(Part 2) Best classic literature & fiction books according to redditors
We found 8,298 Reddit comments discussing the best classic literature & fiction books. We ranked the 2,453 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
In the Prose Edda, dwarves fit with the 'legendary smith' characterisation in that they make some of the best gear. Along with the elves (and possibly they're the same, though not...I think...in the edda, at least), they make most of the really interesting bits of kit that the gods have. Rather than having a smith god like Vulcan or Hephaestus, when the gods get something interesting it's often from a dwarf.
Take the story about Thor's hammer, for example. Loki and a dwarf compete to see who can make the best three treasures for the gods. Loki gets his treasures from a dark elf, the dwarf makes the treasures himself.
The dwarf makes three things: Thor's hammer (really light, infinitely strong, can fit under a jacket, all kinds of good stuff), Freyr's boar (it provides light, drives his chariot, again, really useful) and Draupnir (it's a ring that drips several gold rings now and then).
Meanwhile Loki's crew (the people at svartalfheim, the dark world, the dark elves, in other tellings of the story also dwarves) make three other things: Odin's spear (always thrusts cleanly), Sif's hair (literally gold, but also a stylin' wig that grows) and Skidblanir (it's a big ship, and it folds up into a piece of cloth you can put in your bag).
So what we get is an archetype of a master craftsman, someone well versed in making obviously magical items that even the gods can't or won't create for themselves. And that's dwarves! No obvious association with mountains in the edda, but it's a starting point for your archetype.
Source: Prose Edda, Jesse Bycock's translation.
I think Tolkien is a good guess for how the trope comes to pass into modern fiction. Tolkien wanted to draw on norse mythology, among other things, to create a modern mythology for England. Quite a few of his names can be found in the Edda, dwarven and not-dwarven (Gandalf, for example, is a name in there), but his dwarves aren't totally based on norse dwarves: their language, for example, is based on Hebrew, and many people think they are partially based on medieval jews: not necessarily in a disparaging way but in the sense of being a wandering people, cast out from their homeland and plying their trades elsewhere. Tolkien's dwarves are tremendously influential: dwarfs, for example, was the more common plural before he wrote his work, and his seem to form the first complete example of the modern archetype you've mentioned (bearded, mountain dwelling, smithing, capable warriors, and so on).
Nah... Just develop a massive ego then you will be able to play mental gymnastics to twist your conception of 'morality' to what ever is convenient to yourself. Here's a self help book if you require more instruction on the subject.
How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie- About how to interact with people. Gave me a lot of insight into social dynamics and self-confidence in general.
What every body is saying - Joe Navarro, it's about body language. You would be surprised how much more information you can from people and optimize social dynamics integrating both of these books.
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn rand, gave me a whole new perspective on the value and meaning of work, liberty and freedom.
I posted this in another thread, but going to post it again here since it's relevant.
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I feel like we should be mailing textbooks/memoirs on fascism/authoritarianism to our representatives...
I thought about organizing a gofundme to send the same book to all Republican representatives (senate and congress) from Amazon, but I think it would be more effective if it was sent from individual constituents in the rep's districts. I personally feel powerless since all my representatives are democrat, but I think it would send a really powerful message if people in red districts sent copies of books directly from Amazon. It would only cost around $10 to do that, and you can include a gift message with your address and why you're sending it.
People smarter than me probably have better suggestions, and could even point out passages that should be highlighted and bookmarked, but here are a few suggestions off the top of my head:
EDIT: Adding 1984 by Orwell to the list for obvious reasons.
It wasn't enough... The script has leaked:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345538374/
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> Ted Nasmith
I have a version of The Silmarillion illustrated by him with big glossy pages, and it's quite nice work.
In no order:
The Gunslinger
Stranger In A Strange Land
Siddhartha
Ender’s Game
East of Eden
The Stranger
You should check out the Poetic and Prose Eddas. [Prose here] ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Prose-Edda-Mythology-Classics/dp/0140447555)
Texts and Reference Books
Days in the Lives of Social Workers
DSM-5
Child Development, Third Edition: A Practitioner's Guide
Racial and Ethnic Groups
Social Work Documentation: A Guide to Strengthening Your Case Recording
Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond
[Thoughts and Feelings: Taking Control of Your Moods and Your Life]
(https://www.amazon.com/Thoughts-Feelings-Harbinger-Self-Help-Workbook/dp/1608822087/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=3ZW7PRW5TK2PB0MDR9R3)
Interpersonal Process in Therapy: An Integrative Model
[The Clinical Assessment Workbook: Balancing Strengths and Differential Diagnosis]
(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0534578438/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_38?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ARCO1HGQTQFT8)
Helping Abused and Traumatized Children
Essential Research Methods for Social Work
Navigating Human Service Organizations
Privilege: A Reader
Play Therapy with Children in Crisis
The Color of Hope: People of Color Mental Health Narratives
The School Counseling and School Social Work Treatment Planner
Streets of Hope : The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood
Deviant Behavior
Social Work with Older Adults
The Aging Networks: A Guide to Programs and Services
[Grief and Bereavement in Contemporary Society: Bridging Research and Practice]
(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415884810/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy
Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change
Ethnicity and Family Therapy
Human Behavior in the Social Environment: Perspectives on Development and the Life Course
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
Generalist Social Work Practice: An Empowering Approach
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook
DBT Skills Manual for Adolescents
DBT Skills Manual
DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
Social Welfare: A History of the American Response to Need
Novels
[A People’s History of the United States]
(https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0062397346/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511070674&sr=1-1&keywords=howard+zinn&dpID=51pps1C9%252BGL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Life For Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Tuesdays with Morrie
The Death Class <- This one is based off of a course I took at my undergrad university
The Quiet Room
Girl, Interrupted
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Flowers for Algernon
Of Mice and Men
A Child Called It
Go Ask Alice
Under the Udala Trees
Prozac Nation
It's Kind of a Funny Story
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Yellow Wallpaper
The Bell Jar
The Outsiders
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Complete Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft https://www.amazon.com/dp/0785834206/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_0g2cAb9KDTK4J
This one is a good start. I’m not sure if it has every single story he wrote but it’s pretty close.
Side note: If, like myself, you don't know any French, you might find yourself looking up phrases quite frequently.
shorter read:
https://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-Vintage-Classics-Tolstoy/dp/1400079985
Sci-Fi Starters:
Starship Troopers by Heinlein
Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card
The Foundation series by Asimov: Foundation -> Foundation and Empire -> Second Foundation
The Robot series by Asimov: I, Robot...
The Master and Margarita. I'll never be the same.
Rare that anon gets a wholesome birthday, good for him!
If it's the one I'm thinking of, that HP lovecraft collection is some good shit, annotated with useful notes and explanations and ordered in a way that almost tells an overarching narrative across all the short stories.
I highly recommend it to anyone who likes or think they may like Lovecraft's work.
Enjoying War and Peace (and any Russian classics) for me is all about the translation. Do yourself a favor and try again with Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky's translation. It's like reading a completely different book, I couldn't put it down. [Amazon link] ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1400079985/ref=aw_d_dsc_books).
What are you talking about? They've already read the greatest work of mankind.
Existentialism and Human Emotions, by Sartre, is only 96 pages and quite an easy read. {ISBN-13: 978-0806509020} Existentialism and the Philosophical Tradition, [Raymond], gives a broad selection of thinkers throughout history, but it is pricey. {ISBN-13: 978-0132957755} Another approach would be texts that are not strictly philosophical yet present some existential points such as: The Plague, The Stranger, and The Rebel, all by Camus, Nausea by Sartre, Notes From Underground, by Dostoevsky, or Waiting For Godot by Beckett
I always recommend starting with the Penguin Classics collection The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, which is a handsome, accessible edition of his best short fiction. My favorites are "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Rats in the Walls," and "The Color From Out of Space."
It was originally a novella, but it was expanded to a 324-page novel in 1966. The novella won the Hugo and the novel won the Nebula.
Mythology by Edith Hamilton. My grandma gave me her copy when I was nine and it's what got me into Mythology. Also has some Norse mythology included too!
Link to its Amazon page
I'd recommend starting with I, Robot as it lays the groundwork for a lot of his other work, including the Three Laws of Robotics. From there, I'd recommend The Robot Series. These four novels, The Caves of Steel (1953), The Naked Sun (1955), The Robots of Dawn (1983), and Robots and Empire (1985) make up the Elijah Baley series.
Every time questions similar to this pop up, people recommend Neil Gaimen. Well, his book is not bad (I own it), but recommending it to a person asking for a detailed recount of the original myths is downright silly. It's a pretty short collection of myths retold into short-stories by Gaimen. They're well written and absolutely closely based on the original myths, but he still invents new stuff, and again, it's a novel-like retelling, not a detailed account of the actual myths. Here are some further suggestions:
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson is a great and thorough description of Nose myth and religion by an acclaimed specialist in the field. It's also laymen-friendly.
The Poetic Edda is arguably the single most important source of Norse myths. It's a collection of poems, written down in Christian times but many dating to well into the Pagan era. I've linked the new translation by Jackson Crawford (whose channel is great for learning about Norse myth, btw), but there are others.
Then there's the Prose Edda, which is likewise a very important original source. Whereas the Poetic Edda is a collection of poetry, the Prose Edda sees many of them retold into more consistent prose narrative (hence the title). As a source, however, the Prose Edda is less reliable than the Poetic, since the latter is a collection of actual Pagan myths, while the former is a compilation and retelling by an (early medieval Icelandic) Christian.
The Sagas of Icelanders important sources to Norse myth and particularly religious practice. The Sagas are actual prose stories (and good ones, too), written in the first few centuries after conversion. Figures from Norse mythology, particularly Odin, are often prominent, but the narratives tend not to primarily concern the mythology.
A notable exception is the Saga of the Volsungs, which is one of the most important narratives in Norse myth. Wagner's Ring Cycle and Tolkien's works were both heavily influenced by it. The Volsunga Saga features Norse gods, viking raids, dragon-slaying and much more.
There are more good books, but those ought to be a decent start.
It depends. I actually recommend not getting stuck reading religious arguments and anti-religious arguments. Try instead simply learning about the world. Your life and happiness don't need to be defined by religion, there's a lot more out there.
Read some books on science and history, not religious or atheist ones, just ones that expand knowledge. Things like Cosmos, or a History of the Peloponnesian War. Read about different cultures and their myths, like Edith Hamilton's Mythology. Read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And in the meantime, just be a good person who loves their friends and family, and don't worry about God, or the lack thereof.
When you've learned more and feel comfortable, I suggest learning about the history of your religion, and what people actually believed, not just what the religion claims it was always like. Karen Armstrong's 'The Bible' is a good one. Read an annotated Bible and look at what's actually there. Then feel free to read an apologist and atheist book to hear both sides.
Most importantly, you should be learning for the sake of learning, and enjoy it. Don't feel guilty or torn. That you feel like you deserve eternal torment for simply participating in a ritual with friends and family is a fucking tragedy. Hell, Christmas and Easter are mostly made of pagan traditions, some explicitly outlawed in the Bible, but I'm sure eating chocolate eggs and decorating the tree doesn't make you feel sinful, not should it. We give these things our own meaning, there's no outside force causing you unhappiness or judging you.
Gandalf is a straight up badass. I would encourage you to go back and read [The Silmarillion] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Silmarillion-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618391118/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1373920830&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=silmarillion) as well as the [History of Middle Earth Volumes] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Histories-Middle-Earth-Volumes/dp/0345466454/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1373920796&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+history+of+middle+earth) to get a better understanding of the background of the entire world. It's by no means easy reading, and it's very in-depth and very dense, but it gives you a deeper understanding and appreciation for the world which Tolkien had created.
For future reference, /r/askphilosophy exists for these kinds of questions.
Now, if you're looking for something more narrative that will allow you to get your feet wet, you have a few different options.
Sophie's World is really quite enjoyable, though I suppose its intended audience is probably younger than yourself.
If you're looking for something more mature, you might try philosophical fiction like Camus' The Stranger or Sartre's Nausea. Both are a great way to get into something philosophical without having to worry too much about terminology or technical language.
If you're looking for something more analytic (logic, phil math, phil science, etc.), you might try something like Russell's The Problems of Philosophy. It's a pretty good read and it's short.
If you're looking for a general introduction to philosophy, something more mature than Sophie's World but focused on the history of philosophy as opposed to a particular area, you might want to look at something like Russell's The History of Western Philosophy. If you do get more involved in philosophy, you'll discover that the book has its flaws, and Russell was wrong about several of the philosophers that he discusses, but it's a good introduction to the history of philosophy that is easily accessible if you have the time to sit down and read it.
In terms of which one's are more fun to read, I'd say the philosophical fiction and Sophie's World are at the top, as the other two books are a bit more dry, but if you're looking for something substantive and not too technical, then all of these might serve your purposes.
I hope that helped in some way, and in future, if you have any philosophy related questions, don't hesitate to ask over in /r/askphilosophy.
Read Lolita. (really...it is an awesome book)
You can't go wrong with buying one of the many volumes of his collected prose fiction that are out there. See the spreadsheet in the sidebar for a good breakdown of all the popular volumes and what stories they contain. I personally have "The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft" (the Chartwell Classics edition) and "The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales" (Barnes & Noble), both of which I really like. The former contains 68 stories, an introduction by Eric Carl Link, and a timeline of Lovecraft's life and work. The latter contains 23 stories (6 of which are co-authored stories not collected in the former) and has an introduction by S.T. Joshi.
Also, be aware that all of his fiction is freely available online (legally). Especially check out Lovecraft's Wikisource page and the H.P. Lovecraft Archive.
If you like audiobooks, HorrorBabble has (free) high quality recordings of most of Lovecraft's work as well.
As for what stories to start with, I like the suggestions in this subreddit's sidebar:
Which one? The [official Prima one] (http://www.amazon.com/Fallout-New-Vegas-Collectors-Guide/dp/0307469956) is 480 pages, whereas [War and Peace] (http://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-Vintage-Classics-Tolstoy/dp/1400079985) is 1,296 pages long.
Edit: I'm a dumbass and I missed the first sentence. Thanks trogdor.
Either look in a library for books of Norse mythology, or search Amazon for the Eddas.
I think I found a book you'll love
https://www.amazon.com/Catcher-Rye-J-D-Salinger/dp/0316769487
The 3 Penguin classics are great because they've got annotations from S.T. Joshi and also have the corrected text by him. They're also cheap. Since they aren't huge volumes they are also easy to read and carry.
http://www.amazon.ca/Call-Cthulhu-Other-Weird-Stories/dp/0141182342/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1335790731&amp;sr=8-7
http://www.amazon.ca/Penguin-Classics-Dreams-Witch-Stories/dp/0142437956/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1335790731&amp;sr=8-2
http://www.amazon.ca/Thing-Doorstep-Other-Weird-Stories/dp/0142180033/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1335790731&amp;sr=8-9
The Necronomicon (listed in the comments below) is nice as well, but it lacks footnotes and has errors. Also nice is the companion to this - Eldritch Tales which has some stuff the Necronomicon doesn't.
http://www.amazon.ca/Eldritch-Tales-H-P-Lovecraft/dp/0575099356/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1335790861&amp;sr=1-1
The Barnes and Noble edition seems like a good buy.
I recommend having a look at this page over at hplovecraft.com. It has a good overview of the various sources you can choose from.
http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/sources/
The Arkham house editions seem like the definitive ones, however they are a bit harder to come by than some of the others.
I strongly urge you to look at Mythology by Edith Hamilton (you can see it here )
Someplace in my apartment, I have a copy of Nordic Gods and Heroes by P. Colum; that was my first introduction to the subject.
Norse Mythology by John Lindow is also excellent.
I very much second the recommendation of Joseph Campbell -- he's written extensively (and very accessibly - laypeople and scholars alike find his work useful and respectable) on myths.
Matterhorn is a great read, but on the long side.
Assuming you are looking for non-fiction but the best fictional book I have read on Vietnam War is Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. Changed my view of the war and everyone who fought in it. Took author 30 years to write.
http://www.amazon.com/Matterhorn-A-Novel-Vietnam-War/dp/0802145310
You are amazing for this!!
My brother broke his tablet about 2 weeks after he got it, so I gave him mine to use, and the Nook Simple Touch that I got as a gift is no longer working. Now I am left without anything to read my ebooks on besides the PC (Which is uncomfortable) and a Kindle Fire would be amazing. I think for the book... I'd have to say... 1984 would be the book I would want. I have yet to read it, and it's my girlfriend's favorite book and she wants me to read it.
So a 4.3 rating on Amazon out of 886 reviews, are all from predators and child rapists? The classic movie adaptation of the book has a 4 star rating on IMDB out of 58,424 votes and a 95% rating by critics on Rotten Tomatoes. All predators and child rapists?
Ever Since /u/DrunkColdStone has mentioned some things, I'll touch upon a few things they haven't. Much of the lore behind the game is influenced by fiction, but I'll try to touch upon Non-fiction sources, unless I cannot find any.
> The Island of Dead Ships in the Sargasso Sea
While much of of the story in Solomon Island seems to be influenced by The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Sargasso Sea does have some mysteries surrounding it. There have been reports of sailors finding ships with their sails set, but no trace of the crew. These mysterious disappearances combined with it's close proximity to The Bermuda Triangle have created an aura of mystery around the place. As for books, I have not found anything that specifically covers these aspects of the Sargasso Sea, so your best bet would be books about the Bermuda Triangle.
> The Wabanaki
The Wabanaki tribe is actually a group of native american tribes known as The Wabanaki Confederacy. They have, since the first days of the U.S, helped out in conflicts and wars, including in Modern day Iraq and Afghanistan. There are many books covering the tribes in this group, so take your pick.
Books on The Wabanaki on Amazon
> Inspiration for the Dragon faction
As far as I can tell, it seems that The Dragon is an original creation. My research leads me to believe it is inspired by either The Gen'yosha or the Black Dragon Society with a LOT of Chaos Theory and Complex Systems thrown into the mix.
As for one of the best "Reference" Books for much of the inspiration of the lore for the game, I'll have to bring up a point that /u/just-passin made.
> The OP expressed interest mainly in non-fiction although in this case even most of the non-fiction sources will be about fiction. In that case for completeness you have to acknowledge Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos (to which many authors have contributed). For info about Lovecraft and the origins of the mythos the go-to author is probably S.T. Joshi although you need a working knowledge (or better) of Lovecraftian fiction to get the best from him.
I would suggest looking into The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft While it is mainly fiction, it contains page after page of non-fiction references and explanations behind many of the concepts and events that appear in the stories.
Here it is. It's fantastic, full of background info and pictures for the stories
I understand this. Some relevant links in Norwegian:
University of Oslo on how Christianity came to Norway
Here an article on the first Christian inscriptions in Norway from University of Technology and Science in Trondheim
Both the above articles refer to the fundamental academic book on early Christian influence in Norway: Fritjof Birekli Tolv vintre hadde kristendommen vært i Norge = Christianity had been 12 winters in the country
Snorri Sturlassons books on Norse mythology as well as on king Haakon the Good and other early Norwegian kings are available in English. His books are fundamental sources for an understanding of the Norse universe of thoughts for the twelfth century when they were written - and is what OP is looking for
Well, my favorites are
The Moviegoer
The Road
A Confederacy of Dunces
Rendezvous with Rama
Watchmen
Snow Crash
Slaughterhouse-Five
Cat's Cradle
The Big Sleep
The Maltese Falcon
American Gods
A Clockwork Orange
Preacher
Fahrenheit 451
1984
Akira
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Lolita
Love in the Time of Cholera
Naked Lunch
Animal Farm
The Sandman
At the Mountains of Madness
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Brave New World
We
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Edith Hamilton.
http://www.amazon.com/Mythology-Edith-Hamilton/dp/0316341517/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1
You might even get a kick out of The Hunger Games or Divergent... And of course 1984 :)
Santiago by Mike Resnick fits the bill pretty well; it's an abstracted space frontier setting reminiscent of the Old West. Very evocative.
Other than that, you could look at Ursula LeGuin (I'm thinking of The Left Hand of Darkness but she wrote many). And if you haven't yet read it, Foundation is a classic of the genre.
I actually think The Call of Cthulhu is the worst introduction to his works. It's actually pretty boring and rambly without context.
I think The Shadow Over Innsmouth is probably the best place to start. It's easy to be interested in even if you're not already a Lovecraft fan. Shadow is what got my wife completely enthralled with Lovecraft but The Call of Cthulhu still bores her to tears as a narrative.
I think The Dunwich Horror is also pretty good, but it peaks early and goes downhill. This is one of the biggest showings of the Necronomicon in Lovecraft's works.
I think At the Moutains of Madness should be read later once you have a better grasp of the mythos. It's slow to pick up and is almost too broad to grasp without understanding HP Lovecraft's universe.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is pretty good as a stand alone, but it quite long and dry, but the build up leads to a pretty decent pay off.
I think The Colour Out of Space isn't a bad starting place either, though it's mostly separated from the general mythos, but still a very fun read.
The Statement of Randolph Carter is a great short piece dripping with atmosphere in the earlier Lovecraft style where he leaves almost too much to the imagination, but it really works with this story.
The Outsider is another great short with an introspective angle.
The Whisperer in the Darkness is another great option for interesting stuff within the main mythos.
If you want to read these online you can find virtually all of Lovecraft's works here as most of them of public domain.
If you want to read them in paperback I would suggest The Penguin Classic versions (2 3). They have light annotations by S. T. Joshi which are great for getting a better context, but not as overkill as some of the more extremely deep annotated versions.
He writes reports and you can see his intelligence increasing on the way he writes - from full of errors and simple phrases to nicely constructed phrases and better vocabulary.
It's sad, but adorable, and if you are interested in the problems of the mind, this is probably an interesting read.
I think voice and tone are the main markers of YA, and those are incredibly hard to nail down.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, The Ranger's Apprentice, My Sister's Keeper, Miserere, The Midwife's Apprentice, The Catcher in the Rye, the His Dark Materials trilogy, Ella Enchanted, Catherine, Called Birdy, Fangirl, the Mistborn trilogy, Girls Like Us, various Tamora Pierce books, and Incarceron are all books that could be considered YA in some markets, but not in others (some are marketed up as adult literature, others down as children's books).
If you went solely by "characters being teenagers for most of the book" to define YA, (and even threw in caveats like "coming of age" and "no explicit sex") you'd get titles like Wild Ginger, The Poisonwood Bible, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Into the Forest, or The Year of the Flood on the YA shelves, possibly disappointing a lot of people who aren't interested in such a dreary world view and often a pervading sense of melancholy (which is perhaps coming from the slower pace, even if things are happening all the time?).
Endings seem to play a role too: those adult examples were all unhappy ends that could make the characters' entire journey seem pointless. YA doesn't necessarily shy away from the unhappy ending (The Fault in Our Stars, The Girl of Fire and Thorns, and Feed come to mind), but there's always a spark of hope and the books were more upbeat up until that point.
YA doesn't necessarily shy away from cynicism or ennui and/or despair either: there was plenty of that to go around in The Hunger Games, Looking for Alaska, Graceling, Delirium, and The Archived, but those tended to be character traits coming from character voice rather than the tone of the narration itself.
Bonus MG vs YA distinction: Does he liiiiike her and maybe kiss her or marry her or are they dating or secretly lusting?
tl,dr: Gut feeling. I know it when I read it, and I don't always agree with the official designation on the spine.
Children of Time and Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovksy both have strong sociological themes. If you enjoy these books you might also want to check out Semiosis: A Novel by Susan Burke.
Foundation by Isaac Asimov is about the fall and rise of a galactic empire. It is a bit dated in terms of science fiction but a classic in the genre.
Exhalation and Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang are collections of short stories and some of them contain strong sociological themes around communication and intersubjective understanding.
A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge also have some interesting speculative sociology.
Hominids: Volume One of The Neanderthal Parallax by Robert J. Sawyer also contains interesting speculative anthropology and sociology (but not a very interesting plot IMO) and is also worth a read.
The Stranger. It's a short book, but one of my favorites.
Camus was both an essay writer and a fiction author, so reading a piece of each is a good idea. The Stranger would be his best work of fiction to read, and "The Myth of Sisyphus" his best essay. It really lays out his ideas regarding the absurd. It usually appears in a book called The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Both books, especially the first, are in most libraries.
I haven't read Kierkegaard, but I've heard that Either/Or is both a simple read and puts his ideas on display. If you'd prefer to read it online, here's a link that I found.
Damn... As a writer myself, I really wish that guy had plead not guilty and fought for a precedent.
Because even classic literature can be CP
I also think the Master and the Margarita may interest you.
One option for the human perspective is Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
It is a novel, not a retelling of actual events, but it is based on personal experience, the author was an Infantry officer during the war. It is long but a fast and compelling read, very human too.
You can view my in depth analysis of this April Fools joke here. It outlines my theory that 13/13/14 is a prophecy that TWOW will come out January 13th 2015 (13/13/14).
edit: a number
This is the specific translation, if you're interested in reading it. Reading the portion the musical is based on (Volume 2, part 5) really increased my appreciation of the music and lyrics!
This gives a good overview: http://www.johnpurcellauthor.com/the-count-of-monte-cristo-by-alexandre-dumas.html
Edit: Actually that's not all that great of an overview. If you search reddit for Monte Cristo, it's the one everyone recommends. If you find a preview of it online, Buss has detailed notes about the translation at the beginning of the book that compare his work to previous works.
Edit 2: ok so if you download the preview on Amazon, you can read Buss' A Note on the Text section that gives a great overview to his approach to the translation. Here's the link: The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin Classics) https://www.amazon .com/dp/B002RI9KL8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_RRF3DbBFX3GQM
Penguin Classics
He's mostly known for his short stories, so just look for a short story anthology. Amazon has quite a few to choose from. This one looks promising.
So... what exactly are you looking for?
Websites/books to teach you? For us to just tell you what you want to learn? Questions like this are hard to answer because they're so broad, and you'll have to keep that in mind as you get answers or whatever.
First off, look through /r/mythology. They discuss all kinds of mythology over there, and seems like a pretty good resource.
Greek and Roman Mythology
These are intertwined. They are not the same, or competing. They are much more complementary than you might think.
I can tell you that Bulfinch's Mythology and Hamilton's Mythology are pretty much the standard as far as Ancient Greek Mythology goes.
Going through old IWTL posts, I found Beren's Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome. It's free!
Egyptian
I admit, I know pretty much nothing about this other than Ra, Set, Anubis and the Sphinx.
But, http://www.egyptianmyths.net/ seems like a pretty good resource.
Celtic Mythology
First check out this introduction. Then, check out the Celtic Myth Podshow if you like podcasts!
Mesopotamian
The Epic of Gilgamesh.
I'd like to continue this, as it's been a lot of fun, but I gotta go do a thing. I'll come back to this later, maybe
this exact set on amazon is currently $19.
I did however find a paperback version for $15.74
https://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-Lord-Rings-Fellowship-Towers/dp/0345538374/ref=tmm_mmp_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=
Something to read. Who knows how long it's going to take them to dig you out?
I suggest this.
The edition you're looking for is out of print. You can still get it second hand on amazon though, but it's 79dollar. The illustration is by Ted Nasmith. There is also a "blue version" which is still available new.
Here is an amazon link to your red edition:
https://www.amazon.com/SILMARILLION-Tolkien-J-R-45/dp/B009M92IVO
Blue edition:
https://www.amazon.com/Silmarillion-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618391118/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=silmarillion+ted+nasmith&amp;qid=1562185977&amp;s=gateway&amp;sprefix=Silmarillion+ted+&amp;sr=8-1
Goodluck!
You can go read "The Stranger" in a day.
This is a nice little Video about Albert Camus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism
Might as well check the wiki.
http://www.camus-society.com/ has a lot of good stuff. You can find The Myth of Sisyphus his essay online for free right here.
I spent 33 years an angry man who was basically just an Anti Theist. Camus view on the world is amazing and once you accept and live with the reality it is absurd everything is amazing. Very much a hippy epiphany.
For Norse sagas, Penguin classics has some fantastic editions:
For eastern mythology, you'll want:
For Celtic mythology:
The Prose Edda. Much of what we know of Norse mythology comes from this book. It's a fun read!
When I started watching this show a few years ago I ended up buying quite a few books about Norse Mythology and Asatru (the reconstruction religion that is becoming more popular).
Here are a few good ones
The Norse Myths This is a good basic breakdown of the stories in the Sagas/Eddas and is easy to read.
Viking Age: Everyday Life During the Extraordinary Era of the Norsemen This is a fantastic book that really isn't related to the myths (there is a religion section) but this is a great book that goes over the everyday lives of Vikings and their families. Everything from political structure down to what they ate and how they dressed. It also has great illustrations.
The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology (Penguin Classics) - one of the source materials of the myths.
The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok - I dont have this one personally but it is on my list to buy.
If you want to read about the reconstruction religion that has gained in popularity since the 70s check this book out. Essential Asatru: Walking the Path of Norse Paganism - This is another easy to read book that not only goes over the basics of the Myths/Gods but also goes over the ceremonies and rituals of those who choose to practice today what the Vikings practiced. Minus the live sacrifices... those have been replaced with food and drink thankfully.
If you are just wanting to dip your toes into learning about the myths I cannot recommend the first link more than enough. It is far easier to read than the Eddas/Sagas and from what I understand from other subs is a widely regarded starting point.
Also check out /r/norse and /r/asatru.
"The Complete Fiction" has all the fiction Lovecraft wrote in his lifetime, minus the commissioned works and collaborations with other writers. Also, the texts are edited by S.T. Joshi, who's the foremost Lovecraft scholar. "The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft" has some analysis for some of his works, but I don't know about the editing of the text. I own this one, which I'm pretty sure has the same contents as the Knickerbocker Classics edition.
If you want annotations AND complete texts, Penguin Classics' three paperback collections are a good choice, because the texts are those edited by Joshi, plus they have a ton of annotations for basically every bit of extra info regarding the particular story, influential element, etc... Yes, they are softcover books, but the good side is they have annotations. Here they are:
"The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories" also has a special edition with Cthulhu with a monocle, mustache and tuxedo on the front cover.
I share the opinion of /u/leafyhouse, who says "Buy The Complete Fiction" first. You can read all of his official stories in a chronological order and see how he grew up as a writer. Later you can check out Penguin Classics or The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft and sink deep in what influenced Lovecraft to write all this gorgeous work.
EDIT: Forgot to put links to the Penguin Classics collections.
EDIT número dos: In this other thread, /u/IndispensableNobody points out the differences between the Knickerbocker Classics "Complete Fiction" and the Barnes & Noble one. Check it out.
Bulfinch's was already mentioned, so I'll recommend Edith Hamilton's Mythology. I read it many years ago and credit it with sparking my interest in the subject of myth.
I studied philosophy in school, and one of the focal points of my study was philosophy of religion.
Actually, it started earlier that that. I went to one of those summer programs for nerds -- basically, it's like truncated college semester for high school kids -- and ended up choosing two classes. One was my very first introduction to philosophy, with a sly old man who looked like Prof. Farnsworth from Futurama. We noticed one day that all of the names he chose for illustrations of philosophical principles were drawn from 1960s sitcoms like The Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island. Hooked ever since. The other class was Old Testament Literature, taught by a guy who looked like Penn Jilette. He was an ordained Southern Baptist minister, but also a huge proponent of [higher criticism][1], and that's how he taught the class. So instead of learning "Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible" and "the Bible had 42 authors but they were all divinely inspired" or what have you, we learned the Documentary hypothesis, and problems of translation, and the Babylonian exile and so on.
Well, obviously, that combination of topics blew my fragile little mind, and it's been an ongoing interest of mine ever since. College expanded it into an interest in other religions. And since then, I've just been struggling to keep up. It's an endlessly fascinating subject. Just the other day I bought an introductory book on Sikhism, but I'm waiting until after my upcoming vacation to start in on it.
Realistically, you could take it back even further. I was a precocious reader as a kid, and at some point when I was still in double digits, my parents gave me a fishing pole and a copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology. I eventually outgrew the fishing pole, but I still have the Hamilton.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_criticism
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
I can't speak to hardcover editions of LotR as I still haven't committed to those myself, but I would recommend that whatever version you get, get an ebook version too - being able to search the text is absolutely wonderful, particularly if you also have a copy of The Complete Guide To Middle Earth by Robert Foster.
As an aside, this version of the Silmarillion is very nice.
The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. It's a fantastic story, very humorous, and has lots of occult/gnostic undertones. I recommend this translation
There's actually a book that recently came out called "The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft". Has quite a bit of stories of his in it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0785834206/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_EF6lybS6PMTT8
Same author who wrote Matterhorn.
Definitely worth reading.
Also perhaps one or two children's classics in there for extra-creepy. "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" is great because if the insanity in it. BONUS: I believe it is public-domain now. Check Project Guttenberg.
I was talking about the entire thing, with tie-ins and everything. Yes, it's hyperbole, but Civil War seriously had an insane amount of tie-ins.
That's 3,168 pages right there. War and Peace is 1,296.
The Robert Buss translation. I got the recommendation on /r/books actually -- I wish I remembered from whom exactly, so I could give them a hat tip.
http://www.amazon.com/Count-Cristo-Penguin-Classics-ebook/dp/B002RI9KL8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;sr=8-1&amp;qid=1376019725
Edit: I notice you're reading Jules Verne in French. My envy of you knows no bounds.
I've only read this one, but it seemed very well done to me. It flows very much like contemporary prose.
Also you can add my recommendation to your list!
It's not necessarily sad, but most certainly Russian, and it's The Master and Margarita.
This is the one that I have.
You'd also probably be interested in this shop on Etsy. This guy is making some of the most impressive stuff I've seen on the entire website.
"The Call of Cthulhu" by HP Lovecraft. I recommend his collection of short stories here
One of the comments intrigued me into buying some of Lovecraft's books. Found his complete works on Amazon for around 12$. Awesome find if you're interested. It's roughly 1100 pages.
The Complete Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft https://www.amazon.com/dp/0785834206/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_DXpOybAVYD5ZG
Unfortunately not and I wish I would have search for that one. Still the one I got is nice, though I've read there are some typos. Just got tired of reading them from PDFs on my tablet and wanted something I could bookmark my favorites so I could get my boys to start reading them. Here's the link if anyone is interested for the one I got, nice price of $11.55, even cheaper then when I bought it two weeks ago: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0785834206/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
If you have time to read/listen to a large novel, check out Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. It's historic fiction focusing on a company of US Marines during their time in 1969. Great read, one of my favorite war novels.
A few more to add to your list!
Books:
Matterhorn
We Were Soldiers Once and Young
Fields of Fire
I'd like to add another book recommendation, Matterhorn. This book was written by a Marine who served as a Lieutenant in 1969 and is probably one of the best novels about war I have ever read. Some scenarios it includes are jungle ambushes, weeks-long patrols to establish new firebases, and building up a firebase only to abandon it the enemy and then be ordered to retake it. If you're looking for infantry combat scenarios in Vietnam you'll find plenty there.
I don't think it's comprehensive but I love this annotated collection by Leslie S. Klinger. Here.
&#x200B;
Edit: And apparently he's coming out with a followup to it soon.
The New Annotated HP Lovecraft
Hot damn do I love the way they're handling footnotes nowadays.
I don't know if you're a Game of Thrones fan but The Wold of Ice & Fire is a beautiful book and I doubt the digital version could ever compare.
There's also some good Lord of the Rings hardcover collector editions out there.
Finally, when Amazon did the 33% off any book a few weeks ago I picked up this:
The New Annotated HP Lovecraft, it's also a beautiful book.
Sorry, based on the title I thought you were talking about the New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft but it doesn't match the description.
Maybe it was an older edition of this?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0057JQ8C8?ie=UTF8&amp;redirectFromSS=1&amp;pc_redir=T1&amp;noEncodingTag=1&amp;fp=1
Sorry - link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400079985/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_0.NWAbP9T4P4Z
Or for UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0099512246/ref=pd_aw_sim_sbs_14_1?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=A4PMVPPZWZG2J4CSPEVW&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=51m2Ttt2jXL#
books that i have read that you may enjoy.
"The Children of Odin"
"Myths of the Norsemen"
"The Poetic Edda"
"The Younger Edda"
also the AFA has some great recommendations on the Website
Enjoy! :)
But to answer your question. Penguin Classics has one released which is a very quick and easy read.
ISBN-13: 978-0-140-44755-2.
The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology (Penguin Classics)
Not really, going through every short story and novella he has ever written takes way less than, say, reading a single book of A Song of Ice and Fire.
EDIT: you might want to start here
poe was one of lovecraft's heroes as well. if you enjoy the stories in that book, i highly recommend picking up an anthology edited by S.T. Joshi, who's pretty much the most expert authority on lovecraft in the world. joshi's research and notes at the end add a whole new dimension to the stories
also, awesome knives and bead! you have good taste
love the maliwan mousepad too
Flowers for Algernon is one of my all-time favorite short story/novels.
I just like the stories of things. From what I can tell this is a fantastic book of them.
I picked up a book on classical mythology with a book order a few years back, and have actually found use for it a number of times since then. It covers all of the primary Greek and Roman stories, as well as a smaller number of Norse ones.
The book is Mythology by Edith Hamilton.
Mythology by Edith Hamilton is the gold standard.
So far:
I believe that's it, currently I'm reading All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy as well as Alphabet Juice by Roy Blount Jr.
> But they are all fucks.
"Quit calling me a kid, I'm nothing like those books! I'm allowed to think everyone's a big gay phoney!"
It's $12 CDN, super cheap and you can read up on why Holden is not supposed to be a role model.
Right now, The Crucible.
The most boring one I've been forced to read was Catcher in the Rye.
The special edition that includes The Hobbit will give you a little additional clearance.
Stalking your history you're based in the states. On that basis I typed into Amazon.com "hobbit lord of the rings box" and found several results, the first being
That seems reasonable enough. Pretty much any collection of LotR will have the appendixes, though if you read reviews I'm sure you'll spot those case which don't.
Me personally I have a box set (seven volumes) of LoTR (millenium edition) and an unrelated hobbit. Not sure if you're specifically looking for related-editions, or just want new copies..?
Nerd shit coming your way:
The Foundation, by Isaac Asimov
: De longe o meu favorito, recomenda-se vivamente, e se fores fã de macroeconomia... well a premisa do livro baseia se na certeza da previsibilidade de comportamento humano para populações suficientemente grandes.
"The books tell the story of the Foundation, an institute to preserve the best of human civilization after the millenial long collapse of the galactic empire".
https://www.amazon.com/Foundation-Isaac-Asimov/dp/0553293354
Use of Weapons, by Ian M Banks : Livro um pouco sobre as consequencias sociais e politicas de uma sociedade utopica com uma economia pós-escassez.
https://www.amazon.com/Use-Weapons-Culture-Iain-Banks/dp/0316030570
The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan
https://www.amazon.com/Eye-World-Wheel-Time-Book/dp/0812511816
For about the same price, you can get the trilogy as three separate Kindle e-books:
http://www.amazon.com/Foundation-Isaac-Asimov/dp/0553293354/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z
http://www.amazon.com/Foundation-Empire-Isaac-Asimov/dp/0553293370/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y
http://www.amazon.com/Second-Foundation-Novels-Isaac-Asimov/dp/0553293362/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_z
There may be a better deal available. I just browsed around for a couple minutes.
Some of my favorites:
I tried to get as many different authors as possible in there. Many of those authors have plenty of really good books you shouldn't miss.
How about this big trilogy box set of the versions illustrated by Alan Lee? Be warned, the books are pretty tall.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618260587/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1343519879&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=lord+of+the+rings+alan+lee
(sorry I don't know how to compact links) This is the one I bought awhile ago. If you want a high quality set, this is a great one. This is not one that is built for being lugged around, but it is doable. I really love the Alan Lee illustrations, it is one of the big selling points. There are a good amount, and they are full colored and take up a whole page. The print is great and the set looks great. A very good set. However, they are pretty heavy
This is the set I have
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618260587/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
My fellow redditor, you have come to right place. Welcome to this dwelling of the Tolkien true collectors.
I write in haste so forgive the lack of details in this humble and sincere post.
The LOTR Hardcover on the link posted and provided in your above post is a perfectly and flawlessly wonderful match for the following:
The Silmarillion: https://www.amazon.com/Silmarillion-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618391118/ref=pd_rhf_se_s_cp_2?ie=UTF8&amp;dpID=51J5PMHHYFL&amp;dpSrc=sims&amp;preST=_SL500_SR104%2C135_&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=KHZ53FT8HB5DRKEAQKT1
The Hobbit: https://www.amazon.com/J-R-R-Tolkien-Hobbit-114th-20/dp/B00HTK1YPE/ref=sr_1_17_twi_har_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1469223882&amp;sr=1-17&amp;keywords=the+hobbit+houghton+mifflin+harcourt
Beware! The Hobbit version has been reprinted several times and only some of the printings are a full and perfect and flawless match for the aforementioned beautiful LOTR set.
Unfinished Tales: There is, sadly and unfortunately, no matching Unfinished Tales version.
If you obtain the correct and perfect versions of each, your collection would look exactly similar to the following picture / image, with the sole difference that they are all HM or HMH books: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=images&amp;cd=&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjPg83viIjOAhUNBh4KHTweDQEQjRwIBw&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamefaqs.com%2Fboards%2F211-lord-of-the-rings%2F62025619&amp;psig=AFQjCNF1C7dEPIF962Vt5SJRcBXvANsDJg&amp;ust=1469311187738414
Vital and relevant Note: all from publisher HMH.
----------------------------
If what you wish my friend is to have a full and complete collection of matching books, it would be highly beneficial if you were to take a look at the Tolkien Official website: http://www.tolkien.co.uk/index.html
OPTION 1: You can have a collection like the following, with original dust jacket designs by The Professor (look for the first picture on the left): https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=images&amp;cd=&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiUpOn8hojOAhWFHh4KHXH4B7YQjRwIBw&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F130322982936701780%2F&amp;bvm=bv.127984354,bs.2,d.dmo&amp;psig=AFQjCNEuzNQpGhoqkf9TvQH_RnSbhYk2rQ&amp;ust=1469310665507171
OPTION 2: Another alternative is to purchase the Deluxe editions: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=images&amp;cd=&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjOw5XEh4jOAhXGHB4KHSy6DFQQjRwIBw&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fatolkienistperspective.wordpress.com%2F2013%2F09%2F07%2Fmy-tolkien-collection-deluxe-editions%2F&amp;bvm=bv.127984354,d.dmo&amp;psig=AFQjCNEe2eUry_XNQjxuFR_GP4HQmnl4-g&amp;ust=1469310826201755
OPTION 3: Finally, if paperbacks is what you seek, you could potentially purchase the paperback collection: https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienbooks/comments/4qwnm8/my_paperback_collection/
Sartre presented a lecture called "Existentialism and Humanism," which can now be found in print as Existentialism is a Humanism. It's almost like an Existentialism manefesto, per se. The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus is a good treatise on existentialism (Absurdism, really, but it'll do).
I would not hesitate to start reading fiction novels that have Existentialist themes. Camus' The Stranger, Sartre's Nausea, and Dostyevsky's Notes From the Underground are just a few that will find your studies well.
As for secondary literature, the only text I can knowledgeably recommend is Existentialism For Dummies, as I'm currently working my way through it. It's actually not as bad as you might think coming from the "For Dummies" series. It doesn't go too in-depth, and ideas are very concise and oftentimes humorous.
I have also heard good things about David Cogswell's Existentialism For Beginners, though I have never read it myself.
If your niece feels comfortable with this level of writing and philosophical examination, it is almost imperative to read Kierkegaard's Either/Or and Fear and Trembling, Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, and Sartre's Being and Nothingness, among others. It is good to have some background understanding of Kant and perhaps have a few essays by Schopenhauer under your belt leading up to the more rigorous academics like Heidegger and Hegel.
Good luck, and happy reading!
How about a modern translation of the Edda?
Here's more info on the Edda.
Not a pagan, but I have read the Poetic Edda (Hollander's edition) after being inspired by the works of JRR Tolkien and his son Christopher's excellent commentaries on them. The Edda is really awesome.
There is also the Prose Edda, and I would recommend The Sagas of Icelanders
I understand completely. Sometimes the book itself just has an intrinsic value that transcends the information on it's pages. One of my prized possessions is a copy of the Elder Edda published around 1870, and it's written in Old Danish. I can't read Danish of any age, but that doesn't stop the book from having great value to me.
That said, if I were looking for reasonably priced physical copies of the Sagas and Eddas, I'd go with Sagas of the Icelanders published by Penguin, The Poetic Edda translated by Lee M. Hollander and maybe The Prose Edda By Snorri Sturlusson translated by Jesse L. Byock. Good translations, good editions.
the matador series, specifically the Machiavelli Interface by Steve Perry.
You ALL still have Zoidberg!
Milk all you want! I'm happy to provide. If you would like to do your own investigations, I highly recommend either purchasing The Prose Edda or The Poetic Edda. Another option is downloading The Uppsala Edda for free. :D
As for Tyr...
> High replies: ‘Then there is also an Áss that is called Týr. He is the bravest and changeable in his mind and he has a lot of control over victory in battles. It is good for men of action to pray to him. There is a saying that a man is týr-valiant who surpasses others. And it is one proof of his valour
and bravery, when the Æsir were luring Fenriswolf so as to get the fetter
Gleifnir on him, then he did not trust them that they would let him go until they placed Týr’s hand in his mouth as a pledge. And when the Æsir refused to let him go, then he bit off his hand at the place that is now called the wolf joint, and he is one-handed. He is so intelligent that it is also said that so-and-so is týr-wise.
(The Uppsala Edda 43-45)
> 'How should Tyr be referred to?'
> 'By calling him the one-handed god, the foster-father of the wolf, the god of battles and the son of Odin.'
(The Prose Edda 110)
I would argue that he is God of War, Justice, and Law. As we know, almost all things that have to do with the law is a battlefield. Same with justice. As seen above, we know him as the god of battle. So you are definitely correct, I think, in saying that he is also strongly associated with justice and law!
Colour out of Space by Lovecraft
In fact this entire collection: http://www.amazon.com/Cthulhu-Stories-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0141182342 is fantastic.
Maybe some Edgar Allan Poe? Start out short with some of his stories. You'd probably like The Cask of Amontillado, it's awesome.
And then there's always The Shining
This is an awesome collection for a pretty good price if you want to check it out.
I just finished Good Omens, coauthored by Pratchett and Gaiman; it was a lot of fun.
Do you read any graphic novels? The League of Extraordinary Gentleman is a great set.
I also highly recommend the novel Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.
I'm very interested in your copies of Your Inner Fish, Anatomy of an Epidemic, and Evil Genes. I would love to be able to take all three off your hands. I have several books that I can offer you in exchange, all of which I've read and highly recommend! What I have that might match your interests are:
And seeing that you had a Steve Berry novel up for trade, I also have these two excellent Brad Meltzer thriller novels:
If any of my books peak your interests, I'd love to make a trade!
The Forever War - Haldeman
Flowers for Algernon - Keyes
The Prestige - Priest
LoTR - Tolkien
Sphere - Crichton (One of the first "real" books I read as a kid, and was my favorite for years. It isn't the best in the world, but it is an extremely fun page turner and means alot to me)
There are also three books I've read in the last couple of years that I want very badly to say are in my top five (to replace some of those listed above). But it has not been long enough for me to make a decision, and I probably need to re-read them. Those three are:
The Passage - Cronin
Cloud Atlas - Mitchell
Wolf Hall - Mantel
Just read Flower For Algernon.
Edith Hamilton is pretty much the go to book for Greek mythology.
Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" is pretty good.
The Catcher in the Rye is a pretty good gateway book for more literary fiction.
1984 and Animal Farm will probably appeal to your SF tendencies.
If you want something more contemporary, maybe try The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It has to do with comic books...
You know what strikes me as a commonality in your list here? Narcissistic protagonists. With very few exceptions these are all novels of profound selfishness. The quintessential narcissist is Holden Caufield, but recommending The Catcher in the Rye feels too easy. Instead I'll give you Lux the Poet, by Martin Millar. It's got Angels, Punk Rock, the Brixton Riots and a good dashing of cocaine.
Fact: I feel like an outsider. None of that angsty teen "Nobody understands me!" BS either.. I went through that and it passed. I'm more complacent now.. but life and people blow my mind every minute of every day and the only people who agree with me seem to have a laissez-faire attitude about it. I was born with a cape or something, because I feel the need to right every wrong and balance the world.
Song: Gettin' Jiggy With It
Book: Rather than tell you my favorite, I'll say two favorites which I think sum up my personality.. Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Wisdom: Be happy and not at the cost of someone else's happiness. Also, standing up for what you really believe in is important, more important is being willing to say you've been wrong, or un/misinformed and being open to change. You can be strong in your beliefs and also willing to change. They aren't mutually exclusive. On that note, do what I do and try to get as informed as possible before forming an opinion. ;)
pit viper eyes. I accidentally drank the wrong bottle of alcohol.
Item
Here you go: https://smile.amazon.com/Catcher-Rye-J-D-Salinger/dp/0316769487/
The Narnia series. I read this series over and over as a child. Its the reason I read so much today. I had read books before that series but I wansnt into reading untill I read this series. It just had everything I was into at the time, Travel, adventure, danger, fictional characters. It also paved the way for me to be into book series more than single books. I think they can go into more detail and make you feel like your part of the story more than one book can and when they are over you almost feel as if a part of you is over. Like its a part of your past life.
a few of my favorite series are:
LOTR
The earths childrens series which is my favorite
The song of ice and fire
The touchstone trilogy
Get her something like this https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345538374/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_r2LOBbK44C23F
Cheap, free shipping, and contains the entire main story ( the Hobbit and all 3 books to the Lord of the Rings). There are other books to the saga, but they are more history and world building. The main story I'm sure she's referring to is in those 4 books. And if she wants the others, this is a damn good start.
This is my favorite thing off of your wishlist. I <3 that series so much.
And this is my favorite item in that price range off of mine. It's the only season in this series I don't have yet.
P.S. I love Kevin
Love LOTR
And for me, Planet of the Apes!
I love Kevin Bacon... Oh, and you're pretty awesome too.
I love me... that's still right because my name is also Kevin :-)
I love Kevin
I love almost everything on you list :-)
So I'll have to pick this
I'm a sucker for this series(You)
and here is my wishlist
I love Kevin!
The novel in question, for anyone wondering.
My favorite book is
http://amzn.com/0452011876
It would be useful for the gym. I've virtually given up on reading books on my elliptical, but would really appreciate having the ability to watch kung fu movies on it while I do my cardio
You've just finished my favourite book.
I would go with Asimov's foundation as a worthy followup.
Although, anything in the SF Masterworks series should be good enough. I've been working my way through that for the last 15 years and there are some truly mind-blowing books in it.
If you go to the Amazon detail page for the version Amazon itself sells (i.e. not the resellers) of Foundation and you click the link "Tell the publisher I'd like to read this on Kindle" then it'll go into a report Amazon sends the publisher. That won't help you right now, but over time it does have an effect.
...Level 5 problems...
Maybe you need a group of lesser powered esper friends to hang out?
> I don't know where to begin and what to do.
Here's a start and some more. Google for communities of people you're interested in within your area or IRC. Attend meet-ups and work on contacts. Get a part-time job if possible.
ps: 6th level 5 esper was revealed in NT11
I believe he's talking about Isaac Asimov's: Foundation. Pretty good read.
Just like in Asimov's Foundation series, psychohistory relies on large groups acting on instinct and existing without any knowledge of psychology or sociology. By acquainting yourself with the tools of persuasion from rhetoric and oratory to propaganda and public relations, you inoculate yourself against them.
Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin. Is probably the best example I can think of. All the stories are based on the conseat that you can get so board waiting at the airport that you accidentally shift into another dimension.
My second favourit would have to be.
Zombies vs Unicorns. A collection of stories that tries to settle the age old question of which is cooler (zombies or unicorns) once and for all.
And Issac Asimov's I Robot which is actually a collection of short stories.
The Game Elite II (Frontier) had an interesting set of background stories that hooked into each other. Such that a minor character seen in one would be come a major character in the next one. In the very first story we see young Derek Flaggherty graduation from space academy. And in the very last one we see the same now Admiral Flaggherty, falling asleep at a similar graduation ceremony. I liked it at the time I read it, but that was many years ago.
Here ya go, get this and call it a day. https://www.amazon.com/I-Robot-Isaac-Asimov/dp/055338256X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527469616&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=isaac+asimov+robot&amp;dpID=51GcfA8ivCL&amp;preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&amp;dpSrc=srch
I have the full collection
http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618260587
I have a box set of the Alan Lee illustrated LotR hardcovers. This one. You want the set? Just cover shipping and it's yours.
My LOTR version is this one: http://www.amazon.com/The-Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618260587/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1333996793&amp;sr=8-1
I've had my eye on this one. Unfortunately things like rent get in the way.
Depending on her level of interest, I'd suggest this hardcover copy of the Silmarillion
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618391118/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_hiaAxbKMBPCHR
Even if she has one already, this one comes with a ton of illustrated pages; it's absolutely beautiful. Personally, I like to own hardcover editions of my favorite books.
that's a good one, here's my favorite.
The Art of The Lord of the Rings
The Art of The Hobbit
The Hobbit illustrated by Jemima Catlin
Lord of the Rings illustrated by Alan Lee
The Hobbit illustrated by Alan Lee
The Silmarillion illustrated by Ted Nasmith
Folio Society also has editions with illustrations.
Edit to add:
Beren and Luthien illustrated by Alan Lee
Bilbo's Last Song illustrated by Pauline Baynes
Here's an Amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/Silmarillion-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618391118?SubscriptionId=AKIAIC4DTHWMHZAANS6Q&amp;tag=speculativefic05&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=2025&amp;creative=165953&amp;creativeASIN=0618391118
And here's the ISBN in case you want to look for it from another source:
ISBN 978-0-618-39111-0
Book: The Stranger by Albert Camus. I read it my Sr Year of High school and we discussed/analyzed it and I couldn't stop myself from writing all over it. At the end I actually stayed back to tell my teacher how much this book affected me and the way I saw the world and my teacher let me keep it. It's still on my shelf, very worn out and annotated to hell. It's one of my most treasured possessions.
I'm pretty awesomely adept at Greek mythology and literature.
Some of my favorite literature:
[Waiting for Godot] (http://www.amazon.com/Waiting-Godot-Eng-rev-Tragicomedy/dp/080214442X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1368735525&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=waiting+for+godot) by Samuel Beckett
[The Stranger] (http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Albert-Camus/dp/0679720200/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1368735498&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+stranger+by+albert+camus) by Albert Camus
[Shades of Grey] (http://www.amazon.com/Shades-Grey-Novel-Jasper-Fforde/dp/0143118587) by Jasper Fforde
[The Diamond as Big as the Ritz] (http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Big-Ritz-Scott-Fitzgerald/dp/1603551050/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1368735594&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=diamond+as+big+as+the+ritz) by F. Scott Fitzgerald
On my summer reading list, I have:
I'm currently half way through The Conquest of the Incas. If anyone has interest in the Spanish invasion of Mesoamerica, I highly recommend it. It's a very vivid account of the political games Pizarro and his generals played to take over the Inca empire and solidify their grip in the New World.
The authority on this subject is none other than a Mr. Humbert. You can read his memoir here: http://www.amazon.com/Lolita-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679723161
If I'm not mistaken, Lolita was written in English and translated into Russian so you should be fine with any copy - I read this one. In terms of difficulty level, it pales in comparison to anything Tolstoy. For me it was easy to absorb, but I took it slowly only because the prose is so gorgeous you don't want to miss a word. If you're not like me going, "Damn, I need to experience that paragraph again," you'll probably get through it fairly quickly.
Is it legal? Yes.
Will Amazon allow it? I guess it depends on the specifics. I mean, http://www.amazon.com/Lolita-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679723161 is really popular.
Not sure if you're interested in self-published work, but you might dig my book Corruption. It's a horror/portal fantasy set in Eastern Europe with giant lice, sexual curses, vodka-guzzling wights, and a solar apocalypse. If that sounds up your alley, give it a shot! If not, then I'd say start with the classics - you really cannot go wrong with The Master and Margarita.
Edit: found a typo and thought of another one - Gene Wolfe's The Land Across was great, too, albeit not an easy read.
Or even The Master and Margarita
I have eclectic tastes and always have several things going simultaneously.
Nut Country Right-wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy.
>On the morning of November 22, 1963, President Kennedy told Jackie as they started for Dallas, “We’re heading into nut country today.” That day’s events ultimately obscured and revealed just how right he was: Oswald was a lone gunman, but the city that surrounded him was full of people who hated Kennedy and everything he stood for, led by a powerful group of ultraconservatives who would eventually remake the Republican party in their own image.
>In Nut Country, Edward H. Miller tells the story of that transformation, showing how a group of influential far-right businessmen, religious leaders, and political operatives developed a potent mix of hardline anticommunism, biblical literalism, and racism to generate a violent populism—and widespread power. Though those figures were seen as extreme in Texas and elsewhere, mainstream Republicans nonetheless found themselves forced to make alliances, or tack to the right on topics like segregation. As racial resentment came to fuel the national Republican party’s divisive but effective “Southern Strategy,” the power of the extreme conservatives rooted in Texas only grew.
>Drawing direct lines from Dallas to DC, Miller's captivating history offers a fresh understanding of the rise of the new Republican Party and the apocalyptic language, conspiracy theories, and ideological rigidity that remain potent features of our politics today.
After the Saucers Landed
>UFOlogist Harold Flint is heartbroken and depressed that the aliens that have landed on the White House lawn appear to be straight out of an old B movie. They wave to the television cameras in their sequined jumpsuits, form a nonprofit organization offering new age enlightenment, and hover their saucers over the streets of New York looking for converts.
>Harold wants no part of this kitschy invasion until one of the aliens, a beautiful blonde named Asket, begs him to investigate the saucers again and write another UFO book. The aliens and their mission are not as they seem.
>Asket isn’t who she seems either. Tracking down her true personality leads Harold and his cowriter through a maze of identity and body-swapping madness, descending into paranoia as Harold realizes that reality, or at least humanity’s perception of it, may be more flexible than anyone will admit.
>After the Saucers Landed is a deeply unsettling experimental satire, placing author Douglas Lain alongside contemporaries like Jeff VanderMeer and Charles Yu as one of his generation’s most exciting and challenging speculative fiction voices.
The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel
This one's a slog, albeit a fascinating slog. It is NOT written for a general audience so there's like three times per page I have to go to the Intarwebz to look up / research stuff.
The Master and Margarita
Been meaning to get around to this one for quite a while. Finally did, just yesterday.
>Should I maybe do a bit of research before reading it? Or do you think someone could appreciate the story without that sort of knowledge?
I read the Burgin-O'Connor translation which, while being considered an excellent translation, also contains detailed annotations by Bulgakov's biographer, Ellendea Proffer.
I'd highly recommend this version because it provides the kind of background and context via the footnotes that you're looking for. Like you, I had no idea about the huge numbers of references and allusions to life in 1920-30s Moscow and the Biblical life of Jesus.
I remember really liking Lies My Teacher Told Me, which debunks common misinformation found in U.S. History text books. Though it might be not be as intellectual as he likes. Check it out, though.
There is another one my father-in-law gave great reviews, but I can't remember the title. I'll ask and edit if I figure it out.
Edit: Guns, Germs, and Steel!!! I haven't read it myself but it sounded interesting.
I also thought of The Master and Margarita, if he hasn't read it already. I bought this version, and a lot of the footnotes go into how the Russian political climate at the time influenced the novel. I thought it was very interesting.
Have you read any classical Russian satire and comedy, like Nikolai Gogol or Mikhail Bulgakov? Both are absolutely fantastic. Try either a collection of short stories including ones like Diary of a Madman, the Overcoat, and the Nose or Dead Souls by Gogol, and Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is absolutely hilarious as well.
Like some people have mentioned, P&V always do quality translations. But I think the best translation in the case of The Master and Margarita has to go to Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor, found here. As someone that loves Russian literature, I would always recommend P&V when it comes to Tolstoy or Dostovesky, but in this case, I stayed away from the hype machine.
In regards to P&V, they are quite polarizing. A lot of non-speakers love their translations but apparently some natives really dislike them. Like given here, a guy describes the translations as "awful travesties".
Is this the one? http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0679760806?pc_redir=1414072351&amp;robot_redir=1
Here you go :)
If you’re into classic horror, this is a book with some the works of H.P Lovecraft. I love diving into it when I don’t want to be immersed in a whole new book, but craving a new story. It’s not the full collection but a good start. H.P Lovecraft, Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Fiction-H-P-Lovecraft/dp/0785834206/ref=nodl_
I know this isn’t what you are looking for, but this book is absolutely perfect for a complete Lovecraft beginner! The stories are in order by publication date so it starts at the very beginning of his career. If you feel like really getting into his world, I highly recommend giving this book a read!
This one says complete.
This seems like a fun contest, I'm in! :) Thank you and Here goes:
1.https://www.amazon.com/Tervis-1146628-Octopus-Water-Bottle/dp/B00KY3YYDC/ref=sr_1_3?s=sports-and-fitness&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527743703&amp;sr=1-3&amp;keywords=octopus+water+bottle
2.https://www.amazon.com/Hibiscus-Swim-Trunks-Pokemon-Pikachu/dp/B07CK3CP9H/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527743811&amp;sr=8-8&amp;keywords=pokemon+swim+trunks
3.https://www.amazon.com/Pokemon-Beach-Towel-Featuring-Character/dp/B07BK8RYV3/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527743859&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=pokemon+beach+towel
4.https://www.amazon.com/BigMouth-Inc-Inflatable-Included-Octopus/dp/B078T5DCRT/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527743927&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=octopus+floatie
5.https://www.amazon.com/AO-Eyewear-Original-Sunglasses-OP55S-BA-TC/dp/B000LJJAF6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527743970&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=american+optical
6.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DUFXGTI/ref=sspa_dk_detail_6?psc=1&amp;pd_rd_i=B01DUFXGTI&amp;pd_rd_wg=80h14&amp;pd_rd_r=6ZPJEAYHEWW825VB5NVW&amp;pd_rd_w=YDiCD
7.https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Fiction-H-P-Lovecraft/dp/0785834206/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527744064&amp;sr=8-22&amp;keywords=cthulhu
8.https://www.amazon.com/Oldboy-English-Subtitled-Min-sik-Choi/dp/B003AKLFAG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527744110&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=old+boy
9.https://www.amazon.com/Hawaiian-Shaved-Ice-S900A-Electric/dp/B004UBMRKG/ref=sr_1_6?s=kitchen&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527744143&amp;sr=1-6&amp;keywords=ice+shaver+machine
10.https://www.amazon.com/Evergreen-Garden-Painted-Polystone-Outdoor/dp/B004Q8GSYO/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527744221&amp;sr=8-6&amp;keywords=ceramic+frog
11.https://www.amazon.com/OTS-NHL-Philadelphia-Challenger-Adjustable/dp/B0722QNCNP/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527744269&amp;sr=8-5&amp;keywords=flyers+hat (My real dad isn't so special to me, but my step dad has sacrificed alot for me!)
12.https://www.amazon.com/American-Flag-Bullets-Tumbler-Sticker/dp/B06Y4FHSPQ/ref=sr_1_4?s=sporting-goods&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527744338&amp;sr=1-4&amp;keywords=american+flag+gun
13.https://www.amazon.com/Thundershirt-Anxiety-Jacket-Heather-Large/dp/B0028QK6EY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527744395&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=thunder+buddy
14.https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Souls-The-Board-Game/dp/B01MXLB67B/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527744429&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=dark+souls+the+board+game
15.https://www.amazon.com/At-Folsom-Prison-Johnny-Cash/dp/B000028U0Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527744456&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=johnny+cash+folsom+prison+cd
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18.https://www.amazon.com/50-Assorted-Chrysanthemum-Seeds-Gardens/dp/B00QVZ8LS6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527744562&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=mums
19.https://www.amazon.com/World-Nintendo-Splatoon-Splattershot-Blaster/dp/B06XP5GYS5/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527744609&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=splatoon+squirt+gun
20.https://www.amazon.com/Polyester-Costume-Accessory-Elastic-Straps/dp/B00B1TJ31G/ref=sr_1_34?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1527744643&amp;sr=8-34&amp;keywords=shark+goggles
If you are a reader, '[Matterhorn] (https://www.amazon.com/Matterhorn-Novel-Vietnam-Karl-Marlantes/dp/0802145310)' covers this spectacularly.
A few years back I found this book at Barnes and Noble that was extremely helpful. It doesn't have all of his works, but it has all of the most well known and even a few of the lesser known ones. Lovecraft does use a lot of words that tend to be archaic to us, but there are also a lot of references he makes that aren't easily understandable anymore. This book helps with both.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Annotated-H-Lovecraft-Books/dp/0871404532
In that case you may want to check out some of the annotated editions. I know ST Joshi's Annotated Lovecraft (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2) are popular here. This annotated collection by Klinger looks solid as well, and includes more illustrations than Joshi's. Neither of these are 100% complete collections but are pretty close and cover all of the best/most popular/most influential writings. I'm not sure there are any annotated editions that include all of his works.
This (26 bucks).
I would say it is very much worth reading. I have yet to read it, but have recently purchased the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation and am very excited to start. There will no doubt be several people in this thread telling you to get this translation; it is very new (2007), award-winning, and comes from translators who've in recent years become very trusted in their translations of many 19th century Russian works.
If you decide it's worth it, this interview with the husband-wife translators is probably worth reading, if only to help you to decide on which translation you feel is best.
Last summer I bought and read their translation of The Brothers Karamazov (by Fyodor Dostoevsky) and was amazed by its beauty, despite its immensity (796 pages). Aside from War and Peace and Karamazov I have purchased their translation of The Death of Ivan Illych and Other Stories as well as Anna Karenina (both also by Tolstoy) and Stories of Anton Chekhov. It's safe to say that I trust these translators very much in their abilities.
If you decide you want to tackle the beast, the best thing to do would be to go to a bookstore and compare a few paragraphs and see which you prefer. These translators pride themselves on keeping the text as close to what the author intended as possible, as well as not modernizing the text; they purposefully only use words that were available in the 19th century. If that's something you don't find pleasing, then perhaps their version isn't right for you.
EDIT: As blueboybob pointed out, there is a good possibility of losing track of characters. Most (all?) versions of the book have a list of important characters, along with blurbs about their importance to the novel. However, concerning Karamazov, I found that sometimes these little blurbs give away a little more about their involvement in the story than I was comfortable with before reading it.
I would highly recommend the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. They did a great job translating the intricacy and narrative techniques of the original text. I stopped and started with a few different translations, but when I picked that one up I couldn’t put it down.
War and Peace (Vintage Classics) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400079985/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_SoYXCbW1HGD4P
it's really worth getting in print.
Make sure you get a hold of the robin buss translation, it's the best one imo.
at around 1300 pages of tiny print - reading from print is far more comfortable than an ebook.
here is the buss translation in ebook format if you decide to go that route.
Edit: I'm not OP, just someone who loves the novel. Easily my favourite book.
That's what the general consensus seems to be. Would this be the one to get?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RI9KL8/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_.wL.ybM0GBBXG
The only thing I'm confused by is the page count. Amazon says this version is 396 pages, so I feel like it's abridged in some way. Maybe it's just a typo though.
You'd be missing quite a lot actually. Something like 800~ pages. I would highly recommend the version that 2000YearOldRoman linked to in his post.
But if you've got the funds, you might want to buy the Robin Buss translation. It's very good and avoids the awkward Victorian language and bowdlerization.
I want one because my E-Book broke, after I used it for 3 years. I want another kindle instead of a nook, just because I love amazon. 1984 is one of my favorite books. I could also use it as a tablet for games and other things.
I would like to enter, please. I would love a Kindle to save space because I don't have any room for many books; I store most of them at my parents' house. I was also hoping to eventually save up for one so I could use it for school to have a digital copy of my textbooks so I don't have to haul around so many heavy books when I'm out of the apartment. It would be wonderful to have for leisurely reading on my time off, too.
Thank you very much for paying forward the chance to own one. It's something that I wouldn't normally buy myself because it's a little pricey and I couldn't justify spending that much money on myself while I'm in school.
If I could pick a book, I would pick either Brave New World or 1984. Thank you again, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Good luck with your company!
And ya I make sure to read as much as I can and listen, listen to all the people trying to work their way across the desert of their own lives.
Also for any of those looking for good reads about society and such I'm reading A Brave New World now after just finishing 1984 both very interesting reads for anyone interested in how society works.
(I know these recommendations are cliche but they are good enough to suggest again)
http://www.amazon.com/Road-Vintage-International-Cormac-McCarthy-ebook/dp/B000OI0G1Q/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;sr=&amp;qid=
http://www.amazon.com/1984-George-Orwell-ebook/dp/B003JTHWKU/ref=sr_1_1_ha_twi_1?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419607743&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=1984
http://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-World-Aldous-Huxley-ebook/dp/B00JTYQJ3K/ref=sr_1_1_ha_twi_1?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419607785&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=brave+new+world
http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Carbon-Takeshi-Kovacs-Novels-ebook/dp/B000FBFMZ2/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419607819&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=altered+carbon
http://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson-ebook/dp/B000O76ON6/ref=sr_1_1_ha_twi_1?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419607849&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=neuromancer
http://www.amazon.com/Fahrenheit-451-Novel-Ray-Bradbury-ebook/dp/B0064CPN7I/ref=sr_1_1_ha_twi_1?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419607872&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=farenheight+451
http://www.amazon.com/Cats-Cradle-Kurt-Vonnegut-ebook/dp/B003XRELGQ/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419607936&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=cat%27s+cradle
http://www.amazon.com/Slaughterhouse-Five-Kurt-Vonnegut-ebook/dp/B003XVYLDU/ref=sr_1_3_twi_1?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419607936&amp;sr=1-3&amp;keywords=cat%27s+cradle
What genre do you typically read? Here are a few of my favorite books.
[Flowers for Algernon] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003WJQ74E/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1)
1984
Ender's Game
World War Z
Flowers for Algernon: This story is told in first person, in a series of journal entries of a mentally handicapped man named Charlie. He goes under a medical experiment to see if mental retardation can be fixed by surgery, and the journal entries follow him through this. Warning: There will be ninjas cutting onions during your reading of this book
1984: This is a must read story in my opinion, on the off chance you have not read this already. It tells the story of Winston, a party member that works for a totalitarian government. To be honest, I don't read this story for the main character Winston, but I read it for the political commentary in the book, as it describes his life.
Ender's Game: This is set in the somewhat distant future of Earth. Earth has been at war with an alien insect race, thou at this time, there is a cease fire. This follows the story of Ender Wiggins, as he goes through military school. And he is like, 10 years old, as is his fellow classmates.
World War Z: You know that movie that was called World War Z with Brad Pitt? Throw all of that out the window. The only similarity that the movie and the book has is the name World War Z. This book is written as a series of interviews of survivors of The Great Zombie War. It goes through the whole war, from an interview with a doctor who dealt with a patient zero in a small Chinese village, to the great panic and how the government reacted, as well as the aftermath. It interviews people from all walks of life. Doctors, military, human smugglers, government officials, and everyday normal people both in the states and abroad. If i had to recommend only one book, it would be a tie between this or 1984. And 1984 is tied because of the historical significance.
Eh men already have porn... and men actually do read erotica also, probably less than men who just watch porn but it's not like men never read it. For the most part people accept porn I don't think anyone would totally flip out if a book existed that men enjoyed that was very popular and about sex. I mean... Books like Lolita exist and while they are a bit controversial they are not considered outrageous by "women" or men.
I've got the perfect book to cheer up your friend.
It's the 50th Anniversary edition.
Mirando: termine true detective, viendo house of cards, sigo con vikings y esperando game of thrones. Viendo si me le animo a Treme.
Leyendo: Room, de Emma Donoghue y The Master & Margarita, de Mickhail Bulgakov
Jugando: deje de ser "gamer" hace 10 años, me embola
As Used On the Famous Nelson Mandela
Edit: Oops, just saw you wanted great literature. In that case, try The Master and Margerita A story about love and power set in Moscow, featuring a writer, his lover, some Communist party stooges, Satan, his minions, and a demonic cat named Behemoth.
Ishmael
also,
The Master and Margarita
Pevear and Volokhonsky just edges out Burgin and Tiernan O'Connor for readability. The latter is great, and has a lot of good footnotes and commentary, but P&V is my preference.
As far as I know they are the only two English translations that include the complete text of the novel: Ginsburg and Glenny each used the older version of Bulgakov's text. Of those two, Glenny is significantly better than Ginsburg.
One of my all-time favorite books. Hopefully you will be reading this translation: http://www.amazon.com/The-Master-Margarita-Mikhail-Bulgakov/dp/0679760806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1347058072&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=master+and+margarita
I ordered this one today.
"Dagon" "the shadow over innsmouth" and "call of cthulhu" litterally all of H P Lovecrafts fictional works.
You can get some decent prized collections of all his short stories. I will definnetly recommend it since its the first supernatural horror and the grandfather of all modern horror
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Fiction-H-P-Lovecraft/dp/0785834206
(You can also buy them individually but it will get super expensive)
As am absolutely massive fan of lovecraft, I've owned most of his books/collections.
If you want his ENTIRE collection of stories/collaborations I'd recommend my favorite collection, the slip cased cover 5 book collection: https://www.amazon.com/H-P-Lovecraft-Collection-Slip-cased/dp/1784288608/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?keywords=lovecraft&amp;qid=1562246373&amp;s=gateway&amp;sprefix=lovec&amp;sr=8-12
These are 5 books adding up to over a thousand pages. Easily my favorite.
If you don't want to spend 50 bucks and you don't really care about owning every book, my suggestion is the neconomicon collection: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Fiction-H-P-Lovecraft/dp/0785834206/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=lovecraft&amp;qid=1562246373&amp;s=gateway&amp;sprefix=lovec&amp;sr=8-1
It's definitely not the "complete" collection as it claims, but it's got a decent number of his stories.
If you're into audio books, the Neconomicon audio book is good.
But maybe you aren't so sure you'll love his stories? Here's "Dagon" so you can dip your toes on the water: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/d.aspx
Hope this helps!
I checked that out and saw it on Amazon. Also saw this, with an almost identical description, looks like the same stories etc. Half the price. What's the difference?
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Fiction-H-P-Lovecraft/dp/0785834206/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Pretty sure this has them all. If not, it has at least 1100 pages of them!
I consider him a troll because he's not interested in a debate or discussion... he's only interested in how much better he in than anyone else and how much more weight his opinions carry than other people's opinions.
The first two quotes are responses he made to me when I was trying to suggest that other people's opinions were as valid as his own. The third quote was in response to me saying I was reading Matterhorn.
He's only interested in making himself seem better than everyone else and not in an exchange of ideas. THAT is what makes him a troll.
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. Vietnam Era.
I just finished reading Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. Before, I had no interest in Vietnam, especially not being American. Now I do. He's the reason I just ordered a copy of your book. I hope it's good!
Keeping with the vein of historical fiction, Matterhorn is an awesome historical fiction of a marine's experience in the Vietnam war, and told in a similar style to ASoIaF
Have you read Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War? If so, did you think it was accurate? It's billed as "fiction" but it's not truly fictional. If that makes sense. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. In fact, it should be required reading for anyone involved in any decisions regarding U.S. involvement in war.
Also, my dad was drafted for Vietnam right out of high school along with most of his buddies (poor Catholics). He "lucked out", however, and ended up stationed in Germany as a radio operator. I can tell he's always felt guilty about that.
Thanks for the AMA. If more people would speak honestly about the atrocities of war, maybe ...
EDIT: Added link to book: http://www.amazon.com/Matterhorn-Novel-Vietnam-Karl-Marlantes/dp/0802145310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1369853520&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=matterhorn
War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges.
A succinct essay about the horror of war and its paradoxical allure.
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes.
Probably one of the best war novels I've ever read. Based on the author's own experiences as a platoon leader in Vietnam.
I bought this book, but did not get around to reading it yet. I hope that the stories are arranged well. It has a lot of information about Lovecraft and his life as well. And it looks quite nice ;)
The New Annotated book is pretty great as well. https://www.amazon.com/New-Annotated-H-Lovecraft-Books/dp/0871404532
Truth. I got this for my birthday from my ex a couple years ago and it's one of my favorite things. If you haven't, check out August Derleth's stuff on the Cthulhu Mythos, as well.
Glad I could help. If you want something that has only the major stories check this edition out:
The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft
Or even more fancy:
The Call of Cthulhu & Other Weird Stories by Folio Society
Limited Edition
EDIT:
Or something very, very abridged:
The Necronomicon Pop Up book
Try reading an annoated version.
This one is quite good, especially the photos.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Annotated-H-Lovecraft-Books/dp/0871404532/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
They could get the annotated lovecraft, http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Annotated-Lovecraft-Books/dp/0871404532 Considering the book myself.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Annotated-H-Lovecraft-Books/dp/0871404532
This'll be buried, but I strongly recommend these (this's a picture of my Lovecraft collection) for a good combination of his complete fiction (including revisions & ghostwriting) and literary criticism / enthusiasm - his Supernatural Horror in Literature remains AFAIK the most authoritative overview of the genre from modernity to the first half of the 20th century.
The titles pictured are:
I actually was looking at getting that, but I also saw a lot of people raving about this annotated version. Any Lovecraft fans that can comment on whether this or OP's version is the one to pick up for a newcomer?
You could always try the biggie, War and Peace. It was historical fiction back when it was published.
If you liked the setting of South Africa from W Smith, you might like The Power of One - it is a coming of age story set in South Africa between the world wars.
Also, The Potato Factory trilogy seems like something you would enjoy
War and Peace. I have yet to finish it.
Hi. My name is Samantha and I absolutely love The Count of Monte Cristo. It is a beautiful book and has turned into my and my husband's "thing".
They've done a good job of making the Penguin version for kindle easier to find.
Of course it is $6 more than the free version in the public domain but i think it is one of the times the extra cost is valid.
Looks like there are two kindle versions on Amazon. The more expensive one appears to be the Penguin Classics version.
http://www.amazon.com/Count-Monte-Cristo-Penguin-Classics-ebook/dp/B002RI9KL8
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm guessing you meant the translation left something to be desired. I considered getting the audiobook but when I read a bit of the book (the translation used in the audiobook), I found the writing awkward. After some looking, I decided the Robin Buss translation is probably the best. But I don't think there are any audiobooks using that translation. So I'm going to read the book instead of listening to it.
kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/Count-Monte-Cristo-Penguin-Classics-ebook/dp/B002RI9KL8
The Count of Monte Cristo. Make sure its the Robin Buss translation available here which is available on Kindle. Such a moving story. So many moments where you have to stop for 5 minutes to compose yourself.
What about kindle books? No Prime Time needed
book
this might be what you are looking for http://www.amazon.com/Count-Monte-Cristo-Penguin-Classics-ebook/dp/B002RI9KL8
with kindle unlimited you could read a bunch of classics like
1984
"In 1984, London is a grim city where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be."
jane austen novels
Slaughterhouse Five by kurt vonnegut
I haven't actually read any of these although I really want to read 1984 soon because its supposed to be a classic and really good. :)
Itunes is a bad example as an album on itunes is the exact same price as a physical album.
Amazon is also a bad example, physical books are often the same price, sometimes cheaper than digital (see http://www.amazon.com/1984-Signet-Classics-George-Orwell/dp/0451524934 and http://www.amazon.com/1984-ebook/dp/B003JTHWKU)
For video games, the only network I know (PSN) sells new game at the exact same price as physical media (The last of Us is at 70$ right now on PSN). Old video games have lower prices, exactly just like your local retailer.
Companies make saving on digital market, that does not mean customer make saving as well.
Alright, I'll have to go with... 1984. This is a great idea!
This (Oceania, in the black) is who. This is something you should read.
My favorite book is 1984 and my favorite book series is Harry Potter!
Although many people have read it, I absolutely loved 1984. I read this book for school last year, and it was mind-boggling. It changed my life. :)
I'd like this book, please :)
Every ebook in the Prime Reading library is available to Prime members, at least in the US.
For example, the ebook 1984 lists a price of $0.00 for the Kindle version.
I have two options where the 'buy' link is normally found. The first button is labeled "Read for free." That's the button you should press.
The second button is labeled, "Buy now for $9.99". Amazon likes to try to sell you stuff it is already provided you for free. Yes, that's dumb and annoying and they should not do that
When you install the Kindle app on your phone or tablet, you will register it to your Prime account. Then you can browse the Prime Reading library from your phone or tablet, or your desktop PC.
When browsing from my desktop PC, if I click the "Read for free" button I am registering the lending to a specific device I have already registered for my Prime account.
So, for example, everyone in my family borrows Prime ebooks. We can all use the desktop PC in our home to pick books and mark them to be borrowed on our individual tablet or phone. Then we open the Kindle app on our tablet or phone and the app naturally checks to see an ebook is waiting and it downloads the ebook.
Well the Poetic Edda would be where you start. It's all the stories of the norse mythology. I bought two transcripts of two texts that were written in old icelandic and in arabic. Book 1 was about the discovery of Vinland (North America) by the vikings. Book 2 one is about an Arab who wrote down what he saw when he met Vikings. This is the only detailed account that we have about a viking burial.
I recommend them very highly, but the Poetic Edda would be what you're looking for ;)
The prose edda is pretty good, penguin has a print of it you can get off of amazon for pretty cheap. https://www.amazon.com/Prose-Edda-Mythology-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140447555
This is the book you want to start with and I recommend the other two in the series. I always recommend The Shadow over Innsmouth as the best story to start with. Some will say Mountains of Madness. That is a terrible mistake. Best if you build to that one... Dunwitch Horror is another great one to read early on... Cant go wrong with Color out of Space either.
Are you interested in horror and short fiction at all? If yes, then Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft. One of my absolute favourite horror authors, and a great short story. Here's a link to Amazon.
Dagon (Short Story), The Whisperer in Darkness (Short Story), The Shadow over Innsmouth (Novella), The Colour Out of Space (Short Story), and The Rats in the Walls (Short Story).
I have all of these in The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories.
At the Mountains of Madness is my favourite, but it's a longer text and it might not be the place to start, you'd better get used to his style with shorter stories first. Personally I really liked The Colour out of Space. The first book I bought was this one.
Start with this good collection of short stories.
The best books in my opinion are the 3 Penguin Classics editions with his major works in their corrected state and explanatory notes by S.T. Joshi (the foremost scholar of Lovecraft).
Another option with corrected texts and all of his fiction (excluding revisions and collaborations) is the Barnes and Noble edition: The Complete Fiction (make sure it's the corrected 2nd edition which you can see by its purple ribbon marker and silver gilt on the edges) .
edit: There are also a lot of his stories that are in the Free Domain and you can read some of them here and this site has also a bibliography which you can consult when you ask yourself which edition(s) you should purchase.
I would suggest getting into some Lovecraft stories and see what you think about them. HP Lovecraft is usually called the father of modern horror, and for good reason when you read through some of his more famous (and some of his less famous) stories.
I'd say the easiest collection to start with is The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (Penguin 20th Century Classics)
Here's a link for it
If you like that then it's fairly easy to get into his other works, but be aware he is a bit long-winded.
Your bard found a book and upon reading it aloud cast a dimension-spanning spell that imparted Great Old One powers on them.
Cthulhu cares not for your actions. You only work to benefit him, though you don't know how or when or why, you just keep warlocking.
I'm a big fan of the Penguin paperback collections of his work, put together by Lovecraft expert S.T. Joshi. They're affordable, portable, and contain everything.
http://www.amazon.com/Cthulhu-Stories-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0141182342
http://www.amazon.com/Thing-Doorstep-Stories-Penguin-Classics/dp/0142180033/
http://www.amazon.com/Dreams-Witch-House-Stories-Classics/dp/0142437956/
I loved Flowers for Algernon. A true classic.
You should give us a little insight as to what genre you like, since every reader is different. Here are a few of my favorites from some random genres.
Fantasy: A Song of Ice and Fire, Harry Potter, Neverwhere, American Gods.
Sci-Fi: The Illustrated Man, Gold.
Dystopian Fiction: The Stand, The Road.
Classic Fiction: Flowers For Algernon,
Philosophy: Thus Spake Zarathustra, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Whatever Else: Fight Club, Fast Food Nation
edit: formatting
I always find it hard to judge how well known a book is, but here are some I loved that I hardly ever see get any mention on Reddit:
Some of my favorites:
Theres a full novel
https://www.amazon.com/Flowers-Algernon-Daniel-Keyes/dp/0156030306/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1466946070&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=flowers+for+algernon
I've read The Book Thief! I really liked it. Here are some books that are similar to the Book Thief, and have changing/growing characters:
If you have any questions at all or want any more book recommendations, feel free to message me!
puedo hablar un poco español, despues de seis años de clas
es. tu ingles es mucho mejor que mi español. quiza leo unos libros, jaja
These have recently changed my life/perspective.
Maps of Meaning (This is the only philosophy that has deeply resonated with my own perception of reality/the world)
Untethered Soul (Mind bending, gives you perception tools to help increase your focus and will power)
Flowers For Algernon (Emotionally powerful, invoked a sense of gratitude and feeling less alone)
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up (A little more practical in nature but getting a handle of my "stuff" allowed me room and space to get a better handle of the rest of my life)
Interested in Nicomachean Ethics. I can pay shipping for it, but I've also got a couple books you may or may not appreciate.
Reinventing the Sacred by Stuart Kauffman.
Flowers for Algernon by David Keyes.
The Postmortal
Flowers for Algernon
Water for Elephants
Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" is a good place to start.
This seems to be a pretty popular go to book, even if it's not strictly Norse.
I wouldn't say it alone made me an atheist, but the book that solidified my non-belief was Edith Hamilton's Mythology.
While reading it for a high school class, I had an aha! moment where it hit me that ancient Greeks & Romans took their gods every bit as seriously as current religions take theirs, and they also used them as explanations for all the natural phenomena which they didn't understand, again, just like modern religious people still do.
Edith Hamilton's book on Greek mythology is great. It is sort of academic, but it reads very easily and she is absolutely the expert on the subject. And if you're interested, she's also studied and written about Norse and Roman mythology.
Today has made me smile. mischievously. ;)
Exciting? I have a turkey cooking in the oven, and cuddles happening tonight.
Erm. yesh
I'm in my prime! .. ^I ^think.
So what?
This has the root of something interesting in it, but it's not there yet. There's a lot to like here - the Isabelle interaction, the self-hate after it, the bit with the sister/parents...
...but I'd like to see the character doing something besides moping. The moping can flavor the piece, but I don't think it should be the piece. Remember that page 1 is where the audience first meets the character and gets their first impressions; if you want them to engage with the main character and/or the story, you might want to consider giving the audience something to root for. No one loves a navel-gazer.
Holden Caulfield is a famous example, and a lot of people don't like him. But look at the personality you get from the opening page:
http://www.amazon.com/Catcher-Rye-J-D-Salinger/dp/0316769487
There's nothing happening here, but a) at the end of page 1, there's a promise made ("I'll tell you about some madman stuff..."), and b) the attitude is so attitudey that it resonates whether you like the kid or not.
tl;dr: By the end of your page 1, what are you doing to engage the audience's attention?
Bonus. Cape - Superman Soars Blue Pint Glass (Superman is wearing a cape)
Mischief Managed
Just in case
The Catcher in the Rye - A novel by J. D. Salinger.
https://www.amazon.com/Catcher-Rye-J-D-Salinger/dp/0316769487
I have four. I believe they are books that everyone should read.
Invisible Man
To Kill a Mockingbird
Hiroshima
The Catcher in the Rye
Each one of these have changed the way I see the world. They all have amazing stories for the perspective of characters I normally would not have been able to identify with.
You can literally save $208.60 by buying the Mass Market Paperback over the Audio CD!
Just to be clear here, the paperback comes with both The Hobbit AND all 3 LOTR books!
Is it really that expensive to have someone read the book, record it, edit it, master it, produce a CD, and distribute said CD? . . . I think I just answered my own question!
EDIT: I've just realized that with the title and the subject, someone is going to make a YOU SHALL NOT PASS reference . . . thanks!
> it is only proving the point that he, as an writer, doesn't care for sales number.
>He SHOULD be worried more than anyone if someone doesn't buy his books because they will think it is a game adaptation.
Either sales matter or they don't. Make up your mind.
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> If sales number matters in a discussion about popularity and not flat fee profitability, it is because this discussion is ours, not Sapkowski's.
You started this discussion by quoting sales figures in response to my post regarding the games' popularity in relation to the books.
-----------------------------------------------------
> But I'm discussing about what Sapkowski thinks, and not about what you or me think.
No, you're discussing what you think he thinks.
-----------------------------------------------------
> I was not happy at book fairs or conventions, when the fans took my books in my hand, looked at the covers and scornfully put them away. Game related. Games are not interested in us, we will rather have something original, new Abercrombie, Aaronovitch or Tregillis.
What is he describing here? Do they actively go up to him and say out loud to him that they are not interested in his books because they think they are game related, or is he simply attributing their disinterest to that idea?
-----------------------------------------------------
> He is talking about the games covers on his books, and not the games themselves nor CDPR;
In that interview. In the one I linked and many others he is talking about the games. From the article:
"I have nothing against the game itself. I think it's a high-level product. All the benefits CDPR received for it are absolutely well-earned. I have nothing against video games in general. I have nothing against the people who play them, even if I don't and never will," Sapkowski says. "The whole animosity started when the game began to spoil my market."
That's him saying the games have started spoiling his market. Not the game art on the cover or the publishers, the games. Yes, he has nothing against the games as products, but he seems to focus more on the negatives their success brings him more than the positives.
-----------------------------------------------------
> He EXPLICITLY took off all the blame from CDPR in that regard in other interviews, making sure it is foreign publisher's fault.
Yet, he says this in this interview that was published last month:
"How are some of them supposed to know—especially in Germany, Spain or the US—that my books are not game related? That I'm not writing books based on games? They may not know that, and CDPR bravely conceals the game's origins. It's written in fine print, you need a microscope to see it, that the game is 'based on' [my books].""
-----------------------------------------------------
> If he is talking about "losing readers", he is clearly referring, by definition, to people who HAVE NOT bought his books. Of course that if someone bought his books even with that games covers, then this comment does not extent to them.
And just what are you referring to here? What do you think I wrote that would warrant this clarification?
-----------------------------------------------------
> But do you think that these game covers will help the books sell for those who have not played the games or aren't gamers themselves? The non-gaming public, which is a far larger target audience, never takes seriously what they consider to be a game adaptation.
This is where you lose me. Yes, the American covers for the Witcher series published by Orbit look like shit, and they do use assets from the games. I disagree about them "looking like adaptations". There are other books that use 3D models on their cover, without it being based on anything else. If you don't know the games well enough to recognize the character models, you're probably not going to make the connection that it is related to a game until you read the back where it says the books inspired the games, and not the other way around.
The covers aren't bad because they use assets from the game. They are bad because they are bad covers. You know what other covers are bad?
http://www.fantasyshop.cz/gfx/upload/fs_ob_200742311542.jpg
https://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/279-6489234-9877263?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&amp;url=search-alias%3Daps&amp;field-keywords=Sapkowski
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/19/ac/92/19ac92959047dc057381d622be9730df.jpg
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/witcher/images/6/61/Blood_of_Elves_UK.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110601235454
That last one can't seriously be an actual cover, can it?
Everybody knows the idiom "don't judge a book by its cover" and anyone who's serious about reading abides by that. We've all seen books we know are good with terrible covers, and we've all bought books that looked good on the surfaces that turned out to be shit. Have you been in a fantasy section of a bookstore recently? If you can't look past tacky cover art chances are you aren't that heavily invested in the genre.
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> Tell me, what do you think is a larger public: those who played the games or the average fantasy reader like the ones from LotR, ASOIAF, Harry Potter, Narnia etc. etc?
How modest of you to bring up the absolute biggest fantasy books series as if the Witcher books were destined to be among them, or if interest in those books would translate into interest for the Witcher series if the covers were just differnt.
LotR and the Hobbit popularized the fantasy genre and has as such become somewhat of a definition of . If you have any interest in the genre you are probably going to read it.
Here it is being sold with assets from the movies on the cover.
ASOIAF had sold 60 million copies over 5 books and 3 novellas in 2015 (latest numbers available), while the Witcher game series has sold 25 million copies over 3 titles.
Here it is being sold with assets from the HBO series on the cover.
Harry Potter and Narina are children's books that are well written enough to be enjoyable by those who are older, so naturally they have a much wider demographic that the Witcher series could ever reach without changing it at its core.
Books like that don't become huge hits because of their covers or impulse purchases, but by word of mouth. If a friend recommends a book to you and you see it has a bad cover, will you not read it? If you like it would you not recommend it to your other friends, telling them to ignore the bad cover art?
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> I mean, why do you think he should not worry about his reputation as a serious and authentic fantasy writer, instead of someone who seems to only write games novelizations?
Because as I wrote earlier I think people who don't play the games probably won't make that connection, and in any case anyone qualified to pass that judgement wouldn't be making that mistake. Confused gaming fanboys are not any authority of literature. There are people out there that don't know that the movie Titanic is based on a real event. As any audience grows the amount of idiots within it will also grow.
If someone is looking for serious and authentic fantasy, they look for it by doing research and fishing for recommendations among friends or online, not picking up books at based on cover art because that's just a shot in the dark. A book cover is just an ad, and anyone looking for quality products know to look past the ads and check out the reviews for any quality issues.
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> That other quote about walking through the woods and talking to a squirrel means the same thing that when he says that no adaptation can match the original in terms of storytelling. He is not detracting any medium, he is just stating a well known fact.
That's not a fact, that's an opinion. You can't do it exactly the same, but that doesn't mean you can't do it just as good or better (not saying whether or not the games did do it better in the case of the Witcher). As an example, many of the works of Shakespeare are old folk tales and stories modernized (for the day) and adapted for the stage. Now they are held up as classics because of how he was able to present those stories.
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> Ask it to any book reader, especially to ASOIAF or LotR readers. Likewise, there's no way for a movie or a game to nail the omniscient description of a character's feelings, thoughts or any other circumstance with the same depth that a written word can. Everyone knows it, what is wrong about that?
Again, opinions. By people who identify as readers about their favorite medium. Pictures, movements, sounds, dynamic interactivity, etc can express and reveal things that would be to impossible or trite to put into text. Just because you and a lot of other people might favor depiction in written form does not mean it is an absolute fact.
Hasn't the Game BioShock been designed around the philosophy of Ayn Rand?
In the comments some recommend to read the book before watching the film. Unfortunately currently I don't have the time but I just found there are 2 audio book editions available:
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Audiobook-Unabridged-Audio/dp/B003TL6CTA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1303328411&amp;sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Ayn-Rand/dp/0452011876/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1303328411&amp;sr=8-2
Just tell me what book your bastardized quote is from. It's from either It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis or The Iron Heel by Jack London if my guess isn't too far off.
Edit: It could also be from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand as well.
I think the best intro book to Libertarian Economics is still Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazzlit. Nathaniel Branden told me Ayn Rand wouldn't bother explaining economics to him, but told him to just read this book. It's unfortunate that if we are going to have required reading in public schools, that this book isn't required reading also.
Of course Atlas Shrugged serves as a great intro as well.
This one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0452011876/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1422375266&amp;sr=8-2&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=512cw5PKi1L&amp;ref=plSrch&amp;pi=AC_SY200_QL40
The Law - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936594315/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1936594315
Economics in one lesson - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0517548232/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0517548232
That which is seen and is not seen - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1453857508/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1453857508
Our enemy, the state - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001E28SUM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B001E28SUM
How capitalism save america - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400083311/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1400083311
New Deal or Raw Deal - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416592377/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1416592377
Lessons for the Young Economist - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933550880/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1933550880
For a New Liberty - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1610162641/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1610162641
What Has Government Done to Our Money? - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/146997178X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=146997178X
America's Great Depression - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/146793481X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=146793481X
Defending the Undefendable - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933550171/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1933550171
Metldown - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596985879/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1596985879
The Real Lincoln - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0761526463/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0761526463
The Road to Serfdom - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226320553/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226320553
Capitalism and Freedom - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226264211/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226264211
Radicals for Capitalism - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586485725/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1586485725
Production Versus Plunder - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0979987717/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0979987717
Atlas Shrugged - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452011876/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0452011876
The Myth of the Rational Voter - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0691138737/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=thmariwi-21&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=19450&amp;creativeASIN=0691138737
Foutainhead - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452273331/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0452273331&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=thmariwi-20
Anthem - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452281253/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0452281253&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=thmariwi-20
There are of course more books, but this should last you a few years!
Some of my "intellectual" favorites:
psst
Em janeiro, terminei de ler Fundação, do Isaac Asimov. É um livro sensacional; super recomendo. Agora, estou terminando The Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism e Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid. O próximo que eu vou ler provavelmente será Consciousness Explained, do Daniel Dannet.
Have you read the Foundation series by Asimov? It's a classic and one of the best of all time! The initial series is 3 books, all pretty short, but there's a ton of sequels and prequels after that, and the Foundation series hooks into Asimov's Robot series too.
Well, for one, you could try to see if you like Asimov's robot stories. One collection of these is "I,Robot" which I enjoyed myself a lot. There's also a couple of full length novels (see wikipedia ) A bit of googling should find you a lot more (not only about robots) and the same holds for Clarke ofcourse. Happy reading :-)
I can't speak for near term prospects, but if you're interested in potential ramifications, check out the latter stories in Asimov's I, Robot. Even assuming perfect supercomputers, it's not as clear-cut as it seems.
(also: "influence affecting it", if you care)
Thank you so much for this guy. Definitely my favourite episode so far.
Have either of you read I, robot?
i would love to hear what you think of Asimove's future.
perhaps you could get him I Am Legend and I, Robot - the novel/short stories that the movies were based on
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Thanks for the contest
http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/its_more_than_a_job
Read that.
Now read it again, and focus on the significance of the essays.
Being well-read gives you a common connection or foundation with others who are similarly well-read.
Being well-read helps you develop stronger language context skills, and a more broad vocabulary which will be useful to you when you have to describe deeply meaningful topics about yourself and your dreams in 400 words or less.
Search A2C for how many interviewers or application essays asked the applicant to discuss their favorite book, or something they recently read. It's a common theme.
Ask Google how many books Bill Gates and James Mattis read in an average month.
You say you're interested in STEM. Ok, here are two books IMMENSLY popular with the nerd-crowd:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Dune
Please, don't say or think "But, I've already seen those movies..."
No movie has ever been as detailed in conveying a story as the book.
And if robots & robotics are seriously among your interests, Asimov is pretty much required reading.
I, Robot
Two words: I, Robot.
For me, hand's down. It's Asimov's [The Caves of Steel] (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B00CKLUH32/ref=dp_st_0553293400) series. After all this time I think it holds up pretty well. I may have to go back and re-read them. Also look for I,Robot very different then the movie.
Tada!
Don't miss out on short fiction! :-) The nice thing about multi-author anthologies is, you discover which authors you will want to read and invest in more thoroughly:
Here are some definitive single-author collections arranged approximately in the order the stories were written:
I assume these are the hardcovers you're referring to:
https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618260587?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0
I was considering them, but I couldn't find any editions of the Hobbit, the Silmarillion, or Unfinished Tales that matched them. I care a lot about related books all matching nicely.
Do you know of hardcovers of those that match those of LOTR that maybe I didn't manage to find?
I guess the first question is how much money are you planning to spend? I am no expert collector or anything, but I think the current LOTR version with the most correct text is the following - and as a plus, it is illustrated by Alan Lee:
http://www.tolkien.co.uk/product/9780007525546/The+Lord+of+the+Rings+
The is also one which I am planning to purchase very soon, which I think at this point has the fully corrected text as well (might be missing a couple of typos) and is not fully illustrated - it does, however, contain illustrations that Tolkien intended to have included in the original book but were excluded for financial reasons (the dust jacket design from Tolkien himself and the Book of Mazarbul pages):
http://www.tolkien.co.uk/product/9780007581146/The+Lord+of+the+Rings+Boxed+Set+
Finally, there is the following boxed set with illustrations from Alan Lee - which does not have either the fully corrected text or original intended illustrations. It is however, a very nice set.
https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618260587/ref=sr_1_2_twi_har_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1468510148&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=9780618260584
Finally, even though I enjoyed the LOTR movies, I am not fond of movie tie-ins as I feel it somehow "stains" the original work. However, they are wildly popular in the US. I would recommend to stay away from those.
I realize these options are not exactly cheap, but I think any of these would make for a memorable gift.
I bought the bottom books within the past year, all on the internet (Amazon and Books a Million).
Edit: links: LOTR, Silmarillion, Hobbit
I think I've settled on going with these ones: ISBN:9780618260584.
I have these illustrated (by Alan Lee), and love them:
The Hobbit
http://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-Illustrated-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0395873460/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325269700&amp;sr=8-3
LotR
http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618260587/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1325269823&amp;sr=1-1
This 3-book hardcover edition beautifully illustrated by Alan Lee is goooooooood:
http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618260587
Okay, also I think I just found another set that looks tempting. I've heard a lot about the Alan Lee illustrated versions and was wondering if the illustrations make it all that better?
https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618260587?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;redirect=true&amp;ref_=wms_ohs_product
Also, I'm looking everywhere for where I can buy this one below but I can only find the picture.
http://covers.booktopia.com.au/big/9780007522934/the-hobbit-the-lord-of-the-rings-4-x-hardcover-books-in-1-x-boxed-set.jpg
I bought the set in question in 2012, and this is the link to the item's page from my order history: The Lord of the Rings https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618260587/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_2A2MAb4VAWVGD
I believe it's the same as the one you posted, so I say go for it! The price sounds right and the picture is accurate. Amazon's reviews have a way of getting jumbled. And if it's not right, their returns are a breeze on Prime-eligible items. Good luck! It's an absolutely beautiful set of books.
here's the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618260587/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1376528900&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=0618260587
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618391118/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_dhfXDbQQJ8RWX
This is not really similar to Anathem but have you read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion?
ballantine 1973 paperbacks
houghton mifflin 1999 trade paperback (my first set, heart eyes)
houghton mifflin 80s hardcover set (had my eye on these for Years and my gf bought me the box set for my bday, more heart eyes) $38 on amazon rn (apparently there's a hobbit hardcover that matches these? i need it)
there's a really nice big coffee table-ish hardcover of the silmarillion with lots of illustrations by ted nasmith. it's huge though (almost as big as TWOIAF) and surprisingly heavy and I don't think I actually have a way to comfortably read it right now? ymmv though
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618391118/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
It is from one of his books.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Stranger-Albert-Camus/dp/0679720200
To this day there is still no greater book for opening up the world of thought than Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy. This book is indispensable.
Aside from that the best advice, as many here have noted, is to simply read widely and often. Here are some other books I can personally recommend as being particularly insightful:
if you want to know what it's like go read The Stranger By Albert Camus
> if I wrote a book about a sexy 12 year old no one is gonna let me put it in their library
https://www.amazon.com/Lolita-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679723161 fairly certain you can find that in some libraries.
>Slavery and cannabis use are perfectly relevant examples.
They are relevant regarding laws, in the same way my marriage law example was. They are irrelevant in that they have nothing to do with coercive sex (except certain types of slavery) among children, unlike my marriage example. Is that because any comparable analogy would support me? Lessee.... What about how it is wrong to get someone drunk and rape them, but the laws didn't reflect that until recently. Better than the slavery analogy because it involves coercive sexual activity. But, then, it's wrong because the drunk person can't say yes.
Wonder what my old college textbook says about statutory rape (oh, yeah, forgot to mention, a degree in psychology with focus on personality disorders, human sexuality and child development)
╮( ˘ ､ ˘ )╭
>"Unlike other forms of rape, overt force or threat of force is not required, because individuals below a certain age are not considered capable of voluntarily giving their consent. In the United States, the age of consent ranges from 14 to age 18. These laws once applied only to girls as victims, but today they are applied to male and female victims."
Ref. available on request; I hate typing out bibliographies.
>Slavery is wrong. The fact that it has been legal across time and place for the majority of human history doesn't change that.
No, but for the majority of slavery's legality, it was considered moral. Once enough people realized that it was harmful and destructive, society fought to change it.
>Conversely, the use of psychoactive substances in a way that doesn't infringe on others is an ethical act. The fact that numerous laws prohibit this conduct in many places doesn't make it less so. It simply makes those laws unjust.
And these are "blue laws," laws put into place exclusively to police morality. (Excluding laws regarding drugs and infringement on others). These are laws like no buying liquor during certain hours, no public nudity, etc. blue laws are a completely different family of laws and are a pretty unique family. One could argue any blue law is unjust. But, then, laws constantly change based on morality. Morality is not a universal, standard thing. There is no universal morality. Morals are based on the culture they live in. They are tied to laws because we have a hard time distinguishing between what is good and what is bad. Our laws aren't perfect. They have to constantly evolve, and will never stop evolving.
>Interestingly, as with your pet cause, "science" has been used to justify and perpetuate the unethical laws that permitted slavery and prohibited the use of drugs (including alcohol).
Yeah, of course it has. It has also been used to argue eugenics, force sterilize "undesirables," and perform horrid experiments on people (not breaking Godwin's law, still talking US history). Science has also been used to discover insulin, make childbirth not the leading cause of death in women, travel to the moon, and comprehend what child abuse is and the detrimental physical, emotional, and mental effects it has on its victims. So, yeah, science is a tool that can be used for good or bad.
>Then you say
>Not only do I absolutely believe that laws that are allowed to be dynamic are a valid reflection of a societies' mores
>But that's inconsistent with your earlier argument. You told another commenter in the original thread that you would be OK with what happened **if it were legal*.
Nope. Never said that. You may be referring to where I said (added emphasis for clarity, since you didn't seem to get it the first time):
>Yeah, it's a small age gap, but it's also (if sexual) illegal in most places. If it wasn't illegal, I wouldn't be so up in arms. A 13 year old girl can legally be forced to marry by her parents in New Hampshire; it's legal so while I may not like it personally, nothing can be done. It's legal. My issue here is that, depending on the state, this is potentially illegal.
I said in the case of something being legal, even if I disagree with it, or feel it is immoral, my hands would be tied to take action. Would you like to explain to me how you got "if it was illegal, I'd be Ok with what happened" out of that? If you are going to misquote me and put words in my mouth, try not to be so obvious about it.
>You also seem very upset that I won't take the time to go rebutting all of your flawed analysis point by point. Please don't misunderstand. My unwillingness isn't because you're right about any of this - it's because your Chewbacca argumentation strategy is exhausting and not worth that type of time investment. If I thought you were interested in a rational, productive discussion about this, I would feel very differently, and would be much more inclined to spend time digging through ProQuest for you.
No, my offense is that you are not backing up your opinions, are putting words in my mouth, flip-flopping, and cherry picking the questions I presented to answer you, ignoring the ones where you would look bad if you answered them truthfully. While I am attempting a serious discussion where I point out fallacies in your arguments and give you the opportunity to defend your views more rigorously.
>Due to significant recent strides made by social progressives, we are seeing an onslaught of reactionary belief and behavior from various places along the political spectrum.
So now you are agreeing that the laws are being changed? Make up your mind. You bounce back and forth so much I'm getting whiplash.
>New laws that seek to divest adolescents of their bodily autonomy and agency as at least as much a reflection of that as it is a reflection of any advancement of An inflexible chronological age standard is a patently illogical way to determine an individual's* capacity to consent to sexual activity.
So we shouldn't have any age distinctions? Are you ok with a 13 year old having sex with a 40 year old, in any* situation? Of all the pertinent questions you have ignored, please answer this one. Because, if so, I know a book you may enjoy. If your answer is, "don't be silly, that's wrong!" Then I will ask a second part, where does the line go? Where do we determine a relationship needs to be investigated for potential abuse? A 5 year old and a 13 year old? A 13 year old and a 20 year old?
I think it was a book turned into two : movies
Ew. Ew ew ew.
Well, we know what he's been reading. Too bad this book is NOT dating advice.
I would say anything by Vladimir Nabokov. He writes some of the most beautiful prose I've ever read. He's best known for his book, Lolita. I would suggest that.
http://www.amazon.com/Lolita-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679723161
I prefer the originals. And if you want a story that's actually about a Viking family, try this one.
That's a good question.
So special needs is the blanket term. For specific mental retardation the proper name is now intellectual disability.
A really good book that is a short read I would recommend on this is Flowers for Algernon. This book really gives you perspective on what it is like to be special needs.
I have been a special needs counselor for a camp for six years.
It's not about feel-goodery. It's about showing respect to others.
You should take some time to think this through. Why not read a book to calm yourself down?
Ok, that was a bad example I gave.
So what about if the box set includes all four, like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-Lord-Rings-Fellowship-Towers/dp/0345538374/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=EZA9BD7TYRVVHP8MQYCB
https://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-Lord-Rings-Fellowship-Towers/dp/0345538374
well if you want to ease into it, go for some Albert Camus fiction
the fall (le (la??) chute)
http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Albert-Camus/dp/0679720227
the stranger (l'etranger)
http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Albert-Camus/dp/0679720200
the cure song, killing an arab is about the above
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7lULaE6kv4
Good one, Sherlock.
there is some pretty cool stuff within literary fiction like the Iliad, the Odessy, (both of which I have yet to read, but really want to.) Count of Monte Christo (fantastic book, give it a read), Farenheit 451 (also fantastic), anything by Alexander Pope (the rape of the lock is exceptional and short, and tumblrinas would have a fit at the name, not realising that it means 'kidnapping hair'), anything by Orwell, and plenty more that are considered literary but are great.
Peruse Strange Interlude by Eugene O' Neill and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Hearken to the refrains of Ava Maria, crooned by the castrato Alessandro Moreschi. Accede to your turpitude, if you are a man of that strain. Wassail, consume, slumber and procure without a cumber. Acquire courtesans, scarlet women and cocottes so that you may know them. Bring your concupiscence to fruition. Deport yourself dolorously and fitfully, if you are predisposed to do so. Peradventure you may orchestrate. At the zenith of your sentience, execute self-murder to elude tribulations.
http://www.amazon.com/Lolita-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679723161
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Interlude-Eugene-ONeill/dp/B00005XP6R/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1426449020&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=strange+interlude+by+eugene+o%27neill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjvfqnD0ws
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand ( link )
Never Stop Pushing: My Life from a Wyoming Farm to the Olympic Medals Stand - Rulon Gardner ( link )
Often Wrong, Never in Doubt: Unleash the Business Rebel Within - Donny Deutsch ( link )
It's True! It's True! - Kurt Angle ( link )
Everyone Else Must Fail: The Unvarnished Truth About Oracle and Larry Ellison - Karen Southwick ( link )
Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days - Jessica Livingston ( link )
Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality - Scott Belsky ( link )
Kick Your Own Ass: The Will, Skill, and Drill of Selling More Than You Ever Thought Possible - Robert Johnson ( link )
Right this way: http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Ayn-Rand/dp/0452011876/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1373831023&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=atlas+shrugged+by+ayn+rand
I definitely recommend Atlas Shrugged, if you can read something rather long, or The Fountainhead if you need something that's still a good story, but a little shorter.
> Self-publishing has no gatekeeping process.
Is your argument that anything is better than nothing? If so, we'll have to agree to disagree.
> Amazon does a little "after-the-fact" gatekeeping, i.e. they have pulled self-published how-to manuals on rape and pedophilia
Nope, still there.
> On the other hand, like with the Internet, the lack of gatekeeping in self-publishing supports an open and unfettered exchange of ideas, whether those ideas are just bad quality writing or are actually bad ideas
I'm not sure if you are saying there are no bad ideas among traditionally published books, or just fewer.
The fact that traditional publishing occasionally upholds the prejudices of traditional publishers is not a recommendation.
> a publisher places a number of safe bets that will have high returns (Stephen King, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Sue Grafton) to be able to afford to take greater chances on publishing works that they know will only attract a smaller (but perhaps more dedicated) audience, or for taking chances on new writers, etc.
That's the mechanism they talk about, as if it were some sort of recommendation. "We use our marketing muscle to foist the same old thing on most readers -- and use the money to push books we personally like on other readers! And we do it for only 70% of the proceeds! We're practically saints."
I strongly disagree. You are, essentially, taxing success.
If I invent the next "hot thing," I am using the sum of my person to make a product. Perhaps years of my life in research. Thousands of my own hard earned dollars. Only to be, in essence, penalized.
Even if I used natural resources and human power, I have paid for these while using them. I should not have to pay more for after the fact. No one has a right to my profits but me.
tl;dr Read Atlas Shrugged.