferent towards her and basically regretted having her
>the only person who cares about her is an Indian (read: token minority) woman named Mirai, her parents assistant, also the only good character in the entire book. genuinely cares for Tiernan yet Tiernan treats her like shit throughout the entire book
>has a ton of flashback scenes of Tiernan's mom being a horrible narcissistic mom. can't remember a single flashback of her dad, though, at least while the mom wasn't also there being horrible
>Tiernan gets a call from her uncle, Jake, who was her dad's stepbrother who she never even met but knew existed. the parents left Jake her number, he says she can come live with him and his two sons if she wants, but doesn't care if she doesn't want to
>Tiernan has lived in LA all her life, Jake and his two sons live in rural Colorado. for whatever reason, Tiernan decides to go live with Jake and the boys
>Jake picks her up, treats her like a kid (cuz she is), like he takes her to the candy store and makes her fill up a bag of candy. then when she lives with them he bosses her around, and they have several fights that are the kind of fight a dad would have with his teenage daughter, and says things like "you have a lot of growing up to do" and other things a dad would say. it would have actually been heartwarming were it not for what transpired later on
>Tiernan gets a crush on Jake, which imo is normal, as I crushed on many older men at that age. the gross part is that her feelings are returned, and at one point Jake pushes his boner up against her and is like "this is what you're doing to me, Tiernan". says that he can't stop thinking of fucking the "hot piece of teen ass" under his roof (the term "piece of ass/hot piece of ass" was also used a lot in this book). they almost have sex, then Jake stops it. immediately starts talking to her like a kid again, saying fatherly things like "you need guidance" etc etc and sends her to bed
>we get Jake's POV, and he talks about how Tiernan is "the only woman he's connected with in over 20 years"- even though there's no real scenes of them connecting, just him treating her like a kid???
>also when Tiernan first moved in it showed us that Jake had been having sex with a 23 year old from town, but he talks about how he can't stand her for whatever reason, cause she's a vapid bimbo I guess, as if any man has ever found that to be a turnoff
>there's also romantic tension brewing with the older son, Noah
>the first few days of living there, Tiernan hadn't met Kaleb, the other brother. Kaleb is extremely broody and elusive and doesn't talk, like at all. when Tiernan first meets him, she sees him in the middle of the night with a dead deer (he goes for weeks at a time disappearing into the forest and hunting)
>as soon as he sees her he tries to rape her. Tiernan screams for him to stop and he doesn't. he doesn't stop until Noah comes and stops him
>it's revealed at some point in the book that Tiernan's parents helped Jake and Hannes' parents (Hannes is Tiernan's dad) pay off the woman Jake was in love with. they hated her because she was poor, so they gave her a bunch of money and told her to leave. then she killed herself, presumably because she felt bad about leaving Jake I guess but it never really says
>then he went and married the mother of the boys, who is/was an evil abusive slut, of course
>Tiernan turns 18, and Jake starts heading out of town for a few days. Noah, Kaleb and Tiernan are watching TV. then Noah turns the TV to porn, they all start masturbating, when Jake walks back in and screams at them and makes them stop
>then very shortly after that, Tiernan loses her virginity to Jake. she actually calls him "uncle Jake" during sex. He goes on in his head about how this is his "revenge" because he hated Hannes (his step brother, TIernan's dad) I actually felt physically uncomfortable during that scene like I was going to throw up
>the boys find out they fucked. Noah is jealous, his first reaction is "but dad, I wanted her!" and Kaleb writes "slut" on her forehead with a permanent marker
>Jake leaves again, and Noah and Kaleb end up having a threesome where Jake fucks her pussy and Kaleb fucks her ass at the same time
>Noah desperately wants her, but she decides she's in love with Kaleb, despite the book spending way more time showing her and Noah interacting. Noah and Jake decide to lay off because they realize Kaleb is in love with her. she's in love with Kaleb too and this point, and I'm not sure why, as they have barely interacted (he doesnt even talk, for fuck's sake) but they're in love now, so. I guess all her feelings for Jake just evaporated?
>Noah is not great but still leagues better than the other two options. Tiernan even goes "Noah is so easy to love, why can't I love him?" yet chooses the guy who tried to rape her
>at one point Kaleb locks her in her own room. can't even remember why, it just sticks out in my mind
>at another point her and Kaleb starts having sex but he starts fucking her so hard that it hurts and she tells him to stop but he doesn't. she has to get up and run away
>Kaleb is a literal manchild, he acts like an overgrown toddler, it also shows us his diary where he literally writes like a child would write
>it's revealed that the reason Kaleb doesn't talk is because his evil abusive mom left him alone in a car as a little kid for 4 days, he kept screaming but no one came so he stopped ever talking
>so first she falls for the middle aged man, then the literal man child. there's no in between for Tiernan
>she goes back to LA for two months, then the guys come to find her. Kaleb finally talks, and yes they all end up happily ever after and her and Kaleb are married. the fact that she fucked his dad doesn't make it weird I guess
some other things I hate
>Penelope Douglas clearly has mommy issues and/or hates other women in general. in both books I've read, all moms are either dead, or extremely narcissistic/abusive, in this book it was both. other female characters are jealous mean bitches who hate the protagonist and are out to get her, with the exception of usually 1 female character you can tell was deliberately written in for her to be like "see, I totally don't hate other women you guys"
>the smut was just awful. lots of overly detailed descriptions of genitals. she also likes to use the word "cunt" a lot for vagina. personally I find that word to just be kind of gross sounding and not sexy
>her books are basically just pronhub pornos stretched into 300 pages or however long this was. Tiernan was always wearing pigtails and it felt the need to mention every 5 minutes how she had pigtails, especially in the smutty scenes
>I felt like this book couldn't decide whether it wanted to be incest gangbang or wholesome found family. it kept switching back and forth every other page. not really sure what the appeal of those two things mixed together is supposed to be
… and honestly there's even more I could say about this book but I think you get the gist. there was a ton of drama with the people in town too. one of them was a bitchy meangirl who was in love with Kaleb and used to hook up with him, there was also a male bully who was the main villain I guess. it was all very generic 80's movie stuff. oh, did I mention Penelope Douglas is 45? a 45 year old woman wrote this. A 45 year old woman thinks "hot piece of teen ass" is hot.
I actually unsubscribed from the Youtuber Chandler Ainsley because she gave this book 5 stars. This book is literally romanticizing a girl falling in love with a guy who tried to rape her. I mean that's one thing but Chandler also get bent out of shape about The Duke & I (the first Bridgerton book) because it had a "rape" scene in it (the main character gets on top of the duke and makes him ejaculate in her when he doesn't want to). Like she actually got upset at that but gave this book 5 stars. Maybe I'm overreacting but it just really put me off. Also Chandler just has shit taste in general to be honest, I was only watching her for her personality really.
No. 254824
File: 1668350137265.jpg (70.89 KB, 440x686, You let me in.jpg)
Recently read You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce and it's the best book I've read in a long time. It's part murder mystery, part dark literal fairy tale. I found it very creepy and interesting, as a reader you kind of have to make up your own mind about what really happened.
Personally I think it's a better story if the fairies are real.>>254777Holy fuck, that book sounds disgusting. Thanks for your sacrifice, nonita. I really enjoyed reading the summary, what a trainwreck.
No. 254831
>>254777>a 45 year old woman wrote thisChrist
nonnie, what the fuck. When I see women write depraved porn-tier shit like this, or create pickme stuff like that retarded cosplay manga I lose so much faith kek
No. 254857
File: 1668361608686.jpg (22.51 KB, 266x400, 17225311.jpg)
I really don't know what to say about this book, when I started reading it thoughts were forming in my head however when i got to the end my thoughts dramatically changed, cause it starts off like porn, it is so sexually explicit you'd think it was just kinky erotica and I'm not easily offended but I was genuinely shocked with the way the language and the story was going, so Celeste is a 25-year old high school teacher and the only reason she wants to work in a high school is so that she can find some 14 year old boys to have sex with. she is married and her husband is about 10 years older than her and he's a policeman and she's not satisfied with him and she basically married him a little bit for the money and a little bit for the security but there's no love between them she doesn't like being with him, she just wants 14 year old boys and the first chunk of this book is her explicit sexual fantasies about what she would do to these young boys, so she basically scouts her classroom to what type of boy she's most attracted too, like she doesn't want a boy whose too masculine. she doesn't want anyone whose voice is broken she just wants a boy who is like a boy with braces who's really skinny who hasn't developed muscles or you know kind of grown into themselves, it also has to be somebody that she can trust not to tell anybody that won't gloat that they've had sex with the teacher and then she finds one boy that she likes his name is Jack and she basically pounces and starts grooming him and she's proud and excited and that's her main focus and the sex scenes are just sordid and dirty, it does make you cringe, its strange to read, cause it is well written and I can't deny the emotion that it evokes, when you're reading it feels wrong, like it's one of those car crash books where you shouldn't be reading about a 25 year old woman having sex with a 14 year old boy but you you need to know why why is she doing this what is compelling her to do this. and then the boys start falling in love with her and that's when it starts to get darker, and towards the end, its so sad there are situations that arise because of her behavior and honestly I nearly cried
I'm gonna tell everybody not to read this because it is just disgusting and disturbing but as the book went on it you got into these characters heads, and if your fond unhinged women narratives you might like it
No. 254877
>>254857I'm definitely fond of unhinged woman characters but more like Eileen up there, not this. It really does sound disgusting.
But it's fucking funny that the author's last name is Nutting and she wrote a book like this
No. 254886
>>254877I didn't hate it, but when I finished it, I wondered what was the purpose, I think the author wanted this to be like a gender flipped lolita, Celeste is unpleasant asshole just like Humbert and has a similar backstory as him of her idealized young love, but part of what made Lolita great is Humbert’s hilarious self-delusion and unreliability as a narrator; he wants the reader to believe that he’s good, the seduced instead of the seducer, a tragic
victim of forbidden love
None of that happens in Tampa. There’s no euphemisms, no real justifications, no glossing over or romanticizing of the ugliest parts of what Celeste is doing.
the explanation given for her pedophilia is a manifestation of her fear of aging and death and also a desire to have power over the male sex; also feel we didn't need various descriptions of pre-adolescent male genitalia.
No. 255162
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What the FUCK did I just read
>>255147Nta, but it sounds like she likes the unhinged/psychopathic woman element rather than the fucking 14 year old boys part.
No. 255253
File: 1668542570324.jpg (39.27 KB, 400x500, f26863b0415879c89402af0d1b25c3…)
After finishing the Bas Lag trilogy last year, I'm still searching for something as captivating, dense and immersive as Mieville's worldbuilding and characters. I think I might just reread it, The Scar at the very least. Though I will say that I had some trouble finishing The Iron Council, as much as I loved it I got kinda lost by the end.
No. 255682
File: 1668661942554.jpeg (801.5 KB, 826x1126, 74A8FFC6-D82B-4C02-BC44-1DC6AA…)
Holy fuUck praise the anons in the first thread who mentioned Under the Midnight Sun. I know I will remember this book forever and I will struggle to find reads that evoke the same intensity. My ADHD stood no chance against the pull of this story, a very rare instance where “devoured” isn’t exaggerated.
I have nitpicks of course and have written down some notes as I was reading and will post when I have gathered my thoughts. Right now I just have a lot of feelings.
No. 256106
File: 1668807636846.jpg (99.78 KB, 720x540, original (3).jpg)
Once again turning to my favorite thread on Lolcow for some recs! I'm looking for books about intense and toxic female friendship. If it skews into the unhinged women category, that's great. Some examples of books like this that I've already read and enjoyed are Social Creature, The Paper Wasp, Little Star, Necessary People.
No. 256276
>>256106have you checked out marlena? op of
>>251637also read some of the books you mentioned!
No. 256285
File: 1668879893142.jpg (232.96 KB, 1556x2400, 714lyBjAMSL.jpg)
I'm actually disappointed in my self that this is the first book I managed to read in one sitting
No. 256541
>>256506>lonely women/women who struggle to find their place in the worldThe New Me by Halle Butler
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh
Galatea by Madeline Miller
Schoolgirl by Osamu Dazai
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
No. 256575
>>256350Thank you! I have Stargazer on my Kindle already so I think I'll start with that one. I'll definitely look into the rest of your list as well.
>>256276I loved Marlena!
No. 256579
>>256506Discord reddit local book clubs
Naturally, active means more people meaning higher chance of annoying retards
No. 256598
>>256506lonely women: convenience store woman, there's no such thing as an easy job, sympathy by olivia sudjic, sorry to disrupt the peace (author has now unfortunately trooned out but this book is from a few years ago and is good), anything by fleur jaeggy, problems by jade sharma
for writing on music maybe try ian penman's criticism. there's a book about folk horror that discusses hauntology a lot but i can't remember the author, sorry
No. 256599
>>256541Thank you so much! I’ve heard of some of these but I haven’t read any of them. I’ve been meaning to read Joan Didion for a while now so I might start with her.
>>256579I’ll have a look around my area and see what I can find. I might try and get more involved with my university’s literary society but they’re very small and don’t really organise the kinds of events I’d want to go to, unfortunately. My dream is to organise a feminist book club that actually meets in person but I have no idea how to go about doing something like that!
No. 256717
>>256435i feel you, i started learning russian in order to understand tolstoy and it's been a decade and i still can't lmao. i haven't been studying for that entire time (maybe only two years total of productive study time) and i find it fun regardless, so it's not that big of a deal. but i think
>>256483 is severely underestimating how hard it is to learn a new language fluently enough to be able to read literature and understand it, especially if it's a language that's quite different from english–russian and arabic are some of the hardest languages for english speaker to pick up. if you just focus on reading it may be a more achievable goal though.
No. 256727
File: 1669045509593.jpg (114.65 KB, 616x353, capsule_616x353.jpg)
Can you guys recommend books similar to I have no mouth and i must scream?
No. 256746
>>256598AYRT – I read Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy today and I loved it! I experienced a very similar friendship to the one between Frédérique and the narrator when I was about 15 and so I found the scenes with the two of them quite moving, particularly the moment when
the narrator realises she is "punishing" frédérique for her own obsession with her. I have more I could say but I don't want to ramble too much. Thanks again for the recommendation, I'll definitely be reading more from her.
No. 256819
>>256695English, french, german, japanese, russian, chinese, spanish. This is also taking into account the current popularity of the language
Contender languages: latin, ancient greek, sanskrit. They're very impressive to learn and plenty of texts to practice, but it's a real pain in the ass to find fluent speakers if you need help with them
>>256699There are very few famous (or at least influential) books written in arabic, I can think of maybe One thousand and one nights and the Quran and that's about it. It peaked in the medieval ages imo
>>256717Ten years is quite enough to understand one completely foreign language, that is if you do ten years of productive study time. It doesn't mean being able to read a book like a native, it means being able to read while only occasionally using a dictionary. That study time has to be continuous, or else you're going to forget what you learned, which can easily turn the ten years into thirty years. Inefficient learning can take decades, efficient learning just one
>>256577Well if you -have- to read Dream of the Red Chamber next year yeah, you're going to have to read it translated. Personally I don't have to, so I'm not going to
No. 257243
File: 1669187530436.jpeg (279.21 KB, 1284x2048, 5164B097-D408-4A88-9EF1-68571B…)
I have an hour left of this book and I would’ve finished it earlier if the final act wasn’t so descriptive and felt so real that simply thinking about it made me have a full on panic attack in the shower
No. 257304
File: 1669211330323.jpeg (305.17 KB, 1440x1440, FB7BE053-C4AC-42B2-9136-FC54C4…)
I think a lot of people found Earthlings confusing and are disappointed by it. It was amazing to me. I found most of the book so viscerally upsetting that by the end of it, all I felt was excitement, catharsis, happiness even. I am infected, I can feel the stir of the alien inside me.
No. 257605
File: 1669314377363.jpg (19.67 KB, 220x347, WhenTheDevilHoldsTheCandle.jpg)
Just finished When the Devil Holds the Candle by Karin Fossum. I thought it was going to be a generic short crime novel, but it couldn't be farther from that. If you want a truly Unhinged Woman story I highly recommend it!
No. 257672
>>255162i actually read that pile of trash. why is every book a cheap gimmick now. i'm angry they wasted a kino cover like that on a garbage book.
>>255682i've read a few by him, they're passable detective stories. it's the literary equivalent of a ham sandwich–formulaic but satisfying enough. i think the japanese scene is better than the english literary scene right now.
No. 257802
File: 1669378887485.jpeg (32.6 KB, 220x353, 9C9D5DB7-0F0F-4237-86D0-FCE4C8…)
>>186682Coming here to recommend Susan Hill, I lurked in this thread recently and I think I didn’t see any posts about her yet (?).
> The Mist in the MirrorMaybe not her most popular book but the first one I read. I liked the gothic mood. It turned out to have a few themes I was thinking about intensely before I found it. Recommending for the darker mood, mystery and ghosts but not in any sensational or cheesy form.
> The Woman in BlackSeems like her most famous ghost story, to me it wasn’t as addictive as The Mist in the Mirror (although I read this one during one day). Still like the gothic mood, a sense of isolation.
> The Boy Who Taught the Beekeeper to ReadA collection of short stories. Varied in themes, mostly about complex interpersonal relationships. Short forms but very rich in emotions, contexts.
I feel like I’ll be returning to this author again, you can recommend me some other books of hers I haven’t read yet.
No. 257860
>>257672The only other Higashino book I read is The Devotion of Suspect X. I enjoyed it but the ending ruins everything for me. So I was kinda disappointed since it’s the one with the most hype in the west. I don’t mind traditional detective novels though.
I enjoyed Under The Midnight Sun much more since it focuses on the psychology of the side characters, there’s a lot of reader interaction, the POV structure is quite cool. Although some parts did feel …manga-esque, like too convenient. And most of the female characters felt like the same person so it can be a drag reading their internal monologue. That’s the point I guess, the main characters take advantage of pathetic men/women, but the females def have less distinction.
No. 258490
File: 1669572667714.jpg (183.38 KB, 500x500, Diary of a Void.jpg)
just finished diary of a void. I liked it for the most part, the metaphor of the book seemed a little superficial but considering gender dynamics in Japan it kind of makes sense that it wouldn't be super deep
No. 258658
File: 1669608811264.jpeg (1.78 MB, 1170x2164, 32D62F84-63DD-4CEF-AFA5-C8FCF4…)
I would scroll on and ignore anything “booktok” has to say, but they’re always speaking in absolutes. I’ve come to realize that I’m not the target demographic for this kind of book, that I need to just let people have their fun. My initial reaction to shit on the author/story (having not even read it) is unwarranted and I need to stop acting like such a pompous bitch for having a different preference in literature to other people. Can anyone else here relate? I’m trying to improve my state of mind in general.
No. 258733
>>258665Based
- me reading my 100th utterly forgetable mystery
No. 258771
File: 1669642627924.jpg (200.74 KB, 1399x2173, everyoneinthisroom.jpg)
i just finished picrel. there were some annoying parts, like throwaway lines about how the narrator didn't think sex work was degrading
or her finding pictures of her brother wearing her stolen clothes and being fine with it?but other than that i really liked it. i think this is probably one of the most accurate accounts of living with severe depression/anxiety. towards the end her behaviour grew more bizarre and it was painful reading about her struggling to explain herself or behave normally, if you've ever gone into deep depression you'll feel her pain as others perceive her as weird and offputting while she's struggling to not die lol. it does end on a hopeful note but it's still ambiguous. also as a nice bonus the main character is a lesbian with a girlfriend and their relationship is cute but realistic. i think someone in this thread recommended this book, thank you. this could fit into the "deranged female narrator" books theme this thread has going on for those of you that are also into that.
>>258658>>258665there have been readers like this in every generation imo. the male equivalent of this is reading only those airport paperback thrillers/mystery. the big difference to me is older women who are into romance/erotica will read like feral animals, literally i know so many old ladies who burn through multiple harlequin romances a day. whereas booktok romance readers tend to read less overall. reading is still good for your brain, way better than social media, so i guess it isn't really a bad thing. but yes i do judge people for only reading shitty books. and it is disappointing to me when someone says they love reading and then it turns out they only read booktok romances kek.
No. 258916
File: 1669669184017.png (552.29 KB, 782x921, d7a6a08196d4932afad49e6e40af39…)
>>258658i hate booktok and the kind of books those tiktok obsessed kids read, but i'm 30 now and i probably shouldn't judge… but i'm also like
>>258662 and i love feeling better for my taste in books.
picrel, maybe this is a phenomenon specific to germany, but there's this wave of shitty romance novels that only have some glittery splash graphic effects and text on the cover, and they all look the same and sound the same and probably read the same. i was in a book store a few weeks ago and they actually had all these books in a section dubbed "lonely hearts." when i see this type of stuff, all i see is super boring normie women who are DYING for their own romance to happen while also doing nothing to find romance. instead they just sit there and consume the 100th novel about shy and friendly charlotte and dark and mysterious bad boy bradley who's a total jerk and out to hunt her virginity or whatever.
No. 258962
>>258932Idk how modern YA is but picrel
>>258658 is an adult romance so it being explicit isn't out of the norm
>>258658You're better off ignoring booktok entirely. Most of the user base seems to focus on trashy melodramatic romances. I don't think the short video format is conducive for interesting or nuanced discussions anyway
No. 259066
>>259010Same here, anon. Sometimes you gotta balance out the heavy reading with some good old trash.
I've been reading a lot of political theory books and so far my favorite one that I've read has been mark fisher's capitalist realism. I don't usually buy books, but with the way things are heading in the US, I've been trying to buy physical copies of certain books
because I'm expecting a more intense wave of book bans/burnings coming our way No. 259067
File: 1669723434040.jpg (670.6 KB, 1558x2400, alittlelife.jpg)
This was extremely retarded, I wasted so much time on this trash.
No. 259069
>>259067agreed. i already trashed this book in the previous thread but it bears repeating.
it's a glorified whump fic. terribly written all around. shitty writing style, cardboard cutout characters, exploitative story with no point but hamfisted attempts to tug at the heartstrings. not only does it have no literary value, but it's not even good as entertainment
No. 259099
>>254777i stumbled over punk 57 today and i knew the author's name sounded familiar… it's the same one. i flipped open a random page and the first thing i read was that the female character got caught masturbating with a vibe by the male character? then i flipped to a different section and it was all about her clit and how wet she is and about how much she wants his dick. so yeah
>>258932 these books that are hyped on booktok towards a teenage audience are pretty explicit. obviously not all of them since i grabbed a random book on the booktok table, but it's pretty weird that straight up porn is placed next to idk red white and royal blue and alice oseman.
No. 259476
File: 1669821804921.jpg (201.31 KB, 1592x2560, 71q3JzA1-hL.jpg)
any more nonnies read life ceremony yet, sayaka murata's latest book? it's a collection of short stories and i really enjoyed them. i love how all her stories revolve more or less about normalcy and the struggles of fitting into the lines of normalcy in modern day (japanese) society. many stories also revolve around food, consumption and bodies, and even the consumption of bodies.
i think the one story that resonated with me the most was the last story, about a woman struggling to decide which persona to put on at her wedding because she is a different type of person around every single group of friends she has ever made (junior high, senior high, college, part time job, work…). it almost pales in comparison to other stories about eating people or fashioning people's dead bodies into furniture.
overall i really loved these short stories. i also enjoyed earthlings and convenience store woman, but both books had a weird dip at some point where the store got boring and lost steam for me. in my opinion, sayaka murata's strength might be short stories, not novels. but i'm still excited to read her future works because she always manages to draw me in.
No. 259477
>>259476no, but based on this i'm absolutely going to pick it up. thanks
nonnie!
No. 259497
>>259476Gotta be honest, I got a bit tired after reading about humans being hypocrites, weird quasi-impregnations and everything being an organism in itself after the nth time lol. You can see the beginnings for Earthlings in a few of these. Agreed on the wedding story though, although my favorite were the maybe-maybe-not lesbian grannies. I even cried at some point, but when it comes to
homophobia and
your loved ones dying I cry easily, so that maybe isn't saying much. The one about food preferences was also kinda freeing to read lol.
No. 259530
>>259476I liked it a lot and anyone who enjoys Sayaka Murata's novels will probably enjoy this collection because it's very much what you'd expect. I disagree about short stories being her strength though, I liked her novels a lot more personally. I also noticed what
>>259497 pointed out, a few of the stories felt like early drafts of the idea that eventually became Earthlings.
No. 259723
File: 1669886610334.png (473.64 KB, 1204x1508, totally not rape.png)
>>254798late reply but another annoying thing about this book was how many times the word "fisted" was used. I searched and it said it was only used 78 times which doesn't sound like that much but it felt like more than that. seriously, someone get this woman a thesaurus. grasped, gripped, grabbed.. just a few synonyms. there was no actual fisting in this book, though, thankfully.
I also just hated how generic it was, but I guess if you like this kind of book you probably like generic stuff. like how the male protagonists being overly possessive of tiernan and being generally chauvinistc, every man in the book would trip over himself for her and the main character males would get mad at her for it. generic dialogue, generic one dimensional villains (like the evil jealous brunette, and it's always emphasized how she's not as pretty as tiernan), generic scenarios that would never happen in real life etc. just basic mary sue/wish fulfillment stuff. also the main character mentions how she tried to commit suicide as a kid by walking into the ocean with a bag of library books, she doesn't end up drowning (I can't even remember why). I saw someone saying it bothered them how the subject of suicide was treated.
forgot to mention penelope douglas is also a they/them. I wish I was joking. and she has kids which worries me.
anyway here's the scene where kaleb tries to rape her. someone said that he was "already stopping" before noah stopped him but it doesn't explicitly state that.
No. 260026
File: 1669995782549.jpeg (93.98 KB, 600x634, AA9C4E99-B3EF-4DBC-9682-F0D033…)
Do you guys count audiobooks toward your reading goal?
No. 260059
>>258665I always consider it from a relaxation perspective.
Day to day I read a large quantity of scientific papers and literature, so when I go home at night it’s nice to relax into something easy.
I agree though, as a whole those booktop people are just consuming porn
No. 260157
>>260148Agreed. Sometimes I replay the same chapter at least 5 times because I wouldn’t focus, it does take away from the engagement and emotional investment. I do believe that great literature can only be experienced by spending time with it, hearing its voice in your mind as intended.
That said, there are quite a few audiobooks that I love more than its book form because they are good books brought to life amazingly by the performers (Flavia de Luce series comes to mind), so I’m not a purist at all.
No. 260175
>>260148That's a fair opinion but imo books don't really 'force' you to do anything, it's easy to get in the habit of skim reading and letting your eyes gloss over words. On the other hand, audiobooks don't let you do that and provided you actually listen, you'll hear every word.
It's probably just a person thing and will depend a lot on how you listen to the audiobook. Eg I would listen properly while walking, but not while driving because I'm concentrating on the road.
No. 260743
>>260148>Actually reading a book requires you to engage, listening does not>When talking to people who only experienced a book through audio I find that they often didn't get a very deep understanding of the book and its themesthis seems to be a common thing people say and I can't help but feel like it's more of an assumption than an actual fact. Idk, maybe I'm dyslexic or something but I've had the opposite experience in that when I listen to an audiobook my focus is (generally) better and I also retain it much better. whenever I read things physically I always do that thing where you read a whole paragraph/page but didn't actually
read any of it and have to read it again and sometimes I totally miss things in books altogether. I will read a book then listen to someone talk about it and they'll be like "remember when this thing happened" and I won't remember that at all because my brain/eyes skipped over it. it's like my brain is trying to force me to read super fast and skim over things, I've tried forcing myself to read slower but then I end up paying even less attention. I listen to audiobooks a lot when I'm driving and sometimes I will be driving the same place that I was over a year ago and remember the exact part of the audiobook I was listening to then. I hardly ever remember reading physical books that vividly. zoning out does happen with audiobooks too but not quite as much for me. when people listen to an audiobook and don't retain it very well it's probably because they were listening on 3x speed trying to save as much time as possible.
I don't have organized reading goals but if I did I think I would count them or maybe have separate goals (like, listen to 2 audiobooks and read 2 physical books or something like that). at the end of the day I do prefer traditional reading but I also really like audiobooks, they are very convenient. I find that if I'm doing something like driving, drawing, walking or playing a video game I remember the audiobook a lot better too
No. 260902
File: 1670232342747.png (813.23 KB, 909x720, 1634768859202.png)
>>260026No one gives a crap about your or anyone elses "reading goals". Just do whatever you want, stop looking for approval from internet. Please don't make this thread same level of "discussion" as r/books.
Pic rel for I've been reading Lovecraft.
(autism) No. 261038
>>261034libgen. soulseek also has a bunch of ebooks on it and isn't too hard to set up
also try tor, i'm pretty sure you can still access zlibrary through it
No. 261048
File: 1670273505261.jpg (32.69 KB, 326x500, 51UBOXT2 tL.jpg)
Just finished reading this. There are parts where I felt like Hinton was really fluffing himself up, but I did enjoy the read and it really made me reconsider my stance on the death penalty.
No. 261115
File: 1670285918202.jpg (351.9 KB, 1519x2325, 81HXO05NLzL.jpg)
Has anyone read this? I've only read 50 pages so far but its a good read. I learned some interesting insights like the equivalent of how a man would kiss a royal's hand or ring, the witch way was to literally kiss the devil's ass kek. It was also interesting seeing how in the late 1500's that a man wrote on how "witches" were just mentally impaired, lonely women that the community hated.
No. 261241
File: 1670323243147.jpg (30.42 KB, 245x400, 24983.jpg)
This book was good but God it was painful, I don't think I'm ever going to read it again. Also some of the stuff in it was eerily relevant to now for a book written in '92
No. 261370
File: 1670360993681.jpg (43.47 KB, 317x475, houseofmist.jpg)
>>261361house of mist by maria luisa bombal! it's kind of a gothic fantasy/magical realism book. i found myself totally caught up in the narrator's perspective, it was entrancing.
No. 261954
File: 1670525285395.jpeg (285.17 KB, 828x1502, 0E0C807B-36C5-47A4-9136-E13A94…)
Is animorphs actually super gay and the bird boy is actually a metaphor about troons???
It’s almost like…it’s about children soldiers and how war fucks people up.
Is a Nam veteran the ultimate allegory of troonism becuase they can’t re-integrate into civilian life and are caught between two worlds of war and peace?
The reeeeaaaaaaacccchhhhh.
No. 270850
File: 1674245134826.jpeg (23.77 KB, 313x500, images (1).jpeg)
I picked this up at the library because the cover was interesting, but it was underwhelming as a horror novel.
Apparently this is a retelling of the Fall of the house of Usher, but other than using some character names it doesn't really feel like the stories are related. I tend to like horror as a slow burn thing, where slowly things start revealing themselves to be very wrong, I think this book tried to make that happen in the middle but it was so short that there wasn't enough of it to actually happen. There was mystery element that could have been interesting but it showed way too late in the book to build up any tension. The author also tried to write in some pronouns stuff with the main character, but it doesn't really persist throughout the story so I ignored it.
I wish in the end the characters knowing they were already infected by the water along with the whole village and animals actually did something about it? They seemed content to just burn down the one house at the end end though they knew they would suffer the same fate. Also the friend knowing she had died for weeks could've been used better It feels very wasted potential
Anyway, any recs on some actually [good] tense horror stories?