Book advice thread?

>>8863716
>How do you enjoy a book that you dislike?
I don't read it. Even if it was written by the greatest author ever lived.

For school and its mandatory, just read it.

Or be lazy and sparknotes the fuck out of it.

Instead of sparknoting a book you could have read it and learn to develop an opinion about it.

>>8863716
Middlemarch made me cry twice ama.

>>8863722
>>8863747
>>8864018
ITT: How to never learn grammar or syntax
>>8863716
If you REALLY don't want to read the book; try the audiobook while you're at the gym or fapping to /a/nime
Middlemarch sucks.

>>8864026
Middlemarch is great yo

>>8864036
"great yo"
A literary tour de force I'm sure.

You have to be pretty stupid to not enjoy middlemarch or take no interest in getting smarter.

It's one of the best books in the english language you pleb shit.

well, try to suspend your tastes for a bit and open your mind. books from that period are about immersion in every day drama. the problem is the obvious tinge of a soap opera. usually, i try to become as empathic as possible, and try to remove my own considerations and live their lives. if even that is intolerable, i operate fueled only by hypercritical hatred of every instance in the book. usually if i hate a significant moment of the book i can learn to hate it and rant about my hatred for several hours. if even that fails, just forcefully isolate yourself from everything but the novel itself and just read the damn thing so you can get back to what you really want to do.

>>8864055
>It's one of the best books in the english language you pleb shit.
That's a bold statement, my friend.

>>8864055
>he reads 19th century british fiction to get "smarter"

jesus christ, anon. some people just don't like boring shit.

Just look at the title, "a study of provincial life".

Typically that would be enough to make you run away if you don't like reading about who got married to the town's accountant and how the butcher lost his meat cleaver. But, if you have absolutely no testicles, I can eagerly suggest this wonderfully long journal of things that interest virginal crones in training and men who vomit at the scent of fresh horse dung in the morning to you with little reservation!

Middlemarch is a slog.

Someone defend it

every list of "best books by FeMaLe AuThoRs >:^)" led me to believe I needed to check it off my list and I just can't go more than a page

I'm not proud

>>8864203
>Shelley
>Austen
>Rand
>Highsmith
>Christie
only good female authors.

i wish our middlemarch defenders would rise. i still haven't heard a redeeming quality mentioned about this work, nor can anyone who has read it give me a particular moment they remember from the book that influenced them in any way.

File: 1410902793644.jpg (83KB, 530x487px) Image search: [Google]

83KB, 530x487px

>>8864203
Yes, the long sentences are awful and reading the book can be a chore.
Yes, Dorothea can go fuck herself.
Middlemarch IS a slog (but it's also my favorite book). I love it. Middlemarch is one of those books that you can only really appreciate after you've read it. It's a better book to have read than to actually read.

Why I love it?

Middlemarch has such a realistic, in-depth, grasp on human psychology. All the characters are very real (ignoring two) and Elliot understands them fully and empathetically. The interactions between people, the way people talk about people, the way a married couple love eachother but are unable to fully communicate, the unrealistic ambitions of young people.
Also, the joy of recognising people you know and most of all, recognising yourself as you are getting to know and understand the characters. I truly believe that Middlemarch has made me a more empathetic person.

>>8864074
it's not a very bold statement. In fact it's a common sentiment.

>>8865000

Like 8865074 says, Eliot was a master psychologist. She understood what motivated people and exactly how a mass of individual psychologies interact to form a society. You will recognize yourself in certain characters (for me it was Casaubon), and it often stings, but you end up grateful for it afterward. Better a benevolent writer like Eliot to shine a damning light on your flaws than someone in your life.

>>8865577
lol just click the number to quote replies, newfriend