So my girlfriend who never reads asked me for a book today. I

>>7809712
>Anna karina

>>7809712
You should've given her the D

FW.

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>Anna karina

>>7809722
I blame swype

>>7809712
You don't mention anything personal about your girlfriend in this post. How are we supposed to help you if all we know is that she's female and doesn't read?

>>7809742
Lmao that's about all the info I got from her too.

I said what do you like?
- I don't know

What have you read before?
- nothing on my own

Romance?
- I don't know

Past/present/future?
- doesn't matter

She's timid. She's a nurse. She's a slight SJW :(. She's 23. She liked history. She suffers from depression. Fuck I really don't know shit about my gf.

>>7809758
Just give her the D then

>Did I fuck up?

Maybe. There's only two (nominally conceivable) reasons why you're girlfriend would ask you for a book. Either A) she wants to get into reading or B) she wants to learn more about you by reading what you read. Since you clearly liked the book you gave her, you didn't fuck up option B.

You probably should have asked her some specific questions about what she wanted: fiction or nonfiction? easy-breezy or meatier classical work? ideas book or story book? and so on. Either way, if you like the book and think she'll like it, why are you worried, anon?

>>7809758
Give her the bell jar

>>7809758
Infinite Jest would've been perfect for her based on your description.

>>7809760
I wish. 4 years into this relationship and totally different work schedules equals not a lot of D giving

>>7809765
lol that's sitting on the shelf next to me.

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>>7809758
walk away.
>I have no personality
>no opinions of my own
>meme meme meme
>the monkey does not realize it is in a simulation
get a dog instead.

>>7809764
I just don't want her to somehow be put off reading by my book choice. Hopefully she likes it. But yeah I tried asking and she basically said give me anything??

>>7809781
Lol she sits happily watching friends on netflix 24-7 while I sit and read. It's not so bad.

>>7809785
If she judges that severely based on what kind of books you like, I'd say you shouldn't be in that relationship anyway, also,
>>7809768
Four years and you still know shitburgers about her? Man, work schedules or no, you don't really deserve human contact.

>>7809800
Lol yeah I'm terrible.

If you want to impress her and she's too dumb to call you out -- Pick a meme, most likely Gravity's Rainbow because it has fancy math symbols that will scare her
If you want to impress her and she's smart enough to see that you're trying to impress her -- choose something that you're really passionate about so that she'll be able to recognize this passion and probably be impressed
If you don't care about impressing her and want to fit her tastes -- Don't really know, but maybe Mrs. Dalloway or some other Virginia Woolf/good female author
If you don't care about impressing her or care about her tastes - Everybody Poops is a good book.
Actually, just give her Everybody Poops.

>>7809712
Virgin Suicides is not a bad choice. I probably would've went for The Marriage Plot by Eugenides, though. Given that she's a slight SJW

>>7809805
Yes, you're terrible, but not because of some inborn trait. You're terrible because your girl is (at least) trying to put some effort into your relationship, and you're not reciprocating at all. Watch the shows she watches, have a deep conversation with her when you get a chance, meet her friends, browse her facebook if she has one. Relationships are useless if you can't develop yourself from them. If you're not both contributing and gleaning something from the relationship, you may as well hire a hooker. It's cheaper, and the sex is more reliable.

>>7809818
I haven't read that one yet. I should look into it.

>I don't know my girlfriend well enough to know what words she'd like fed into her brain
Why don't you give her my phone number?

>>7809712
>Anna karina.

>It's not to long

>to

You are a fucking retard.

>>7809832
Kek she could tell you that

>>7809758
If she doesn't read, and she's a nurse, maybe she's just not interested in fiction? What about a book on science, memoir, or inspiration? If she's depressed, The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell might help her shake it off (it's a little dry sometimes but it's short).
Maybe try Game of Thrones also or Harry Potter? YA or fantasy might not be a bad idea if she hasn't read a lot.

>>7809848

What's happening is part of a phenomenon I wrote about a couple of years ago when I was asked to comment on Rowling. I went to the Yale University bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.

But when I wrote that in a newspaper, I was denounced. I was told that children would now read only J.K. Rowling, and I was asked whether that wasn't, after all, better than reading nothing at all? If Rowling was what it took to make them pick up a book, wasn't that a good thing?

It is not. "Harry Potter" will not lead our children on to Kipling's "Just So Stories" or his "Jungle Book." It will not lead them to Thurber's "Thirteen Clocks" or Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows" or Lewis Carroll's "Alice."

Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

Our society and our literature and our culture are being dumbed down, and the causes are very complex. I'm 73 years old. In a lifetime of teaching English, I've seen the study of literature debased. There's very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she'd been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn't even good nonsense. It's insufferable.

>>7809790
but anon, what happens when she watches all the friends? Your time is running out.

>>7809856
Scrubs?

My girl asked for some books a little while back and I was tired of her shit anyway so I just decided to have a goof with the whole thing. She had literally never read a book before so I handed her Catcher in the Rye and Lolita. It took her until half way though to realize that Lolita was about a pedophile, but she was pissed that I made her read "that filthy shit". She actually enjoyed Catcher, but just to piss her off even further I told her about Holden raping his sister and I told her that it was a widely accepted theory by most scholars. She broke up with me for ruining books for her. She never gave them back, but she used dog ears to keep her place, so I really didn't want those ruined copies back anyways.

>>7809758
Diving Bell and the Butterfly

It's not pleb but not excessively patrician, it's sad but emotionally touching, and there's even a not-terrible movie you could watch before or after, and it's vaguely medical which she might like if she's a nurse/likes Scrubs

>>7809853
I really liked this post.
Probably has something to do with the fact that historically reading was reserved for only the most intellectual echelons of society.


Today authors pander to what makes the most $$$

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>>7809943

>>7809943
When have authors not wrote for cash?

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>>7809758

>She's timid. She's a nurse. She's a slight SJW :(. She's 23. She liked history. She suffers from depression.

Wow she sounds cute. I wish I had a gf like her. I wouldn't even mind the slight sjwness, I think it might be healthy.

Give her something by Colette. Cheri or Gigi will do.
>can't bitch about it being some dead white dude
>language isn't difficult
>still has some literary value
>everything tends to be short
>can be bridge to more serious reading

>Does she even have the attention span for something like Anna karina
It appears you don't even have the attention span to write all the letters in the name

>>7809712

Cat's Cradle

>>7809995
Yep, this.

>>7809813
underrated post. underrated poops.

>>7809830
this desu. I'd love to see hilarity ensue should some qt's number get leaked.

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>>7809712
>not falling in love with all the lisbon girls as one being

>>7809915
maybe she broke up with you because you're an obvious edgelord?

maybe some Murakami or Vonnegut; not too long, not difficult and pretty fun as well, I always rec those to starting readers.

>>7810113
Those lovely seaside girls.

>>7809712
Story of the Eye - Bataille

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>>7809758

>She liked history

Well, don't I just have the thing for you then!

>>7809712
Sounds like you don't know your girlfriend very well. Why would we?

>>7809712
Get her 50 shades or the Demonica series by Larissa Lone, lol

The Demonica series focuses on paranormal peeps that work in the medical field saving their own kind. Like werewolf paramedics and Demon Drs. Lots of sex. Lol

>>7810871
I've read the entire Demonica series and that shit was just brainless sexy fun. OP nurse grill would prolly love it.

http://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Unbound-Demonica-Book-1/dp/044640103X

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>>7809758
>She's a slight SJW
>She suffers from depression
Of course she does

>>7810861
I should have said "if your girlfriend asked you for a book, any book. What would you give her"... if she was open to anything and also she never reads.

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>>7810906
>together we fight
>hammer and sickle
>peace through islam

>>7809820
>your girl is (at least) trying to put some effort into your relationship

Hey bud I know you're enjoying your rant there but you made that up, you don't know shit about this guy or his girl.

Go post a frog or something

>>7811987
Kek seriously

>>7809758
As a great meme-boy once said: no books - no fuck.

>>7812527
Speaking of, I can read your manuscript for $10 per page.

>>7809758
>she's a nurse

You might try the Cherry Ames series by Helen Wells. They're fairly taut (from the few pages I read at the library) books about a mystery-solving nurse, they were written from the '40s to the '60s.

>>7809758
Nine stories by J.D. Salinger.

>>7809768
give the bitch the Sartre Stare--plebs can't resist

>>7809712
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, And The Band Played On, The Ghost Map, Papillon, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Little Prince, Frida, King Leopold's Ghost, The Bell Jar, The Handmaid's Tale, MAYBE Stoner, and Cosmicomics.

Gaiman, Vonnegut, MAYBE Green and Murakami are all pretty safe choices. Just give her something you think she'll love. If you can get her something she can really sink her teeth into then she'll want to find more on her own.

Anyways you did fine. It sounds like your girlfriend just wants to share your hobbies and passions with you. Your choice doesn't matter unless if you picked something REALLY shitty which you didn't! It was a good choice.

Have a chill pill, bill.

>>7813357
Oh shit The Yellow Wallpaper. That'd be a good choice too.

>>7809712
The Hearing Trumpet.
She'll like it.

>>7809712
virgin suicides is really good for the females
give her.... murakami's kafka on the shore... or...

oo oo some salinger might work

>>7813240
hey, i* was going to recommend 9 stories
it's really good and girls love it

>>7811987
Not him but we've received two pieces of information about their relationship so far. First, that he knows nothing about his girlfriend and second, that he reads while she watches television. We also know that she has asked op for a book recommendation and from that, it is reasonable to assume that she wants to like what he likes. QED.

>>7809758
>She's timid. She's a nurse. She's a slight SJW
giver her a doll's house.
It's about a woman getting independent, she'll like it

call me stupid, but i like to give people i like things that i personally like that i think they'll also like, rather than outsourcing it to a bunch of anonymous internet guys who don't know either of us

>>7809853
I know copypasta but. I loved Kipling as a child, and Wind in the Willows, and I also liked Harry Potter when I read it because wizard trains and I was in fourth grade like fuck. The real injustice of Rowling is that an English professor would be required to comment on her.
Idk I've lost my point. Guess I'm just saying humans are multifaceted (especially children, especially children who read) and love for books isn't monogamous

>>7809758
>She's a nurse.
Odds are she is a MASSIVE slut.

>>7816226
What makes you say that

>>7816298
>She's a nurse

>>7816226
My friend tried to set me up with a nurse once, di I dodged a bullet?

>>7816457
did I*