/Lit/erary confessions thread. Repent your literary sins and

I dog-ear every book I read, specifically bringing the corner of the page to the end of the paragraph I just read so I know my exact position in the book. I do this especially because I commute frequently and I can't always finish the chapter in time before I need to get off at my stop.

Neil Gaiman can be good sometimes.

Cormac McCarthy is the greatest living American writer at the moment. I don't think we'll see him finish his final book though unless if he lives to 109 years.

Marlon James is fantastic and you're missing out on something special if you haven't read A Brief History of Seven Killings.

Graphic novels have literary merit. But not capeshit comics.

>>9546530
i don't read much and i have little interest in doing so, i just come here for the spicy memes, senpai

>>9546530
aside from national literature, that rarely gets posted here, pretty much all I read is what I see here on /lit/, I almost never look for things out of here. However, the books I select from here always end up being great

I have a very clear idea before reading any novel how much I will enjoy it. I am never wrong. It seems unlikely that my intuition is that good, I'm just prejudicing my own shit up.

i am >>9546565

and I do this a lot too >>9546573

>>9546565
That's a good way to go if you're new to /lit/, but at some point it's going to get boring just seeing IJ, GR, Ulysses, etc threads all the time. Surely you'd want to read something new/underrated to /lit/ and then find who else has read it?

>>9546542
> Cormac McCarthy is the greatest living American writer at the moment.

It's sad to know that this is now a confession when a year ago people were in love with McCarthy here.

>>9546530
it must be expensive buying shoes for a self conscious dog

>>9546597
It's just memes, buddy. Pynchon and David Foster Wallace get the same treatment. You go to /mu/ and critically acclaimed music gets the same treatment. It's usually just in playful jest, m8. My only gripe with tortilla posting is that it's the same two pastas over and over. Eggs Pa Ye and the other one.

>>9546659
>implying DFW is anything but a shitty meme praised by faggots who haven't read anything else
>muh thesaurus
>muh encyclopedia
>muh cringe ebonics
It's mediocrity par excellence.

>>9546530
I think Pulitzer-prize winning novels are very good.

i don't know what the fuck is going on in Finnegans Wake

>>9546685
funny noises

I skipped some chapters in Moby Dick cause they were boring as shit. Fucking sperm whale.

>>9546692
Then you haven't read Moby Dick.

>>9546711
Yup

>>9546542

Cool story bro

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I can't seem to get into many of the books that /lit/ finds good. I used to think this was because I didn't "understand them" but learning about that hasn't helped. Plus, I always enjoyed proper classics like Dante, Thucydides, Dumas, Homer, Dostoevsky, long before I knew anything about literature.

I have never enjoyed authors like DFW, Pynchon, Murakami, etc. Just not for me. Same goes for the fantasy recommended on here. I think Rothfuss, Erikson, and Sanderson are absolute shit. Howard, Tolkien, Bakker, and Peake are infinitely better.

I also love Southern American lit even though Romanian. I'd say that region probably has the best English writers that have ever existed. Blood Meridian and All the King's Men are likely the two best novels I've ever read.

And now for the most controversial and hipster opinion ever: I think Lovecraft's Dream Cycle is far more imaginative and interesting than the Cthulhu stuff. Anyone that doesn't think The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is as at least top three material can fuck off.

>>9546692
Go back and read those chapters now, they are an important part of the work that add a richness and depth that few novels can compete with

there's shoe prints on some of my books and i don't know why

I trash books I own that have no literary merit/ I didn't enjoy.

This doesn't just mean I stick them in the bin. I'll burn them, tear out the pages, see how warped I can get them by leaving them in the bathtub full of water for an hour and then hanging them up to dry, etc. They become experiments more than a book.

I have one book (it's mason & dixon) where - like in some of those movies - i've cut out the centre of the pages so there's a secret compartment for me to hide things in. I've done this a couple of times, sometimes the shape i cut out is an outline of the object i put in there so it can only hold that object.

I've actually shot a copy of Stephen King's The Stand to see if the bullet would go all the way through. It did but it also set the pages on fire.

>>9546832
I'd shoot Stephen King's books too if I had a gun.

>>9546832

This is the most American thing I've ever read on this forum.

>>9546832
At first I thought this was despicable but then the more I read the more I thought this would be pretty fucking cool.

>>9546832

>Stephen King

I think the man deserves a bullet too. I'm not sure if it would even go through, it might just carry that skinny and pasty motherfucker along for the ride.

>MUH
>NEW
>ENGLAND

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>>9546832

>>9546735
This is actually a very acceptable post.

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When I'm done reading a book, I'll usually leave it where I just finished it. I've left a couple of books on the train and a few on park benches. The way I see it is that I have enough books at home I haven't read and if I want to read them all eventually, I best not be tempted to re-read books I've already read.

I've been anonymously thanked a few times in my local newspaper for leaving books around.

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>>9546832
That sounds pretty fucking twisted, have you done this to several books or just a few?

>>9546530
I read the last chapter first so I am able to see the metaphors and symbolism on the first read through. Saves me having to read a novel twice.

>>9546926
At least 17 books. I've kept hold of them in a drawer in my garage. I have one book in a vice down there and I'm trying to saw through it (don't worry, it's an old copy of a yellow pages).

I will check sparknotes or other similiar websites after reading a book, because I'm too dumb to get the deeper meanings and references.

>>9546937
So, you are basically the mythbusters, but for books. Maybe put your little experiments on video?

>>9546952
I would need a better camera to be honest. Not sure how many people would be interested in this kind of thing either. Always thought it would be a fun idea to review books and destroy the books I didn't like in a unique way though.

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>>9546832

>>9546832
have you ever thought of using chemicals to make sure the book disintegrates into nothing but a pulp? they did it on redlettermedia to melt a vhs tape in acetone, would be cool to see it wreck a copy of infinite jest

>>9546939
to be honest that's what they're there for. Nothing wrong trying to further understand a book you've read.

>>9546956
That is a good idea. Even better if the method relates to book's content or author's life.

You could throw Catcher in the Rye off a cliff or cook The Bell Jar in your oven.

I really enjoy the works of Brett Easton Ellis

>>9547008

With utmost sincerity, I truly fail to see how this is possible. My only explanation for his success is that he must have a family member in the industry.

He demeans the craft.

>>9546956
Would love to see a review of Fifty Shades of Grey where the book is absolutely annihilated afterwards.

>>9546593
yes, for sure, I agree with yoy. but no, not new to lit but haven't read all of the /lit/core I want yet. from the classics I have read iliad and odyssey, divine comedy, ulysses, and am halfway through the bible...

pretty much what I want right now is to "finish" with the greeks and go all the way up to aquinas (special interest on theology and philosophy). right now on the greek playwrights and the bible (but am reading some other books inbetween those 2), then will read the greek history with hedorotus and thucydides, then some math with euclid and apollonius (special interest in math too) and finally plato and aristotle.

>>9546985
not that guy but:
- use watership down to line a rabbit hutch so the rabbits mess all over it
- chop into crime and punishment with an axe
- drench dubliners in guinness
- roll a blunt with john williams' stoner
- throw cloud atlas off from the top of a tall building and wait for it to navigate its way back
- fill your cat's litter box with vonnegut's cat's cradle
- leave the nigger of the narcissus on campus and wait to see how long it takes for it to be destroyed by somebody else

could also try burying a book and see how much of it remains in half a year to a year's time. not saying you should necessarily destroy the books i mentioned above but this could be p. cool

>>9546685
The most interesting fictional language study of all time

>>9547039
that seems completely fine then anon, you seem to be more engaged with what you're reading than many others are on here. all the best.

>>9546832
What did you put inside the book?

>>9547032
As someone who actually comes from a fairly wealthy northeastern family
The degeneracy and self-pity that pervades his work speaks to me

>>9546530
Many books I read I enjoy, the problem is that I have enough ADD (but not really) to sit through the first part of a book where it isn't engaging yet.

>>9546530
I can't stand exclamation points in poetry. Because of that I hardly enjoy Whitman and Dickenson.

>>9547032
There are plenty of far worse authors than BEE who have succeeded.

>>9546530

I keep giving up on canonical works. I bailed on the Metamorphoses about a fifth of the way in. I have an anxiety disorder coupled with mild ADD. I can focus adequately on what I'm reading, but I can't stop thinking about if I'm truly focused or not. My biggest obstacle is anxiety about the strength of my attention.

>>9547052
Try and do the washing up using Infinite Jest.

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>>9546530
I have never read work of fiction written by a women except harry potter when I was a kid.

I have read both Sharpe and Uhtetred series in there entirety by Cornwell and liked them.

I'm about to graduate college and start my career as an English teacher, and I've read very close to zero classic literature.

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>>9546939
I had to do that with brief interviews

>>9546593
>underrated
kys faggot