I want to read a long work. So far, in my library, I have the

The Holy Bible (then the Apocrypha, then the Nag Hammadi Library)

>>7578788
Go with Hugo, Tolstoy or Delillo. Manson & Nixon is a masterpiece though

Of those, Les Mis is overrated, Anne Karenina and War and Peace are obviously good, and Don Quixote will go surprisingly quickly if you read the Grossman translation. Not sure of the Eco but I've heard lots of praise.

The rest are total horseshit, including Pynchon. Pynchon was interesting in the fucking 60s. What made it interesting is now in every 4chan shitpost you see. Don't read Pynchon unless you know more about why he was a thing and then in small doses, IMHO.

Les Mis is a good starting point. Get the edition with the cute drawing of Cosette on the front.

File: lesmiz_fcbd_cover_1000px.jpg (608KB, 1000x1498px) Image search: [Google]

608KB, 1000x1498px

>>7578834
This cover, specifically.

>>7578868
Why do people actually read books anymore if you can just read a comic book or anime adaptation? What aspect of the story is lost?

>>7578901
I prefer visualizing scenery over seeing it externally. There's an enormous array of things that literature can do sensorialIy that can't be done in other mediums.

I only like that cover because it makes her look like a cute anime loli.

>>7578788
In Search of Lost Time is 4.2 thousand pages.

>>7578788

Go with Don Quixote, its actually the best novel ever.

>>7578788

Don't read Pynchon, he's a pseudo-intellectual and an insufferable oaf.

>>7579011
This. If you read Pynchon without being sufficiently well-read you'll jump to moronic conclusions and start claiming he's a pseudointellectual because the depth of his writing is above your head.

>>7579009
I'm not OP but I recently picked up the Norton edition's Raffel translation. Did I do well?

>>7578788
>War and Peace
It's easy to read and understand, but it's the equivalent of watching 50 soap operas. There's an enormous amount of extraneous garbage of nobles just faffing about.

>>7579029
totally, I can not read that antiquated dribble. I read mostly non-fiction. Les Miserables makes a better musical (no homo)

This week I might crack open, The Bell Curve

I hear about it on /pol/ all the time, snagged it at used book store for 1$

>>7579015

He's a hack and his writing is vacuous verbiage posing as something with a "deeper meaning" when really after reading his gibber jabber you are left with nothing meaningful to appreciate or reflect on.

But, if you're like you, then you can always tell yourself how unique his "style" is while telling everyone that they don't get it.

>>7579018

idk I don't really pay attention to that stuff tbhf

it might be worth it to double check online whether the one you have is shit or not tough because it will take a long time to read regardless of who translated it so you might as well not spend all that time reading a bad one

>>7579053
You aren't smarter than Pynchon, as much as I'm sure you'd like to think so.

>>7579029
>reading for plot

>>7579066
From what I've read Raffel, Putnam, and Grossman are all adequate.

>>7579084

I have not read about which are good but I had the Barnes & Noble Classics which was translated by Smollett with further revision and then notes by a women named Slade, I thought it was really good and the footnotes on the bottom of the page was helpful in understanding references or jokes that aren't as accessible in a different language 300 years later.

As long as its not a bad translation you're good to go though. Start that shit now nigga or you will keep putting it off.

File: images (2).jpg (9KB, 120x193px) Image search: [Google]

9KB, 120x193px

>>7578834
Will this do? Pic related.

>>7578788
Foucault's pendulum

>>7579080
I'd honestly read a history book about 19th century Russia than War and Peace.

>>7578788
- IQ84
+ Brothers Karamazov