I've read like 5 books my whole life and want to change

>>9403525
Start with NEUROMANCER

>implying homeric prose translations aren't best

Starting with the Greeks is for getting a good understanding of the history of Literature and philosophy in general.

If you just want to read a little as a fun hobby just pick something you enjoy and get cracking.

I would probably recommend starting with smaller, easy reads first if you've only read a handful of books previously just so you don't already get bored with it. The booklist thing always pushed me away more than it ever inspired me, so look up some shit you've heard before that interested you, and go from there. No ones standing over you to check your powerlevel.

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Starting with the Greeks is for plebs, a true patrician starts with the Han

>>9403525
you can start with the greeks, but that's largely a philosophy meme.

there are greeks that are fucking hilarious though, and it does give you a good feel for reference.

i'd recommend picking something you might like, and when you're about 2/3 of the way through, picking something else you might like. sometimes books lead you on to other things, so planning six books ahead won't work. you'll realize half way through your second book that the first two books added two more books you'd like to check out, and your backlog will expand exponentially forever.

if you do want to start with the greeks for philosophy, start with the presocratics. or get an overview of the history of philosophy like durant. or get sophie's world and skip the times new roman bits if it gets too YA for you.

if you want to start with the greeks for dick jokes, read lysistrata. it's a play about blue balls.

if other: look at the wiki in the sticky and try good reads too. just pick something and go with it. we'll give you 2 point 5 good boy points if you read it in a week and report back.

>>9403572
holy shit, are those side by sides?

>>9403525
>how do I not get overwhelmed with my readlist?
If you start getting into literature that's simply something that's going to happen, it's impossible to avoid it in your case. Nevertheless, the only real way to get started is to pick up a book that interests you for whatever reason and get reading, you are too inexperienced in reading for anyone to ble able to give you any specific reccomendations.

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>>9403555
>I would probably recommend starting with smaller, easy read
yes, years of 4chan and sitcoms melted my brain, I get bored very easily. I might read lovecrat's fiction since I'm putting it off forever
>i'd recommend picking something you might like, and when you're about 2/3 of the way through, picking something else you might like.
>you'll realize half way through your second book that the first two books added two more books you'd like to check out, and your backlog will expand exponentially forever.
is this good or bad? I'm using pic related for the greeks, started with the first book but idk if I'll make it
>>9403585
yes, problem is I get Reading a book, and then get bored of it or start with some other and drop the first one. thanks anyway

>>9403606
That's a common problem I guess, hell it still happens to me more often than I'd like to admit. Really just get some smaller, faster-paced books to get started. Stuff like Kurt Vonnegut or Murakami is good for this.

>>9403606
>is this good or bad? I'm using pic related for the greeks, started with the first book but idk if I'll make it
you could probably skip the very first book, but that chart is excellent compared to some of the other start with the greek charts.
lots of anons start with hamilton (the second from top left), though i don't personally like her style, she is a good intro.

finding new things you're interested in from books is good, but not if you wind up with twenty unread books and no longer being invested in the first three you attempted to read which gave you that backlog of research.

you can start with short stories and work up to novellas and on to novel length if sticking with something for any length of time is a problem.

starting with the greeks really isn't necessary if you're not feeling it and it's just going to make up give up on books for life again at 5.5 books.

i recommened lysistrata because, while it is a play, it is back to back dick and pussy jokes mixed with war comedy, and it's hard to get bored during that.
get something that's either going to engage you like that, or where it's short enough that you get the feel good of completion before you get bored and frustrated.

i also didn't mention. set aside a time to read. don't do other shit, turn off your fucking phone/computer/tablet/robotgf, and spend that time reading. it'll become habit, but you might have to force it at first to not just say 'fuck this i'm watching porn/webseries/4chanf5'

>>9403665
fuck all my fat fingers, sorry for all the typos in this

>>9403665
>lots of anons start with hamilton (the second from top left), though i don't personally like her style, she is a good intro.
I was gonna go with the appolodorus one.
>starting with the greeks really isn't necessary if you're not feeling it and it's just going to make up give up on books for life again at 5.5 books.
yep. I might just start with lovecraft's shorts and try something longer later.

>>9403552
You sicken me.

>>9403606
The only non-original source you actually need to read is Lattimore's introduction to the Iliad. Just use Wikipedia for any mythology you don't understand, all of the supplementary texts are Wikipedia-tier anyway. Definitely don't read biographies of any authors or poets you aren't explicitly interested in. If you need to know trivia about their love life or childhood trauma for their work to impact you, they didn't do a good job.

>>9403846
Who can do the verse justice? Fuck, epic meter doesn't even have something homologous in english.

How do people justify doing boring things?

>>9403877
Better to try than to give up entirely. Why not transmit the Iliad entirely in pantomime if we're ignoring the intended medium?

>>9403525
Let me hijack this fagot thread and ask for what translation I should read of the Iliad, I am thinking about the Pope's translation.

>>9403836
appolodorus is good too but i'm not help on translations. most of the stories in either are short enough descriptions of rapes and transformations and vengeance and jealousy and all that crap, so if any of the stories strike you particular from that group, you can probably find a longer book that uses the story as a basis.
>yep. I might just start with lovecraft's shorts and try something longer later.
yeah don't worry about the snobbery and memeing on here, reading some shit you dig is way more likely to keep you reading and interested to find more.

check out the illustrated man by bradbury if you want short and spoopy after lovecraft, because it's basically a collection of short stories.
there's a frame narrative but you don't need to keep track of it and it's probably better if you just read it like it's just short stories.

>>9403903
lol no. Pope's translation is not like Homer at all. It's very good poetry, but not Homer.

Poetry that's like Homer translation in sound: Lattimore
Prose that gives you the basic story without all the poetic effects: Butler

>>9403525
Are you planning on knowing the western canon?

If no, maybe start with "(Insert subject you're interested in) for dummies" and learn a skill.

>I've read like 5 books my whole life and want to change that
How does that happen? Did you not go to highschool?

>>9403952
Shoul I read Lattimore instead?

>>9404155
Lattimore's closest to the original. It includes the lists of ships chapters that most people would skip, and Butler takes those out.

Lattimore took pains to make the sound of the English like the sound of the Greek, without fucking up the English. If you want to get more into the Greek language, that's definitely the one to go for.

If you want just the story, minus the lists of ships that are only there because they were a way for singers to show off their memory, and arranged into a less poetic and more cohesive narrative, Butler is the way to go.

You should not have trouble reading Lattimore, and it's the best translation you'll get, but if poetry and lists are really not your thing, Butler carries everything else.


Pope is beautiful but people will stare at you weirdly if you think it's a translation that carries the original meaning. Butler and Lattimore both carry more of the original.

>tl;dr- probably Lattimore, yes

>>9404182
Thanks

>>9404155
The same kind of people who say you need to read Lattimore say that P&V are trash.

Don't listen to /lit/ concerning translations, it's all just personal opinion.

Go with the most popular translations.(outside /lit/)

So basically Fagles/Lattimore/Fitzgerald for Homer, pick the one you like the most(cost/design/quality etc etc).

>>9404363
P&V are not meant to sound Russian. The entire point of the English speaker of the pair is to put a less Russian sounding end product out there.

Yes, people who like to preserve sounds in poetry probably don't give a shit about things that don't preserve sound in prose, because those are two very different, almost diametrically opposed things.

>Fitzgerald
oh this shill, n/m, i see why you're wrong and over confident.

>>9404414
Why is Fitzgerald so bad?

>>9404534
He's not bad, he's an idiosyncratic choice. Fagles means a college course where they expect you to be dumb, never get interested, and buy your own books. Lattimore means a course that is older or cares more, and generally means they have a program to continue deeper into Greek or prosody.

Fitzgerald is about as good as any other of the hundreds of translations that people choose as their pet. An anon posting Fitzgerald stands out as having an agenda of their own as much as someone posting Murray would (though I would suspect you were Murray if you posted it alongside Lattimore). Which is fine.

Some people fucking love Chapman (and I'd choose him above Fitzgerald) but he doesn't hew to the text like Lattimore, and neither does Fitzgerald really. But recommending Chapman would be an odd choice, and mean I either really like clean Elizabethan verse, or really like Keats and probably am a pseud.

There's lots you can tell about someone from their recommendations, and I'm pretty sure you're the one guy whose favourite alternate is Fitzgerald on this board. It's not because Fitzgerald is better or clearer translation, though, it because of your taste lining up with Fitzgerald's voice. Like Keats' taste lined up with Chapman's more than the standard of his day.

>tl;dr it's not bad, it's just obviously one guy inserting his random favourite as though it were merited above other randoms

>>9403525
read A Naked Lunch

Infinite Jest

>>9403606
Short stories are a good idea, I think you should definitely start on Lovecraft.

>>9403995
yeah but I only read summaries

>>9403995
He probably attended a school that tried to force him to read absolute garbage. That's why i didn't touch a book for years.

>>9405595
Barren lives and Bras Cubas that I remember right now