I've had a lot of people criticize me for my poor taste

go to university

>>8413066
Considering you probably just want to be a pseud, the meme trilogy plus Stirner.

>>8413066
Learn a language and read all its literature

>>8413066

Stop reading fantasy and scifi... Very little of it is actual worth the paper its written on. kys if you read YA.

>>8413096
>>8413120
>>8413131
None of this tells me what I need to know, what books should I actually be reading?

>>8413148
Read the western canon and heed the advice of >>8413131

>>8413148
Just read a book for fucks sakes, here
http://www.ldolphin.org/Provocations.pdf

Read that, it isn't even hard to read

>>8413148
NYRB, Dalkney Press, New Directions, Penguin Classics, Modern Library, Oxford, Harvard, Folio Society, Everyman Library and Cambridge Press are all publishers with great selections. The NYRB, London Review, Paris Review provide examples of the best in contemporary work. And the Nobel, Man Booker, Cervantes, and the National Book Award (US) are good guides as well. As far as individual books are concerned, read what interests you while flicking through their online catalogs. Use Goodreads to maintain a "too read" list and then pirate the great bulk of 20+ selections.

Warning: Pulitzer is a marketing ploy, and the ones that win it are typically sentimentalist best sellers. Their non-fiction is at times pretty decent, but has drifted into uncritical SJW territory.

>>8413190
This assumes youve finished the Western Canon and Harvard Classics to the extent that satisfies you of course, and the greater part of Greek literature along with the bible, as well as Infinite Jest

>>8413155
that's bad taste though

>>8413148
the books that they tell you to read at university. after that you should be initiated enough to have independently good taste

>I've had a lot of people criticize me for my poor taste in literature

Fuck em

don't read for others

>want to improve myself

read Nichomachean Ethics for a start

or Apology of Socrates

Stop valuing the opinions of others over your own enjoyment or you'll get stuck in a loop of only enjoying activities for the potential social capital afforded by being associated with them.

Which is basically the definition of a "Poseur" - and besides that will draw you into doing things you don't actually like just so some no-account lackwit online/up the street can find some other fault to pick with you or your choices.

>>8413148
Read the fucking sticky.

>>8414863
>needing to be told what to read by academics to have good taste

Sure is plebeian in here

>>8413066
consider reading deeply rather than widely.

>>8413096
This is likely the worst advice.

File: lol.jpg (13KB, 220x277px) Image search: [Google]

13KB, 220x277px

>>8415003
>tfw he thinks he has good taste despite not studying literature at university
>tfw he thinks he has good taste despite disagreeing with academic consensus

you ignored my second sentence anyway.

>>8415082
sorry you didn't get in jimmy. i heard its not too late to apply to the city college