(Part 2) Best books according to redditors
We found 327 Reddit comments discussing the best books. We ranked the 101 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.
If I could go back in time as a senior in high school, above all, I would just do more reading, and I would read widely. I did not start on the path to English teaching until I was 26, and although I did great in college and I feel that I am a successful teacher now, my weakness is my reading background. I would suggest using an app like Goodreads so that you can track your progress as you chip away at the literary canon, work by work. The texts that are going to help you the most and serve you for the rest of your career are the ones that most authors allude to, so, I would suggest that at some point you familiarize yourself with these from a literary standpoint:
As far as resources that will give you a head start, I suggest:
Considering pedagogy resources, by the time you are in an education program, there will be new research and new buzzwords, so I won't waste my time here, but these are my favorite resources when it comes to inspiring my teaching:
Lastly, if you go into an English education program with a near-perfect understanding of grammar, your life will be so much easier. I suggest these three resources for brushing up:
Good luck, and let me know if you have questions! If you do anything on this list, just read!
The Magic Schoolbus authors (Cole and Degen) are really highly educated and well read people, they've been publishers, teachers, librarians, etc. It would be really odd if Tolkien had never been encountered by them.
Young Wizards Author Diane Duane has written a critical essay on Tolkien, so I think it's safe to assume she read his books.
Don't underestimate authors.
One of the best resources is the Pynchon in Public Podcast. They've dedicated seasons to Slow Learner, Inherent Vice, The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, and Bleeding Edge, and they're about to start V. in the fall.
Also, there are some admirable companions that can really help elucidate and contextualize his novels, especially for Gravity's Rainbow. The Pynchon Wiki is another terrific source of supplemental information.
And, of course, this community is always enthusiastically keen to help someone break into the realm of Pynchon's fiction. My advice: Read in whatever order you like, and accept that you won't understand everything that's going on in whatever you're reading in the first read. His novels are meant to be read over and over again, and you truly find something new and exciting in every subsequent read.
Happy reading, and welcome to the community.
P.S. What DeLillos have you read so far?
Take a look at Books Are Made Out of Books: A Guide to Cormac McCarthy's Literary Influences. You'll get a lot of insight there.
What is it you're looking for, if you feel like books on writing won't help?
If it's academic writing in particular that you want to improve, why not look at something like
If you're a Nick Hornby fan, here's what you should do - he's got three books that are little collections of the column he writes for The Believer called "Stuff I've Been Reading". They're hilarious, and each one gives you 5 or 6 great suggestions from a guy whose taste is pretty solid.
Start with The Polysyllabic Spree and then go to Housekeeping vs. the Dirt and Shakespeare Wrote for Money.
He's always saying his favourite author is Anne Tyler - I can corroborate, she's pretty good.
This isn't really "literature" but you also might like Mil Millington. He's funny in the same way and even though as I'm reading I'm like "huh.. this isn't that great" his novels are the ones that I end up reading in one 8 hour sitting.
You might like David Sedaris - I'd start with Me Talk Pretty One Day
And someone else said John Irving - he's my very favourite.
A good psychology book (and I'm a major layperson, so it's definitely accessible) is The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks and Mad in America by Robert Whitaker.
Umberto Eco's Six Walks in the Fictional Woods is a very accessible introduction to thinking about literature in a way that blends narratology and semiotics. It generally sticks pretty closely to talking about the stories he has in mind, so I wished while reading it that I'd had a copy of Gérard de Nerval's Sylvie on hand, among others.
David Lodge's The Art of Fiction used to be popular as a supplementary textbook in creative writing classes because it just uses nice examples to provide a basic language for talking about literature.
John Sutherland has a number of books intended for a general audience that either introduce basic concepts of literary criticism or that just make careful reading fun, e.g. How Literature Works, A Little History of Literature, and The Literary Detective: 100 Puzzles in Classic Fiction (an omnibus edition of the books he's probably most well known for).
Gaston Bachelard comes to mind as someone who, like Gass, is just a delight to read: The Poetics of Space, Air and Dreams, etc. I'd put some other writers writing about their personal relationships to reading in a similar category: Nicholson Baker, U and I; Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary; and even Alison Bechdel, Fun Home.
My view has traditionally been that the Powerscore RC Bible is weak and should be avoided in favor of the Manhattan Guide.
But recently I’ve come to the conclusion that, actually, they offer pretty much a variation on the same theme.
So far, I don’t think anyone in the test prep industry has really produced a novel approach/method for doing the RC section of the LSAT.
Try this instead: https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-ebook-dp-B004PYDAPE/dp/B004PYDAPE/
I mean, you really need to be reading anthologies to get a basis of the poetic tradition and then move on to individual books. While individual books of poetry help you get a sense of each writer, getting a taste of many poets throughout many periods is the only way to really become well versed (pun-intended). Also, part of the way to learn how to read poetry more critically is learn how to write poetry, or at least what goes into writing poetry. And my personal advice is to purposefully read poetry that is hard for you to grasp or find interest in, whether that be due to understanding or content (e.g. Yeats and his faeries don’t interest me in the slightest).
Theory/Reading Critically:
American:
Other:
Source: Have a Master’s Degree in poetry and currently working on my MFA. My expertise is in 20th & 21st Century American Poetry, particularly post-War/post-45.
Here: http://www.amazon.com/Stephen-King-Uncollected-Rocky-Wood-ebook/dp/B005C6CISO
and here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17665792-an-evening-at-god-s
It is part of no collection of short stories (Eg Nightmares & Dreamscapes), but was a stand alone read. There WAS some talk about making it into a play, but there were some problems with it, though i have forgotten what the problems were.
Jenkins' Textual Poachers is a classic. For a general history I'm fond of Jamieson's Fic: Why Fan Fiction is Taking Over the World. This is an anthology of variable quality, which somehow seems appropriate for fan fiction studies. Worth it for the intro chapters on the history of derivative works, and the Sherlock Holmes fandom as an longstanding case study.
The bigger question here is what do you mean by "literary genre"? One of the whole points of fan fiction is that it exists independently of the publishing industry's power structure and literary fads. Plus there's a huge range of motivations in writing it, and hence the final product varies wildly in topic, tone, and writing quality. About the only thing we all have in common is cribbing off the source material for characterization; with the rise of radical AU not even the canon setting is a common factor anymore. Is this enough to qualify as a coherent "literary genre," or maybe it's a collection of many different genres?
Side note: I loathed Fangasm. May as well title it: "Two Otherwise Intelligent People Lose Their Minds in Pursuit of Celebrity Crushes." One of the authors is an actual professor (media studies?) that published a fan studies textbook, so a compare and contrast of what she says academically vs. what was marketed to SPN fans would be interesting.
Hello there, first time posting in this sub. I have been reading, learning and following tips here for quite awhile. Ok, onto the book:
Narrative Madness, free (until Monday 12/21, $4.99 regular)
> NM is a nonfiction title and a Master thesis about how our perception of reality is shaped by stories. Our lives, just like Don Quixote, are influenced by the books we read, the stories we are told and all the narrative of media that surround us.
I know that most people here are interested in fiction, but I thought I'd share the book anyways. After reading posts in /r/selfpublish/, I decided to follow some advice:
I really learned a lot from all I've read in this sub these last months. Any additional advice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
(Edit: formatting)
It should probably be noted that not only does the time frame extend from 1949 to 1984 but the books are also listed in chronological order.
Also recently published is this companion book by Damien Broderick and Paul di Filippo (with a foreword by Pringle) covering the years 1985-2010.
While it's not specifically about modern literature, I would suggest Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor. I would also recommend The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism and finally Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction.
As for stream-of-consciousness, it can be beautiful when executed artfully, but excruciating when done ham-handedly. If you want an excellent example of s-o-c narration, look no further than To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf. No other author so expertly captures the inner life of the mind.
There have been quite a few books written about fanfiction - here's a good one - not saying buy it (that may be overkill), but a quick peek inside to the table of contents is surprising... enlightening... as to the ways people study this stuff.
One frequent way in, I would think, would be 'why do people change what they change?' and 'what worlds are most supportive of change, and why?'. One persistent argument for fanfic is that fans are creating what they don't otherwise see (especially when it comes to a diversity of gender, race, sexuality).
So if someone is hooking up Draco and Harry, that's actually really interesting from that perspective... what is it that they thought they were missing? What was in the text already that they kept, that lead them to this conclusion? And what it is that the author added that 'defines' Draco and Harry as gay (that was missing from the text)? And and and and... etc.
English Lit 101?
Why Poetry, By Matthew Zapruder.
(A) I can't fully vouch for this book, haven't read it thru and thru yet.
(B) I just picked it up literally 2 days ago.
(C) In the bookstore though, the flap, intro and a few random samplings seemed to make it a reasonable read.
He doesnt' take on an acedemic stance about rhyme and meter and iambic pentameters etc, but talks more about how we tend to read poems, how we've culturally beeen trained to read poems, and offers some strategy on how to break down the language and motifs.
So it seems.
That's all I got for you.
	
	
	
> # 3 medidas de Maduro que cercaron a la banca en Venezuela
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> Por Caleb Zuleta (KonZ).- Indices de adecuación patrimonial. Encaje legal. Ajuste de los créditos al tipo de cambio de oficial. Todo atenta contra la banca. Contra el crédito. De modo que las empresas, el comercio, lo que aún queda en Venezuela, se encuentran en problemas para conseguir financiamiento.
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> Lo dice el reciente análisis de Consecomercio. Enumera el gremio de los comerciantes los factores que han restringido el crédito para la industria y el comercio. “En el transcurso de 2017 y gran parte de 2018, el crecimiento de la cartera de créditos del sistema financiero venezolano estuvo restringido por los índices de adecuación patrimonial que debían cumplir los bancos. No obstante, a finales de 2018, los considerables incrementos en el tipo de cambio oficial aliviaron –parcialmente- este problema”.
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> > Y aquí viene el punto. “Según cifras de Ecoanalítica, la banca venezolana se encuentra en capacidad de prestar sólo el 19% de los depósitos que recibe, lo que implica una restricción importante en la disponibilidad de créditos para los distintos sectores de la economía venezolana, especialmente, el comercio y de servicios”.
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> Esto por un lado. Según se lee en el Informe Económico, Perspectivas 2020, elaborado por la Comisión de Economía de Consecomercio. Señala que “2019 comenzó con un nuevo desafío para la banca venezolana: a mediados de febrero entró en vigencia un nuevo sistema de encajes legales, que consta de un encaje ordinario -de 57% de las captaciones del público- y uno marginal -de 100% de las reservas excedentarias-. En consecuencia, la capacidad de intermediación se vio mermada. Y de manera considerable”.
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> Y aquí viene el punto. “Según cifras de Ecoanalítica, la banca venezolana se encuentra en capacidad de prestar sólo el 19% de los depósitos que recibe, lo que implica una restricción importante en la disponibilidad de créditos para los distintos sectores de la economía venezolana, especialmente, el comercio y de servicios”.
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> KonZapata consultó algunos banqueros y en el mejor de los casos, uno solo de ellos admitió que la cartera de su banco alcanzaba el 23%. Parece un récord en estos tiempos.
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> Señala el escrito que “a finales de octubre, el BCV oficializó la implementación de un nuevo esquema de ajuste del valor de los créditos comerciales en la misma proporción de los incrementos del tipo de cambio oficial. Según Juan Carlos Dao, presidente de Bancaribe, la banca en su conjunto ha desembolsado muy pocos créditos desde la entrada en vigencia de esta medida”.
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> [Image](https://konzapata.com/fotos/1/9669_DlDWzN9XoAAYlo3_thumb_675.jpg)
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> Cada semana que pasa los alertas crecen en volumen...
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> Leer más
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> Concluye el análisis señalando que “la dificultad de pronosticar el comportamiento del tipo de cambio en un entorno de incesante volatilidad macroeconómica ha restringido aún más las posibilidades de financiamiento para las empresas venezolanas”.
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> [Image](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41rN68jtyxL.jpg)
The book that had the biggest impact on how I write was Peter Elbow's Writing without Teachers, which introduced the concept of freewriting. The book's central message: "Don't edit while you create!"
The other book that had a large impact on how I view myself as a writer, and the purpose of writing in general, was John Gardenr's On Moral Fiction.
Susie's Bright's How to Write a Dirty Story has great advice on writing in general, as well as writing erotica.
I've also heard that Stephen King's book on writing is pretty good, though I haven't read it.
haha I understand that feeling.
On the psychology/cognitive science/neuroscience side:
Stanislas Dehaene argues that learning to read rewires the brain by co-opting other capacities and essentially constructing a new neural network dedicated to processing written language. It's an interesting theory and a great book, but a little dense.
Raymond Mar has done a bunch of interesting work on fiction and empathy. Here's a link to most of his papers.
There's some research on how fiction more broadly can increase altruism:
Barraza, J. A., Alexander, V., Beavin, L. E., Terris, E. T., & Zak, P. J. (2015). The heart of the story: Peripheral physiology during narrative exposure predicts charitable giving. Biological Psychology, 105, 138-143. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2015.01.008
A more philosophical take - Martha Nussbaum on 'reading for life'.
Here are some books that take a bit of a general overview:
Lisa Zunshine - Why We Read
My own area is actually situating a lot of this research in an evolutionary context - looking at how and why we tell stories and what role they have served over longer timeframes. Here are some others that have written on the topic. I disagree with them in quite a few places, and I'm essentially arguing that we need to expand on their accounts, but there's a lot to agree with as well, and they're worth a read:
Brian Boyd - On The Origin of Stories
Ellen Spolsky - The Contracts of Fiction
Jonathon Gottschall - The Storytelling Animal
Let me know if there's any papers/books that you can't get access to, I have them all in PDF format and would be happy to forward you anything you're interested in reading that isn't available to you.
As to why I chose the topic, essentially I have a bit of a generalist educational background: I majored in philosophy, psychology, history/politics and english literature/creative writing as an undergraduate, and did a Master's in cognitive science and philosophy. I'm what you would most definitely refer to as over-educated, and I don't mean that in a good way - I have an Australian equivalent to a student loan that isn't pretty (although still much lower than what it would have cost me in the US!). So, I wanted a way of getting paid to read and think about all the areas I'm interested in - and it turns out writing about the evolution of fiction takes me across a whole range of disciplines and a whole range of research areas, including evolutionary biology/psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, economics, literary theory, etc. That, and I guess I have always disagreed with the idea of art as simply escapism or entertainment and wanted to look at how important it has been, and continues to be, in shaping who we are and where we're going.
Check out the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor it's a fine little book that outlines a bit of the second-level nature of reading literature.
Once you've read a few hundred/thousand books, you can see the patterns in how authors develop/present ideas and learn the intellectual context in which they lived, so you can see how an individual author played with the dominant ideas of the era.
If this is a question about which you have given some thought, I recommend The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski.
^(Me, I want rolling, single-aisle storage bookcases but I have no idea where to get them. In the mean time, any organization I once had died several moves ago. I'm just glad I have an electronic record of what books I own.)
I am not familiar with the book ommm232 suggested (although it is certainly one I will be looking into as well), but I would also highly recommend Eric Hayout's The Elements of Academic Style: Writing for the Humanities, which also delves into the differences between seminar papers and articles and how to transform the former into the latter. It has been immensely helpful in my own work as I try to improve both global and local elements of my writing.
Best of luck!
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Reading-Damon-Young/dp/1947534025