Best literary criticism books according to redditors

We found 4,398 Reddit comments discussing the best literary criticism books. We ranked the 1,933 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Subcategories:

History & criticism books
Literary criticism & theory books
Literary movements & periods books
Comparative literature books
Literary genre history & criticism books
Literary history & criticism books
Cultural criticism books
Women author literary criticism books

Top Reddit comments about Literary Criticism:

u/BlueSatoshi · 68 pointsr/Vive

Here's a couple books to get you started:
The Language Construction Kit, by Mark Rosenfelder
The Art of Language Invention, by David J. Peterson (aka the guy who made Dothraki)
He's made some vids that elaborate on the stuff he covers.

u/kattmedtass · 59 pointsr/todayilearned

Cheers. Honestly, I really recommend reading the actual source material of the Norse sagas where all of these originate from - the Poetic Edda, Prose Edda, Heimskringla, Ynglinga saga, Völsunga saga, Egil's saga, etc. I grew up hearing these stories here in Scandinavia (added: hadn't heard of Ratatoskr until now though) but there are still a lot to discover and appreciate anew even for me. There's a new translation of the Poetic Edda by Jackson Crawford that is supposed to have a much more natural flow to our modern language sensibilities. Often these materials seem translated to sound old, with a rather stale language which makes the wonder and magic of the stories harder to soak up. This new one should be much more natural and possibly more entertaining to read.

u/xBearJewx · 45 pointsr/LearnUselessTalents

Read more :\^)

I personally don't put much stock into the whole speed reading thing. You lose the sense of the prose and you likely take less away from the material (I do).

I'll echo what others have said and work on comprehension. Also, you could read "How to Read a Book" by Adler and Van Doren. It's an insightful look at what constitutes a text and how you should approach it. It focuses not only on literature but other texts (history, science, poetry, etc.) as well.

u/Skeptical_Romulan · 42 pointsr/Silmarillionmemes

Suggestions: Find yourself a map of Beleriand (Fonstad's "Atlas of Middle-Earth is the best thing ever), also consult the family tree of Finwë when needed.

u/benzenene · 23 pointsr/tolkienfans

Check out the Atlas of Middle-Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad! It's Tolkien Estate-approved and is absolutely fantastic. Besides maps, there's routes of journeys, battle formations, thematic maps and demographic information. It's one of my favourite book investments of all time.

u/smugliberaltears · 22 pointsr/TwoXChromosomes

> From a scientific point of view

From a scientific point of view, you're an ignoramus. You know nothing about biology if this is what you actually think.

Instead of just pulling things out of your ass and calling them "le science," try reading an actual academic journal on the subject in one of any of the relevant fields, or take a class, or talk to a PhD. Do something. Or, you know, just don't open your mouth. That is, unless you want to keep making an ass of yourself and broadcasting your ignorance.

e: Look, if you want to say that the dick makes the man, I know of at least two vets who lost what you would consider their manhood to IEDs. I could get you their contact info if you wanted to present your ideas on gender to them.

Or you could reassess what you've learned from the far right propaganda shithouses on reddit and youtube.

Here. This book is arguably the cornerstone of the modern academic understanding of gender. If you read this you'll have a basic understanding of probably the most widely accepted theory of gender in academia. I wouldn't consider this all you'd need to know for a thorough understanding, but it is probably the place to start if you're confused.

u/upallday_allen · 21 pointsr/conlangs

My first piece of advice is to get off of Biblaridion. He's an okay resource, but sometimes get's his facts wrong and has the tendency to make his opinions sound like universal consensus. As for other resources, I would highly recommend picking up some books (which are better than YT videos in every way) such as David J. Peterson's The Art of Language Invention. I'd also encourage you to find an intro to linguistics textbook and also find some good language grammars (you can find a lot online for free), as these can give you infinite ideas for your conlangs.

As for what you've shared... I'll be entirely honest, there's nothing very interesting to me about this grammar. Your vowels are pretty neat, though, and I like the idea of lengthening a vowel to indicate distant past. Your verbs seem fairly cookie-cutter - not that it's unnaturalistic, just not interesting. Also, if your goal is naturalism, I would strongly encourage introducing some irregularity to your verbal and nominal morphology, as well as your syntax. E.g., is your word order always VSO? Or are there instances where it switches to SVO or OSV?

I also strongly encourage taking a few days to think about what all these things mean. For example, what does the "simple" verb do? How do the speakers use it? It what contexts would it be appropriate or inappropriate? Same with the future tense - does it only apply to actions the speaker is sure will happen, or can it be applied if the speaker is unsure? What's the difference between habitual and continuous?

Also, check out your parts of speech as well. How are adjectives and adverbs formed? Are they derived from other words? Should they even exist (because some languages don't have one or the other or either.)? What prepositions are there and how are they used (essentially no two languages are alike with preposition usage.)? How do you mark possessor and/or possessee, if at all?

I'm bombarding you with questions here, but there's no pressure to answer them all right away. Just some things to make you think. The big takeaways here is to expand your pool of resources beyond Biblaridion and to ask yourself what each element of your language really is and how it's used by the speakers of the language.

u/Gluyb · 19 pointsr/conlangs

Start off reading about linguistics and some things which interest you in language.

Learn the international phonetic alphabet ^optional ^but ^it ^makes ^things ^much ^easier

Super useful videos for learning it

In that playlist there are also videos on how to actually start your language, DON'T DO THEM YET.

First you need to decide what your language will be for

Now use either the artifexian video in the earlier playlist or this video which is a bit more in depth to start making a phonetic inventory for your language.

The next things you need develop are:

  • Phonotactic rules
  • A writing system
  • A grammar system
  • A vocabulary

    You can find resources for those yourself

    I would highly recommend getting a book like the art of language invention or the language construction kit. I can't speak for the latter but the former was an excellent guide for me through parts of linguistics which I was totally unaware of and how to use them in a language ^the ^author's ^youtube ^channel ^is ^not ^a ^substitute ^for ^the ^book ^more ^an ^expansion

    I hope that helps
u/Ho66es · 18 pointsr/books

Off the top of my head, in no particular order:

The Undercover Economist: Easily the best of those "Economics in everyday life - books"

The Blank Slate: Steven Pinker on the nature/nurture debate. This really opened my eyes on questions like "Why are the same people who fight against abortion for the death penalty", for example.

Complications: This and his second book, Better, gave me an incredible insight into medicine.

Why we get sick: Very good explanation of the defence mechanisms our bodies have and why treating symptoms can be a very bad idea.

How to read a book: An absolute classic. Turns out I've been doing it wrong all those years.

The Art of Strategy: Game Theory, applied to everyday situations. Always treats a topic like Nash equilibrium, Brinkmanship etc. theoretically and then goes into many examples.

A Random Walk Down Wall-Street: Made me see the stock market completely differently.

The Myth of the Rational Voter: The shortcomings of democracy.

The White Man's Burden: Fantastic account of the problems faced by the third world today, and why it is so hard to change them.

u/GradyHendrix · 17 pointsr/books

I'm not a Faulkner guy, but I love Joyce and posts like yours pop up on Reddit from time to time. First, congrats on making the effort. The world is full of sissies who are too chickenshit to ever make it past the easy stuff. Second, here's my advice on Ulysses. Have a ball!

Everyone should read Ulysses at some point in their life. It's a book unlike any other, a book that knocks you out of your comfort zone. A book that makes your brain strain like you're reaching for something on a high shelf. And it's really, really funny. I've read it a couple of times and here's my advice:

Step 1) RELAX. You're going to miss things. It's okay. Some things are worth missing, some things are boring, some things are references that don't make any sense in today's world, so who cares? Joyce didn't want people to puzzle out his book like the answers to an exam, he wanted to present a slice of life in all its freaky majesty and stupidity. Keep looking up at the stars, not down at your feet.

Step 2) Like a shark, keep moving forward. Reading this book is like trying to drink a waterfall. The point is the overall impression, not so much the individual details. Just keep pushing ahead, don't sit there with a magnifying glass trying to appreciate every single word. Joyce himself said he put in a shit ton of puzzles and tricks and things that don't make sense for literary critics and scholars, just to mess with their heads, so don't get hung up on them.

Step 3) There are no such thing as spoilers. Seriously. Buy yourself the Seidman Annotations. These are your new best friends. The introduction to each chapter will get you oriented, and if you get hung up on a phrase, a detail, a bit of wordplay, they're like the board you stick under the wheels of your jeep when it's stuck in the mud.

Step 4) Remember that Joyce wasn't living in Dublin when he wrote this. He hadn't lived there in a long time. So what Ulysses is to some extent is his attempt to rebuild Dublin in his mind, recreating the sights and smells and mind set and beliefs and feelings and streets and people he remembered, but doing it in an impressionistic way. What the impressionists and modernists did for painting, Joyce is doing for books. That's why it reads like he wrote it on drugs. Keep this in mind, the way you keep the north star in mind when you're navigating a ship (which I'm sure you do a lot, right?). This is why the book is "important," because it's an amazing act of sustained imagination. The same way that Superman has the Kryptonian city of Kandor trapped in a bottle, Joyce has one day in Dublin in 1904 trapped in a book.

Step 5) It's funny. It's really funny. You just have to rewire your brain a little to get the jokes. Joyce always thought of himself as someone who was writing, primarily, a comedy. He's sending up the epic form by using the structure of The Odyssey to talk about people going to the bathroom, and masturbating, and getting drunk and making idiots out of themselves. But by doing this, he's not only elevating everyday life to the level of an epic but he's lowering the epic to the level of everyday life. But also: fart jokes. Everywhere.

Step 6) It's okay to skip. Even the biggest Joyce scholars in the world agree: some chapters in Ulysses suck. Here's my breakdown of the book, chapter by chapter. I'm using the chapter names that Joyce gave the book in another document, not the chapter titles that are in the book:

1- TELEMACHUS - come on, it's the first chapter. You've gotta read it. It's basically two roommates squabbling over money.

2 - NESTOR - a bit of a bore but also relatively short

3 - PROTEUS - this is the first long, boring, skimmable chapter. If you're deep on Joyce it's very "important" but it's also pretty impenetrable.

4 - CALYPSO - now we're in Leopold Bloom's part of the book and this is one of the three most famous chapters in ULYSSES (the other two are "Circe" and "Penelope")

5 - THE LOTUS EATERS - fine chapter, a bit dense, but readable

6 - HADES - one of the best in the book in my opinion, just totally Irish and death obsessed and there's even some plot!

7 - AEOLUS - from this chapter forward to "Cyclops" you're in a dense, unforgiving part of the book. I recommend breezing through these chapters and keep up with what's going on with the annotations.

8 - LAESTRYGONIANS - not so bad, but tough stuff.

9 - SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS - ouch. Even Joyce scholars think this one's like getting hit in the head with a brick. Lots of academic nattering about Shakespeare.

10 - THE WANDERING ROCKS - a neat trick (19 bits, told from around a dozen points of view) but otherwise it's really just a walk around Dublin

11 - THE SIRENS - a sweet, lovely chapter but it's all pretty wordplay

12 - CYCLOPS - alert! alert! The least loved and worst chapter in the book. No one can read and understand this one. Fortunately, it's the end of the worst section of Ulysses.

13 - NAUSICAA - a really perverted, really dense, very funny chapter.

14 - OXEN OF THE SUN - scholars love this chapter and it is fun, but don't take it too seriously. The point is to trace the history of the English language from early speech to 20th Century speech in one chapter. It's very complex and kind of unrewarding, which makes it a bit like "Cyclops" but not nearly so bad.

15 - CIRCE - essential

16, 17, 18 - EUMAEUS, ITHACA, PENELOPE - the last three chapters, and completely lovely, moving and awesome.

So my recommendation is to read about it as you read it so you can know what's going on, and save your strength for the better chapters, while avoiding getting hung up on chapters like AEOLUS (which is a bunch of hot air, like its namesake) PROTEUS and CYCLOPS. Also, this is one of the few novels you can read in almost any order and enjoy. If you just want the highlights, I recommend the following order:

  • TELEMACHUS

  • CALYPSO

  • HADES

  • NAUSICAA

  • CIRCE

  • EUMAEUS

  • ITHACA

  • PENELOPE

    Then you can go back and read the tougher chapters however you like.
u/wjbc · 16 pointsr/lotr

Christopher Tolkien actually drew the map based on his father's map, so there are at least two versions, the father's and the son's. And then there's this version from Tolkien-approved illustrator Pauline Baynes, which is essentially Christopher's with little illustrations added by Baynes. Karen Wynn Fonstad also published The Atlas if Middle-Earth, in which she created close-up maps of places like Helm's Deep or Minas Tirith, as well as maps of the entirety of Arda. I disagree with some of her maps, but she had to make choices based on incomplete and sometimes contradictory information from Tolkien. Finally, in Unfinished Tales Christopher Tolkien published a revised map of Middle-earth in the Third Age, correcting some of the errors in the original. I believe that replaced the original map in subsequent editions of The Lord of the Rings.

u/italia06823834 · 15 pointsr/tolkienfans
u/av1cenna · 15 pointsr/writing

I can give you three books that I recommend without reservation. The first is the easiest to read and a solid introduction to fiction editing. The second goes into more depth, with an excellent workflow for the revising process in the latter chapters. The third is the most dense, like a college class in fiction editing with a focus on how the 19th and 20th century masters actually revised their works, but it is also the most thorough.

Self-editing for Fiction Writers (written by two editors)

Stein on Writing (written by an accomplished editor)

Revising Fiction (written by an college professor, writer and editor)

u/ButtaBeButtaFree · 15 pointsr/linguistics

So I know this sub is not particularly interested in cognitive linguistics, but I think the idea of conceptual metaphor beautifully explains the use of "literally".

The thesis of conceptual metaphor is that metaphor is ubiquitous in language use and understanding, and this kind of metaphor is used and understood unconsciously. Metaphors We Live By is the original source for a lot of these. So for example, communication is conceptualized as a conduit, thus we say things like "get the idea across", "transmit information", and so on without realizing they are metaphorical.

Another ubiquitous metaphor is that intensity can be conveyed by "realness" or "actuality." The OED shows that the word "really" was originally used frequently to describe the real presence (as opposed to the figurative presence) of Christ in the Eucharist. We see that it has alternatively been used as an intensifier for almost the same amount of time. Exactly the same thing is the case with "truly". Both of these words primarily meant "literally" but quickly acquired meaning as intensifiers. Why? Because of the conceptual metaphor that describing something as "real" can be to emphasize it, thus "that show was really out of this world" and "she is truly a diamond in the rough." Both of these violate the primary sense of "really" and "truly" because they're clearly non-literal. But, nobody has a problem with these because the metaphor is understood and its meaning processed unconsciously. This metaphor is cross-linguistic: "de verdad" in Spanish and "真的" in Mandarin.

This is exactly how "literally" acquired its meaning as an intensifier. Its primary meaning is "real", "actual", and "non-figurative", but our minds have this conceptual metaphor such that we can easily understand its meaning in a non-literal context. It is a metaphorical or non-literal use of "literal".

If this interpretation is right, what could we conclude?

  • It is more correct to say that the non-literal use of "literally" is metaphorical, rather hyperbolic.
  • Metaphors are understood and processed automatically in context. Nobody, not even the most Eichmannesque of grammar nazis, misunderstands the metaphorical use of "literally". Thus, language is not being destroyed.
  • The metaphor of "realness is intensity" has been used in other places for at least several hundred years, and the same people complaining about "literally" are not complaining about "really" and "truly", even though it part of the same phenomenon. So the ire for "literally" is hypocritical and irrational.
  • Comprehension and creative use of metaphor is a fundamental characteristic of human thought and language, so fighting this is literally the most futile thing one can do.
u/senseofdecay · 15 pointsr/TumblrInAction

The guy wrote a whole book on the subject actually, it's quite an entertaining read:

http://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science/dp/0312204078

Apparently E=mc^2 is a "privileged" and "sexist" equation to these people. It's great having a book that makes fun of them so thoroughly, it's very quotable!

u/Atanvarno94 · 14 pointsr/tolkienfans

There's a way, sort of, J.R.R.Tolkien has left all his linguistic writings on the Elvish Languages in 7 big boxes, (thousands of pages per box) and Christopher Tolkien has later referred to them naming as Quenya A, B, up to Quenya G, for they can be specifically identified. Yes, not a couple of boxes, but even 7, my mellyn (PE: 22, p. 141).

Be aware, though, that if you do not have a particular background, these pages will be likely not understandable, sadly...

Regarding what you can hear/read online:

In real life it is simple. If you do not follow the rules of English grammar you are not writing or speaking in English. If you don't follow Tolkien's rules you are not writing his elf! Anyone who visits the websites dedicated to Elvish languages (Eldalie, Quenya.101, Ardalambion, etc.) or reads the books dedicated to them (those of David Salo, Ruth S. Noel, Pesch, Comastri, etc.) trying to learn Quenya or Sindarin, will be baffled by the array of many different and conflicting grammar rules. These sites and books never agree with each other. Why?

Because every author has invented his own rules.

We read from many writers (Drout, Pesch) and on the net that there are many “neo-elvish” languages: the neo-quenya and neo-sindarin. But it is not correct, neo-elvish languages do not exist or rather are not languages. Writing: Something wure mi expectatione [sic] does not mean that whoever wrote it is the creator of a neo-english language, the same with: Alaghioru saranno alboro dormirenene [sic] won’t make you the creator of a new neo-italian language. To create a neo-language one must first of all be a linguist, know the rules of a Tolkien elven language well and from there build a new elven language. What a job! Those who build what they call neo-Sindarin and neo-quenya only rarely mention Tolkien's grammars and almost never explain what they do (for example, I change this thing written by Tolkien, because I invented a certain new rule). What they build are not languages. They distort the little of what they understand about Tolkien's logopoeia at will.

u/GFKnowsFirstAcctName · 13 pointsr/linguistics

Holy crap I actually know this guy IRL. Uhm. Wow.

Yeah he's one of a dozen or so people in the world doing the work he's doing. He wrote a book a few years ago that is a translation of an Icelandic epic poem from the 13th century. Well worth the ~$15. I think my dad has a signed copy floating around somewhere.

He also worked with the production team of Frozen to help with translations, and providing cultural/linguistic authenticity to the story and worldbuilding.

He was also working on a retelling of the Star Wars saga in the style of an Old Norse epic poem a few years ago. IIRC he might have recieved a C&D from George Lucas's legal team for it, but don't quote me on that.

Super cool guy, incredibly knowledgeable.

Link to his retelling of SW: https://tattuinardoelasaga.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/tattuinardoela-saga-if-star-wars-were-an-icelandic-saga/

Link to the full pdf retelling of all 6 episodes (then extant) of the Star Wars saga: https://tattuinardoelasaga.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/tattuinardoela-saga-complete.pdf

u/SlothMold · 13 pointsr/suggestmeabook

A number of Margaret Atwood's books have won awards, including the Man Booker and Hammett Prizes for The Blind Assassin and the Governor General's Award for English language fiction and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for The Handmaid's Tale. A full list of her awards can be found here.

Alice Munro is another Canadian author who has won a number of awards for her (many) novels.

Cory Doctorow's science fiction novels have also won a number of awards, including the Locus and Prometheus Awards. Little Brother is YA and a free ebook.

In fantasy, Guy Gavriel Kay has won the Sunburst Award and Prix Aurora Award for novels like Under Heaven.

u/KevlarYarmulke · 13 pointsr/videos
u/Wiles_ · 13 pointsr/tolkienfans

The link /u/LittleLuthien posted is great, I would also highly recommend Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth. It's really helpful to keep track of what's going on especially for the battles.

u/NoYouTryAnother · 13 pointsr/slatestarcodex

You may be coming to conclusions based on far, far too little information to support them.

Nobody said "EA is interested in ending existence" (though that is an interesting stance to consider from, e.g. a contemporary nihilist perspective). You were told that EA has people dwelling on what suffering ultimately is, and in some inverse creation myth telling epic stories about what a future fight at a cosmic scale might look like.

u/balanced_goat · 12 pointsr/IWantToLearn

How to Read a Book. Actually really good and useful.

u/afrosheen · 12 pointsr/philosophy

If there ever was a post to be used as an example for a legitimate downvoting in this philosophy subreddit, it would be yours because you wrote a vapidly subjective statement lacking anything discernible with its sole purpose being, ostensibly, to respond pejoratively to another theory, stamped with "this statement is ok to say because I'm his fanboy" at the end.

Regardless, I searched for what I thought I missed in Chomsky's criticism of Lacan, and all I could find was what I originally knew, which was that he had a hard time understanding it and that Lacan was a charlatan, without basis. On obscurantism, just because it doesn't make sense or isn't born out of a rational empiricism doesn't make it an invalid theory. Hegel wrote an essay in response to such criticisms to his work called Who Thinks Abstractly.

If he was a charlatan as Chomsky says, where does he base this claim? Is it because his theory isn't original as they're based on Hegel and Freud? If that's the case then, well that describes 95% of philosophy professors who all they do is interpret other people's work. That's nothing new, I could say the same for most of my professors at the undergraduate level, but that doesn't mean I didn't learn from them or distrust them. I find what they do to be just as important as those who are creating 'new' ideas. For instance, postmodernists are not new since they are building on Nietzsche's philosophy that there aren't any totalizing universal objective truths. Thus that doesn't devalue the works like Foucault's who Chomsky is criticizing here specifically, because of how he describes the implications of Nietzsche's philosophy in modern society with the best example being from Foucault that the justice system is riddled with exercising power over others rather than the virtue within the ideal of justice due to the fact that human nature is nothing more than a concept rather than something definable which Chomsky believes it to be.

For the sake of argument here, in Discipline and Punish Foucault's point is that we might presume that our sophisticated judicial system has achieved progress by eliminating the execution of criminals for minor crimes such as stealing a loaf of bread, compared with past times. Yet the concepts of crime, criminals, prisoners, and justice developed through the human sciences produces social circumstances worse than those earlier executions for minor crimes. For instance, the concept of being constantly supervised leads to the effect of what Foucault terms 'docile bodies' which describes a form of subjection to power, whether it be politically, economically, or for warfare. And the sources that help create 'docile bodies' stems from the use of new forms of technology and the ways by which the human sciences have defined human nature which are too limiting conceptually and too stifling for human potentialities—all the while proceeding as if they were describing an objective reality.

Nietzsche points to this fallibility in the belief of objective reality in the human sciences in essays 23 and 24 in part three of Genealogy of Morals. In essay 23 Nietzsche writes:
>The ascetic ideal has a goal — and this goal is sufficiently universal for all other interests of human existence to seem narrow and petty in comparison; it relentlessly interprets periods, peoples, men in terms of this goal, it allows no other interpretation, no other goal, it reproaches, negates, affirms, confirms exclusively with reference to its interpretation (—and has there ever existed a system of interpretation more fully thought through to its end?); it subordinates itself to no other power, it believes rather in its prerogative over all other powers — it believes that no power can exist on earth without first having conferred upon it a meaning, a right to existence, a value as an instrument in the service of its work, as a path and means to its goal, to its single goal... Where is the opposition to this closed system of will, goal, and interpretation? Why does no opposition exist? Where is the other 'single goal'? But I am told that such opposition does exist, that it has not only fought a long and successful campaign against that ideal but has even already overcome it in all important respects: the whole of our modern science supposedly bears witness to this fact — this modern science, which, as a genuine philosophy of reality, clearly believes only in itself, clearly possesses the courage to be itself, the will to itself, and has managed well enough up to now without God, the beyond, and the virtues of denial. However, such noisy agitators' chatter has no effect on me: these trumpeters of reality are bad musicians, it is clear from the sound they make that their voices do not rise up from the depths, that the abyss of the scientific conscious — for today the scientific conscience is an abyss — does not speak through them, that the word 'science' in the mouths of such trumpeters is simply an obscenity, an abuse, an example of impudence. The very opposite of what is being asserted here is the truth: science today has simply no belief in itself, let alone an ideal above it — where it survives at all as passion, love, glowing intensity, suffering, it constitutes not the opposite of the ascetic ideal but rather its most recent and most refined form.

And in essay 24, Nietzsche describes how the ascetic ideal (which includes both religion and science) is inevitably linked to the obsession for the truth. And this obsession deteriorates the ability for humans not only in its condition, but its ability to see how it gives birth to an imposition of power through the use of knowledge, which Nietzsche also describes in almost every one of his works.

u/dboyd · 11 pointsr/lotro

As I play, I like to look up every name I come acress to see if it is canonical. Or, at least find out what it means. For example, there's a Malledhrim by the name of Goldagnir (http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Goldagnir). The word "dagnir" means bane, so, this person is the bane of Gol. Which makes me start thinking about who Gol is, or what it pertains to.

Just yesterday I was playing through the Enedwaith quests, and came across "The Huntsmen". He spoke of his Lord from the uttermost West, which is clearly Orome. Which makes this particular entity a Maiar, or at least that was my assumption. The game can't say that, since SSG doesn't have the rights to the Silmarillion, but they can certainly allude to the fact. The lotRo wiki agrees with me, as they have the race listed as Maia: https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/The_Huntsman_(NPC)

I also follow along with the Tolkien Companion (https://smile.amazon.com/Complete-Tolkien-Companion-J-Tyler/dp/1250023556/) and the Atlas of Middle Earth (https://smile.amazon.com/Atlas-Middle-Earth-Revised-Karen-Fonstad/dp/0618126996/). Lots of interesting information from those source that makes me see things in the game world I might otherwise disregard.

u/jekyl42 · 11 pointsr/tolkienfans

Oh, those are great posters. I visited the Bodelian years ago but didn't even think to check and see if they had a gift shop!

My gift recommendation would be The Atlas of Middle Earth, by Karen Wynn Fonstad. It's comprehensive, covering all of the books (I found the Silmarillion maps particularly helpful), and it is large, physically, probably at least 10"x14" so the maps are pretty easy to read. I received it as a gift myself, and it has become the non-Tolkien work I reference most when reading him.

u/[deleted] · 11 pointsr/books

I've heard good things about this:

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

It's just going to take practice. If you've spent your whole life reading popular scifi and fantasy (I don't know what you read), then jumping straight into something like Dostoyevsky or Joyce will be incredibly challenging at best. For many of these classics you can find annotated versions and countless online resources.

Personally, I'd start with an annotated edition to help curb your desire to jump on the internet every time something curious comes up. That can really take away from your enjoyment of the book.

Another thing would be to try and familiarize yourself with Ancient Greek and Roman texts, the Bible and other religious texts, Shakespeare, world history--basically the classics. You'll find that a good deal of the references, symbols, and allusions are likely rooted in these sources, and will be easier to spot and understand as you read more.

u/weezer3989 · 11 pointsr/printSF

There's a few resources out there, none perfect.

This is a short little bit by Gaiman on how to read Wolfe. Not specific to Book of the New Sun, and a little joking, but it's completely accurate. Approach Wolfe in that manner and you may get more from the books.

This is a dictionary/glossary that can be useful to link different parts of the series to eachother, and provides a lot of context as to the real world origins of words he uses. Wolfe invents a lot less words that it seems at first glance, almost every unfamiliar word is either just a really rare/archaic word, or is invented, but pulled from a real life reference. Sadly, it's a book and not freely available, but what can you do.

This is a wiki about Wolfe's works, kind of hit or miss, but the list of obscure words is useful, and some of the analysis/discussion is good.

This is the best regarded in-depth literary analysis of the series, but it's super dense and not a straightforward explanation by any means.

There's also a super long running mailing list about gene wolfe's work, but good luck digging anything useful out of it, it's just way too much with no organization.

u/eolson3 · 11 pointsr/StarWars

Joseph Campbell.


One key thing to remember: Campbell's work is
descriptive, not prescriptive. What I mean is that he was describing and interpreting the trends that he found in mostly ancient folklore, myths, and legends. He had no intention of creating a formula for storytellers to refer to, although this is now common practice.


Also, "Star Wars closely follows the monomyth" is really not a topic. You need to answer the "So what?" question. Why did Lucas do that? Where does he deviate from the monomyth? How does he use these common trends to tell a unique story? How does it reflect the time in which it was produced? You don't have to answer all of these questions, but you do need to address something beyond simply plugging in Star Wars characters and situations where appropriate.


You should probably seek out the Joseph Campbell-Bill Moyers collaboration
The Power of Myth*. Lots of libraries have a copy. It is much, much easier to digest than Campbell's original work, unless you are already familiar with a great number of myths and extensive academic terminology. The tv series by the same name is pretty good, as well. For a book that uses Campbell's monomyth but updates it with examples from modern media (and a prescriptive purpose), pick this up.


Source: Wrote master's thesis using Campbell scholarship as a resource.

u/Eusmilus · 11 pointsr/suggestmeabook

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.

u/Tary_n · 10 pointsr/TheHandmaidsTale

The estimated premiere is April 2018, similar to last year. The filming starts soon if it hasn't already. Moss stated that it will begin in September. It will be 13 episodes instead of 10 if the rumors are to be believed.

I assume they'll film primarily in Toronto, but since the world is expanding considerably - according to the showrunner - they may film in other locations as well. Here are some of the locations they filmed at last year.

Enjoy the rest of the show! (Also make sure to read the book, if you haven't!)

u/BaconMeTimbers · 10 pointsr/BettermentBookClub

The problem isn't the book usually, but the method towards digesting the material.

Here is the only book needed on that subreddit:

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading https://www.amazon.com/dp/0671212095/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_8cSXAb37CK2ZK

Because it has the ability to change any book into a long term influence.

u/AlwaysSayHi · 10 pointsr/printSF

Ha -- there's even a Gene-Wolfe-specific dictionary out there (Urth-centric, and it's awesome, if you've got the bug for his stuff).

u/gera_moises · 10 pointsr/DnD

There's a book about it The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth. It's an interesting read and it includes a pretty cool dicitonary and stuff.

It should be noted that the laguages spoken in the movies are modernized attempts at a complete laguage with proper grammar and everything, seeing as Tolkien never got around to fully fleshing out his languages.

u/wolf_man007 · 10 pointsr/worldbuilding

Are the underlined th and sh meant to be vocalized, like dh and zh?

edit: Also, if you don't already own it, I recommend this book. It looks like something you might enjoy.

u/SmallFruitbat · 9 pointsr/suggestmeabook

Might want to ask /r/YAwriters and/or /r/YAlit also.

While The Fault in Our Stars would be a good example of healthy relationships, I don't think Divergent is a meaningful pick if you want the main topic to be relationships and/or sex.

Some books that focus on context for relationships and sex instead of having it as a minor plot point:

  • Forever by Judy Blume
  • Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
  • Song of the Magdalene by Donna Jo Napoli

    /u/caseyoc's suggestion of Fangirl is another good one. Eleanor & Park, by the same author, is even more relationship-focused and building a relationship and consent is a huge part of the storyline.

    If you want to go off on tangents, Eve (terrible book) and The Jewel (better) are YA dystopias that deal heavily with consent and forced pregnancy. The Handmaid's Tale is a much better examination of the topic and accessible for high-schoolers.

    The Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy by Rae Carson and the Trickster books by Tamora Pierce also win kudos for the protagonists choosing to have sex in a healthy relationship, seeking out birth control, and waiting for it to take effect. Both are in a fantasy setting where this problem is commonly brushed off.
u/RockyMcNuts · 9 pointsr/getdisciplined

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book

http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095

Most of it, to me, is putting yourself in the author's shoes and internalizing the argument and asking yourself what fact set and thought process is leading him her to that conclusion, and how someone else's or your own view of the world might lead to a different conclusion.

Play devil's advocate and ask yourself how you would prove the author wrong (antithesis)... what would happen if you take the author's thesis to an extreme? Then maybe try to find the broadest, highest-level principles at stake and combine the antithesis with the relevant pieces of the author's thesis to arrive at a synthesis.

u/nolsen01 · 9 pointsr/IWantToLearn

I think we may be looking for the same things. I read a book a few weeks ago called Pragmatic Thinking and Learning that I found really helpful and interesting. Its not too expensive and if you have the money I'd recommend it. Don't be intimidated by the programmer talk, none of it is really relevant.

Last week, I discovered a wiki that gave great advice on learning and memory techniques that seemed like it would have been extremely useful. I've spent the last hour searching for it but I just can't find it. When I come across it, I will let you know.

Another book that I found useful a few months ago was How to Read a Book. Don't let the title undermine the books value; its an awesome book. Definitely worth looking into. I don't follow the advice given in the book very rigidly, but since I've read it, I've found that I approach books much more methodically and absorb the information much more easily.

Its great to see that there is someone else out there looking for the same sort of resources I'm looking for. The way I look at it, learning is a skill that can be developed and mastered. It is an interesting pursuit in and of itself.

I haven't found any single resource for this sort of thing but maybe we can put together a subreddit where we can pool our resources for things that may be particularly helpful.

u/relampago-04 · 9 pointsr/IWantToLearn

Off the top of my head:

  • As soon as you come across a term or phrase you don't understand, look it up. If you don't, you might get lost in the rest of the text. If you're reading a book with a glossary, review that before you begin reading.
  • Utilize the entirety of resources in a book. The table of contents, glossary, index, etc.
  • If you get stuck, you can always google something or ask online for further explanation. Ask for analogies, if that helps. You could ask /r/explainlikeimfive to simplify the concept for you.
  • Re-read the source material. Mortimer Adler, in his book How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, suggests reading a book three times to get a comprehensive understanding of it's contents.
  • Adler also suggests learning grammar, rhetoric and logic to improve reading comprehension.
  • Take notes and review them.
  • Mark-up the text if it's yours or if you have permission to do so.
  • Watching videos or listening to podcasts discussing/explaining the concepts might help.
  • Look-up close reading strategies.
  • Your diet and sleep quality could also affect your reading comprehension capacity, so make sure those are optimized. There are also supplements that can help with mental focus and clarity. Check out /r/nootropics for more about that.

    You can google "how to improve reading comprehension" for more suggestions/strategies.

    Edit: I've heard good things about the Feynman Technique. You could look that up, as well.
u/IthinkIthink · 9 pointsr/IWantToLearn

I'm currently reading "How to Read a Book"; it outlines and illustrates exactly how to read different types of books. So far I'd highly recommend it. There's also an Audible version.

u/tokumeikibou · 9 pointsr/Poetry

A much less serious but still worthy book is The Ode Less Traveled.
https://www.amazon.com/Ode-Less-Travelled-Unlocking-Within/dp/1592403115

It only really covers meter and classic forms, but it's very fun, has great examples and exercises to try at the end of every chapter. Plus you can get it for less than 10usd.

u/rabbithasacat · 8 pointsr/tolkienfans

His atlas is worthless, and his "lung map" is widely agreed to be the worst Tolkien-related map ever made. There's a lot of fun artwork in some of his books, and that's their value. Don't read them for the lore, history or descriptions of anything -- he'll steer you wrong. Hammond & Scull are a much better resource for lore and background. Robert Forster's a good source too.

Fonstad is the gold standard and the only source you need for maps, other than JRRT's and Christopher's own drawings, obviously. Her book is also the cheapest, so that's a good deal! As a bonus, it contains not just geography and locations, but also maps of many battles and journeys.

u/brandonmat · 8 pointsr/books

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

u/MaryOutside · 8 pointsr/AskHistorians

Ahem. Maybe this one is good.

u/kris10leigh · 8 pointsr/books

I think it's fine to admit that you developed a love of reading later in life! That said, while you scoop up some of the classics/recent favorites at your own pace, another book you might want to check out is "How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read," by Pierre Bayard.

>With so many important books out there, and thousands more being published each year, what are we supposed to do in those inevitable social situations where we’re forced to talk about books we haven’t read? Pierre Bayard argues that it doesn’t really matter if you’ve read a book or not. (In fact, in certain situations, reading the book is the worst thing you could do.) Championing the various forms of “non-reading,” How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read is really a celebration of books, for book lovers everywhere to enjoy, ponder, argue about—and perhaps even read.

I read it a couple years ago because I heard it was funny, and I've definitely noticed since reading it as a side effect I feel much less awkward talking to That One Guy who shows up at every book club I join and inevitably starts a thinly-veiled dick measuring contest of dropping the title of every "prestigious" book he can think of into conversation. It might be helpful in a similar way to you by providing some tips in general for approaching book discussions, and help you push aside some of those imposter syndrome-y feelings in the meantime while you keep working on building up your Goodreads "read" shelf for real.

u/Anarcho-Heathen · 8 pointsr/asatru

Welcome!

A Practical Heathen's Guide to Asatru is a great beginner book. Probably essential for new heathens.

If you want to start reading about the gods, the Poetic Edda is our main source for Norse mythology. I recommend Jackson Crawford's translation. I have it, and it is a simple English translation. Crawford also has a great Youtube channel about Old Norse language and mythology. Heathen Talk, the mods' Youtube podcast, is pretty good as well for getting a feel for everything.

u/blackbird2raven · 8 pointsr/heathenry

I second The Longship.

​

Asatru is a type of Heathenry. Heathenry is an umbrella term for religions, philosophies, piety, lifestyles that are based in Germanic Paganism and/or Germanic Pagan culture.

A good place to start is reading books.

Here are the ones I recommend:

A Beginner's book: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Heathens-Guide-Asatru/dp/0738733873/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542673929&sr=8-1&keywords=heathenry

​

And the Poetic Edda translated by Jackson Crawford: https://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Edda-Stories-Hackett-Classics/dp/1624663567/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542673980&sr=8-1&keywords=jackson+crawford

​

Also, for some spiritual music to meditate to, I recommend starting with

Wardruna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fnPwj1AMpo

And this song by Heilung: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqdk34f210w

​

Ancestors are very important to Heathenry, so I would meditate on some of your ancestors that have passed on, if you don't already.

​

Connect with the energies of your local land and woods. Some Heathens think these energies are literal beings called Land Wights. Some see them a bit more fluid and amorphous but still relational energies tied to the local land.

​

I also recommend learning a bit about the three major ritual forms: Blots, Sumbels, and Fainings.

​

At least, these are the places I would begin.

u/jdtait · 7 pointsr/tolkienfans

I’d recommend buying Karen Wynn Fonstad’s Atlas of Middle-Earth

u/Rockerpult_v2 · 7 pointsr/MapPorn

Do you have The Atlas of Middle-Earth? It's a great book, full of maps from all four ages.

u/MatheoMouse · 7 pointsr/LateStageCapitalism

Of course private prisons will be fine. They're the best way capitalism has devised for just removing people who are no longer needed from the system. Populations that are no longer needed to consume to keep up profit growth for the upper class are traded away into a system that funnels its profit into the upper class, it's a win-win for billionaires! Plus, these people were already oppressed and thus more likely to stir up trouble anyways, so throwing them in jail reduces the risk of riot and revolution! Don't forget that targeting only minorities breeds animosity between races and thus hurts class solidarity! Private Prisons are the ultimate neoliberal tool to maintain control over a population.

Discipline and Punish is more relevant today than ever.

Edit For those who don't know, the central thesis of "Discipline and Punish" is that the tools used in the modern day to ensure loyalty to the system originated within prisons as methods of discipline, and one of Foucault's broader points is that the modern system is ingrained physically into the way we act. We all step in line, we all stand for the pledge, we know the positions of work because we do this job 8 hours a day. The best way to see this in action is to look at how school's operate - with the pledge everyday, with the lunch lines ripped directly out of prison's, with lines down the hallway, raise your hand to speak, the authority figure in the room is infallible, etc... The way school's train children to be model citizens was a process perfected in the modern prison. (Modern being modernist era, early 1900s.)

This commentary was a bit more relevant in a time when most Americans, and Foucault is studying America mostly, were industrial workers, and this commentary has crossover with Albert Camus and his Theater of the Absurd, where he would go to factories and just have factory workers do simple exercises. These simple exercises revealed to the factory workers that their bodies hurt when they weren't being moved in the very specific repetition that factory work had them doing. Camus did this to build class consciousness in I believe Post-WWII France but I could be wrong about the timeframe.

u/heyf00L · 7 pointsr/Fantasy

This will help a lot.

Here's a book of theories. Some are probably crazy, but some of the stuff in here is surely correct, such as how to tell if a character is human, robot, or alien from their names.

​

u/exNihlio · 7 pointsr/printSF

If you are really intrigued, there is always, Lexicon Urthus and The Solar Labyrinth both of which explain many of the terms used and have a great deal of in depth analysis. Both are available as ebooks as well.

u/chunkyblow · 7 pointsr/books

I would recommend you purchase the Bloomsday Book. It was very helpful for me to read this while I was reading Ulysses. The book doesn't tell you how to interpret Ulysses, but it helps you to notice more of the references/inspirations/jokes in the story. Google books has a brief preview that you can use to see if it seems useful for you.

u/krisreisz · 7 pointsr/booksuggestions

You're better off just getting The New Bloomsday Book. It's basically a whole other book that's just annotations.

u/promonk · 7 pointsr/books

Well, it might behoove you to read Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man before you dive into Ulysses. Both books are more conventional in style than is Ulysses--therefore easier to read through--and both books have characters in them that appear in Ulysses. Dubliners will set you up for some of the themes regarding the ambivalence of Irish national identity in the bigger book, particularly the section titled "The Dead." Portrait also contains some of these themes, but is more important in that it sets up the character Stephen Dedalus, who is one of the two main protagonists of Ulysses.

There are two companion books that might help you while reading Ulysses that I recommend: Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses, which is a huge collection of glosses and notes explaining obscure references and history. It tends to be slightly more accurate than the other book I'm recommending, but the sheer volume of information can be overwhelming, and some of it is kind of pointlessly digressive.

The New Bloomsday Book is an excellent summary of the plot episode by episode. Blamires makes a point to show the intentional parallels between Ulysses and the Odyssey. Some of the hypotheses Blamires presents seem kind of far-fetched at times, and there are a couple of inaccuracies (at least in the edition I used), but on the whole I referenced this more than Ulysses Annotated.

I would also suggest that you pick a good edition of Ulysses to read. For too many reasons to relate here, Joyce kept revising it throughout his life and many differing editions exist. The Gabler Edition is the best synthesis of Ulysses textual scholarship and is considered the definitive edition in academic circles.

As for approach, I would suggest that you be patient. This is a book that's legendary for rewarding consideration and rereading. If you care to spend the time and effort you'd do well to read each section through without references, then read the synopsis in Blamires, then return to the text and read through while referring to Ulysses Annotated before moving on. You will see things you hadn't noticed before each time you read it, especially if you've read Dubliners and Portrait. However, this can be a bit much for a casual reader as opposed to a scholar, so you could do almost as well simply reading the sections and then comparing your observations and reading with Blamires and moving on.

Best of all would be to find or start a Joyce book club and read it through with them. This will slow you down enough to actually grasp some of the intricacies instead of just robotically scanning pages, and allows you to discuss and hash out ideas and interpretations.

Good luck, and have fun!

u/Kate_Pansy · 6 pointsr/linguistics

My friend got me The Art of Language Invention by the guy that invented Dothraki. It's all about inventing constructed languages. It's written for nonlinguists so some parts are boring to me, but I still really like it.

Would she be interested in a more kitschy gift? I've always liked loose lips make bilabial trills in whatever item she might need. Maybe a crocheted wug?

u/dnorg · 6 pointsr/IrishHistory

I always liked this version of the Cattle Raid of Cooley: https://www.amazon.com/Tain-Translated-Irish-Epic-Cuailnge/dp/0192803735

u/Bacarey · 6 pointsr/history

The big guys are all up in that The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

u/arwen9000 · 6 pointsr/lotr

This book along with careful readings of the book and watching of scenes in Elvish is how I learned. With a few other sites that I cannot remember the names of at the moment >.<

u/rcubik · 6 pointsr/lotr

Is it this book?. I seem to remember that book saying stuff like that. It's very wrong.

Sindarin has a thing called consonant mutation where the initial consonant changes depending on preceding words or other syntax related things. Perian is the base word, as in hobbit or a hobbit. I is the in Sindarin, which would change perian to i berian, the hobbit.

-ath is a collective plural suffix, e is a genitive singular article which confusingly is also i in the plural form which gives a different mutation changing p to ph as in Ernil i Pheriannath, Prince of the Halflings. Just Halflings would be Periannath.

(major, major grain of salt on this, I'm at work and can't thoroughly back myself up on all the specifics right now, but most of it should be right.)

u/goodnightlight · 6 pointsr/mildlyinteresting

I'm a little late but I would also like to say that reading Ulysses in a group is very rewarding, especially if lead by someone who has read and studied the text. I read it in college and our professor was a bit of a Joyce scholar and it made everything so much easier to get the context of. Additionally, the companion book that has all of the contextual explanation and references is a must buy if you are going to undertake it (http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Annotated-Notes-James-Joyces/dp/0520253973). Also, it wouldn't hurt to read The Odyssey first either.

u/sensible_knave · 6 pointsr/badphilosophy

Portrait's pretty easy. But fuck that, read Ulysses. The annotations are helpful.

u/dolphins3 · 6 pointsr/politics

Welp, I guess we're going to see how Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale plays out in real life. :(

u/Guimauvaise · 6 pointsr/ELATeachers

My MFA in Creative Writing is for poetry, so I apologize for the bias here.

One of my favorite books from my MFA program was Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Traveled. I highly recommend it as a primer for poetry. It's very approachable, has great examples, and includes exercises. Plus, it's Stephen Fry, so it has an enthusiasm and charisma that you don't always see in reference books like this.

I'd also recommend having both "free weeks" and structured writing prompts. Especially for people who aren't already comfortable with poetry, having a prompt of some kind can do wonders for getting started. You're likely to have students on both sides of the spectrum, so having a mix of free writing and prompts should be helpful. There are loads of prompts online if you get stumped.

Here are a couple of my favorite exercises:

  1. Once they've written a poem (and workshopped it, if you're going that route), have them cut it down to 100 words. Poetry is very much an art form that relies on compression and economy, and this exercise should help them understand just how much they can say in a few words.

  2. This would work for poetry and fiction: When you discuss imagery, pick an object and have them write down as many adjectives as they can for it in a couple of minutes. I usually pick "grass," but any object would work. Then ask what they came up with. In my example, the first words out of their mouths is almost always "green"...and that's the point. This is another compression exercise to a degree, but stress the fact that a reader can supply certain information on their own. Grass is green. Fire trucks are red. The sky is blue. Those adjectives are obvious and therefore not especially interesting.

  3. This would also work for both: Print out a bunch nouns and adjectives (enough that each student can have one set of each), but use "odd" words. Put each group of words in a separate envelope, and then have the students draw one word from each envelope and write a poem or scene with the resulting word pair. They could end up with "forested aardvark" or "celestial palm tree," and hopefully seeing words/concepts combined in new ways will spark some creativity. My poetry "guru" from undergrad said something that always stuck with me: "What you say will not be new, but how you say it should be." It is highly unlikely, nigh impossible, for your students to have an original idea for a poem simply because poetry has a long history...however, they can approach the idea from a different angle, with interesting images and diction, with an apt structure, and convey their ideas in a way that reflects their personalities.

    Have fun!
u/giblfiz · 6 pointsr/slatestarcodex

Sounds like a review written by someone using the crib sheet from "how to talk about books you haven't read"
https://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent-Read/dp/1596915439

u/Gand · 6 pointsr/tolkienfans

Karen Wynn Fonstad's The Atlas of Middle-Earth is a great companion read to the Silmarillion. It covers much of the history as well and is a great read for anyone who loves maps.

https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Middle-Earth-Revised-Karen-Fonstad/dp/0618126996

u/ebneter · 6 pointsr/lotr

The Atlas of Middle-earth is highly recommended; the detail in the maps varies depending on the scale, of course.

I believe that only the first edition was available in hardcover, and I strongly suggest getting the second edition as it makes use of information from The History of Middle-earth that was not available for the first edition.

u/begotten_not_made · 6 pointsr/occult

>I got about 2 paragraphs in and knew exactly who must have posted this.

I'm surprised it took you that long! You do know my username is prefixed to every one of my comments, don't you? But perhaps it's not all that surprising after all, in light of your "analysis" of what little of the article you managed to read. For it does NOT state that "you must be an intellectual." On the contrary, what it actually says is that "There is something 'magical' in art that cannot be explained intellectually, which touches us in ways we cannot put into words." (Emphasis mine.)

Perhaps this basic ability to understand what a sentence actually says is still beyond you. If so, then I recommend that you get a copy of Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book? In it you will read the following:

>The first level of reading is what we will call Elementary Reading. Other names might be rudimentary reading, basic reading or initial reading; any of these terms serves to suggest that as one masters this level one passes form nonliterary to at least beginning literacy. In mastering this level, one learns the rudiments of the art of reading, receives basic training in reading, and acquires initial reading skills. We prefer the name elementary reading, however, because this level of reading is ordinarily learned in elementary school. The child's first encounter with reading is at this level. His problem then (and ours when we begin to read) is to recognize the individual words on the page.... At this level of reading, the question asked of the reader is "What does the sentence say?"

Just as in the grades of school, one must pass beyond this first grade of reading comprehension before proceeding to the more advanced levels—among which is included what might be termed analytical reading. It is at this stage that one is first able to offer a critique of a work; but if we have not graduated to this level of comprehension, then we not competent to provide any such critique—whether positive or negative.

Still, I must give you some credit: for you were at least able to follow the advice given at the end of the second paragraph, where the invitation to stop reading was extended to those for whom the author's thesis might fall on deaf ears!

As far as finding the article "off-putting" or "condescending," I cannot do better than to quote Francis Bacon, who once remarked that "some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." This applies to the articles from Occult Mysteries as much as to my own comments. If you find that they are not to your tastes, then by all means pass them by in favor of something more sugary.

u/SnowblindAlbino · 6 pointsr/GradSchool

These are good resources. I'd also add the classic How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. I use it as the first text in my reading methods course and it works well with undergrads despite being a half-century old.

u/Smakula · 6 pointsr/Reformed

How to Read a Book. This would have saved me a lot of time and I would have gotten a lot more out of my reading had I read it before seminary.

u/tincankilla · 6 pointsr/Documentaries

let me fix that for you: there is a strong connection between low socioeconomic status and "deviant" behavior, which in the United States is addressed with incarceration. outside of a particular political context, there is no fixed relationship between any behavior and incarceration. Punishment is an artifact of culture and power. what prison looks like (punitive vs reform) and the use of prison against social deviants is a product of how a society defines good/evil and human motivation, which is why we see so much variation now and throughout history.

Start here: Discipline and Punish, Foucault

u/CharredHam · 6 pointsr/horror

It's not exactly a short story, but "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror" by Thomas Ligotti kept me up for weeks after I read it, and I still get scared sometimes thinking about it. Maybe I'm just a big baby, I dunno.


Edit: Amazon


My summary: This book is horror writer Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction book, but don't let that fool you. Ligotti attempts to tackle where horror comes from in the first place, and he does a remarkable job of kindling the imagination.

u/Agenbite_of_inwit · 5 pointsr/books

Next time you give Ulysses a go you should buy Gifford's Annotations and consult it when necessary. The book is readable and is well worth the work even without the Annotations. You just have to decide beforehand that you're not going to worry about catching every reference.

u/rakino · 5 pointsr/lotr

Atlas of Middle Earth

Unfinished Tales - Extra info on Gondor, Arnor, Rohan, Numenorean history, the Wizards, the Nazgul, Galadriel and Celeborn, etc. NB - This is actual Tolkien writing, not some amateur summary.

The Silmarillion - The complete history of setting, from the Creation, to the 'gods', Morgoth (Sauron's boss), the origins of the Elves, Humans and Dwarves. Has a great chapter called "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, which is basically the major points of the 3000 years leading up to LotR. NB - Actual Tolkien writing, but edited by Christopher Tolkien.

and of course:

The Lord of the Rings ! - Check out the appendices at the back of RotK for a bunch of extra lore material.

u/Eridanis · 5 pointsr/tolkienfans

Thought I'd provide some Amazon links to these fine suggestions, along with a few of my own.

J.R.R. Tolkien Companion & Guide US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0008214549/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Jc.DCb1A3J8V6

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Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/000755690X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Qe.DCbHG7HWXM

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Art of the Lord of the Rings US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0544636341/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_3f.DCbB8Y2ZNZ

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Art of the Hobbit US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0547928254/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_ng.DCbCX2CT65

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Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1851244859/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Vg.DCbSEH99RE

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Rateliff's History of the Hobbit US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CF6AZWK/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Dj.DCbGWY7970

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Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-Earth US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618126996/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Kk.DCbC2XF6NT

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Letters of JRR Tolkien US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618056998/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_ml.DCbREBRZH4

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Carpenter's Tolkien: A Biography US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618057021/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_xm.DCbY976PAE

u/juniorlax16 · 5 pointsr/MapPorn

No problem!

I'm guessing you have, but have you seen The Atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad?

u/EyeceEyeceBaby · 5 pointsr/lotr

In addition to what /u/Willie9 said, I highly recommend Karen Wynn Fonstad's The Atlas of Middle-Earth. It's got all of the maps in that post as well as many others detailing various battles, journeys, and other historical events in Tolkien.

u/Lightofnorth · 5 pointsr/books

The following suggestion is by no means condescending or even insulting at the least bit but How to Read A Book is a pretty useful resource in learning how to properly read, absorb and be engaged with any piece of literature that comes your way. Hope this helps!

u/mythealias · 5 pointsr/books

Right now I am reading How to read a book and would recommend reading it before you read any other book.

As someone said, ''All books are mute till you have read this one''.

u/ludwigvonmises · 5 pointsr/BettermentBookClub

Most book summaries are bad in that they don't connect the different themes in an intelligent way to actually allow your brain to comprehend the important details correctly and quickly - which is the point of a summary. The summaries in this sub are quite good, but only because there are committed people who did the really deep digging and can bring up the gems to show you in a comprehensible way.

Reading the book is always, always more beneficial than reading the summary (unless time is a factor, like cramming for a test). You won't get less content from reading the book versus reading the summary, but 99% of the time you will lose content from the summary.

If you are struggling with reading comprehension and retention, I absolutely recommend Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book. Read it all the way through, deliberately, carefully, then read it again a year later using its own tips. It has helped me get 40-50% more juice from each book since. It's a tremendous capital investment in your reading ability (which will serve you well here and in life).

u/handsfreetyping · 5 pointsr/SanctionedSuicide

If I can draw upon some of my influences (Thomas Ligotti, David Benatar, Arthur Schopenhauer, etc.), what would make me reconsider is a state of existence that is not malignantly useless, i.e. not characterized by pointless suffering for no discernible goal, with brief moments of pleasure to keep us running on the biological/evolutionary treadmill. I like to imagine that this existential problem encompasses all the "petty" concerns of a typical life (money, status, health, relationships, mortality, etc.).

If we accept the Benatarian asymmetry, then it follows that nonexistence (or at least, the absence of sentience), is an inherently better state than existence, since it contains no suffering and no deprivation of positive experiences that might occur during life. While positive experiences are a good thing, they're bought at the steep price of suffering and deprivation. The "weak" conclusion that follows from this is antinatalism, and the "strong" conclusion is universal suicide advocacy or efilism.

u/Revisor007 · 5 pointsr/natureismetal
u/iridescent_reverie · 5 pointsr/DDLC

I've yet to see that title, though I'll check it out. Gonna drop these here for posterity, as the're generally regarded as wonderful books on the various forms, mechanics and techniques of writing poetry. The more resources, the better, aye?

The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, Kim Addonizio

The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, Stephen Fry

A Poetry Hanbook, Mary Oliver

u/megazver · 5 pointsr/writing
u/kabiman · 5 pointsr/conlangs

The easiest way: read the language construction kit, or this book. It will give you the basics.

Other than that, lurk on this sub and read some wikipedia.

u/theoldkitbag · 5 pointsr/movies

Sure.

Irish Mythology (as opposed to more recent Irish folklore) is divided into four 'cycles'. Each cycle contains tales dealing with certain subjects or characters.

  • The Mythological Cycle deals with the foundation myths of Ireland; the Tuatha De Danann, the Formorians, etc.
  • The Ulster Cycle deals primarily with the deeds of Cú Chulainn, which are encapsulated also in The Táin - the 'Illiad' of Irish mythology. It also, however, contains tragedies such as Deirdre of the Sorrows.
  • The Fenian Cycle is like the Ulster Cycle in that it deals with heroes and their deeds, but has a distinctly less epic feel - usually concerning distinct incidents in the lives of heroes such as Fionn Mac Cumhaill or Oisín. It also relates another favourite Irish tragedy, Diarmuid agus Gráinne
  • Lastly is the Kingly Cycle, short fables that impart the qualities of great kings in the face of difficulty.

    Pretty much any and all of these tales are available in academic form online, but it makes it much more enjoyable to find a good prose translation by a good author. You can buy The Táin on paperback here, and Jim Fitzpatrick (the artist behind that famous Che Guevara image) has made a living out of creating fantastically illustrated versions of the Mythological Cycle.

    There are literally thousands of collections of Irish folklore, most of which are decent enough. Original collections by W.B.Yeats and Lady Wilde are also available online
u/gomorah · 5 pointsr/ireland

I really liked Kinsella's translation of Táin Bó Cúailnge (https://www.amazon.ca/Tain-Irish-epic-Bo-Cuailnge/dp/0192803735)

And if you're not in the mood for reading, Ronnie Drew has an "Irish Myths and Legends" audiobook that's on Spotify - it's pretty fun (bit cheesy, but that's fine, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZwYtDAN0wg)

u/LikeFire · 5 pointsr/writing

Yeah that came across more dickish than I intended.

A love of language definitely tends to produce better prose. Rhetoric has largely fallen out of favor and isn't taught in school which is unfortunate. Writers can abuse rhetorical devices but I don't see this as reason for not teaching the subject. If anyone is interested in studying rhetoric further I can recommend:

u/BadLaziesOn · 5 pointsr/JordanPeterson

Sokal authored and co-authored a couple of books on the matter. Check out Intellectual Impostures if you are interested in it deeper than a Wikipedia article. The US edition is called Fashionable Nonsense.

u/EnderVViggen · 5 pointsr/Screenwriting

I can't recomend or say this enough.

You need to read three books:

  1. Save The Cat. This book will give you the basics of how to write a script, and what points to follow.

  2. Here With A Thousand Faces. This is the same information you would get in Save The Cat, however, it's way more involved. This book isn't about screenwriting, it's about story/myth and how we tell them. READ THIS BOOK!

  3. The Power of Myth. Another book by Joseph Cambell, which explains why we tell stories the way we do, and why you should write your stories using the 'Hero's Journey' (see Hero With A Thousand Faces).

    It is important to learn these basics, as you need to learn to walk, before you can fly a fighter jet.

    Happy to answer any and all questions for you!!! But these books are a must!!! I read them all, and still have Hero & Power of Myth on my desk.
u/seanofthebread · 5 pointsr/books

The Bloomsday Book helped me immensely. Realistically, you should posses an encyclopedic knowledge of Catholicism, Literature and Irish history. If you lack that, turn to this guy.

u/directoredditor · 5 pointsr/booksuggestions

Bloomsday has a great guide, though it's a bit pricier.

u/Qeraeth · 5 pointsr/TwoXChromosomes

>Haha fuck off.

Logic and reason, presumably?

>I don't have all day to hang around reddit, and even if I did, I wouldn't care enough to go searching through threads to find reasonable comments that have been downvoted,

So you admit to making a politically motivated judgement based on incomplete data?

>Do you believe that no reasonable, or correct opinion has been downvoted for the way it was said in, Qeraeth?

Everything gets downvoted here, unfortunately.

>with me saying that if you have XY-chromosomes, you're born man, and XX, born woman. That is absolutely my entire point, and I'm not discriminating.

I explained at length why those conclusions are entirely inaccurate, ground in social ideas and not science, and that biological essentialism is inextricable from the discrimination trans people face. It is scientifically inaccurate (i.e. pop science), and it buttresses discrimination. So, no, you cannot escape the title of 'bigot' any more than a modern day phrenologist would.

>For the purposes of that statement I'm excluding all of the weird medical cases

Weird? My intersex friends send their regards to your arbitrary normalness.

>abnormal (which doesn't mean bad) chromosomal conditions.

You cannot separate the judgement of "weird" and "abnormal" from the implication that they are wrong, less-valid, or bad. Your disclaimer does nothing other than show the fact that you're trying very hard to have it both ways: cling to unscientific social ideas while saying you're all for equality.

You exclude intersex people (who are a lot less rare than you think) because they are an inconvenience to your argument. What makes them abnormal per se? Inability to reproduce? No, actually they can do that as long as surgeons don't butcher them at birth (you know, because they think they're weird and abnormal, and that there should only be two sexes). They empirically exist and for you to exclude them from any analysis of sex seems bizarre and table-tilting.

>Explain to me exactly how that makes me a woman-hater and a transphobic please.

Because it is not a fact.

You are going to discover that how we sex people is considerably more motivated by social ideals and politics and not purely objective science. You keep pretending your chromosome fetish is some kind of fact. It isn't, simply put.

Others might say you are "technically fact" (whatever that means) because we all still live with an understanding of essential sex, but others will tell you that there is no 'technical maleness' about trans women other than what people like yourself choose to project onto them. You cannot argue that trans men are essentially women or that trans women are essential men and not be called a transphobe.

You don't get to decide what transphobia is; the people who suffer from it do, (I know it's shocking, really, but the people who actually live with it may just know it when they see it).

It also makes you misogynist/misandrist because you're essentially defining women and men by their body parts rather than their selves. You'll probably wave your arms and go "but gender gender!" Gender and sex are both distinct and connected, and in a society where we tend to give more ontological weight to what we define as sex, it is problematic when you elect to label people against their will in these matters.

The essential idea that XY chromosomes or penises essential make men is not scientific. That's just how we chose to label things. The presumed essential sex is really just a laundry list of body parts, and as I said in my prior comment to you on the matter, even that changes when it comes to trans people.

I notice you also ignored the question about political correctness. Or have you realised that it's an empty concept used to bludgeon people who have a hard time being automatically respected on their own terms?

u/ObeisanceProse · 5 pointsr/books

Here is some quick advice from someone who studied Ulysses at a top Dublin University:

  1. Get Ulysses Unbound:
    This is a very well-respected guide. It doesn't hold your hand but gives you just enough to enjoy every chapter. The much more extensive Ulysses Annotated is also available for those who want more assistance but it is outdated now and full of errors.

  2. Use the Gabler Edition: The editorial history of Ulysses is just awful. The book is full of very precise jokes that have been lost with poor editing. Gabler goes back to the original manuscripts and tries to create a more faithful book.

  3. Take your time: We read a chapter a week and discussed it in class. A chapter a week is ridiculously slow for any normal book but perfectly reasonable for Ulysses, especially for your first read-through.
u/Ciax420 · 4 pointsr/badphilosophy

This is the only book you need to read.

u/meaninglessbark · 4 pointsr/gaybros

Having read some of the comments below here are some TV and book suggestions if you're interested in exploring some of Mr. Fry's work.

TV

A Bit of Fry and Laurie a sketch comedy show he did with his friend Hugh Laurie (Dr. House on TV's House. Yes, he's English.)

Jeeves and Wooster Television adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse books. (Wodehouse is definitely worth reading.)

Kingdom A typical quaint village TV show that's not particularly exceptional but is entertaining (if you like British TV).

Stephen Fry in America A really great series in which Mr. Fry drives through the United States in a London style cab meeting locals and making observations.

Also worth seeing: Last Chance To See and Black Adder.

BOOKS

The Liar I recommend this if you like clever writing and unusual stories but I read it well over 10 years ago and can't sum up the plot.

Hippopotamus An odd and humorous tale of a not exactly friendly middle aged man who is asked by an old friend to investigate some unusual goings on at a country estate.

Revenge A clever retelling of a classic story. (I won't name the classic as I wasn't aware it was a retelling until a ways into the book I realized the plot was similar to the classic. So, if you're interested in making your own discovery skip the jacket notes and site reviews.)

Moab Is My Washpot The first of Mr. Fry's autobiographies, this one covers his childhood and teen years. He's completely honest about growing up gay and also about the less than ideal fellow he was.

The Fry Chronicles Mr. Fry's second autobiography which covers his college years and the beginning of his professional career.

The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within A surprisingly interesting and informative book about writing poetry.

INTERNET

The New Adventures of Mr. Stephen Fry Mr. Fry's website.

Stephen Fry on Twitter

Stephen Fry on Tumblr

And for something really interesting and easy to access, watch (or listen to) a video free-form talk he did for a magazine or website. He makes some great observations and points about modern times, life in general, and how to be a happy and decent person.

u/D3FYANC3 · 4 pointsr/philosophy

Practice is paramount for philosophizing, more you read, discuss, and learn the more efficient you will get at it. It never gets easy, its always a lot of work, but you more or less learn the motions to it. Honestly one of the best books i have ever read was http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/0671212095 How to read a book. Best damn 15 i spent!

u/wellbredgrapefruit · 4 pointsr/reformedbookclub

How to Read a Book is a great book along these lines. It changed how I approached my reading list in some pretty dramatic ways.

u/inlovewithfate · 4 pointsr/logic

> Unfortunately, since that last class, I've fallen out of it and I'm not entirely sure how to get back in. I'm not very good at teaching myself things.

I think that self-studying is a skill. And just like any other skill, you become better at it the more and the better you practice it. If you aren't very good at it yet, then you probably just haven't done it much, or perhaps you haven't done it properly.

If you don't know where to start developing the skill, I highly recommend reading the article The Making of an Expert (PDF) by K. Anders Ericsson, published in the Harvard Business Review. It is a concise introduction to Ericsson's research on acquiring expertise, full of valuable insights. Some of the more useful and relevant ones are the importance of deliberate practice in acquiring expertise, how long it actually takes to become proficient in a field of expertise, and the fact that the final stage in acquiring expertise involves no instructors (i.e. it is characterized by self-studying).

I also believe How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler to be useful in developing this skill. This book describes the difference between present teachers, like the ones you can interact with in an educational institution, and absent ones, such as the authors of books. It then lists a number of very useful general guidelines on how to approach learning from these absent teachers, followed by some more specific ones describing how to approach different kinds of reading matters. It is essentially a self-studying guide.

And since this is /r/logic and you expressed an interest in getting back into the subject, my final recommendation is A First Course in Mathematical Logic by Patrick Suppes and Shirley Hill, which is an exceedingly lucid, accessible, elementary and rigorous introduction to logic. It is very well-suited for self-studying and might be a useful refresher, although depending on the courses you've taken and how much you recall from them, it may be too elementary for you. I posted a more detailed description of the book in a different thread on here a few days ago.

u/thecheatonbass · 4 pointsr/IWantToLearn

How To Read A Book.

A great novel that will teach you about the different types of books, how to take notes, make outlines, and read for understanding in general.

u/tamupino · 4 pointsr/IWantToLearn

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0671212095?pc_redir=1414393418&robot_redir=1

Excellent book. This was given to me as a gift before college, and I single handedly give it credit for getting me through the tough literature of my theory and philosophy classes.

u/creamyrecep · 4 pointsr/europe

The notion of public being enraged and oppressing the individual can only be uttered in the presence of a self-ruling society. Because in that case the majority opinion rules the state elements. So when we say, "protecting the individual against the public" we are talking about ensuring your rights in the presence of the state.

What you are suggesting seems to be more in the lines of social elements rather than legal. The guarantees brought by human rights' main function is against the state. They protect the individual from a legal person rather than a real one.

Laicité is not something that directly protects the person from raging crowds of belivers or non-believers. It allows people to not be in a advantage or disadvantage for freely practicing their religions, because it bans the state from getting involved. Now, freedom of religion is a different concept than laicité. Freedom of religion can exist in a Theocracy too for example. Such country(Say it's Christian) can allow Muslims to form sects, cults and let them pray whenever, wherever and still only let Christians in the government offices and ban other religions/atheists from many benefits. Laicité however offers a more prosperous society by effectively banning the state from anything religious.

I mean it should be taken into account that in case of freedoms usually the part of state is argued rather than the general public however democratically represented the public opinion is. That is because the legal system actually has effective power over violations. Written words do not hold much power over the simple man. It is the actual political power that does.

You can read this book to have an idea about how civil unrest is prevented or made

u/obiwanspicoli · 4 pointsr/books

Awesome. I hope you enjoy it.

When you take the plunge, consider picking up a copy of Lexicon Urthus, it is an encyclopedia of words, characters and terms used in the Urth Cycle.

Most of what you encounter is easy to find with a simple google search but the reference book collects it all in one place and puts things in context for you. It can be a little spoilery if you look-up characters and read the full entry but if you stick to looking-up words I think it will be a great help.

The Urth List is a valuable resource as well. When you're done (or while reading) if you have theories or questions -- as you undoubtedly will -- you can search there and find a lot of old discussions and thoughts.


Still, now that I've written all of that I am not sure...looking back some of my enjoyment was not knowing what the hell was going on half the time.

u/wciaz · 4 pointsr/antinatalism

Sure can. I didn't know anything about academic moral phil - was genuinely convinced that by being moral realist-negative utilitarian-antinatalist vegan I'm automatically higher than breeding, meat eating, nihilist, positive utilitarian pleb. Well, I probably were anyway, but after some hardcore reading I'm now mostly moral skeptic and prioritarian (still a childless herbivore, tho).

There's an uncontroversial 3x3x3 division of ethics: meta-ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics. There are three main normative positions - deontology (or duty-based theories), virtue ethics (by far the smallest, but not least interesting) and consequentialism (which divide into utilitarian school [the sum of consequences matter], egoists [only consequences for the perpetrator matter] and altruists [only consequences for others have moral weight], to make up for another 3). Utilitarianism is the broadest, besides the difference between positive and negative it can also be total and average, preference and hedonistic. For more details, Singer's Point of View of the Universe is a highly recommended reading.

SEP is a great resource (IEP is also cool if you don't understand something on previous encyclopedia; use Wikipedia only when something's lacking there). There are two important paradoxes in so-called population ethics you must know something about Repugnant Conclusion and Non-Identity Problem. Incidentally, I believe antinatalism in general is a sound solution for them.

As for AN itself - Three seminal works by Benatar - Why is it better to never come into existence, BNTHB, Debating Procreation should do the trick. Additional reading may or may not include: Cabrera, Harrison and Tanner, Licon, Larock, Belshaw. For a summary of more continental-oriented pessimism, check The Conspiracy Against The Human Race, as it's still unmatched in scope and has a rich bibliography (True Detective creator supposedly ripped-off some lines from Ligotti).

Not necessarily AN, but truly eye-opening is Becker's Denial of Death. And obviously, before getting into a serious discussion you ought to finish your logic 101 course; know the difference between validity and soundness, what a syllogism and enthymeme are, etc. Oh, and the three dead Greeks (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) are literally everywhere.

People at /r/askphilosophy are helpful, people on /r/badphilosophy could indirectly suggest what to avoid (with a grain of salt).

Other links that might be of interest:

http://socrethics.com/
https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl

u/InertGasAsphyxiation · 4 pointsr/Incels

Rust was such a great character. The guy who wrote True Detective stole a bunch of shit from this book, some of Rust's dialogue is pulled from it literally word for word. That's probably why season 2 was so shitty. The book is a really good read though.

u/Storysaya · 4 pointsr/antinatalism

You might say there's...mm a conspiracy against the human race? (You may be familiar, but if not: http://www.amazon.com/The-Conspiracy-against-Human-Race/dp/0984480277)

u/kaliena · 4 pointsr/writing

If you're feeling sadistic, go read Self-Editing for Fiction Writers

I can guarantee you that you will pick apart EVERYTHING you try to read for pleasure for at least a few months after. You'll be able to identify, in painful, precise detail, what you hate about the YA voice and what you would change in what you are currently reading.

Try to avoid reading your all time favorite author. It's never good to meet your Gods.

u/blue58 · 4 pointsr/booksuggestions

That's a deep rabbit hole, if you allow it.

There are different books for different parts of writing. Some focus on plot [Story Engineering], others talk you out of blocks [Bird by Bird]. Some deal with immersion [Wired for Story], others warn you of newbie errors [edit yourself]. Some only talk about the first page. [Hooked]

If you specify what you want the most, I can probably get more specific. The best way to deal with grammar, other than the dry "Elements of Style", is to take a free Cousera course, or OWLs online and test yourself. I also love this blog for crazy awesome advice both current and in her backlog.


Edit: Also too: Might as well hang out at /r/writing and pop in from time to time at /r/grammar

u/GunnarHamundarson · 4 pointsr/AskHistorians

I would check out the Icelandic sagas. While most of them focus on families or individuals, they have many of the trappings of legends. A few of my favorites:

The Saga of Egil Skallagrimson: Tales of a semi-historical Norwegian skald (poet) who gets into fights, recites poetry on the fly, engraves runes both to cure and to curse, and swears vengeance upon the King of Norway for daring to exile him to Iceland.

Njal's Saga: A family saga, detailing the family feud between two major Icelandic families, and how easy it was to spiral from petty fighting to outright murder. Also features Gunnarr Hámundarson, a remarkable warrior who, once he was outlawed, refused to leave his home in Iceland and decided to enact a heroic stand against his pursuers.

The Poetic Edda: You mentioned this one above, but it's worth seconding it. The Prose Edda and The Poetic Edda are both great reads and explain so much of how we view Norse mythology.

Heimskringla: One of the greatest sagas known to us, written by Snorri Sturluson. It details the history of Norway from the mythic past up to Snorri's present day in the 13th century. It's very long, but has some amazing legends and stories, especially about Harald Hard-ruler and his adventures working for the Byzantines.

Eyrbyggja Saga: Hard to find, but if you can, there's a section detailing what happens when zombies invade a Viking's home in Iceland. Spoilers: it involves Viking lawyers.

On the Irish side, if you can find the Ulster Cycle, it's worth a read; I think we get a lot of our popular Irish mythologies from that cycle. This one on amazon doesn't look bad, I think it's focused on the Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley) side of the stories.

u/jcrabb7 · 4 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

For those interested, this is a great book on metaphors and how they shape our understanding of the world.

Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors We Live By
http://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/0226468011

This book/class I took totally blew my mind.

u/anuvakya · 4 pointsr/linguistics

Not so casual and perhaps not exactly what you're looking for, but definitely read the Linguistics Wars by Randy A Harris. It's enjoyable, extremely rigorous (it came out of Harris's PhD dissertation) and very, very insightful: it digs really deep into one of the most controversial period of linguistics in the United States. The author even went through underground notes. The best part about it is that it doesn't require you to be a linguist but it's even better if you are; a lot of things in there you simply can't get from modern textbooks and you get to learn how linguistic ideas originated and evolved. He has a second edition coming out so you might wanna wait for that.

For something perhaps surprising and illuminating: read Metaphors We Live By by Lakoff and Johnson. Most people I know were impressed at how pervasive metaphors actually are in language and cognition. It's very intuitive and sensible once you get the gist of it. This one is quite specific though.

Finally, although now I don't quite agree with it, Language Instinct is what lured me into linguistics so definitely check it out.

These books are quite old now and obviously linguists know much more (although not nearly enough) about language today than they did back then. Claims are also often exaggerated (with the exception of the first one, I think) but they're fun to read and will interest you for sure.

u/thechao · 4 pointsr/funny

You should read Alan Sokal & Jean Bricmont's "Fashionable Nonsense". Alan Sokal published a parody of post-modernist lit-crit in fairly respectable journal. There was nontrivial backlash when he went on to write about how he had published total nonsense, etc. etc.

u/pale_blue_dots · 4 pointsr/DMAcademy

If anyone is looking for an author that is very, very, very knowledgeable on mythological matters and the historical relations and importance of it all, take a look and read anything by Joseph Campbell.

u/RocketMoonBoots · 4 pointsr/politics

It's tribalism and uneducated barbarity, really.

If you want some reading material that will blow your freakin' mind, read AND listen to The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. He researched and studied humanity's relationship to myth and story-telling in excruciating detail and was able to write and talk about it in such a way as to make it entertaining and educational. Seriously - reading and watching the interviews will change your life for the better forever.

u/callmechainmail · 4 pointsr/todayilearned

Absolutely read Ulysses. I'm not sure I could have done it without a class to guide me, but if you're clever and determined you can do a decent job on your own. If you do, I'd highly recommend keeping two things close at hand: The Bloomsday Book by Harry Blamires, which gives you barebones but crucial information about what's literally going on in the narrative, and the Oxford English Dictionary.

The great thing about Joyce is that his writing rewards any amount of work – the more time you spend figuring out why the text does what it does, the better you'll respond to the material. So take a class if you can, but give Ulysses another shot. It'll get under your skin in a serious, lifelong kinda way.

u/bearily · 4 pointsr/ftm

Here's my list so far. It's a mix of FTM-specific, general trans, and gender studies books, including essays, memoir, and more academic works. In no particular order:

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler


Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein

Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman


Nina Here Nor There by Nick Krieger

Female Masculinity by Judith Halberstam

Nobody Passes - Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore


Whipping Girl by Julia Serano


How Sex Changed: A History of Transexuality in the United States by Joanne Meyerowitz

Becoming a Visible Man by Jamison Green

Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer by Riki Wilchins

PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality edited by Carol Queen

Genderqueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary edited by Joan Nestle

From the Inside Out: Radical Gender Transformation, FTM and Beyond edited by Morty Diamond

Second Son by Ryan Sallans

Why are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

and the must-read fiction:

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

I'll edit this if I can find any others, I'm probably missing a couple. Been a big non-fiction reading year for me!

EDIT: Edited to add links, and a few more on my wish list I haven't picked up yet.

Letters for my Brothers: Transitional Wisdom in Retrospect edited By Megan M. Rohrer, M.Div. & Zander Keig, M.SW.

That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men by Lori B. Girshick

Just Add Hormones: An Insider's Guide to the Transsexual Experience by Matt Kailey

The Testosterone Files: My Hormonal and Social Transformation from Female to Male by Max Wolf Valerio

u/venusxtrap · 4 pointsr/rupaulsdragrace

Oooooh, child, there is a lot of great stuff out there for you. Don't worry about not finding material.

  • First of... "class just started"?? ew, are you doing a Maymester?! I will pray to the Drag goddesses for you.

  • Second. How do you see the structure of the paper panning out? How are you using the documentaries? Because it seems like you could do a paper on depictions of drag (as fashion elements) in film alone and that already might make for an interesting paper. And that way you could also look at non-documentary works... Priscilla Queen of the Desert, La Cage aux folles, John Waters' early movies, Ma Vie en Rose, Hedwig, and Bad Education are all wonderful films. And plenty have been studied academically and have that kind of ~intellectual~ prestige that teachers love.

  • I think "Notes on Camp" is good, but Sontag's text is pretty introductory, and a lot of scholars have built up (and taken down sometimes) on what she's said. I wrote a paper last semester on Pierre et Gilles for a class on contemporary art, and my most useful book was Camp, Queer Aesthetics, and the Performing Subject: A Reader. It's sort of this big encyclopedic book on past and contemporary scholarship on camp theory. There's a lot of great stuff on there, and I'm sure you could mine their bibliographies and expand your research that way.
  • The other ~canonical~ text on drag is probably Judith Butler's Gender Trouble
  • My other favorite (contemporary) book on drag is Jose Esteban Muñoz' Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics
    He looks at drag from a cultural/ethnic perspective. Great read. Not all chapters would be applicable to your paper, as his scope is much larger than drag (as is Butler's), but he does devote a significant portion of his writing to Vaginal Davis.

    Let me know if you have any questions! I love this stuff. Good luck on your paper!

u/WillWeisser · 3 pointsr/scifiwriting

"How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy" is a good book, there's some useful stuff in it. But for a raw beginner it doesn't hold a candle to Ben Bova's "The Craft of Writing Science Fiction That Sells" (http://www.amazon.com/Craft-Writing-Science-Fiction-Sells/dp/0898796008).

Some other books I recommend:

http://www.amazon.com/Characters-Emotion-Viewpoint-Techniques-Viewpoints/dp/1582973164

http://www.amazon.com/Self-Editing-Fiction-Writers-Second-Yourself/dp/0060545690 (note: despite the title, I'd recommend reading this before you write a book).

http://www.amazon.com/Writing-10th-Anniversary-Memoir-Craft/dp/1439156816

Mr. Coorlim is right however that you should ignore anything you read about the business side of writing. It's all changing too quickly now for any book to keep up.

u/ngoodroe · 3 pointsr/writing

Here are a few I think are good:

Getting Started

On Writing: This book is great. There are a lot of nice principles you can walk away with and a lot of people on this subreddit agree it's a great starting point!

Lots of Fiction: Nothing beats just reading a lot of good fiction, especially in other genres. It helps you explore how the greats do it and maybe pick up a few tricks along the way.

For Editing

Self-Editing For Fiction Writers: there isn't anything in here that will blow your writing away, land you an agent, and secure a NYT bestseller, but it has a lot of good, practical things to keep an eye out for in your writing. It's a good starting place for when you are learning to love writing (which is mostly rewriting)

A Sense of Style by Steve Pinker: I really loved this book! It isn't exclusively about fiction, but it deals with the importance of clarity in anything that is written.

Garner's Modern American Usage: I just got this about a month ago and have wondered what I was doing before. This is my resource now for when I would normally have gone to Google and typed a question about grammar or usage or a word that I wasn't sure I was using correctly. It's a dictionary, but instead of only words, it is filled with essays and entries about everything a serious word-nut could spend the rest of their^1 life reading.

^1 ^Things ^such ^as ^the ^singular ^their ^vs ^his/hers

Publishing

Writer's Market 2016: There are too many different resources a writer can use to get published, but Writer's Market has a listing for Agents, publishers, magazines, journals, and contests. I think it's a good start once you find your work ready and polished.

There are too many books out there that I haven't read and have heard good things about as well. They will probably be mentioned above in this thread.

Another resource I have learned the most from are books I think are terrible. It allows you to read something, see that it doesn't work, and makes you process exactly what the author did wrong. You can find plenty of bad fiction if you look hard enough! I hope some of this helps!

u/mcrumb · 3 pointsr/AskReddit

A couple quick thoughts:

1> You have to really commit to your story. We're talking marriage level commitment here, none of this half-hearted crap. Treat your characters like they are real. Tell them that their story is worth telling, and promise to tell it for them. This is, of course, only necessary if you're really serious about writing a book. Otherwise it's just silly.


2> Set a daily quota. 1000 words a day. On days that you can't find any new words for your story, write notes about your story. This means writing when you don't feel like writing. This means closing your browser.


3> You can learn how to write a book. Natural talent is important, but your work ethic is much more important. There are more than a few instructional books out there that are very good. I recommend starting with Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. It's exceptional, and the chapter on active voice versus passive voice is critical to effective storytelling.


Best of Luck to you. Looking forward to reading more.

u/neotropic9 · 3 pointsr/writing

It depends on your goals with the project. It is okay to do literally nothing for creating a fictional language, beyond saying that some people in your world speak it; or you can go all out and design a language according to linguistic principles. There is a real art to this. This book is a pretty cool entry point into the art of conlangs (constructed languages).

If it's something you're interested in, definitely do some more reading on conlangs, but recognize that it is a huge time commitment to do it well. For most stories, you can get away with a superficial gloss of constructed languages. But once you have signaled to your reader that you are taking it seriously, they will expect you to do it well.

From the perspective of overall story execution, this is an issue of managing reader expectations. Readers will not expect writers to craft full functional languages with their own linguistic rules and etymological history. But if you promise them that you are going to--by presenting your book in such a way that gives rise to this expectation--then you either deliver or you disappoint.

u/thestickystickman · 3 pointsr/neoliberal

You could read his book if you're actually interested in conlanging. There's also /r/conlangs

u/ShabtaiBenOron · 3 pointsr/france

La culture, probablement pas (il me faudrait peut-être des détails sur quels aspects de cette culture vous avez en tête), mais les matériaux à disposition oui. Prenez les runes germaniques, scandinaves ou anglo-saxonnes, elles ont des tracés anguleux car on les écrivait surtout en les gravant dans du bois ou de la pierre, graver des courbes est plus dur.
En revanche, les écritures d'Asie du Sud comme le cinghalais, le birman ou le javanais sont souvent très rondes car elles s'écrivaient traditionnellement avec un stylet sur des feuilles de palmier, que des lettres anguleuses risquaient de percer.

Des livres, je ne saurais pas trop dire, car j'avoue que mes sources sont surtout des articles universitaires sur Internet ou des sites comme Omniglot. Si vous préférez les livres quand même, The World's writing systems est une sorte d'encyclopédie des alphabets anciens et modernes, il y a donc pas mal d'informations historiques dedans.
Pour inventer une écriture, je peux vous recommander The art of language invention de David J. Peterson (le créateur du dothraki de Game of Thrones), qui possède un chapitre bien fourni sur l'histoire de l'écriture, ses différents types et comment en inventer.

u/DearKC · 3 pointsr/writing

David J Peterson used GRRM's basics of Dothraki to create the language we see in the show, complete with syntax, tense variation, etc. etc. He wrote a book called The Art of Language Invention. He had an interview with Trevor Noah not to long ago where he gives a very brief interview.

u/ameliabedelia7 · 3 pointsr/casualiama
u/trysca · 3 pointsr/mythology

Read the Tàin translation by Thomas Kinsella The Tain: Translated from the Irish Epic Tain Bo Cuailnge https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0192803735/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_GHNtDbYX3YTFF

u/sab_eth · 3 pointsr/suggestmeabook

YES! I studied Irish mythology in University, so here a few of my favorite texts :)

The Tain is a lovely translation of the Tain Bo Cuailnge ^(sounds like "toy'n bo cool") which is the primary source of written mythology. It's dense.

Over Nine Waves is also, in my opinion, an imperative supplementary text on the myths and legends as well. It feels less academic.

The Lore of Ireland is just that - a book of Irish lore.

As for Samhain ^(I can't figure out how to properly give you a "sounds like" since I don't have little phoneme symbols - but basically like "sahwin") itself, I'm not sure whether holidays are out-right discussed in these texts. I will say, if you do find it - it'll be mostly in lore as opposed to myth or legend. Most Celtic holidays are focused on the changing of the seasons (like all holidays, really) and their connection to the Land of Eternal Youth (Tir na nOg - you can actually pronounce this one like you might expect it to be said) and the Tuatha De Danann ^(sub a "w" for the "th").

If you're looking specifically for myths dealing with faeries, they'll also be in lore. Myths/legends usually refer to the great heroes like Cuchulain ^("cuh-cul-lin") (there's a statue of him in the post office of downtown Dublin in honor of the Easter Uprising during the Irish revolution! Probably one of, if not the, most important myth/legend. In the war between gods and man, he almost single-handidly defeated Madb ^("mave") and her sons in a battle that last weeks/months/yeards depending the variation. He tied himself to a post as he was dying in order to look like he was still alive and held off attacks until crows landed on his shoulders and started eating his body. Basically. It's way better than my telling lol..) and gods and the cycles of power over the land itself.

Okay, fine, I'm done. Sorry for being so long-winded!

Oh! If you're looking for less heady material, I would also recommend Lady Gregory and Yeats. They were mythology nerds and wrote tons of plays/poems/retellings. L.Gregory's Grania is my favorite retelling of Grania and Diarmuid! I actually got a tattoo of one of the lines from the play in Ireland the first time I visited :)

Happy reading!

u/brickses · 3 pointsr/Physics

I think the author of this article is discussed in this book. It's quite an entertaining analysis of misleading or incompetent use of science in social science and philosophy.

u/bertrand · 3 pointsr/philosophy

You can look at these for an examination of postmodernist authors on a case by case basis:

Higher Superstition

Fashionable Nonsense

The Sokal Hoax: The Sham That Shook the Academy

u/TheRealEnticer · 3 pointsr/KotakuInAction

you are on the right track. Most of what they teach in Communications, Sociology, 'Critical theory', 'oppression theory', 'deconstructionism' is PoMo non-sense. I suggest you read this :
Fashionable Nonsense

http://smile.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science/dp/0312204078/ref=smi_www_rcolv2_go_smi?_encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

If you come across people who are fans of : Simone deBouvoir, Foucault, Dworkin, Solanas etc.

u/cubitfox · 3 pointsr/books

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell.

It changed my intellectual landscape at a young age. It's about comparative mythology, but it will open your world to the intellectual curiosities of art, religion, sociology, anthropology, mysticism, metaphysics and much more. A beautiful, eye-opening read.

u/Surprise_Buttsecks · 3 pointsr/elderscrollsonline

Campbell said something similar in The Power of Myth though he was referring to the appeal of the use of Latin in Catholic rites. The idea's the same, though.

u/youreillusive · 3 pointsr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

SO MANY!

["Lies my Teacher Told Me"] (http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281) by James Loewen. This is about how the world really works, basically. It's all about history and politics and economics and how world powers interact with each other and their own population. It's incredibly eye-opening and will make you understand why everything is the way it is today! It's also ridiculously fun to read :D

["The Quantum and the Lotus by"] (http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Lotus-Journey-Frontiers-Buddhism/dp/1400080797/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383171898&sr=1-1&keywords=the+quantum+and+the+lotus) by Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Xuan Thuan. This is a super fascinating read! It's actually a transcribed conversation between a Buddhist who became a quantum physicist and a physicist who left science and became a Buddhist! It's this AMAZING look into complicated science and it's explained in such simple terms anyone can understand it. But beyond that, it's this really fascinating glimpse into a world where science and spirituality can co-exist. It's like science explaining spirituality, or spirituality giving a wholesome quality to science. It's just so unique and amazing!

["The Power of Myth"] (http://www.amazon.com/Power-Myth-Joseph-Campbell/dp/0385418868/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383172215&sr=1-3&keywords=joseph+campbell) by Joseph Campbell. If you can, read EVERYTHING by this guy that you can get your hands on! This book is especially poignant because it's addressing all of the aspects of our modern day society, from religion to gangs to marriage, even education. It is incredibly powerful and eye-opening and explains so much about the way we work as humans and the way the individual interacts with society. Plus, you'll learn a shit ton about mythology that you never knew before! And you'll be looking at mythology from a ridiculously profound perspective that I've never seen anyone else address before.

I can give you more if you tell me what you're interested in learning more about :)

EDIT: Typos.

u/Bullsfan · 3 pointsr/politics

What about this thesis? United States Evangelical Christians have melded US culture with their perverted version of Christianity to an extent that things like The fruits of The Spirit, spiritual discernment, bearing fruit as demonstrated by good works & repentance are no longer pursued. As you unpack in your 2nd paragraph, American's are infatuated with quick fix thinking and tribalism. I contend that if every one of the R Voters were magically able to take a 2 week trip to a different part of the world, it would change most of their lives. It's isolation that remains a ball and chain on this group.

I am grateful that the Christian college i attended had a literature/writing professor who introduced the notion of "the myth of Christ" and had the audacity to assign Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth reading in his class. It took me a few years to digest Campbell. The notion of death followed by resurrection is a common myth among most religions in the world.

I have a gay brother and over time, have found it easy to dismiss the gay/lesbian dogma evangelicals hold near and dear. Living in Sin?: A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality by John Shelby Spong helped me think outside of the evangelical box on this issue. The 4 gospels are silent on homosexuality, i.e. Jesus said nothing on this topic. Why? If Luther's concept of sola scriptura is applied, the Bible based cases against abortion and homosexuality are weak. Few in this group understand this. It's easier to be bigoted and lazy, which unfortunately is very American.

u/Snifflebeard · 3 pointsr/lotro

Those are common suffixes and prefixes. Nothing in that rule saying there aren't other suffixes or prefixes, or that some common suffixes can be uncommon prefixes and vice versa. Don't read too much into this.

Unless you have a desire to be super strict about naming conventions, just do something that sounds about right. My Rohirrim Cappie has the name of "Eorsplittr Addldottr". If, on the other hand, you wish to be absolutely faithful to the lore, grab a copy of Ruth Noel's "The Languages of Middle-Earth". (Crazy prices for new copies, but cheap for used).

https://www.amazon.com/Languages-Tolkiens-Middle-Earth-Complete-Fourteen/dp/0395291305

u/Dain42 · 3 pointsr/PenmanshipPorn

Yes, more or less. It's actually a kind of fiddly matter sometimes. There are some English sounds that just aren't perfectly represented in either the Quenya or Sindarin modes of pronunciation for the Tengwar.

If you look at the title page of LotR, you can actually see an example of the Cirth (a runic alphabet similar in appearance to the Furthork) across the top and Tengwar across the bottom which collectively spell out an English phrase. These give some good hints at Tolkien's preferred mode for English, but there are still some omissions. (I have a copy that I worked on way back in high school. Please excuse the quality of the images. The bit that is left undone on the one page was from the Silmarillion, I believe.)

A good example of something that looks a bit off to most English speakers when just directly transliterated based on the consonant values given in Ruth S. Noel's book The Langauges of Tolkien's Middle Earth, the word "the" is represented just as "dh", because "dh" is commonly used to represent the voiced dental fricative (as opposed to the voiceless dental fricative, such as in the word "thing" or "thin"). So it's still the right sound patterns, just not represented in latin letters the way we're used to it. (At least according to the equivalents she gives.)

There are some other writing samples, too, as well as a multitude of posts on the internet proposing best-fit solutions for an English mode of writing for Tengwar based on evidence and some interpolation and guesswork.

More information can be found by reading the excellent book I mentioned (and linked) above or by reading Appendix E of Lord of the Rings.

TL;DR: YES

u/mushpuppy · 3 pointsr/books

I actually found that reading the pertinent sections of the Ulysses guide before each chapter helped.

I liked the Molly section of the book. But otherwise Ulysses really seemed to me to be essentially a written collage or mix tape, in that Joyce strung together so much of what he'd studied and called it a book. Which I don't mean as a slur against mix tapes or collages.

Did reading Ulysses give me insights into existence, as any great work of art should? Hard to say, though that last section was pretty good--not because of what all Joyce did, but because of the sheer disconnect between Bloom and Molly.

Probably I'd recommend reading at least half a dozen other books instead. Heck, Shantaram was more important to me than Ulysses.

The combination of Shantaram, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and A Fan's Notes taught me a lot more than did Ulysses, and they were far more fun, interesting, and quick to read.

u/AMcc20 · 3 pointsr/books

I must give that companion a look. I used the Bloomsday book and found it very helpful.

u/luksi2 · 3 pointsr/traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns

It being performative and constructive doesn't necessarily signify any degree of choice by any means. Most (hardcore) constructivists concede that, though we may recognize the ways in which we socially construct concepts, that doesn't at all mean we can change them on a whim; they're not objective values, but neither are they subjective values, they're intersubjective. Which means a constructed social conception is far from implying any sort of "choice".



I reckon you probably know it already, but this book comes very highly recommended in case you want to look more into the concept of constructivism within queer theory/gender studies, and an insight into the performativity of gender.

u/Tangurena · 3 pointsr/AskWomen

I took a number of women's studies courses. When I worked on my 2nd bachelors, I completed almost all of the requirements for the degree with women's studies classes.

If that is out of your price range (I had a lot of needed pre-reqs for a masters degree I had to hammer out anyway), perhaps they have some advice for a reading list.

Some books you may find interesting to read (your local library may have them):

Being Boys; Being Girls. This one is about how boys and girls learn masculinity and femininity as various ages.

Men's Lives. I had an earlier edition in one of my sociology courses. This one is about the construction of masculinity - how boys become men.

Gender Trouble. I had an earlier edition of this book in my gender courses. Butler's argument is basically that gender is a performance. We're all copying something of which there is no original. Could be confusing to read.

Whipping Girl. I recommend this one because it is a very readable book about becoming a transwoman. One way to understand how our society treats men and women differently is to see how things change as someone changes gender. It is the same person, but now how we treat them based on what is/isn't between their legs.

Ain't I A Woman. One of the influential works on Black Feminism. Some black feminists feel that the feminist movement is a bit too much focused on white women. The word "intersectionality" is frequently used to describe situation where racism and sexism collide - and that things get more complicated than just sexism or just racism happen.

As others have mentioned, I would recommend staying away from most blogs/tumblrs and sticking to published books and papers.

u/neofaust · 3 pointsr/Professors

Here's a few in the ballpark(?). Casting a wide net here, as your query could go in any number of directions:

Sylvia Federici -“Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour,”

Rosemary Hennessy – Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism

Judith Butler – Gender Trouble

Nancy Fraser – “Heterosexism, Misrecognition and Capitalism: A Response to Judith Butler”

Jose Esteban Muñoz – Disidentification

J.K. Gibson-Graham – Queer(y)ing Capitalism in and out of the Classroom



u/PiePellicane · 3 pointsr/Catholicism
u/KetchupBlood · 3 pointsr/Denmark

Crossley-Holland oversætter de nordiske mytologier til et mere gammeldags engelsk, som kan være svært at forstå for nogen.
I anbefaler at vælge Jackson Crawford's oversættelse af den poetiske edda. Den er mere ny, og er mere forståelig fordi det er oversat til nutiddags engelsk.

u/ThorinRuriksson · 3 pointsr/asatru

A few? He did the first 88 if I recall. Not the whole thing, but at least it's all of the practical advice section which is best suited for this style anyway.

On a bright note, the author (who shows great skill in translation by being able to accomplish this) is releasing a translation of the whole Elder Edda in modern English later this year.

EDIT: Now that I look again, by later this year I mean in three days. Awesome, now I know where part of my paycheck is going... I needed a new physical copy to supplement my digital anyway. Maybe I'll not give this one away for a while.

u/antiquarian · 3 pointsr/OkCupid
u/angryundead · 3 pointsr/books

The Stand is one of my favorites. I've compiled a list of other books that might be of interest to you.

Oryx and Crake

Handmaid's Tale

World War Z

On the Beach

Wool

The Road

u/stahlhammer · 3 pointsr/Norse

https://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Edda-Stories-Hackett-Classics/dp/1624663567/ The Poetic Edda by Jackson Crawford is good, he makes pretty interesting videos on youtube about Old Norse as well.

u/onyxandcake · 3 pointsr/BabyBumps

Marget Atwood not only is a brilliant wordsmith, but most of her novels are dystopian. She's a breath of fresh air in a mostly male-centric genre.

Preggokyla is right, start with The Handmaid's Tale.

u/proteinstains · 3 pointsr/TolkienArt

You might want to use Karen Wynn Fonstad's [Atlas of Middle Earth] (https://www.amazon.ca/Atlas-Middle-earth-Karen-Wynn-Fonstad/dp/0618126996/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1510527162&sr=1-1&dpID=51OtLVeyEmL&preST=_SX198_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch) to do your research. Maps of the earlier Ages and of regions outside the Western portions of the continent are sketchier than that of the Third Age, but there is still some good information to be gathered and that book is a major reference in that field. Wish you good luck in your endeavour. Your map is truly gorgeous!

u/johny5w · 3 pointsr/Fantasy

This one and this atlas are really good. The atlas would easily be worth it as a read on its own. The guide is kind of an encyclopedia with pretty much every name or place you could want to look up.

u/Mughi · 3 pointsr/lotr

Well, there are already a couple of concordances, plus Fonstad's atlas, Christopher Tolkiens' books, and countless others, some more scholarly, some less so. I really like the idea of an iOS app, but what sources are you going to draw from?

u/JoeMoney333 · 3 pointsr/gameofthrones

I would like one that shows the paths of the characters and battles. Similar to this but for ASoIaF. However I wouldn't want this till the series is finished.

u/Red_Erik · 3 pointsr/Infographics

I believe many of these graphics are from the Atlas of Middle Earth. It is a great book if you want to geek out on maps.

u/aves2k · 3 pointsr/AskReddit

Any one who is a fan of the LOTR maps should check out The Atlas of Middle-Earth.

u/MegasBasilius · 3 pointsr/AskLiteraryStudies

You seem to have the will and desire, which are more important than an education and natural intelligence. Diligence and discipline are everything in writing, not how 'smart' you are.

There are two roads you must take here, both simultaneously. First, you must become a great reader. Start off by reading authors who are 'accessible,' meaning they do not initially make great demands on their audience. In the west, these are authors like:

1.) Mark Twain (Huckleberry Fin)

2.) George Orwell (Any of his books)

3.) Ernest Hemmingway (Check out his short stories)

4.) Jack London (Call of the Wild)

5.) Jane Austen (Pride & Prejudice)

Here are the rules of reading:

1.) Read slowly. Imagine each scene in your head. Evoke your memory to make the text come alive.

2.) Read everything twice.

3.) Have a dictionary on hand and look up EVERY word you don't understand.

Here is a book recommending some of the best books in history. Each book has an introduction; flip through it and see what interests you.

Here is a book that provides a guide on how to read anything well.

Second, you must become an addicted writer. You must write everyday, it doesn't matter about what. The only key thing is that you enjoy it. Once you get into the habit of reading+writing, and you enjoy it, start looking into books that help you improve your writing. There are a lot to choose from; here are two examples:

1.) How to Write a Sentence, by Stanly Fish

2.) Elements of Style, by Shrunk and White

If you continue to read and write everyday, pushing yourself into more difficult books and more elaborate writing, you'll start to develop a taste for good reading/writing yourself, and be able to distinguish it in the world around you. From there, it depends on what your goals are. Good luck.

u/justcs · 3 pointsr/books

Adler's How to Read a Book sounds cliche but I highly recommend it.

u/SWFK · 3 pointsr/Reformed

After many verbal recommendations from him, I finally borrowed How To Read a Book from a friend. It's an incredible book, and it has a lot to offer especially if you've never been trained in logic, liberal arts, or just how to read arguments well.

I'm an engineer by training and trade (with the reading/writing skills of one to boot) but enjoy reading 10-15 (mostly nonfiction) books a year. I've never known there was more to reading than just starting on page 1 and plowing through. With the advice from this book, you'll be able to cut to the core propositions of a theological, philosophical, historical, and even fictional argument without losing appreciation for the work as a whole.

u/Goat_beater · 3 pointsr/kickassday
u/yellowking · 3 pointsr/IAmA

Allow me to recommend How to Read a Book. In addition to giving a guide to educating yourself through your own reading, he gives a large list of important books for a well-round literary education that may (or may not) prove useful.

u/another_dude_01 · 3 pointsr/Reformed

The institutes are surprisingly very readable. I read that somewhere in a couple places, and my experience reading them bears out this truth. Try out this article, note this:

>1. The Institutes may be easier to read than you think.
J. I. Packer writes, “The readability of the Institutio, considering its size, is remarkable.”
Level of difficulty should not determine a book’s importance; some simple books are profound; some difficult books are simply muddled. What we want are books that make us think and worship, even if that requires some hard work. As Piper wrote in Future Grace, “When my sons complain that a good book is hard to read, I say, ‘Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves; digging is hard, but you might find diamonds.'”

There are few works in history that had the influence the Institutes had, and had the effect of changing the course of history as this work did. One more though, I also own this version of Calvin's Magnum Opus, am about 250 pages in, it's the easiest version to read, I find, because it is shorter than the 1559 version and the headers and other aides makes this translation quite a treat, for me, a Calvinist.

I would definitely start with Machen, you cant go wrong. World Magazine said it's one of the 100 best books of the millennium:

>It was named one of the top 100 books of the millennium by World magazine and one of the top 100 books of the twentieth century by Christianity Today. / “An admirable book. For its acumen, for its saliency, and for its wit, this cool and stringent defense of orthodox Protestantism is, I think, the best popular argument produced [in the controversy between Christianity and liberalism].”

One last to share, I listened (ironically) to Dr. Adler's classic How to read a book which is a great one for whatever level of reader we find ourselves to be. We read and are driven to this endeavor because we seek to grow our minds. I don't mean to pile on, but you asked hehe. A few books to add to your list, believe me, when you start asking and keeping a "to-read list" it always seems to grow. There's lots of good stuff when you know what to look for :-)

Grace and peace.

u/mariox19 · 3 pointsr/austrian_economics

Yeah, I got turned on to marginalia a long time ago. But, if you're skittish about writing in a book, you can write in a notebook as you go along. I don't even think it's so important to go back over your notes. Writing them is the main thing.

Of course, I think that there is a wide variety among human beings when it comes to reading comprehension. Some people seem to be able to read at a very quick pace and retain what they read, even with technical books presenting new topics. But, I'm not one of those people. I do what I can.

u/mountainmad · 3 pointsr/literature

I read everyday with my coffee. I also carry a book with me everywhere and read on line, in waiting rooms, etc. Try some of the advice in How to Read More - A Lot More by Ryan Holiday.

For heavy texts, my approach depends on the type of book. I mostly follow the method Mortimer Adler set out in How to Read a Book.

I set my objectives with the book. Look at the table of contents, back, index, etc. get an idea of what is in the book, skim and dip, then I plow through the whole book not spending too much time getting sidetracked or looking stuff up, take some notes, re-read at a slower pace. Try to get the 'unity' of the book; what is the author trying to say?

For fiction, poetry and plays, I just plow through on a first read. Don't get too worried about missing things or understanding everything. In a re-read, I create an outline of major characters and plot points.

You'll never get everything out of a great book on the first read. Accept that and try to get at least something out of it.

u/nestorach · 3 pointsr/JordanPeterson

Online Great Books is a paid community that reads and discusses the great books together. Jordan Peterson appeared as a guest on their podcast in this episode. Enrollment is currently closed but you can sign up to be notified when it opens again.

They basically follow the reading list from Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book, minus the Bible and some of the scientific and mathematical works. You can find the list on Wikipedia too.

Any Great Books reading list is going to take years to complete. Don't be intimidated and don't feel like you need to rush.

u/idontcareforkarma · 3 pointsr/52book

The first 150 pages of this book is all u need. I was in the same boat with you earlier this year. Since march I've read 100+ books

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095

There's also another book: how to read better and faster

I would move onto the second book if u feel like u want to read even faster but buy the first book right now.

u/Amator · 3 pointsr/JordanPeterson

There are several types of reading strategies. Sometimes, a surface-level reading where you quickly scan through content is called for. At other times, you will need to buckle in and go through dense material with a pencil and dictionary app in hand. Reading literature versus philosophy versus scientific literature all has variations of technique, but there are a few strategies that apply across the board:

  • Look at the Table of Contents - that is how the writer/editor planned out this book to make it as easy as possible to disseminate the information to the average reader. The ToC can tell you where the bulk of the content lies, the chapter and section headings can clue you in on the arguments the author makes. This is the skeleton of the book.
  • Read the author's introduction - if a book is well structured, the introduction will serve to encapsulate the overall arguments presented in the book and set the state on what you should expect to learn from reading the book. Read the full introduction even if you plan on scanning through the body of the book.
  • Read the full conclusion - this applies mostly if you've scanned through the body of the book and not read it fully. The conclusion if written well will resummarize the essential points of the book.
  • Come to terms with the author - as you read the introduction and conclusion, make sure you properly understand what the author means by their usage of terminology. Before you know if you can agree with the author's view of feminism (for example), you will need to know what kind of feminism that author is espousing and what it means to them. There is a lot of difference between Christina Hoff-Sommers and Helene Cixous. Make sure you have come to terms with the author so you can properly understand their arguments.

    There are other suggestions I could post, but they would be stolen from How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler just like all of the above advice was stolen from that excellent book.
u/Yds · 3 pointsr/IWantToLearn

I'd recommend you to read and study this book by Adler and Van Doren, titled "How to Read a Book".

u/leanstotheleftabit · 3 pointsr/history

>Originally published in 1940, this book is a rare phenomenon, a living classic that introduces and elucidates the various levels of reading and how to achieve them—from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading. Readers will learn when and how to “judge a book by its cover,” and also how to X-ray it, read critically, and extract the author’s message from the text.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095

u/bik1230 · 3 pointsr/mylittleandysonic1

COME! COME! SPECIAL OFFER! FOR ONLY $12.68 YOU! YES YOU! CAN HAVE THE SAME BOOK AS YOUR WAIFU!

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u/ReighIB · 3 pointsr/books

How to read a book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren

Packed with full of insights and guidelines to make one a better reader. Reading leads to information, information leads to knowledge, knowledge leads to understanding, and understanding leads to wisdom.

A better reader, a smarter person. Happy reading ;)

u/9us · 3 pointsr/GetStudying

If you are always "zoning out" when you read, then you're simply not engaging the material you're reading. You need to take a more active approach to reading. For me, it took a mindset shift—I used to subconsciously think that just passing over the words will magically transfer all the author's knowledge to me. No, I have to work hard at it, to understand what the author is really trying to say, and then figure out if it's true or not. I have to dig into the book and work hard to uncover the little gems of insight that it contains.

This book completely changed how I read:

http://amzn.com/0671212095

I can give you a brief summary of how I generally apply the above book (I generally read non-fiction, so this is aimed towards that). First, read the ToC, Preface, and summaries of each chapter, trying to understand the basic structure and flow of the book. Try to figure out what the book is about in general, the parts of the book, its structure, and what kind of book it is. Once you've done this, you're ready for what the authors call an "Inspectional Reading." Read it lightly, not worrying to understand difficult passages. Understand only what the surface of the book has to teach you, and breeze through sections you don't understand. Once you're done with this, you'll have a much better understanding of what parts of the book are important and which parts you don't understand. Often, much of what you don't understand won't be important anyway!

Then you're ready for "Analytical Reading," in which you dive deep into the book, answering questions like:

  • What is the book about as a whole?
  • What exactly are the problems the author is trying to solve?
  • What is being said in detail, and how?
  • What problems did the author solve, and which ones didn't he solve?
  • What parts of the book are true?
  • What parts are important?

    You can iterate on these questions for a long time, but at some point you'll decide that you have received all that the book has to offer you, and you can put it down and move on.
u/leap_barb · 3 pointsr/Anthropology

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis. Good place to get a start and to get a great source.

Can't go wrong with Foucoult either.

u/wikipediabrown007 · 3 pointsr/JusticePorn

Honestly read Michel Foucault's Discipline & Punish. It will change forever the way you see punishment.

u/harshael · 3 pointsr/printSF

There's an entire book dedicated to the words in The Book of the New Sun.

http://www.amazon.com/Lexicon-Urthus-Dictionary-Urth-Cycle/dp/0964279517

u/endymion32 · 3 pointsr/printSF

I happen to like Lexicon Urthus, which helps organize the material. I happen to hate the Solar Labyrinth, which I think is a lot of silly imagining of things that aren't there.

The truth is that there aren't a lot of straight-forward answers with Gene Wolfe. We want there to be; we want Dr. Talos's play to make perfect sense, if only we had the answer key. But Wolfe's work thrives in ambiguity, and while there are some clues hidden, I think there are far fewer clues, and far fewer real answers, than most people do. The point isn't to understand in a conventional sense; I think it's to experience a kind of wonder.

As for your spoiler question: [Spoiler](/s "The woman wasn't actually ever harmed during the festival, and there's no evidence she was a robot. Actually, this is one of the rare places where Wolfe leaves some pretty credible clues: there's good evidence that that lady is Severian's mother.")

u/mhornberger · 3 pointsr/suggestmeabook

I enjoyed Ligotti's Conspiracy Against the Human Race. It covers nihilism, philosophical pessimism, and antinatalism pretty well.

u/Roller_ball · 3 pointsr/horror

I have no idea.

Sure I liked stuff since I was little, but it always felt like an innate curiosity. I always feel like that is more of an answer of 'when' and not an answer of 'why'.

There is definitely no aspect of being scared that really draws me to it. Sure I like it when a movie scares me, but it happens so rarely that I've never looked at that alone as anything necessary for my enjoyment.

I think there might be some obsession of mine with the macabre. I'm pretty obsessed with death and suffering. It just seems weird that people are able to function while things are so non-permanent. I'm not saying I love death and suffering, but there is something about how horror compartmentalizes really terrible things in an accessible way that I think has sparked an initial fascination that has pulled me to the genre.

I recommend you check out Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror. IMHO he is one of the best horror writers alive and he does a pretty good job of dissecting horror, what works, and its appeal.

u/ogipogo · 3 pointsr/books

If you haven't already read it you might appreciate The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

It won't make you feel any better but I enjoyed it.

u/binx85 · 3 pointsr/bookclub

Definitley Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami. Its about a dude who's wife leaves him and he has to find her. There is even a talking cat and some dream state scenes. some of it is a retelling of different histories and it has a lot of branching narratives. Kafka On The Shore is another great one by Murakami.

For Vonnegut,you're likely looking for Sirens of Titan, a retelling of Jonah and the Whale through an Alice and Wonderland lens. It's got a character who is very much representative of the Cheshire Cat. He has three different phases. His early books are the best. After (or even during) Breakfast of Champions he start writing a little more autobiographically (Slapstick is about his late sister and Hocus Pocus is about his brief tenure at Rollins college) and it's not as poignant (I don't think). And then later with stuff like Galapagos, he goes back to more philosophical lit, but it doesn't pack the same punch as his first phase.

Finally, House of Leaves is an amazing haunted house book that dramatically alters how you read a book. His other work is good too, but I haven't given any of it enough attention.

Edit: If you want to get meta, check out Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth or If On a Winter's Night a Traveler... by Italo Calvino.

u/mrsimmons · 3 pointsr/books

Kafka on the Shore, Murakami.

Edit: Or, if you're in the mood for some awesome but super-depressing short stories, you can always check out the Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov.

Kafka on the Shore: http://www.amazon.com/Kafka-Shore-Haruki-Murakami/dp/1400079276/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289933997&sr=8-1

Kolyma Tales: http://www.amazon.com/Kolyma-Tales-Classic-20th-Century-Penguin/dp/0140186956/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289934035&sr=1-1

u/dropbearphobia · 3 pointsr/AskReddit

Don't know what you like to read so I'm going to go a few ways, but these are good ''stuck in bed'' books. By Author (because thats how i like to read):


Haruki Murakami:

u/MrVisible · 3 pointsr/WeAreTheMusicMakers

I've been working through The Ode Less Traveled, a book about writing poetry by Stephen Fry. I'm not sure if it's helping, but it's just as delightful to read as you'd imagine a book on writing poetry by Stephen Fry would be.

u/JoeSnyderwalk · 2 pointsr/lotr

It's from Karen Wynn Fonstad's wonderful The Atlas of Middle-earth. Highly recommended! It's not strictly canon, but very faithful and almost entirely free of conjecture.

u/bats_and_frogs · 2 pointsr/tolkienfans

They are as accurate as you want them to be. Personally, I like having this book by Karen Wynn Fonstad inform my headcanon.

The mysteries of Tolkien's universe are what make it so special. For example, I don't want to know where the Blue Wizards went. But I like to speculate that Oromë sent them to Middle Earth to find the Elves that remained at Cuivienen.

u/thornybacon · 2 pointsr/lotr

If he's a big fan of the books he might enjoy the Readers Companion:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lord-Rings-Readers-Companion/dp/0007270607

The Atlas of Middle Earth:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Atlas-Middle-Earth-Karen-Fonstad/dp/0618126996

or the LOTR related volumes of The History of Middle Earth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Middle-earth

u/samantha_baker_ryan · 2 pointsr/books

You may be interested in this Atlas of Middle-Earth

u/whirlwind_teg · 2 pointsr/books

I can't get enough of the maps. Last time reading through LOTR i broke down and bought The Atlas of Middle Earth. I refer to the maps in any book both before I begin and constantly as I read.

u/westernwolf · 2 pointsr/lotr

Not in medical school so I suppose I'm "normal".
My best advise would be to skip the Ainulindalë and Valaquenta, the first part of the book. This is the section that reads like The Bible, and move onto The Quenta Silmarillion. After the Quenta Silmarillion, you may find Ainulindalë and Valaquenta easier to follow. As well as the encyclopedia that coolaswhitebread recommended, I found The Atlas of Middle-Earth to be both fascinating and essential to understanding where everything was taking place.

u/moondog548 · 2 pointsr/lotr

The books should include Tolkien's maps.

This is also a good book.

As for the characters it probably won't be as complicated as you think for The Hobbit and LotR. Both stories are travelling narratives so the relevant characters kinda come and go, such that when they're not around, you don't need to worry about them.

For maps and characters both it's really only The Silmarillion that's very complex. The others are novels, but the Sil is a history book.

u/space_toaster · 2 pointsr/lotr

Yes, this is the immensely researched (and Tolkien estate-approved) Karen Fonstad map from the Atlas of Middle Earth. The other map of Arda that sal30 linked to is actually derived from J.R.R. Tolkien's own early conception sketches, but Karen's maps can be consided the most up-to-date 'canon' representations.

u/Velmeran · 2 pointsr/tolkienbooks

As others have said recommended I'd start with Silmarillion first, though I'd also recommend picking up The Atlas of Middle-Earth to have close by so you can reference as needed when reading.

u/Professor_Red · 2 pointsr/TheRedPill

I would suggest to do 3 things before you dive into any philosophy books.

The first is enroll and take the Coursera Learning to Learn course(it's free). The second is to read Mortimer J. Adler's How to read a book, and the third is to read Susan Wise Bauer's The Well Educated Mind.

After finishing those, pick up a general history of philosophy book, and dive into the primary sources, starting with the early philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, and branching off into any branch of philosophy that interest you.

The /r philosophy subreddit can be a useful tool in learning where to go once you start, I suggest a couple 'where to begin' searches to get a reading list.

u/Keltik · 2 pointsr/IWantToLearn

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler

How to Read a Film by James Monaco

u/too_toked · 2 pointsr/IWantToLearn

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

My father has recommended this to me on numerous occasions. I just haven't picked up a copy. It may be useful to you

u/pzaaa · 2 pointsr/literature

Mortimer Adler put together a great [list] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_books#Sample_list)
He also makes an important distinction between being well read and being widely read. (It's about what you can get out of it)
So i would advise his inimitable [how to read a book] (http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095)

u/Barracutha · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

How to read a book

I´m serious...read this book. It will give you the discipline and the will to keep reading. After you read this you will realize you were doing it wrong.

u/Atersed · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

I'm a bit late but I hope you see this.

I was in the same boat (although more into non-fiction) and can strongly recommend two books:

The first is How to Read a Book. When I first saw the title I though: "Pfft, I know how to read a book", but then you start reading it and realise that you don't know shit. This book deals with comprehension mainly, so it seems perfect for your situation.

The second book is less important but one I'd recommend to anyone who does a lot of reading. Breakthrough Rapid Reading talks about "speed reading" and is set out like a six week course. You can do 20 mins every evening to increase your reading speed whilst maintaining (or even improving) comprehension. There are a lot of speed reading resources out there, but I think this is one of the best. Certainly worth a look as you can make pretty rapid gains early on.

u/bwbeer · 2 pointsr/politics

I am not insulting you by this. If you want to learn to listen and understand, you must first learn to read and learn. Please pick up a copy of Mortimer Adler's wonderful book, "How to Read a Book". It's one of the finest books ever written about reading, learning, and critical thinking. It contains the core of your college eduction, which seems to be missed these days: The ability to teach yourself.

I beg you to read it, because it changed who I am. My eyes would glaze over at anything other than fiction. Now I am learning Abstract Algebra, Spanish, and Guitar. No teachers except the masters who wrote the books I'm learning from.

I beg you to read this book, as it is the key the the largest door in the world. You can learn at the feet of the greatest minds who ever lived. Learn politics from Plato, Math from Euclid, literature from Shakespeare... If this was a college for the only the price of the books, wouldn't you go there instead?

Finally, I beg you to read this book so you may become a full participant in your own life and that you may have a life that others will wish to participate in.

u/littlebagel · 2 pointsr/IWantToLearn

While I'm certainly no expert by any means, I believe things that can help include reading and practice.
A friend once told me reading good books helps you learn good writing, and good writing I would imagine also leads to good speaking.

Practice would be helpful too. Even if we don't write well, we get better by just forcing ourselves to write, and similarly with reading and speaking.

A popular book on reading books that I've noticed is ["How to Read a Book" by Morimer Adler.] (http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095)

u/QQMF · 2 pointsr/JordanPeterson

Thank you for sharing this.

Dr. Peterson said this in abbreviated form during one of his Q&A sessions. He emphasizes setting aside the reading after encountering a significant idea and then re-synthesizing it by writing your thoughts on it and how it relates to your existing body of knowledge (i.e. adding memory "hooks" to the new information).

Also, the book How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler dispels the assumption that all reading is equal. Essentially, there are different forms of reading which are suited for different types of material and goals. The passive form of reading most people do is best suited for recreational reading (i.e. magazines or novels) where retention of information is not the primary goal. This form is less taxing, thereby promoting the relaxation/recreation goal. The deeper forms of reading where retention (and more importantly, understanding) is the goal, require a form of reading much different than the "start at the beginning and read sequentially" form to which most are familiar.

The concept of "chunking" is interrelated to all these sources: Waterloo, Dr. Peterson, Adler, et. al. - which is the concept of actively relating new information to existing information. This helps by literally increasing the number and strength of neural connections to the physical site of the new memory, as well as structuring the new memory in such a way as to assign meaning to it. Chunking is also how brains become capable of dealing with concepts of increasing complexity. The vast majority of those who are regarded as super-intelligent in some field do not process more chunks of information than the average person. As an example, Bobby Fisher didn't rely on an extraordinary short-term memory to think so many moves ahead in his chess games; instead, he had synthesized his knowledge of chess so extensively to be able to think of entire sections of the board and entire sequences of moves through time as single chunks of information, whereas a beginner would think about individual pieces during the current turn as chunks. So each are dealing with the same number of chunks, more or less, but if information were ice - one is chunking in terms of ice cubes and the other is chunking in terms of ice bergs, with corresponding "weights" of ability.

u/Numero34 · 2 pointsr/BettermentBookClub

I have three of them. Meditations, Tao Te Ching, and Man's Search for Meaning.

I read Tao Te Ching many years ago. I think it was above my reading level at the time as I can't recall much about it. I wasn't really paying attention to what I was reading or properly digesting it.

I have the Gregory Hays' version of Meditations. It's up next after I'm done Flow. So far Flow mentions quite a few things I recognize from Stoicism. Directly mentions Diogenes in the first chapter.

Man's Search for Meaning will probably follow shortly after Meditations.

I've only heard of the Bhagavad Gita, so that's as familiar as I am with it. I assume it's a book of wisdom or something like that from India.

I do make notes of the books I read, so if you'd like I can forward them to you when they're ready. Currently putting together some for How to Read a Book, The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance, and Atomic Habits.

u/NoIdeaAboutIt · 2 pointsr/TheRedPill

> There’s a massive fallacy in thinking that just because you read something means you understood it.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095

There are 3 reasons about this:

a) For a huge segment of the population, the act of reading a whole book is an accomplishment in itself. Once you've done such an epic thing, how can you tell yourself that now you have to actually go and understand what you were reading? :D

b) Just like breathing, just because you can, doesn't mean you're good at it. But it feels trivial so it's easy to assume that you have the skill, when if fact you don't.

c) Some people read without the intention of understanding, but for other reasons, such as pleasure or peer pressure.

I'll close off with my favorite phrase that pisses off people: "50% of humans have a below average IQ".

u/napjerks · 2 pointsr/NoStupidQuestions

It depends on the subject matter and what you need to do with it. How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading has great advice for the different purposes. Don’t just trudge through each reading from page one. Scan, skim. Be careful what you decide to give a close reading of.

Keep a journal of your readings and make notes. That will help review the insights you pick up and remember where important references are from.

Instead of one notebook per class I personally recommend keeping all your reading notes in one book. Save the first four pages as a table of contents. Number the rest of the pages. That way when you get a new reading assignment you can add it to the TOC list and next to it note what page it starts on. That way you can skim it quickly to find it again. These tips are from the Bullet Journal method.

u/Hynjia · 2 pointsr/IWantToLearn

You know what? I have an awful memory. My SO gets mad at me all the time because she'll tell me things and I'll inevitably forget them.

Which is to say that your memory isn't holding you back. It's the way you interact with information you want to retain that is the problem here, much like it was for me.

My background is that I wanted to "become smarter". Didn't know wtf that meant but I figured reading book was important to that goal so that's what I did. I've read some really awesome books and I can tell you that I don't remember a lot of them.

However, there is a book that you should absolutely read to learn to how correctly interact with the information you're trying to retain: How to Read a Book, by Mortimer J. Adler. The book is an instruction manual on how to read books effectively, so as to learn from them and really really understand them.

Nowadays, I can't say that I remember specific parts of books that I read, but I absolutely can recall the general idea of a book (which is often helpful in conversation) and whereabouts in the book I read something so I can look it up again if I need to.

And this information can be applied to literally anything you read.

As far as learning in general, Make It Stick was alright. Would recommend, but it's pretty basic.

u/tralfaz66 · 2 pointsr/Advice

Read this book. Seriously. I will make you a better


How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Readin

u/2518899 · 2 pointsr/literature

You could start with a book like this: E. D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy or Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book or How to Think About the Great Ideas.

Or you can, like you've said, gather some info. about certain historical periods or cultural eras and decide to learn more about them. It's not easy, but you're living in a time where you can easily and freely access a lot of information.

u/literalyobama · 2 pointsr/books

Thank you. Looking through the links you gave helped me find a book that's more along the lines of what I'm looking for. Do you know if this is any good?

u/SynesthesiaBruh · 2 pointsr/samharris

How to Read a Book. No joke. Just getting into reading. Only read most of the Harry Potter books as a kid and just sparknoted everything I've had to read for school. So I need to learn the basics.

After that, I plan on reading What Liberal media by Eric Alterman. I torrented all episodes of The Daily Show a few weeks ago and in one of the earlier episodes Eric came in for an interview to plug the book. It's basically about how our "liberal" media is just establishment media.

After that I'm not sure, but there's a million books I want to read and I need more time on my hands...

EDIT: Actually no, after HTRAB I'll be reading Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V. S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee as it's a much easier read than What Liberal Media. Already read some of it, it's very fascinating.

u/jacques_chester · 2 pointsr/fitnesscirclejerk

There's a book about that...

It's actually pretty good.

u/KINGGS · 2 pointsr/INTP

I'm currently reading this.
You might want to give it a shot. The least it will do is give you a purpose for reading. There is supposedly a pretty good recommendation list as well (I refuse to look at it until the end, in fear of quitting the book).

u/Excalibur42 · 2 pointsr/JordanPeterson

Perhaps not in the exact same archetypal analysis that Jung, Peterson and Campbell pursue, but Mortimer Adler wrote an entire book about "active reading".

Here's my summary post of that book from a while back..

In particular, understanding certain works of literature, I would say, falls under the category of "coming to terms with the author", as per what Adler describes in his book.

Perhaps even deeper than that, if you presuppose that "people don't have ideas, ideas have people", then working and analyzing within the metaphorical and mythological frame of reference could be seen as a way of getting to terms with an idea itself, to which the author is only a harbinger of.

u/NightXero · 2 pointsr/computerscience

Only if it suits your goals.

How is your health? How is your routine? What is your idealistic lifestyle? 5-years? 10-years? 20-years?

What influences have driven you without your knowledge (parents, teachers, impulses)?

Write a 10-page paper on the benefits of college. A 10-page paper on its opportunity costs. And a 10-page paper on what lifestyle you want to build. Or a 20-page paper. Hell, just go for a book, and sell that. The bottom line is the more you put in now, the better off you will be in your "choice" (which is basically a rationalization of whatever limited information you currently have in a given moment).

Think of your ideal goals or just general thoughts of life:

Will it involve kinky foreign sex at 18?

Will it involve biking?

Will it involve long work hours?

Do you wish to fix things in your life? Work out, exercise, interact with people more often?

Did you know hypnosis is real? Especially the erotic type.

Did you know most people cannot properly read a book? Here is a good starting introduction.

Honestly I would wait and delay it until you find the best college for your needs. Plus right now your frontal lobe is still developing until 23-25 which makes long-term planning a little difficult to perceive at times. And you are getting the spam of "GO TO COLLEGE" non-stop which is priming your own cognitive choices to be "well should I go to college or " instead of "this is what I have, my goals, what should I do to meet them?"


In the meantime, the independence, work experience, and savings rate at your age (with compounding interest) is critical to your own future education. By self-discovering and molding your thinking, you will be ahead of your peers that just go to college without the experience.


Can you make $50,000 now per year? Can you save a significant portion? Do you have a goal outside of work/school? A lifestyle you want to build?



You could go to college now or go to college with experience, more maturity, and a higher net-worth. Which translates to less pressure and more education for your own understanding. You get better choices and better results. You could go travel for the knowledge, meet experts in the field, and overall understand yourself on a higher level.


Check out /r/financialindependence, /r/leanfire, and you probably alright know about /r/cscareerquestions


And then there is /r/simpleliving (for happiness), /r/digitalnomad (for options), /r/Flipping (for turning waste into profit), /r/churning (travel rewards) /r/Entrepreneur (business expansion)

u/oremusnix · 2 pointsr/AskMenOver30

First I would say that your state of confusion is normal at your age. The brain matures around 25 and time should help you find a bit more peace but only then.

I would suggest to find a mentor : someone you respect, can look up to and are confident that they have your best interest at heart. Could be a family member or a counsellor perhaps. Expose your questions and take his or her input seriously.

Also, do not underestimate the power contained in good books. This is the most condensed wisdom one can find. Start with How to read a book and ask your mentor for reading advice as it is easy to drown in the quantity.

u/justsomedude66 · 2 pointsr/books

Have a look at How to Read a Book: The Classical Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles van Doren.

u/darkstar999 · 2 pointsr/WTF
u/jks9779 · 2 pointsr/books
u/unaffectedby · 2 pointsr/JordanPeterson

Looks like I'll be starting with Jung! I have Modern Man In Search of A Soul and The Essential Jung - picked that one up randomly so I hope it's valuable.

As much as I'd love the guide that it seems MoM gives (I'm considering going back to school for philosophy, despite the risk, and would love some extra encouragement to "aim properly"), I can put it aside for now. If tackling Jung and Hegel gives me a critical eye to MoM, all the more reason to hold off.

I respect Peterson a lot, and I'm a big fan, but I always want to be able to look at ideas critically and judge them on their full merits.

Is your knowledge of Hegel and Jung self-taught? I'm currently reading Mortimer Adler's How To Read A Book in order to prepare myself to tackle these texts.

Interesting quote you pulled from the Philosophy subreddit. My interest in Hegel stems from my Christian background. I can't help but feel that Hegel, Jung, and (by extension) Peterson, are touching on a way to bring Christianity into the 21st Century.

u/WBlackstone · 2 pointsr/law

How to Read a Book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0671212095

Reading is your skill, approach it that way and you'll be ahead of the rest.

u/Fucho · 2 pointsr/history

OK, with philosophy background and her current situation, you must get her this!

If you get something on WWI, follow it up with Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World

u/ProblemBesucher · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

It's one of those books that shifts your world view. It will punch you in the gut 3/4 in. Left me staring at the page for a couple of minutes. It goes on and on about how prisons are failing in what they are supposed to do - and then you learn, - actually no, they are highly successful in their failing. Their use is just not what you thought it was. It's an insanely well written book. the book about the history behind disciplining people, punishment and prison.

u/Bluegutsoup · 2 pointsr/TrueReddit

You may be interested in Foucault's Discipline and Punish. He explores a lot of these ideas in different historical contexts.

u/nolunch · 2 pointsr/scifi

Be sure to check out some of the volumes (yes volumes) of literary review written about A Book of the New Sun.

I recommend Lexicon Urthus and Solar Labyrinth.

The essays therein really helped me reach a new appreciation for Wolfe's work and let me enjoy them on a new level.

u/lobster_johnson · 2 pointsr/asoiaf

There are actually a couple of books that try to piece together what actually happened in The New Sun: Solar Labyrinth: Exploring Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" and Lexicon Urthus: A Dictionary for the Urth Cycle. The latter is a dictionary, but a lot of entries have observations about plot developments, as well as etymology that sheds light on the intended (hidden) meaning. For example, did you know that the character of Baldanders is borrowed from Germany myth via Jorge Luius Borges' The Book of Imaginary Beings? The dictionary also has a plot summary. Solar Labyrinth is an in-depth analysis, which among other things posits that Nessus is a future version of Buenos Aires, and that [Spoiler](/s "Father Inire is Severian's father") (if I recall correctly). Of course, you already figured out the stuff about [Spoiler](/s "Dorcas (the 'dead' girl from the lake) being Severian's grandmother").

u/Doctor_Island · 2 pointsr/genewolfe

There are no copies with glossaries or appendices to my knowledge. However, there is something almost as good: Lexicon Urthus.


It's an entirely separate book which contains all the of places, people, and strange objects and creatures mentioned in the books.

You may have been reading about one of his other books. Book of the Long Sun and Book of the Short Sun both have character lists in the front of the book.

u/Doc_Bleach · 2 pointsr/nihilism

Surprised nobody's mentioned the work of Thomas Ligotti yet. While not exclusively centred around Nihilism, many of his writings (especially this) showcase a range of very interesting and informative nihilist themes and subjects.

u/monarc · 2 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

Thanks for this response. First thing that popped into my head was "it's actually more remarkable that we're ever not sad, considering the futility of existence & inevitability of death". Light and heavy reading on the topic.

u/generalT · 2 pointsr/philosophy
u/SedendoetQuiescendo · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy against the Human Race

Anything by Samuel Beckett

6 Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello

u/admorobo · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

I would recommend the work of Haruki Murakami. Some of his work has elements of speculative fiction, surrealism, and metaphysics but it is also very grounded with real emotional weight. That, and his prose is sparklingly clear and filled with empathy and wonder. A good entry point is his novel Kafka On The Shore.

u/VladTheImpala · 2 pointsr/funny

He wrote a book about it.

u/jtwritesthings · 2 pointsr/writing

https://www.amazon.com/Self-Editing-Fiction-Writers-Second-Yourself/dp/0060545690 A lot of it might seem a bit obvious if you already have editing knowledge, but as an editing beginner I found this book to be super helpful.

u/whimsyNena · 2 pointsr/WritingPrompts

Where do you live (State / Country)?
Indiana

Male, female, other?
Female

How long have you been writing?
If you count the really weird book my friend and I typed up on WordPad back in 1999, it's been 18 years.

What is your writing motivation?
I would love to one day find an agent who can get a book with my name on the cover in physical bookstores across the world.

What programs do you use to write?
Microsoft Word... and also a really battered journal.

How fast can you type?
77 WPM (4 errors, adjusted to 73)

Want to share a photo?
It's up, at the very bottome :D

Promotions

r/whimsywrites

My favorite author

My favorite writing book

My other favorite writing book

None of those are affiliate links. And if you can, buy them in print from an actual bookstore!

u/eunicepark · 2 pointsr/writing

I found this book on editing very helpful. I think you can find it online for free, too, if you hunt around a bit.

u/Fishbowl_Helmet · 2 pointsr/writing

Just start. You read mass quantities as broadly as possible, you read as much in your genre--or genres--of choice as possible, and you write as often as possible. You finish what you start, you revise what you've finished, and you read the final result with a critical eye in the hopes of improving your craft. It's simple. The shit just ain't easy.

Start simple. Pick your favorite genre. Write some short stories in that genre. Use either first person ("I shot the sheriff") or third person ("He shot the sheriff"). And use past tense ("He shot the sheriff") instead of present tense ("He shoots the sheriff"). You can branch out from there once you get the basics down.

Grab a few of the best how to books in your genre(s) of choice, but don't stop writing as often as possible, and don't just keep on reading every how to book ever published.

One of the best books is a general reference, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.

But really, it comes down to read, read, read, and write, write, write.

u/AnOddOtter · 2 pointsr/IWantToLearn

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers is hands down the best book I've read for creative writing.

Stephen King's On Writing is also very good, but about half of it is a biography more than writing lessons; still interesting though!

Otherwise the best things you can do are to write more, read more (think like a writer though - why did they choose the words they did, the order they did, the perspective, etc.), and seek critique for your own work.

For more formal writing, the most important part is keeping it organized. For example, once you get comfortable with the 5-paragraph formula, you just modify it to fit your need each time and you can pound out an essay in no time once you have your research on hand.

u/scottoden · 2 pointsr/writing

If you're planning to go the traditional route, then it's absolutely necessary that you learn to self-edit your own work. Brown and King's Self-Editing for Fiction Writers is an excellent book that teaches the basics of what you need to know to give your work a good polish.

u/snookums · 2 pointsr/writing

The author of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers mentioned in the forward to the second edition that they had added advice on where embellishment should be instead of just where it shouldn't be for precisely this reason. So many books on writing emphasize simplifying your sentence structure that I think a lot of newbie writers develop a complex about it.

u/boxingmantis · 2 pointsr/writing

I learned a lot from reading copyeditor manuals, not style guides. I recommend this book for revision work.
Editors learn about the publishing industry on the job, but craft is kinda incidental.

u/NerdyLyss · 2 pointsr/FanFiction

Off the top of my head, I tend to refer to these four the most:

Self-Editing For Fiction Writers -- When it comes to editing, this book is what helped me break things down and showed me how to get the most out of my writing in a way that clicked.

Alan Moore's writing for Comics -- Nifty if you're really into comics or want to write your own. Spotted this in a thrift store. Best $1.00 I ever spent.

On Writing Horror -- Writer's Digest has quite a few of books on writing. And they all have exercises and excerpts, but out of the small collection that I have this one is my favorite. Kind of gave me an idea of what to watch out for. It's like reading bits of advice from different authors.

The negative Trait Thesaurus -- Actually, I love the entire series as a resource. The kindle has to be good for something. (Much cheaper) But it helps keep my traits together and my character's reactions from getting stale. Out of everything I'm always pulling these books out.

*Started with three, but I really had to mention the trait thesauruses.

u/Gundari22 · 2 pointsr/writing

I'm fortunate in that I married an editor, but I have read

https://www.amazon.com/Self-Editing-Fiction-Writers-Second-Yourself/dp/0060545690/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504296604&sr=8-1&keywords=self+editing+for+fiction+writers

I certainly don't think it's the end-all-be-all of self editing. The writers come off as a bit full of themselves, they can lean a bit too heavily on examples, and they sometimes take a little too long getting to the point (I'm also a little impatient at times). BUT there is some good stuff in there.

u/Rechan · 2 pointsr/horrorlit
u/GondorLibrarian · 2 pointsr/conlangs

David Peterson, who makes the conlangs for Game of Thrones and a number of other movies and TV shows, just published a really great book called The Art of Language Invention – it's really entertaining, and a great introduction to how to start making a conlang. Also, he has a tumblr.

u/creepyeyes · 2 pointsr/conlangs

For the most realistic results, I would reccomend purchasing these two books:

The Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder and The Art of Language Invention by David J Peterson

u/PurrPrinThom · 2 pointsr/IrishMythology

The CELT (Corpus of Electronic Texts) database hosted by UCC hosts transcriptions of many Old Irish texts. There are some English translations, though they can be difficult to dig up. Nonetheless the database contains a wide variety of material the narrative literature section includes mythology.

Ignoring the somewhat dodgy-looking website MaryJones.us contains a wide selection of Irish (and Celtic!) material and more translations. The only real downside to MaryJones is that the sources of translations aren't always provided, so the accuracy cannot be checked against the actual texts the translation is working from. Nonetheless, the majority are good translations.

Irish Literature which includes many of the historical and mythological texts that CELT also has, and some Pre-Christian Inscriptions.

In terms of books, The Táin, early Ireland's great epic is a good one. I've yet to read the latest translation, admittedly, but I do quite enjoy Kinsella's version: he manages to capture the feel of Old Irish, so to speak, and its occasionally choppy narrative style, while making the text legitimately readable. It stays true to the text while still being accessible.

Likewise, Jeffrey Gantz's Early Irish Myths and Sagas is an excellent introduction to some of the more interesting, and important myths of early Ireland. The translations are very readable - though at times he has sacrificed the tone of Old Irish to do so.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Tales of the Elders of Ireland as translated by Ann Dooley and Harry Roe, has retained the Old Irish flavour, and is therefore occasionally difficult to understand.

In terms of secondary material, you'll have to be a little more specific as to what you're looking for. Miranda Green has a pretty good book, but she runs into the same issue that we all run into: we don't know how the myths that we have were perceived by or influenced the people who created them.

All of our stories, all of our information, really, is relayed to us through manuscripts that were created primarily in monasteries (though we have some created by laypeople and not monks, they're younger, and fairly well-removed from whatever paganism may be represented in the texts.) Few (if any) of them provide any commentary, or meta-analysis - and what we do have is pretty spare (ie. a note that the scribe doesn't believe any of what he's just written.)

The texts do tend to uphold the laws that we have, so I suppose you could argue either way: did the myths influence the laws, or the laws influence the myths?

But as I say, as we have no sources, really, from pre-Christian Ireland, only material that has been transmitted through a Christian lens, it's hard to know how the remaining texts were treated. Granted, their preservation does indicate that they were regarded with a certain level of reverence, but their actual influence is unknown. There is some literature that compares the ways in which the Christian authors follow some of the tropes of myth in their own writings of saints lives, but I'm not sure if that's what you're after.

u/MattyG7 · 2 pointsr/movies

Thomas Kinsella's translation of The Tain is very accessible.

u/Fang_14 · 2 pointsr/osp

Hello! I am not OSP but figure I might be able to help a little bit (at least with the first question). For me, at least, when I hear "Fae folk" the first thing I think of is what became of the Irish's "Tuatha Dé Danann". This is not to say that other countries don't have their own "fae" or "spirit" beings (domovoi, hobgoblins, etc), but if I were you I'd start by reading up on Irish mythology. So you could probably check out books like, Tales of the Elders of Ireland or The Tain. If not that, then there are more general books like Fairies: A Dangerous History (I've never read it, but did a quick check on the author and they're a lecturer of Renaissance Literature so it at least sounds decently founded). Besides that, if you're in school and have access to a scholarly database or library you could always try looking up journals/articles relating to them within history or religion and culture. Hope that assists you. :)

u/cathalmc · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

If you want the story of Cú Chulainn, you should read the poet Thomas Kinsella's translation of The Táin. Ideally an edition with the striking illustrations by Louis le Brocquy. As a translation of quite early material, the language has that old, epic feel to it. You can "look inside" this edition on Amazon to get a taste of it.

u/Creabhain · 2 pointsr/ireland
u/ashmoran · 2 pointsr/btc

I see we have both separately discovered the importance and practical value of George Lakoff's work :-)

His book with Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By was a revelation for me, it completely changed my understanding of how we use language. I now consciously look for metaphors to describe things that highlight the important aspects of a situation. It is impossible to choose a name/metaphor for something that describes that thing perfectly, so

I hope that people will see your post and read some of his work, as his ideas make it much simpler to see how people are using language in a way that draws attention to some aspects (often, like you say, to their benefit) and downplays others.

Regarding a name for (Full-) RBF, the most significant part for me is that not only can the fee be raised to increase the chance of a miner including it, but the outputs can be changed(!), and so what is being "replaced" can be the most important part of the transaction, the person who receives the payment. I am trying to think of something that better captures the sinister, undermining behaviour of Full RBF. Some ideas I have are "Pay To Redirect", "Pay To Rewrite" and "Pay To Divert" (PTD), although I think PTD better captures the risk of accepting a transaction ("redirect" sounds like an innocuous postal service).

u/raendrop · 2 pointsr/etymology

/u/Thelonious_Cube nailed it. You might be interested in George Lakoff's book Metaphors We Live By.

u/OriginalName317 · 2 pointsr/TrueReddit

I did the idea a disservice by writing so quickly and rattling it off. My apologies. If you're interested, I suggest going straight to the source with George Lakoff's work. You might be first interested in the section near the bottom, "The Basic Claim." Here's an excerpt:

>...At the center of the conservative worldview is a Strict Father model. This model posits a traditional nuclear family, with the father having primary responsibility for supporting and protecting the family as well as the authority to set overall policy, to set strict rules for the behavior of children, and to enforce the rules...

>...The liberal worldview centers on a very different ideal of family life, the Nurturant Parent model: Love, empathy, and nurturance are primary, and children become responsible, self-disciplined and 'self-reliant through being cared for, respected, and caring for others, both in their family and in their community...

If you want more on the concept of cognitive metaphor in general, check out Lakoff's book, Metaphors We Live By. At any rate, I'd love to hear what you think about the proper articulation of the idea of government as family. Sorry again for my sloppiness earlier.

u/yamane10 · 2 pointsr/linguistics

I've just started reading Metaphors We Live By, and it seems pretty good so far. It argues that the human brain interprets the world through metaphors, viewing information in terms of how it relates to other concepts already known to the mind. That's all I can really say about it so far.

u/Choosing_is_a_sin · 2 pointsr/linguistics

When we encounter new phenomena, it's easiest to characterize them in terms of phenomena we already know, thus we give them labels. The new labels will usually be metaphorical extensions of existing words (e.g. a network, a pulse, a current, an atmosphere of pressure), or new words that come from resources already existing in the language. To make new words we can:

  • make compounds, which combine two or more words (e.g. plane mirror, transverse wave; there's also a type of compound called the neoclassical compound in which the elements come from Greek or Latin but not in a way that the languages would have used them, like corpus callosum from Latin words meaning 'firm body' or eukaryote which combines Greek and Latin roots meaning 'true kernel')

  • we can derive new words by adding affixes (e.g. acceleration from accelerate)

  • we can coin new words (e.g. ohm named after a scientist and is a unit of resistance, and mho, the inverse of the word ohm and a unit of conductivity -- the inverse of resistance)

  • we can clip words (e.g. gene from genetic, the adjectival form of the noun genesis)

    I get the impression that you're more interested in the metaphors of science. If you want an introduction to metaphor, Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors we live by might be of interest to you. More directly relevant is Making Truth: Metaphor in Science by Theodore L. Brown. I haven't read the second one, and it's not written by a linguist, but it's written by a professor emeritus of chemistry so my guess is that it's probably well-researched from the science perspective and will give you some insight.

    EDIT: Missed a bullet point.
u/YossarianWWII · 2 pointsr/changemyview

Eh, almost all of it's in book form. These two 1 2 are probably the best places to look if you're interested.

u/lazygraduatestudent · 2 pointsr/changemyview

I haven't seen any evidence that postmodernism is anything other than nonsense, and thinkers I respect, like Russell, thought badly of it. So let me ask you: what is postmodernism? What interesting ideas does it introduce? Perhaps you can clarify.

By the way, have you heard of the Sokal affair?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

Sokal wrote a book about postmodernism, called "fashionable nonsense":
http://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science/dp/0312204078

u/aenigme · 2 pointsr/The_Donald

> It's amazing how the 'critical theory' has managed to corrupt academia and science from a discipline of objective research to a form of political activism.

Fashionable Nonsense is a must read.

u/adamwho · 2 pointsr/wikipedia

Here is a Postmodernism paper generator.

There is a book too if you are really interested... and another... and another

u/UsernameDiscovered · 2 pointsr/TiADiscussion

I agree with everything you've just said.

You might be interested in Fashionable Nonsense.

Edit. Apart from one thing.

> Not just scientists...

I made no comment on the groups of people who were not scientists. When talking about scientists using exact language you may have felt I was commenting on groups that where not scientists but I was not. ;)

u/sadibaby · 2 pointsr/NT_Women

Lately, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain...I'm sure on this forum it's well known, and I wrote about it on How did you discover MBTI?

I knew I was an introvert, but I didn't know that that meant, like how we process information, how we verbalize, that we NEED our alone time. So I began to embrace all these things, and better understood how to communicate with extroverts, which is really helpful. I think just this bit of self knowledge has sent me on a reading frenzy.

Currently, I'm reading The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell which discusses all the archetypal myths from different cultures and religions, and how they play a part for the individual and society. These stories/myths, which many of us discredit because they are not based in fact, actual serve the purpose of being example of how to live. Campbell argues that the loss of these myths in western society is an explanation for the misguided youth. People are seeking how to live their lives, but don't know where to find the answers...therefor it's taking much longer to learn how to grow up. Very fascinating. We no longer have strong adulthood rituals or rites of passage, so fundamentally, young adults still act like kids.
It also talks about some meaning of life stuff which is changing a lot of perspective for me and too deep to summarize here. I highly recommend it.

u/scdozer435 · 2 pointsr/taoism

I was maybe a sort-of atheist for a bit. I basically just realized that the only reason I was a Christian was because I was born into that religion, and that if I was to pick the "right" religion, there would have to be another way, like using logic or reason, to figure out which religion was right. I honestly thought that after a class in logic, I'd know how everything works. Naive, certainly, but I've moved past that now.

And as to why I'm not an atheist, I wouldn't say there's really a reason; I simply don't feel compelled to believe it. I'm still largely an agnostic, but I lean in the theistic direction, or the belief that there's something out there. One of my profs was telling us once of a lecture he heard where the man talked about how people all over the world throughout history feel compelled to some sort of religious belief, some sort of spiritual lifestyle that addressed spiritual questions. And the person considered this to be a good argument against atheism. While most atheists are quick to say religion must prove itself correct, this person said that atheism must prove itself, because it seems that the baseline for humanity is a religious mode of life. The in's and out's of this can be debated, but I think it's worth considering.

And beyond that, I'd say I'm still an agnostic; I'm not really a taoist in any strict sense although I do like taoism for the reason I gave you; it recognizes that it's only an attempt to describe something indescribable, be it God, truth, heaven or whatever else you want to call it. This was Campbell's major theme; all the religions and mythologies we have had are attempts to describe God, but they are not intended to be taken literally. I'd recommend The Power of Muth if this interests you. It's honestly one of the best books I've ever read, and completely changed my outlook on life in a way I don't think any other book has. Hope this helps, and let me know if you have any more questions.

u/agent_of_entropy · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell.

u/mormon_batman · 2 pointsr/latterdaysaints

> impressive

Aw shucks, I don't know about that.

I'd been thinking a lot about Greek afterlife recently (because I've been thinking about the temple a lot and there are some really, really compelling parallels there).

I liked mythology when I was a kid. And when I was an undergrad I went back and read the 'classics' because I wanted to understand those myths - which gave me a great list of questions because beyond those myths and the popular culture I'd absorbed I had zero context for understanding the language and culture. So when I go back over a concept in Mormonism (or Judaism or Christianity or Islam) that doesn't make a lot of sense I look at the etymology of the words involved, read about it on Wikipedia, and ask questions.

Also here are some people who's work undergirds my own understanding

u/RuncleGrape · 2 pointsr/awakened

It's an excerpt from The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell.

The entire book is a transcript taken from a series of video interviews with Joseph Campbell. The series is called The Power of Myth and it's still available on NETFLIX, I believe. I've watched the entire series and am currently reading the book and it's given me a profound understanding.

u/namedmyself · 2 pointsr/DebateReligion

Disclaimer:

I enjoy thinking about these kinds of things as well, so I will offer some answers and ask some of my own questions. /r/Philosophy might be a better place to start a conversation if you are looking for discussion rather than debate. I don’t see any blatant fallacies in your original post... it would take a more formally structured argument for them to become apparent. If you want to give that a shot, I am more than willing, but it is a bit more relaxing to engage in this conversational style. A lot of what we have been talking about ultimately comes down to what we mean by ‘truth’, which is a fairly deep question, and is worthy of approaching from a variety of different angles.

An answer to your original post:

In my view, art, poetry, lit., music, and even religious teachings all do have some truth to offer, but it is typically truth about US rather than the rest of the universe. I would recommend the book: The Power of Myth - by Joseph Campbell to further suss out how this works in the case of religion.

For example, when a myth personifies the Sun as a deity, we need not assume that this is a literal truth, but that instead it tangentially tells us something deep about human nature, and how we all seek answers, and how our imagination fills in the gaps in the absence of understanding, and how we project ourselves onto the rest of the universe (by personifying non-human nature).

Regarding your last reply:

My answers may come across as a bit reductionistic/deflationary, so feel free to reject that which does not resonate with you.

When an author uses a particular word (like ‘love’, ‘hope’, or even ‘tree’), it carries the weight of all of their previous experiences with it. Since we haven’t had the same experiences as the author, there will be some disconnect between them and us. We usually do seek to communicate as much as possible from ourselves to another through this process, but there is always some loss of information. Even the original author, when they go back and reread what they have written, may not know exactly what they meant at the time, especially if some time has passed, and their views have changed.

The idea of ‘meaning’ itself requires subjects and is therefore subjective. We all generate meaning quite naturally, it is integral to our humanity. Text doesn’t mean anything on it’s own, but it can mean something to the author, and to the reader.

Those especially moving moments of epiphany that we have all experienced when reading a great piece of literature tend to speak to universal statements about human nature - posed in such a way as to elevate the effect. Sometimes these same truths can be stated outright in a sentence or two, but seems small and trivial without context.

Depending on the medium, this effect falls on a continuum from concrete to elusive/vague. In music for example, the effect cannot always be put into words, as the medium itself is wordless. The messages and truths have to do with our shared experiences as emotional beings, who love patterns, consistency, novelty, and pure sensation (among other things). In this sense, a sonata may not be ‘about’ anything, or ‘mean’ anything, but instead it transmits a feeling or emotion. I would still see this as a kind of ‘truth’, but these are very different than truths about the nature of matter, planets, or galaxies.

Before I go on to describe the differences (of truths), I should mention the similarities. I am reminded of a quote:

-----

All truth is one.

In this light, may science and religion endeavor together for the steady evolution of Mankind:

From darkness to light,

From narrowness to broadmindedness,

From prejudice to tolerance,

It is the voice of life that calls us

To come and learn.

  • Anonymous

    -----

    That being said, it would still be a mistake to use music to try to understand truths about the structure of an atom. Yes, both methods do tell us something about reality, and our relationship to reality, but they have different applications and different domains.


    Perhaps I have gone on long enough for now. If there is a particular point you would like to pursue further, let me know. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about something near and dear to my heart. : )
u/Notasurgeon · 2 pointsr/TrueAtheism

While these are not all specifically about religion, here are a few things that I think everyone should read at some point in their lives.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (this is where the term 'paradigm shift' came from).

Karl Popper on politics

Karl Popper on science

Get some historical perspective on the philosophy of science

The Power of Myth

A History of God

u/imagine_grey · 2 pointsr/lordoftherings

https://www.amazon.com/Languages-Tolkiens-Middle-Earth-Complete-Fourteen/dp/0395291305

I had this book years ago and it's really good! Very comprehensive.

u/jofus_joefucker · 2 pointsr/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu

"Hey buy me that book you lost, you can probably find it on ebay or amazon."

That might work.

Here you go!
http://www.amazon.com/Languages-Tolkiens-Middle-Earth-Ruth-Noel/dp/0395291305

It's on sale too!

u/Bakhuz · 2 pointsr/lotr

From what I have seen, there are many dictionaries out there you can use. I would recommend going here and checking out the resources. Pretty useful.

Here's another, I find, useful resource for sale on Amazon.

I hope this helped!

u/dahlesreb · 2 pointsr/Psychonaut

Awesome, thanks for the info and props for including the Tolkien! I'm ashamed I didn't recognize it, I actually spent a few years learning Elvish from this book when I was a kid.

u/strychnineman · 2 pointsr/books

above all, grab the "New Bloomsday Book" by Blamires, and read the corresponding chapter in it prior to reading the book.

Don't worry about "spoilers". sure, you'll learn of things to come, but that doesn't diminish a great book, it can actually enhance it. and Ulysses is a great book.

u/cback · 2 pointsr/todayilearned

I recommend reading it with a Schema in hand, highlight or make note of every time a corresponding item is mentioned in the chapter (color grey in Nausicaa, tumescence by firework exploding) or even read along with a guide book, which I personally found extremely helpful, along with websites like Robot Wisdom (which I guess is now obsolete, unfortunately) or shmoop.

I definitely recommend you doing it with a Gilbert or Linati Schema at first try, finding things out on your own, and then using the other methods when you really want to fully discover a chapter. There is always more to appreciate and find when reading Ulysses, and the deeper you dig in the internet, the more you'll appreciate it.

Just beware the horrors of 'Oxen of the Sun' aka Chapter 14.

u/part_eulipion · 2 pointsr/books

If you should ever like to pick it up again, and for everyone who reads this outside of a class, I really recommend a guide through the book. Any honest appreciation of Ulysses hinges on the demand it makes on its reader; the immensity of its achievement is outside the realm of most folks. I know that sounds snobby as hell, but Joyce was a literary genius, and I was a snobby English major.

u/lack_of_gravitas · 2 pointsr/esist

you cant control culture? are you serious? you just said the social science equivalent of "climate change aint real". also, I just read your name and lost all desire to argue with you. I am going to leave you with some introductory reading material, do with it as you will. And if you actually have a wife and daughter (red pill not wirking for you?) and you care about them a bit, ask them if they have ever been catcalled, groped or molested by anyone. And then square that with their constitutional and legal rights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_legal_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion_law_debate
https://www.amazon.com/Gender-Trouble-Feminism-Subversion-Routledge/dp/0415389550/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

u/thysaniaagrippina · 2 pointsr/literature

I agree with what a lot of people have said about just reading it for the language, and letting go of understanding every sentence. However, if you're curious about the connections to The Odyssey, and also want to know as much as possible about every reference in the novel, I recommend Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated. I liked having it on hand to use if I felt like referencing a place, name, or slang word, or when I just was trying to figure out what the hell is going on at certain points.

u/yonina · 2 pointsr/literature

This book is generally considered to be the Ulysses bible - the end all guide to understanding all the references, jokes, minutiae, etc. I think it's better to have a guidebook that you can reference occasionally, rather than blunder blindly through what is known as one of the most difficult novels in the English language. That's just what I would do, but of course you have to be careful not to get too obsessed and just to enjoy it as well. Good luck and have fun!

u/RMFN · 2 pointsr/C_S_T

> For clarification, are you recommending/would you recommend that I listen to Delany concurrent to reading each chapter

Yeah he literally breaks it down page buy page. Sometimes an episode will be fifteen minutes on one paragraph. It is amazing.

Yeah and if you have any questions I can do my best to answer them.

This is the edition I have. It is the 1922 text as reset in 64? or something like that. Make sure you get a copy that is not trying to peddle the 'original' 1922 printing as it is full of errors.

http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Modern-Library-Reprint-Hardcover/dp/B00C7F057E/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458323096&sr=1-1&keywords=ulysses+modern+library

Get this book. It makes the framing of Joyce's Dublin really easy to understand.

http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Annotated-Notes-James-Joyces/dp/0520253973/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458323069&sr=1-1&keywords=ulysses+annotated

>Also, I appreciate the invitation to share a chat about it, I may indeed take you up on that. Thanks.

Any time. Any question. It wont just help you but it will also help me understand the book more.

You might want to also read Hamlet and be failure with the odyssey seeing as Joyce used those works for the basic outline of the book.

u/j_la · 2 pointsr/books

Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated is chock full of interesting tidbits, although Penguin's Ulysses: Annotated Student Edition is also good for someone who doesn't want to go as deeply as Gifford will take you.

That being said, I completely agree that you don't "need" the notes, especially since they can mislead readers into thinking that they can get a total picture of the world Joyce is creating. More to the point, it is missing the forest for the trees: the point is that Joyce is recreating the world he lived in; it isn't expected (or possible) that you relive it as well. The first time I read it, I got fixated on references. Now, I just refer to the notes when my studies or interests necessitate more information.

u/torturedbythecia · 2 pointsr/books

Get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Annotated-Notes-James-Joyces/dp/0520253973/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377602116&sr=8-1&keywords=ulysses+annotated

Les Miseables is fantastic if you're an empathy zealot. East of Eden is fantastic as well - I met and fell madly for a woman who had the disposition of Cathy Ames once - it was stupid of me to fall for her as it was after I had read East of Eden. Crime and Punishment makes me feel kind of sick as I read it so I wouldn't say it's a book I like to read, but it's still epic. I don't really like Raskolnikov - but who really likes him?

u/koncertkoala · 2 pointsr/Norse

Great video! His translation of the Poetic Edda is also another awesome resource.

u/H8Blood · 2 pointsr/Norse

If you're looking for an intro, try Our Father's Godsaga by Viktor Rydberg. Other than that, you can't go wrong with the already mentioned one by Kevin Crossley-Holland.

Besides that, Dr. Jackson Crawford (Ph.D., Scandinavian Studies; Taught Old Norse, Norse myth, Sagas, Vikings, etc. at UCLA) is releasing a version of the Poetic Edda which is worth checking out. It's available for Pre-Order here

u/iwrestledasharkonce · 2 pointsr/kindle

I revived my Kindle in mid-March and I've been reading like a fiend!

Enchantment by Orson Scott Card, $7.99 USD

A fantasy romance that won't make you retch, this mashup of Russian folklore features a plucky scholar-athlete, a headstrong princess, Baba Yaga (naturally), a bear-god, and a Boeing 747. A solidly weird, wonderful story, I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys historical fiction or fantasy and wants a little romance that's not sickly sweet.

Next by Michael Crichton, $7.74 USD

Firmly in the "so bad it's almost good" category, Next is a genetic engineering horror story ripped straight from the headlines... but that's pretty much all the research Crichton did for the book. Featuring a smart-aleck parrot, a potty-mouth orangutan, a human-chimpanzee hybrid (that also talks), and loads of awful people doing awful things, it goes best with a strong drink of your choice and a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 mindset, but I had to read it for class.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, $9.99 USD

This 10 minutes into the future dystopian tale is narrated by a woman who knows the society she lives in is oppressive, but she's too smart and not pissed off enough to come out swinging - after all, dissenters are publicly executed and gibbetted or mysteriously shipped off to "The Colonies" never to be heard from again - so instead she quietly scratches out her own agency, and finds some unexpected allies on the way. A satire on what happens when the line between politics and religion blurs, and maybe more relevant today than it was when it was published in 1985, I'd recommend this for anyone who's ever felt oppressed or threatened by conservatism or gender politics.

u/kinless33 · 2 pointsr/Poetry
u/stewiefet · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

Stephen Fry wrote a very very good book about poetry and how to write it..

u/singlefinger · 2 pointsr/zen

:)

>dogma- n. a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true

Ok, got it.

> "If you don't read a book, you can't review a book."

https://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent-Read/dp/1596915439

That's whole book about talking about books that you haven't read.

> "If you don't look both ways, then you're going to get hit and you won't be able to cross streets at all."

I've done this many times, and STILL I LIVE.

Both of those things are principles of yours that you have laid down as incontrovertibly true.

Come on, buddy. You're a smart guy.

u/HomeIsHades · 2 pointsr/Poetry

I would recommend The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry. It might not strike you as college level but it works through all the techniques used by poets and serves as a solid intro while remaining accessible.

I believe the poster 0HAO is referring to this course from Open Yale: Modern Poetry. I would recommend this as a good intro to the modern period along with many of the key poets, though the video lectures alone teach you little about how poems are made up. Langdon Hammer is also great at reading poetry IMO.

u/lukethe · 2 pointsr/atheism

I want to also plug an awesome pagan religious work; the Nordic “Bible”: the Poetic Edda.

You reminded me of it when you said the ‘thirukkural’ was written like psalms; the Edda is a collection of poems telling many stories that is like that too, with parts giving words of wisdom accredited to Odin himself. A recent 2015 translation by Dr. Jackson Crawford is very good.

u/blaaaaaargh · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

Congrats to you and your husband, that is such wonderful news! :)

You should get us both this! I've heard great things about it, it's supposed to be really wonderful.

This one is supposed to be fantastic as well! I've been wanting to read both of them for a while, and I'm not sure which one sounds more appealing to you.

16 bucks an hour!!!

Thank you for the contest!

u/LFL1 · 1 pointr/theppk

I read The Handmaid's Tale during the Bush years and partly because of that, it was one of the most chilling reading experiences of my life. I don't think I could stand to read it again just now, but for those who can, the kindle edition is now on sale for $2.99.
https://www.amazon.com/Handmaids-Tale-Margaret-Atwood-ebook/dp/B003JFJHTS/

u/B-MovieButtercups662 · 1 pointr/childfree

I can't really recommend too many true crime novels because I don't really read as many as I should considering my interests. Typically I read my fictional material and watch my non-fiction material if that makes sense. Not saying they're bad, but so many true crime authors write about the same criminals and it gets so hard to pick out which one of those books is the most engaging.

I don't really have a favorite author; I kinda jump around. However, I can try to recommend a few fiction books in keeping with the theme and what you've mentioned. I would highly recommend Let me In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It has serial killing, the paranormal, and some romantic elements, but it sticks more to horror and I hate romance but loved this book. Acceleration, by Graham McNamee, which is about a kid who finds a possible serial killer's journal while working at a lost and found is also a book I remember fondly. And, if you want to give yourself nightmares as someone who frequents child free and is female, The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood is a must. Also The Giver has two sequel books; Gathering Blue and Messenger

I don't want to get too much further off topic and distract from OP's story (I could recommend books all day), so if you are looking for other potential books and authors, I recommend making a post on r/suggestmeabook . Happy hunting :)

u/kukkuzejt · 1 pointr/writing

I'm just leaving this here.

u/I_make_things · 1 pointr/esist
u/Ultimater · 1 pointr/CrappyDesign

link to the book

u/blue_strat · 1 pointr/IWantToLearn

David Copperfield will teach you just how long a sentence can be; The Old Man and the Sea will teach you just how short. A seven- or eight-word description can be just as vivid as a flowery paragraph, while a long sequence can be just as emotionally hard-hitting as a blunt fragment.

Something like Gulliver's Travels or Don Quixote will introduce you to archaic syntax and idioms, while Catch-22 and The Sound and the Fury will introduce you to non-linear and stream-of-consciousness structures. All of this will expand your appreciation of what can be done with the language.

Some novels have messages: 1984, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby, Brave New World, etc. These can be good for familiarizing yourself with the origin of many references in popular culture, such as allusions to Big Brother.

Explore beyond the novel as well: read Shakespeare and go see it performed, read poetry and have a go at writing some, and read in-depth essays.

u/HellaSober · 1 pointr/printSF

Or you can just read this one! Haha, I found this book at one of those giant library book sales a while ago, it is pretty amusing.

u/fstorino · 1 pointr/history

Wow, History subredditors really do their homework... Kudos! (It was my first submission to this subreddit)

FYI, I also own [this book][1].

PS: yes, I read the whole article before submitting; yes, I know it's completely misleading; yes, that was intentionally provocative

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent-Read/dp/1596915439/ "But I haven't read it yet, either... ;-)"

u/georgiamax · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

The Handmaid's Tale.

I link this every time one of these threads comes about, I really just need to buy it already!!

u/peachandcopper · 1 pointr/TwoXBookClub

I already posted link to The Handmaid's Tale being on Kindle Unlimited but I found some more links for these books so I thought I would just make a comment here!

Here is an "extended preview" of The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey.
Here is A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf on Australia's Project Gutenburg.
And again, here is The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood through Kindle Unlimited, which you can get a 30-day free trial to.
Couldn't find anything for The Complete Persepolis, but I'm sure you can find it at your library :)

u/Takai_Sensei · 1 pointr/movies

There's a book that covers this feeling somewhat. It deals with the idea that not only is there an uncountable number of works that we can never experience in a lifetime, there's also no way to replicate the same experience of reading/watching/playing something every time. That is, you can never watch the same movie twice. It also covers how there are works that we've never read/seen that we can talk about because they're part of a sort of "collective library" that cultures share. Interesting read.

https://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent-Read/dp/1596915439

u/a_reluctant_texan · 1 pointr/suggestmeabook

This translation of The Poetic Edda came out earlier this month. It is very readable.

u/registering_is_dumb · 1 pointr/books

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read is a fun book about books that leads to lots of interesting reading. It's nonfiction but relatively light reading.

u/willtraveltoedinburg · 1 pointr/books

How to talk about books you haven't read, by Pierre Bayard.

French lit prof., excellent read which taught me not to read every book in order to talk about them - he even confesses his not reading Proust while teaching it in university courses, and explains why it doesn't affect the quality of his teaching.

u/Skollgrimm · 1 pointr/asatru

I like Dr. Jackson Crawford's translation. It's easy to read.

Link

u/Vanir_Scholar25 · 1 pointr/asatru

Here you go if you are getting charged too much for shipping then it's Amazon just being a bitch....

u/rchase · 1 pointr/books

If you ever decide to read Tolkien's Silmarillion, I'd heartily recommend getting The Atlas of Middle Earth to accompany it. A well-researched and comprehensive, it really helps to visualize the places Tolkien describes so eloquently. The Atlas is rather plain and straightforward, and tends to understate the mythic grandeur that Tolkien describes, but for me it renders the geography concrete and in a fairly realistic manner.

u/drogyn1701 · 1 pointr/lotr

Take it in small steps and re-read if you have the time. I'm someone who always comprehends better when I re-read things. Also having some maps handy is always a good thing. Plenty of maps available online but I also recommend getting The Atlas of Middle Earth.

u/Eartz · 1 pointr/lotr

I think as far as maps go the Atlas of Middle-Earth is a good reference.
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Middle-Earth-Karen-Wynn-Fonstad/dp/0618126996/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372237375&sr=8-1&keywords=the+atlas+of+middle+earth

Even the "well known" part of middle earth doesn't look right on this map.

u/takemetoglasgow · 1 pointr/tipofmytongue

My first instinct was a volume of This Histories of Middle Earth (I think one is even pink), but it could also be something like The Complete Guide to Middle Earth or The Atlas of Middle Earth.

u/Auzi85 · 1 pointr/TheSilmarillion

Here is a link.

u/halligan8 · 1 pointr/tolkienfans

The Silmarillion Primer is an excellent blog that summarizes each chapter in a humorous way and puts everything in context with what you learned in other chapters.

The Atlas of Middle-Earth has great maps that show the movement of characters.

u/Yurya · 1 pointr/lotr

My first time reading through it (I was 13 a the time) I couldn't follow what was happening. I then read this and the maps and summaries helped a lot. Alternatively there is Tolkien Gateway for more specific questions.

u/Freetorun87 · 1 pointr/lotr

There are a few good books about on specific subjects. I'd recommend the Atlas of Middle Earth, I found it an excellent geographical companion a longside the Silmarillion, Hobbit and LotR.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Atlas-Middle-Earth-Karen-Fonstad/dp/0618126996

u/ctopherrun · 1 pointr/books

If you like this, you'll love this. Even more maps!

u/Travianer · 1 pointr/lotr

Actually it's from The Atlas of Middle Earth.

u/brucktoo · 1 pointr/tolkienfans

It's called The Atlas of Middle-Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad (Revised Edition). [See here] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618126996/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=026110277X&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1BFD9T9QP2679T2QKX4Q) looking inside should give you a taste. Thank you again though as I realized I should be using mine in my Fellowship of the Ring read.

u/wedgeomatic · 1 pointr/Catholicism

You should take notes in some sort of organized and integrated system. I personally recommend taking notes in the books themselves and then transferring them to an external notebook. It's also a good idea to read things multiple times, particularly after you've made some preliminary notes.

For a more comprehensive look at what you should be doing, see this

u/Bilbo_Fraggins · 1 pointr/Christianity

Howard Hendricks' Living by the Book is a great place to start, or the classic How to Read a Book is quite useful also.

Using the reading techniques from the books above and some basic notes for insight into the culture and other translator's issues can get you pretty far. The .NET translators' notes are probably the best free resource, along with the many different translations available online.

You will probably eventually want to at least learn enough Greek grammar to be able to muddle through with a good lexicon, perhaps with Logos or Accordance.

u/humilityinChrist · 1 pointr/AskReddit
u/mikew_reddit · 1 pointr/productivity

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095

Mainly about reading books but can be applied more generally.

u/paperrhino · 1 pointr/books

How to Read a Book is another book along the same lines that I usually recommend.

u/AQuietMan · 1 pointr/sysadmin
u/AdonisChrist · 1 pointr/KingkillerChronicle

How many times have you read the books?

You could be falsely assuming the cause is your quick reading and not that you've only read the available literature once instead of three times.

I think understanding that there's more to be found and a desire to look for it should be enough to slow you down. If you find yourself zoning out and reading in a more skim-like manner, go back a few paragraphs to what you remember reading last and start over.

Or if you really want a good resource, get How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. It's about reading and reading closely and when the two are appropriate and whatnot. Adler was a great man. He's the one who also spearheaded/managed the Great Books of the Western World organization/movement. Not everything he recommends needs to be applied but it's good to know how to (as someone learned thinks you should) properly read closely when you want to.

u/pie-ai- · 1 pointr/linguistics

Thanks. My answer to your 1st paragraph: I mean 'reading skills' like How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler
or the following tip from Peter Smith, Teach Yourself Logic 2016: A Study Guide, p. 8:

>I very strongly recommend tackling an area of logic by reading a series of
books which
overlap
in level (with the next one covering some of the same
ground and then pushing on from the previous one), rather than trying to
proceed by big leaps.

Your 2nd paragraph: No offense at all, and thank you for the correction! As I fixed it, should you edit your comment to remove this to forestall confusion?

u/Downtym · 1 pointr/The_Donald
u/paul_brown · 1 pointr/Catholicism

My favorite books by him include How to Read a Book and Aristotle for Everybody.

I would highly recommend this author for anyone looking to study Thomas Aquinas - or for anyone who simply would like an introduction to philosophy.

u/daysofdre · 1 pointr/ADHD

It's actually not. Tai Lopez reads a book in 10 minutes which is ridiculous. This method is a part of a 4-part method created by the man who literally wrote the book on how to read a book, Mortimer Adler.
There are 4 reading levels: elementary, inspectional, analytical, and synoptical. Analytical readings are meant for books that deserve deep analytical reading, and synoptical readings are for topics that require more than one book to fully grasp mastery.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you look at it), self-help books fall into the category of reference books. That means that you're reading the book for information and trying to pull actionable items out of said book to incorporate into your daily life. This also means you don't need to read the author's whole life story and how when he was 2 he was diagnosed with ADHD and his mom didn't have enough money for meds, or whatever the story is. Just look for actionable items and start incorporating them into your daily habits.

I agree with what you said about Tai Lopez 100%, I alwayst tell people to stay away from him. But what he's claimed as his secret to success is just one of a 4-step process stolen from Adler and made into this "secret weapon for success (and lambos)."

This is actually something I've confirmed with Shane Parrish from Farnam Street Weekly, and he states the same thing in his "How to read a book" course. In terms of intelligence and dedication to the art of reading, Shane is light-years ahead of snake-oil salesman Tai Lopez.

You can read more here:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/06/17/how-to-read-a-book/
https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/how-to-read-a-book/

u/misplaced_my_pants · 1 pointr/literature
u/blathers-the-owl · 1 pointr/DotA2

Step 1

Step 2: Practice

u/WarWeasle · 1 pointr/gamedev

Here is my advice to anyone going to college or wanting to learn: Read How to Read a Book. I'm not insulting you, I was 35 when I read it and it's a life changing book.

Ok, if you want to be a programmer, I recommend reading The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. It's not a light read but will get you solid understanding to work from. Learn C, work with pointers and get to understand them. If you do graphics this will be invaluable. Oh, and start writing code. There is no substitute for experience, I've seen people with masters degrees in software who couldn't write code. That being said, get a general degree in Computer Science or Electronic Engineering. It's a great fallback and you might enjoy writing code for F-22s more than writing video games. (Just saying)

Oh, write your own game. Write pong and pac-man. If you are good at what you do you will always have a place to do it. The universe is funny like that.

u/earthpresidentnixon · 1 pointr/literature
u/raptore · 1 pointr/AskReddit

I did a word search in this thread for the titles of these books but I did not see them. If they've somehow been mentioned already, sorry.

How to Read a Book

Yeah yeah, a book called how to read a book. This book has a lot of information to help you filter out the crap you don't want to read from the crap you do, and in the back it has a huge list of good books to read. This book is a good place to start.

Remember Everything You Read

If you google speed reading, Evelyn Wood's face appears. This is a book about speed reading with a focus on education, and it reads like one of those "the secret" type success gimmick books, but even if you don't care about reading faster, get this for the all-important retention techniques.

There is a lot more to the skill of reading than knowing the language in which the book was written. These two books are like keys to locked doors.

u/1337Lulz · 1 pointr/books
u/b3k · 1 pointr/Reformed

>If you guys are actually reading full books of the Bible that are of this length and/or longer every single night I would highly suggest stopping, taking your time through a single one in a longer period of time so you glean more from it,

There are different kinds of reading, and a place for each kind. An overview reading such as /u/CrucifiedBruxter is doing provides heaps of contextual information that you wouldn't get if you just spent a year mining everything you could out of Romans. The problem comes if you only survey (and forgo depth) or if you only dig (and forgo context).

Helpful text recommended by Dr Michael Horton

u/Frankfusion · 1 pointr/Christianity

My question for you is why? If you do this, know that your work prospects will go down. If you plan on going into full time ministry that will pay you, great. If not, just be aware. Source? I got my BA in Biblical Studies and was unemployed for two years after graduating. Didn't get much employment help from the school either. Now to your questiom.

It depends. History classes study....history. Ethics classes study.... ethics. I know it sounds like it's a whole specialized field unto itself but you will study the same topics you would at most other school. With one exception. If it's a good school, it will teach these things from a decided and unashamed Christian worldview. A good intro to that would be the book The Univers Next Door by James Sire. Read a lot and make sure you read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler as well as a good Systematic theology (like Wayne Grudem's or Millard Erickson's) to get grounded in the basics. You're going to do a lot of reading and writing so be ready for that.

u/Aytenlol · 1 pointr/books

If you're into reading critically, I'd join a book club so you can discuss the book afterwards. That should help you recreate some of the classroom feel, that you're missing out on. Here's one on reddit if you're interested. I haven't participated in it, so I don't know the quality of discussion, but it seems to have a lot of members.

You could try reading sitting up, slower, at a desk, and taking notes with a pen. That might help you pay attention and develop thoughts about the book.

I remember a book being talked about here a while ago called how to read a book that might be worth looking into. I personally haven't gotten around to reading it, but it seems to be highly recommended and is supposed to help with intelligent reading.

Sorry for a jumbled response, but I hope that gives you some ideas about where to start.

u/Mao1435 · 1 pointr/ACT

I mean there are basically two ways. One: improve your fundamentals. That's like the long-term strategy. Basically, read like crazy. New Yorker, the Atlantic, New York Times, non-fiction books, and what not. It's like if you don't even have the muscle to throw a three-pointer, then it's pretty much pointless to practice 3pts.

Second is to learn some reading skills. Annotations, skimming & scanning, etc. Personally I'm not a big fan of these, but they do come in handy if you don't have, like 5 months to incrementally improve your reading.

If you do have the time, I would recommend the following two books:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Literature-Like-Professor/dp/0062301675/ref=pd_sim_14_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0062301675&pd_rd_r=35Q5NY3NKYMXGNRRAZZ6&pd_rd_w=4BP03&pd_rd_wg=oJkPO&psc=1&refRID=35Q5NY3NKYMXGNRRAZZ6

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095

u/sllewgh · 1 pointr/changemyview

Michel Foucault, an extremely prominent social theorist, has written at great length on this subject in his work, Discipline and Punish. If this is a subject to which you've given a lot of thought, you would probably enjoy reading some academic work on the subject.

Foucault argues against the notion that western society moved away from public, chaotic, violent punishment and torture towards comparatively private, organized, and "humanitarian" punishment NOT because of any moral or ethical or humanitarian reasons, but as a reflection in changes in society as a whole. It's a pretty dramatic shift we're talking about- he cites examples from the mid 18th century of public torture, shifting to descriptions of regimented, ordered, more modern-seeming imprisonment in the early 19th century- not a long time for such a big change in how we punish to occur.

Let's examine the goals of torture, which you advocate. The use of public punishment and torture is meant to be theatrical, in order to serve as a deterrent, as you say. The crimes (and punishment) are made public, the violence of the crime reflected in the violence against the body of the convict. It is also a form of public revenge upon the criminal.

However, these methods have some unintended consequences. Publicizing the spectacle opened the doors for the prisoner's body to become an object of sympathy, creating a cult of personality around those persecuted by a government with which the citizens do not agree. The public site itself is transformed into a space of protest and resistance to the very power being displayed.

So, all in all, public torture can have a pretty high political cost. With these drawbacks, it gradually lost favor as the most efficient way to control the populace. It seems to run afoul of the ideals of order and consistency that are central to modern, western societies- the system should be sanitary and organized and consistent and fair and just- bureaucratic, if you will. It's not easy to standardize and apply consistently an act of torture.

So, there's a gradual progression to the system we have now. You see some interesting intermediary stages- labor camps, public debtors prisons, chain gangs where the imprisonment is displayed- ways in which to make imprisonment a public spectacle as well.

If we look at the ways in which we in reality treat severe crimes, we can see hints that this newer form of control extends beyond the prison itself. The prison is just one element in a broader system of control that has emerged as a result of these shifts I describe in how power is applied to the people.

A mass murderer isn't just a criminal, he's mentally unstable, there is likely to be something wrong with him psychologically (under our system). We treat this individual not just as a criminal, but a patient. Psychology, just as much as the penal system, acts as a "deterrant", to establish the lines and keep people within them. The school system can be argued to function the same way, establishing boundaries and ways to keep people within them. Other social institutions are on this list as well, the church, the workplace. Read the book, it's real interesting.

I may be going off topic a bit here, but to change your view, we ought to first understand why we stopped using torture in the first place. Firstly, torture has its drawbacks, as described above. The desire of the state is to produce order, to shape citizens into the individuals required for the more modern society- especially workers, with the rise of the factory. Public torture, even as a deterrent, isn't the most effective way to do this. We instead gradually shift to the prison, which should be viewed as just one element in a larger system of control.

TL;DR- We switched from torture to other modes of discipline as the result of a broader shift in societal philosophy. Read the book, it's interesting. I can talk more about this if anyone is interested in a specific aspect, but I think I may have gone on too long already.

u/polynomials · 1 pointr/MakingaMurderer

I don't know of any particular source to point you on that directly, but I think you should read From Slavery to Mass Incarceration by Lois Wacquant, and Racecraft by Karen and Barbara Fields, and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.

[From Slavery to Mass Incarceration article and PDF] (http://newleftreview.org/II/13/loic-wacquant-from-slavery-to-mass-incarceration)

Racecraft (book)

New Jim Crow

None of these sources addresses for-profit prisons directly, I don't think (I don't recall maybe New Jim Crow does) but I think they'll be informative. I know you aren't talking about race but you can't talk about poverty and incarceration in this country without talking about race. From Slavery demonstrates how the economic system of the US has always depended on the extraction of cheap or free labor from black people while socially ostracizing black bodies. This began with slavery and it tracks its evolution to mass incarceration, and ends with a note about how there is developing a for-profit prison system which is basically extracting slave labor from large numbers of blacks and repeating the same pattern. The New Jim Crow does a good job of explaining how mass incarceration is the direct result of post Civil Rights era attempts to roll back the gains made during the Civil Rights movement, and goes into detail about the suppression and theft of black productivity that it institutes.

You asked about for profit prisons, but here I am talking about black people - why? This is where Racecraft comes in because it demonstrates how the entire purpose of racial distinctions and classifications is not only to create hierarchies between black and white, but to create hierarchies between rich whites and everyone else. The effect of this for hundreds of years has been, by injecting racial divisions, to destroy the ability of the lower classes, black white or otherwise, to unite and act productively in order to achieve class equality.

Thinking about that, it follows that the drug war, and the irrational, racist fears of the crack epidemic, and extremely harsh penalties in favor of "law and order" spiraled into a system where all poor people are at risk of being scooped up and enslaved in a system where their labor can be extracted for almost no wage -they are still economically productive but they can't actually reap the benefits of their own production. But whenever we talk about the issue, notice the discussion always devolves into a discussion about "black culture" and "white privilege" and so on...Racecraft really made me believe that it's not just that race and class are "linked" - in America, they are identical issues, whose two facets are obscured from each other.

You might also want to read Discipline and Punish for a background on prison systems generally, and how they are designed to perpetuate criminality and create a criminal underclass for the exploitation of the rest of society.

u/docforrester · 1 pointr/science

For anyone fighting this still, I seriously suggest you read Michel Foucault's Discipline & Punish. You cannot 'reform' a system to do what it was never established to perform in the first place. It is futile to define what you want in its limited scope of definitions. Prison was made exactly counter to the idea of reform, so the thought that you can take its idea of punishment and somehow turn that into correction is insane. You need to abolish the current system and make something new if you want real change.

u/vaguraw · 1 pointr/IAmA

Then you could visit /r/meditation .

Also, have you read Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison? It is quite an interesting read, i thought you might enjoy it.

Thanks for this AMA and for sharing your thoughts, appreciate it a lot.

I wish the best for you. :)

u/BonSequitur · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

Don't worry about it; the goal here is not to discipline and punish people who post those questions but rather to help users get useful answers, cut down our own workload, and discourage low-effort posting.

u/laprice · 1 pointr/reddit.com

I have this image of some guy at a desk in Washington reading Foucault and treating it as an instruction manual. Guantanamo as a total institution.

You do realise that Gitmo justifies our enemies, it lets them point and say, "look, that is what we are fighting against."

To quote one of the more complicated founders "If God is just, I tremble for my country. "

u/roastsnail · 1 pointr/printSF

Wolfe claims that he only uses obscure English words, but his definition of the English language is very broad. I love language and word play and really liked leafing through Lexicon Urthus, which is a dictionary that was specifically made for The Book of the New Sun. My library happened to have a copy, so I used it, but it was by no means necessary.

u/getElephantById · 1 pointr/suggestmeabook

There's actually a dedicated lexicon published to define the words used in that series. It's a worthwhile purchase because it also gives insight on the plot, but for that reason it can also occasionally reveal some spoiler elements.

u/JayRedEye · 1 pointr/Fantasy

It was deep enough that it inspired others to write their own. That does not happen too often.

u/nyc_food · 1 pointr/printSF

I think this is a good recommendation because the Book of the New Sun is so dense, like you said. But you're cruel for not suggesting he bring the Lexicon Urthus along with.

u/fernly · 1 pointr/writing

Enjoyment will be increased by having a copy of the Lexicon Urthus to hand.

(http://www.amazon.com/Lexicon-Urthus-Dictionary-Urth-Cycle/dp/0964279517)

u/alteredlithium · 1 pointr/todayilearned

Ahem.

The guy who wrote True Detective, Nic Pizzalotto, cited Thomas Ligotti as a big influence. Ligotti is a writer of weird fiction and wrote a non-fiction book on anti-natalism called The Conspiracy Against the Human Race.

u/inverted_inverter · 1 pointr/todayilearned

Your comment reminded me of this book, as for your question, I'm sure if you ask 100 people you will get 100 answers.

u/TummyCrunches · 1 pointr/suggestmeabook

The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror by Thomas Ligotti. If you've seen True Detective, a lot of Rust's character was inspired by this book.

u/athrowfar_faraway · 1 pointr/childfree
u/zilpe · 1 pointr/collapse
u/Sto_Avalon · 1 pointr/SuicideWatch

Sorry, I didn't mean to frustrate you more. I feel the same way at times: why bother with anything if it's just going to end, if I'm genetically stuck like this then there's no hope, etc. Believe me, you're not the only one who sees the world this way (you may enjoy this book on the subject).

There is no easy answer to this. But as someone else mentioned, college might not be the best place for you at the moment. There's always time to go back later when you're in a better spot, mentally speaking.

And I don't know if this will help, but in some ways I've come to appreciate the occasional bout of depression, because it lets me but through the bullshit and see what's really important in life, to figure out what really matters to me.

u/fuzzo · 1 pointr/books

if you like kafka, you'll like this

u/cloaca · 1 pointr/kindle

Pardon my ignorance, but could you tell me where this button is? My friend told me this as well, but I could not find it anywhere. Do I need to use the browser on my Kindle? Or does it have something to do with me not being in the US? (I am browsing Amazon.com)

for example

u/mx_hazelnut · 1 pointr/books

The books my high school friends and I desperately loved are usually the same books this subreddit as a whole desperately loves: American Gods, Ender's Game, Fight Club, and so on. My personal favorite was Kafka on the Shore. There are sexual themes, but nothing that shocked me as a 15 year old. Reddit's favorite book list might come in handy here too.

u/BrutalJones · 1 pointr/booksuggestions

I just looked it up (I was in bed last night when I posted the previous message) and it seems Birthday Girl is in the Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman collection. So if you want more short fiction that's probably the best route to go.

If you're interested in jumping right into a novel, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is one of his most generally well received novels and a good place to start for some of the signature Murakami weirdness. Kafka on the Shore would be a great choice as well, and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is many Murakami readers' favorite novel of his, but I haven't read either of those yet so I'm more hesitant to recommend them.

I'd suggest reading the blurb of each and picking the story that sounds like it'd appeal to you most.

u/harperrb · 1 pointr/booksuggestions

Well so much depends on everything. Some basic suggestions:.

Contemporary Science Fiction:
Ted Chaing, Stories of Your Life and Others his short stories are science fiction gems. https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122.

Classical: Vladimir Nabokov Short Stories, amazing prose. Though English was his second language he wrote a good number, especially the later half, in English, often challenging themes from dubious narrators.
https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679729976.

International Fiction: Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore, reductionist, clean prose, with symbolic/metaphorical imagery that blends hard-boiled noir, Japanese animism, and surrealism. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400079276/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_RxntybB7PYK93

Post Modern: Roberto Bolano, 2666: A Novel, perhaps the odd relative of Murakami in structure if not style. Sometimes rambling, though powerful prose with surrealist moments within graphic and "visceral" scenes. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312429215/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ZAntybTW2XXJX.

Deconstructionism: Mark Danieleski, House of Leaves, carefully crafted entangled adventure horror of a story, explained in the footnotes of an essay, edited by a tattoo artist, written by a blind man of a homemade video of a house gone awry. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375703764/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_XMntyb3RT3RKQ

A start

u/steelpan · 1 pointr/CasualConversation

Read "Kafka on the shore" by Haruki Murakami!


It's about two characters you'll fall in love with who, at first, don't seem to have anything to do with each other. But towards the end of the book you'll see that the paths converge. One of the characters is a 15-year-old boy who goes on an adventure, and the other character is an older man who is adorably stupid and goes on another adventure. A lot of strange things happen in the book, such as fish falling from the sky and talking cats.

Be sure to update us on which books you have chosen!

u/petiteuphony · 1 pointr/books

It's a tie between Brave New World and Kafka on the Shore for me.

u/anticipatedanxiety · 1 pointr/AskReddit

I recently finished Kafka on The Shore- its one of the best books I've read in a while.

Here's a site that might help you.

u/KHammeth · 1 pointr/Romania

>"Scrierea unei poezii este precum prepararea unei cafele [...] nu oricine poate face asta"

Am invatat sa folosesc un espressor din cela mare, de restaurant, in cateva ore. De scris pozii? Nici dupa ce am citit "The Ode Less Travelled" nu imi iese ceva la fel de bun precum o cafea.

Dar faina initiativa!

u/Maddirose · 1 pointr/shutupandwrite

No problem! It certainly is ambitious for a first-time attempt, but for what it's worth I think you're doing great so far!

For a quick-and-dirty guide you can check out this quick meter explanation. If you've got a little bit of spending money, I highly reccomend The Ode Less Travelled by the disgustingly talented Stephen Fry. Again, poetry isn't really my forte, but hopefully these will give you enough information to know what to google!

u/Johnletraingle · 1 pointr/writing

There's no shortage of both paid and free resources.

​

I would recommend:

​

  1. Robert Mckee's "Dialogue". The definitive tome on writing dialogue.

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1455591912/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

    ​

  2. "Self -editing for fiction writers". All-round comprehensive book on craft. Covers all aspects of writing, with clear straightforward advice.

    https://www.amazon.com/Self-Editing-Fiction-Writers-Second-Yourself/dp/0060545690/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_pt_BR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=self+editing+for+writers&qid=1563126077&s=books&sr=1-1

    ​

  3. "Helping writers become authors" podcast. Heavily focused on craft and technique.

    Listen for free here:

    ​

    https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/podcasts/
u/Sleeparchive · 1 pointr/writing

Read some novels and some educational books on writing? I can recommend this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-Editing-Fiction-Writers-Second-Edition/dp/0060545690 or watch the Write about dragons videos http://www.writeaboutdragons.com/

u/sykosqueak · 1 pointr/writing
u/dykewriter · 1 pointr/eroticauthors

In terms of self editing, I found this book incredibly helpful. It comes up a lot in discussions about self editing on various forums, so I finally bit the bullet and bought a copy, and it's really helped me step my editing game up.

u/blin18 · 1 pointr/writing

You can write internal monologue from either perspective. If your book is 3Rd person limited perspective, then you can slip seamlessly into internal monologue using the same 3Rd person past.

Or, if you want to zoom in really close, use first person present for monologue. In these cases, you are using the exact words that play in the characters head. The convention for this type is to use italics. This signals the change of perspective to the reader.

There is a chapter on internal monologue in this excellent book on self editing. If this is the sort of problem that interests you then you'll love the book.

u/Letheron88 · 1 pointr/writing

I'm not sure about what questions you could ask a coach, but any information i'd ever want to learn about writing can be found in the following books:

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1444723251

Stein on Writing
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0312254210

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni Browne
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0060545690

Maybe some questions you can answer for us? Why have you sought out a writing coach? What kind of writing do you do? How long have you been writing and at what level?

You may get some better responses after these questions. :)

u/Chris_the_mudkip · 1 pointr/Cyberpunk

I'm going to recommend this book to you: Self-Editing For Fiction Writers Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

You may also want to check out: Dynamic Characters and Story Engineering

u/ScotchDream · 1 pointr/writing

You could check this out.

Every time I'm chatting and trying to say something as fast as possible I press enter/send after every sentence (or single coherent thought). Maybe if you broke it up into multiple lines without adding punctuation and put it in a block quote. Maybe even add time stamps from the chat or other formating IM has. Would make it more legible at least.

edit: You should also get this just because.

u/Zoobles88 · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

Morthy demands:

old posh Englishman: old posh Englishmen like to write, right? (Writing Stuff)

Never seen in public: these slippers would look ridiculous in public (Other Stuff)

Most phallic: this is the best I've got(Other Stuff)

Akeleie demands:

Most geeky: probably my Adipose toy (Other Stuff)

Achieve a goal: I would love to be a writer (Writing Stuff)

Deserted island: who doesn't need a ukulele on and island? (Other Stuff)

Thanks for the contest!! :D

u/Strobro3 · 1 pointr/conlangs

>i wanna make one based on Finnish, Hungarian and ice/Greenlandic with Slavic influences


Greenlandic and Icelandic are very very different, Icelandic is a north germanic language which is more closely related to Slavic languages than it is baltic or Inuit languages. You're looking at merging three language families.

also, you'd best learn a tonne about conlanging before making a conlang, I recommend this book:
https://www.amazon.ca/Art-Language-Invention-Horse-Lords-World-Building/dp/0143126466


and/or these youtube channels:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Artifexian

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgJSf-fmdfUsSlcr7A92-aA

also, check out the resources on the side bar.

u/AProtozoanNamedSlim · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

You could use awkwords.

Though if you want to do it well, I'd recommend, as others have, visiting r/conlangs. Also, check out the work of seasoned conlangers, like the Language Construction Kit, or David J. Peterson's The Art of Language Invention. I used David's book mostly, and found it really helpful. He's also super responsive to emails and has a supplementary video series on his youtube.

u/pygmyrhino990 · 1 pointr/neography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._Peterson

The dude made High Valerian for GoT, as well as a bunch of languages for Syfy's Defiance, the 100, and a whole heap others. If you enjoy conlanging i highly recommend his book The art of language invention

u/EasternNumbers · 1 pointr/conlangs

David Peterson, who develops conlangs for TV shows like Game of Thrones, has a youtube series that I find really interesting and helpful. It's made as a companion to his book. I haven't read the book yet, but if it's anything like the video series, I'm sure it's worth a buy.

u/iknowofabrownstar · 1 pointr/mythology

Táin Bó Cúailnge is amazing. https://www.amazon.com/Tain-Translated-Irish-Epic-Cuailnge/dp/0192803735/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=ulster+cycle&qid=1554669328&s=gateway&sr=8-2

​

Anything published from Oxford's World Classics is always great quality too, although I haven't read any of their Irish mythology books.

u/zapper877 · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Get him into philosophy, niestche, Wittgenstein, Plato, especially socrates, you should read this wikipedia article on socrates here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus

An amazing book to help you think more clearly about everything... an amazing read

Metaphors we live by

http://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/0226468011/

Title: Where does mathematics come from...

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Mathematics-Comes-Embodied-Brings/dp/0465037712/

Check out the standard encyclopedia of philosophy to find things you might think he would like:

http://plato.stanford.edu/

u/Cartesian_Circle · 1 pointr/math

I tend to be the oddball non-Platonist who things math is created, not discovered. Math that "works" sticks around.

Two readings that got me there: Metaphors we Live By, Where mathematics comes from. Both somewhat controversial.

u/psykocrime · 1 pointr/books

Some of it just recognition - if you see something in a book that reminds you of something you read about in another book, or something you know about the world, or history, or religion, then your mind may make the leap to say "Oh, this is a symbolic reference to trench warfare in France during WWI" or whatever. So the more "stuff" you know about, the more equipped you are to recognize references. So studying history, religion, economics, world news, various natural sciences, etc., etc. will help you with this And the more you know about the author you're reading, the time he/she lived and wrote in, etc., the more you can pick up on.

Note though that a lot of this symblic stuff is indirect / abstract... they are vague allusions using analogy or metaphor, and not necessarily explicit. So the more you develop your capacity for abstract thinking, thinking in metaphors, etc., the better. To that end, you might consider reading Metaphors We Live By, Surfaces and Essences, and similar books.

Also, a lot of "symbolism" is rooted in the thinking of Freud and Jung, even to this day. A lot of Freud's stuff has been discredited now, but from a "cultural literacy" standpoint, it wouldn't hurt to read his book on dream interpretation, as well as some of Jung's stuff. The stuff about archetypes and the "collective unconscious" would be good.

Also, a lot of symbolism may be rooted in, or linked by metaphor, to existing mythology. Some ideas from myth are tropes that appear again and again. With that in mind, I'd suggest reading The Hero With A Thousand Faces and The Hero's Journey by comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell. If you're really interested, any and all of his other books would probably be useful as well.

One last final note: It's entirely possible that all of most of this "symbolism in literature" stuff is total bullshit. What I mean is, you (or I, or whoever) can "find" all sorts of symbolic links in a work, and find arguments to support that link. But unless the author is still alive, and willing to confirm or deny his intent, you never really know if the "link" you've found is really "a thing" put there by the author, or just your own overactive imagination running wild.

u/illogician · 1 pointr/intj

The first one that comes to my mind is an insect colony. Some conservative politicians are fond of thinking of society in terms of a corporation or a factory. Poor urban neighborhoods are often conceived in terms of a war zone or a jungle (especially in gangsta rap!). Tensions between different economic classes are metaphorically spoken of in terms of military battles ("class warfare"). Unwelcome intrusion of government into the private lives of citizens is usually portrayed in the language of totalitarianism or fascism.

Since reading Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors We Live By I see conceptual metaphors everywhere.

u/mantra · 1 pointr/linguistics

This gets into Conceptual Metaphors and Lakeoff and Johnson's Metaphors We Live By. Lakeoff is a linguist.

Also Chinese is interesting in this respect: things in the past or future can be "above and below" (or "in front or behind").

Last week (上星期) and last month (上個月) are "above" (上) while next week (下週), next month (下個月) are "below" (下). And "before" and "in front" (前) or "after" and "rear"/"behind" (后) which is similar to English.

u/DrJosh · 1 pointr/IAmA

I don't think any chatbot will be able to pass the Turing Test if it doesn't have a body. Here's why.

How do humans understand one another? Because we can mentally simulate each other's experiences. When someone uses the English idiom "I bent over backward to meet my boss' deadline", we literally simulate bending over backward ourselves, and wince with the imagined pain. That allows us to understand that the other person suffered to accommodate the deadline. Even if we've never heard that idiom before. More about metaphors here.

The need to have a body to be intelligence is a particular stance in AI, known as Embodied Cognition. You can read more about it in our book, or here.

u/nonesuch42 · 1 pointr/linguistics

I'm fairly certain all languages (even unwritten ones) have stuff like metaphor. That's basically the premise of Lakoff's Metaphors We Live By. And all languages have idioms/euphemisms as well (look at how people talk about death, bodily functions). One possible exception for a lot of things is ASL, which is notorious for avoiding euphemism (though this may be a feature of Deaf culture, not the language). ASL does have idioms etc. though.

A language without figures of speech. This sounds like a good scifi premise. Actually, it sounds a lot like China Mieville's Embassytown.

u/BukkRogerrs · 1 pointr/TrueReddit

It's not that entire universities are plagued by postmodern thinking. Postmodernism as it relates to art and subjective things has its place, and I think it's interesting, even sometimes valuable. But it is rare that postmodernism is treated as belonging only to the area of subjective topics, as it often is incorporated in other areas in which it cannot contribute something substantial.

Humanities departments in universities are the primary source of postmodern scholarship, in departments like English, Sociology, Communications, History, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, Cultural and Social Anthropology. It is not unusual for members of these departments to extend postmodernism to areas it doesn't belong, like science. In fact, there are quite a few books written by scientists and academics addressing this very problem.

The links in my previous post also do a fine job of outlining the problem.

u/jseliger · 1 pointr/todayilearned

>but there's another side to the story

That's correct, and it's published here, by Lingua Franca, along with Sokal's rebuttal, where he says:

>I confess to amusement that one Social Text editor still doesn't believe my piece was a parody. Oh, well.

>As for Social Text's editorial process, readers can judge for themselves the plausibility of the editors' post facto explanations, which if true may be more damning than the incident itself. Some of their chronology is at variance with my own documentary record, but let me not beat a dead horse.

BTW, Sokal and Jean Bricmont also wrote a book called Fashionable Nonsense, and it delves into many of these issues. They say, for example:

>"For us, as for most people, a 'fact' is a situation in the external world that exists irrespective of the knowledge that we have (or don't have) of it—in particular, irrespective of any consensus or interpretation" {Bricmont and Sokal@102}.

and they offer this advice for people reading literary theory, doing science, or trying to understand "the relationship between the natural and human sciences," {Bricmont and Sokal@185}:

>1. It's a good idea to know what one is talking about.

>2. Not all that is obscure is necessarily profound.

>3. Science is not a 'text.'

>4. Don't ape the natural sciences.

>5. Be wary of arguments from authority.

>6. Specific skepticism should not be confused with radical skepticism.

>7. Ambiguity as subterfuge {Bricmont and Sokal@185–189}.

They elaborate on what each point means in the book.

From there, the authors go on to speculate how the social sciences and the humanities came to take parts of science and scientific discourse out of context and, implicitly, how one might correct these kinds of issues.

EDIT: Yes, I am a grad student in English lit, and I've written about why you shouldn't be in What you should know BEFORE you start grad school in English Literature: The economic, financial, and opportunity costs and in various other places.

u/mrfuckfaceMcGrinsley · 1 pointr/redscarepod

https://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science/dp/0312204078

throwing this out there as well—has good analysis of lacan

u/Thornnuminous · 1 pointr/changemyview

I don't think it's a question of whether or not you can think deeply.

When seeing layers of meaning in something, like a book, it usually helps if someone has a lot of the foundational information that the author draws upon in order to craft his/her stories.

Books don't form in a vacuum. They are derived from a lot of influences in the writer's life. Those influences, in turn, are affected by the history of the culture in which the person is living as well as current happenings.

Have you ever read any Joseph Campbell?

http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php

Many of his works on the Archtypes found in story telling and history can really help you understand the intellectual and emotional underpinnings of most human art.


http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Myth-Joseph-Campbell/dp/0385418868

u/neuromonkey · 1 pointr/politics

Ancient fairy tales are knowledge. See the works of Joseph Campbell.

u/jonpaladin · 1 pointr/fantasywriters

I'm partial to Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth.

u/swordbuddha · 1 pointr/atheism

It's a little dry but you might check out The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. It covers a lot of ground, talks about the common themes in all of the worlds religions. Very enlightening stuff.

There's also a video version out there somewhere which covers most of the major stuff. We got to watch it in HS & it's pretty cool.

u/Denver_DidYouDoThis · 1 pointr/whatsthatbook

Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty -- Gregory Boyd? The subject matter doesn't seem exactly the same (Boyd seems more focused on Christianity), but other features check out. He has another book, Letters of Skeptic, in the form of dialoged letters?

I also found The Power of Myth -- Joseph Campbell which seems more in-line with myths from various cultures throughout history.

u/NotACynic · 1 pointr/religion

I would work really hard on contextualizing the different perspectives.

Get a grasp on the purposes of myths within a religious belief system before trying to relate it at all to physics.

In contemporary societies, religious myth is designed to teach spiritual concepts (humility, gratitude, respect, etc.), not physical ones.

Some fundamentalists/superstitious types have a hard time dealing with scientific reasoning, but that doesn't mean that people who hold religious beliefs do not also accept scientific understanding.

You may want to narrow down "religion" to "indigenous mythology" - just to keep the scope of your project within reason.

u/kialari · 1 pointr/Christianity

If you're interested in an in-depth analysis of this phenomenon and the role of mythology in the development of Judeo-Christian faiths, I recommend you look into reading anything and everything you can ever get your hands on by Joseph Campbell. I specifically recommend The Power of Myth and The Masks of God series.

Joseph Campbell was himself very spiritual and has a very unique and insightful way of thinking about religion.

u/DarthContinent · 1 pointr/AskReddit

I am open to the idea that something created the universe, but that something is most likely beyond our ability to fully comprehend. We may see wisps of It in each of us (quite frankly, every human is a walking miracle), but with all the flavors of God out there...

u/limitlesschannels · 1 pointr/linguistics

For the sake of some differentiation on the list:

The Languages of Middle-Earth" for the Scifi leaning people or vaguely interested folks who enjoyed the movies. Tolkien was a language fiend and created some extensive lexicons, syntactic systems, and phonology for every language in his universe.

"In the Land of Invented Languages" All on manufactured languages and the weird people who make them. Klingon, Elvish, Esperanto, etc.

William S Burroughs "Electronic Revolution" (a bit occult, though) on the power of language as a transmittable virus

u/pigeon_soup · 1 pointr/lotr

This book Is quite good and covers several of Tolkens languages, it's not a comprehensive guide but is a brilliant starting point.

u/dsrtfx_xx · 1 pointr/lotr

Oh no, sorry, I wrote the wrong book. It's The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0395291305/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_eo9TzbDEFDE21

u/yyzed76 · 1 pointr/AskReddit

I got The Languages of Tolkein's Middle Earth for Christmas a few years ago. Its not a teaching book per se, but it has all the vocabulary and grammatical rules that can be found or determined from context for Elvish, plus some stuff on Khudzul and a bunch of other languages.

u/Themadhatter13 · 1 pointr/lotr

http://www.amazon.com/Languages-Tolkiens-Middle-earth-Ruth-Noel/dp/0395291305
This is the one she highly recommended. I have yet to look it over.

u/PortenousAugury · 1 pointr/todayilearned

It's a separate book.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Bloomsday-Book-Routledge-International/dp/0415138582

I should start some kind of reddit book club. I'm actually not teaching right now. Health issues.

u/NickSWilliamson · 1 pointr/ulysses

Yes, please join us at /r/jamesjoyce. You'll get lots of tips and can ask questions all day long.

In the meantime, here's what worked for me: get one of those audio book versions, for instance, the version we link and read along. That way, you see the words, feel them as they unfold in the book--but, at the same time, you have a professional voice actor relating mood and tempo and pronouncing those tough words. Also, the listening goes much more quickly than reading--you can finish the book in a matter of days--and the ineluctable pull of somebody reciting keeps your motivation up.

Here's another tip: center yourself with a guide such as Harry Blamires's The New Bloomsday Book...he doesn't get everything right, but it gives you a good sense of what's going on.

...Or, watch the wonderful 1967 film, Ulysses, with Milo O'Shea.

Good luck and hope to see you at /r/jamesjoyce!

u/drewcordes · 1 pointr/literature
u/Vidyadhara · 1 pointr/books

I should have been clearer. I'm referring to a kind of commentary. The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses

Chapter by chapter it summarizes the theme and the plot. It's admirable that you want to read it on your own. However, unless you're a Joyce-scholar who somehow hasn't read Ulysses, you're going to find that you need support.

u/insanepurpleducky · 1 pointr/books

I would strongly recommend having this: guidebook by your side, its pretty cool to be able to understand what the hell is going on :)
(makes me think of that Marx brothers scene where Chicos trying to con Groucho into buying all those horse racing books)

u/chasonreddit · 1 pointr/AskReddit

If you really hope to finish, I suggest the Bloomsday Book.

I think anyone who says they just read through it, finished, and enjoyed the book is a liar. That said, it's worth the effort to understand, and the companion book helps a whole lot.

u/goodbayesian · 1 pointr/gaybros

Epistemology of the Closet is an interesting and very much classic read that's better than most of the queer theory out there.

if you don't mind the often impossible syntax, Gender Trouble is also good and widely read in some parts of the academy.

and Regulating Aversion is an excellent theoretical reading of contemporary dialogues on tolerance.

u/the_berg · 1 pointr/AskReddit

This

That

And so many more things... like common sense.

u/RunsWithShibas · 1 pointr/books

Don Gifford's annotations are super helpful for this problem.

u/shesautomatic · 1 pointr/booksuggestions

I'm about to tackle this shit as well. Last week I read the Odyssey and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for homework and then I picked up the Gifford annotations book to read along with an e-copy of Ulysses. The annotated book is an extra 700 pages to read but I can tell it's going to help with my comprehension a ton.

u/jakethedog53 · 1 pointr/Canonade

Love Ulysses.

Here's a copy of the Gilbert schema and the Litany schema.

If you're trudging alone, Ulysses Annotated is invaluable.

u/SynysterSaint · 1 pointr/literature

This helped immensely with my Ulysses read-through.

u/ragvamuffin · 1 pointr/Denmark

Her kan du få den for knap en halvtredser inklusiv fragt: http://www.play.com/Books/Books/4-/455531/Ulysses/Product.html?searchstring=ulysses&searchsource=2&searchfilters=s{ulysses}%2bc{91}%2b&urlrefer=search

Hvis du vil nærlæse den, kan jeg anbefale dig at have denne guide liggende ved siden af: http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Annotated-Notes-James-Joyces/dp/0520253973
Men som du selv siger er det nok en del sjovere bare at læse igennem den som førstegangslæser. Jeg læste den selv sammen med en læsegruppe første gang, hvor vi nærlæste den nærmest på enkeltsætningsniveau. Det var fedt, men jeg ville næsten ønske jeg bare havde bøffet den igennem selv først.

Jeg overvejer selv at læse Karsten Sand Iversens nye oversættelse.

Du nævner selv du læser den med en underviser - hvad læser du? Engelsk? Litteraturvidenskab? Det er forhåbentlig ikke en gymnasielærer der har sat den på programmet :)



u/Occupier_9000 · 0 pointsr/Anarchism

He provides some arguments in the debate linked above (because Foucault actually deigns to make a few coherent substantive statements that can be subject to scrutiny and cross-examination).

However, as he as written of and noted in the past, a tremendous problem with post-structuralism/'critical' theory etc is it's deliberate obscurantism. It's impossible to critique or refute much of this meaningless drivel because it's not even wrong. There's almost nothing there to critique much of the time. This is demonstrated at length in Alan Sokal's book mention by Chomsky in one of the videos Fashionable Nonsense. I highly recommend it as do various others.

u/DuckWithBrokenWings · 0 pointsr/TheHandmaidsTale

There's a whole book about it!

u/rlaitinen · 0 pointsr/PS4

I prefer the originals. And if you want a story that's actually about a Viking family, try this one.

u/shakethenuttree · 0 pointsr/milliondollarextreme

I'm a 6 ft 4 blonde, blue eyed German with an IQ of 130.

  • I know everybody is, except for me it's true in real life.
    No problems getting laid, thank you.
    Get back in the Gym and stop projecting online big guy.

    I'm interested in the biochemistry of the sexual experience. So what? Knowledge ist the weaponry of the mind (and dick, in this case). So you better stay a dumb boy, so you can get cucked by your sister and raise her african sons.

    For you
u/Meloman0001 · 0 pointsr/IWantToLearn

1.) This, by the end of three weeks my reading speed increased by about 100 wpm. The cliff notes is to basically use your index finger or pen to mark where you are on the page (that increased my wpm by about 50 wpm) the rest was just practice/patience.

2.) This one helped me to read more efficiently.

u/disinterestedMarmot · 0 pointsr/IAmA

Obviously, I'm not Bill Gates, but you might consider picking up How To Read A Book.

u/Thurgood_Marshall · 0 pointsr/PoliticalDiscussion
u/apollocontrol · 0 pointsr/SJSU

Robert, your post speaks for itself. If you want to actually help people, then I'm not kidding about reading up on structural violence. If you aren't afraid of a civil discussion, meet with the chair of the SJSU Anthro department, buy him lunch and ask him to look at your post and explain what's wrong with it.

I don't live in the area or I would come talk to you, I'd even walk along on one of your marches to watch you upset the dirty homeless you seem so scared of.

I don't care that you never threw a punch. Congrats on meeting the very bottom criteria for not being a terrible human, you still went out and harassed homeless and made judgments about people based on their appearance.

There is so much wrong with your post, man. Please, I'm begging you, please meet with the chair of the Anthro department and also a therapist to help you work through your ideas about power and responsibility. I'm in therapy too man, I don't mean it as an insult, but I do mean to say that you need a professional to help you understand what your actions are and why they are not okay.

Please at the very least read Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault and Pathologies of Power by Paul Farmer. You are contributing to the tension between the haves and havenots in downtown SJ, and you have no right to do so. You are hurting more than helping, and you are doing so in an arrogant and uninformed way.

If you want to pretend to be doing the right thing, than at least read up on what it is that you are contributing to. Foucault will be a great resource for you.

u/Gilleah · 0 pointsr/changemyview

If we're talking like literally, no, not at all. Practically, it's as you say, I'm hesitant condone someone super-gluing sandpaper to a broom handle and raping me with it while I get water-boarded.

If you're interested this is the book I point people to, to get started on the Beautiful Path of Pessimism https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-against-Human-Race-Contrivance/dp/0984480277

You may or may not be able to find it online. It's only $8 on Kindle, and gives you a pretty good launching point into the depths of philosophy that people typically avoid talking about.

u/jking1226 · -1 pointsr/news

>You have no idea what you are talking about

Yup looks like a total lack of reading comprehension, here I'll walk you through it real slowly.

>I know you’re a racist because you took an entire population of people and just referred to them as “blacks”.

Notice how he doesn't say you are white here? He just says you're racist.

>Cant wait to here how you’re not racist though because you call people whites...

And here he says that you'll make the excuse that you aren't racist because you refer to white people the same way. Once again, he doesn't say anything about your race.

>I bet you are a white person that lives in a rich suburb. PS: I am black. I will wait for your racist remarks about black folk supporting Trump.

I don't really care who you're saying you are today, save your autobiography for someone who gives a shit.

Honestly a total lack of complex reading comprehension may be the best excuse for supporting Trump. He talks in nice short sentences and doesn't get too complex with his thoughts, and all the reports of his crimes use big words and take more than a minute to read.

If you wanna brush up on those skills I highly recommend [Adler's "How to Read a Book"] (https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095/ref=sr_1_1?crid=189G3HDZUS039&keywords=adler+how+to+read+a+book&qid=1551383567&s=books&sprefix=adler+how+t%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C211&sr=1-1)

u/qessa5 · -1 pointsr/Futurology

Sure it does, and what I'm asking for isn't even in that section.

Here, this should help you in the future.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095

You could go read that and then write a snide review. What bot-level fun.

u/down_vote_city__ · -1 pointsr/gainit

>Like you don't choose to be human. You just are.


There's a really good book about this if you want to read something that'll blow your hair back.

Conspiracy Against The Human Race by Thomas Ligotti

I'd also recommend "Guns, Germs and Steel" and the follow-up Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. I believe habitat destruction is the on the list for what killed past societies along with overfishing and (of course) overpopulation.

Spooky stuff.

u/Spacebobby · -1 pointsr/skeptic

It's funny to me that you think calling something a cabal and desperately mocking your opponets argument trying to make the worst form of it so that you can feel emotionally gratified in your bias is more important to you than making the best form of the argument to see if you're right. That postmodernism is becoming increasingly popular at universities and that by its own claims is anti modernism. I mean would it not be easy enough to justify that with the sokal affair? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

https://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science/dp/0312204078

Or if you are really desperate you could ignore evidence that compelling about postmodernists and still be left with how campus policy has been changed after much lobbying by feminist groups.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-johnson-taylor-campus-sexual-assault-20170303-story.html

What about polling done by Bucknell Institute for Public Policy that shows democrats are the lowest for believing in the right to cross examine their accusiors? Now I too might ask is that the result of feminist teaching in academia maybe not but is it not strange that so many public womens and genders studies professors support such changes or are against such basic rights?

http://thefederalist.com/2017/09/27/poll-americans-still-believe-innocent-proven-guilty-even-college-students/

Is that argument actually so ridiclious? Or are you trying to save your bias by only being willing to pretend its as if its some secret cabal?

u/riggorous · -1 pointsr/iamverysmart

Let's try a simple example first.

If I wanted to convince you of the validity of a universal wealth tax, I would recommend [Thomas Pinketty's (that's pronounced Thom-ah) excellent book, Capital in the 21st Century] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I2WNYJW?btkr=1), of which I'm sure you've heard. It is a huge achievement because Pinketty collected an incredibly large and detailed dataset on international wealth inequality, which is a task requiring a lot of planning, expertise, patience, and funding. His dataset shows I think definitively that the way we currently distribute wealth is fundamentally flawed (not necessarily because of the theory, mind, but because of the various transaction costs and market failures that either theory or policy fails to account for), and will hurt us in the future. As such, his suggestion of a universal wealth tax, which is highly controversial, certainly has grounds for insertion into mainstream discourse, if not yet or ever grounds for implementation. To reiterate: is the universal wealth tax a valid policy that is valid for real consideration? Absolutely. Is it valid in the sense that it is practicable? Probably not. Is it valid in the sense that it will accurately correct the system? Probably not.

If you're still with me, let's try a harder example. If I wanted to convince you of the validity of gender feminism, I would point you towards [Judith Butler's Gender Trouble] (http://www.amazon.com/Gender-Trouble-Feminism-Subversion-Routledge/dp/0415389550), which is perhaps a controversial choice, since Butler is controversial and her writing is a fucking disaster of postmodern proportions, but I think it lays out both the position of gender feminists and the benefits of gender feminism in exhaustive detail. Butler starts with the assertion that both sex and gender are socially constructed categories (forgive me if my shorthand is too broad, but basically, does it matter if you are a male or a female if other people can't tell by looking at you?) and concludes that gender identity is bullshit a priori and we don't need it socially or individually. Most people don't agree with her; most feminists don't agree with her, including, in my experience, academic feminists (although [this book] (http://www.amazon.com/Who-Stole-Feminism-Women-Betrayed/dp/0684801566/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414605464&sr=1-1&keywords=who+stole+feminism) by Christina Hoff Sommers, which I would use to convince you of the alternative view, disagrees with me re academia). But this view exists in feminism (it is found in vast quantities on /r/tumblrinaction) because, in part, Butler's logic (given her assumptions) is valid and her argument is convincing to a point. Are her assumptions valid? Who knows. We have no way of testing that except with more philosophy.

I'll finish off with an example for which I will not give you readings because you can find them in your local newspaper. Throughout the economic crisis, people have talked about the benefits of fiscal stimulus versus fiscal austerity. Logically, is either view valid? Of course; both have existed since the inception of macroeconomics. Furthermore, both have been successful in some situations and disastrous in others. Which view is valid given the situation? Depends on who you ask, and depends in a formative manner. For instance, Latvia experienced a contraction shock in 2008-2009 and the IMF were called in to design a policy program for recovery. The IMF are famous for their austerity stance, but in this situation, the Latvian government actually elected to fiscally contract more than the IMF thought necessary (fiscal contraction is when you increase taxes and reduce subsidies - it's political suicide and has potential to seriously harm the economy in the short term). They had the EU to answer to, and they wanted to show that they were in control of their situation and willing to enact such measures as were necessary. I've been wishy-washy in parts, but I'm pretty decided here: if you think that a politician's decision to act on the economy in a certain way is invalid because she is a politician, you are an idiot.

I can't tell you anything about astrology or shamanism because, as I've mentioned 5 times already, I am not qualified to talk about either. But validity in the social sciences and humanities is not a binary situation, and, whereas you're under no obligation to get it, you can at least be civil and shut up when you don't know what you're talking about.

u/neutronfish · -2 pointsr/skeptic

> Got any examples there, bud?

There's an entire book on the subject called Fashionable Nonsense filled with examples of humanities scholars bastardizing science to create an anti-colonial narrative. In the cited works by popular academics you'll learn that math and physics aren't simply ways of describing the world around us and making predictions, but secret vehicles for racism, sexism, and colonial oppression. If decrying the disciplines that enabled human spaceflight and doubled the average lifespan is not anti-intellectual, I don't know what is.

> You realize the scientific method has limits right? Like by definition. Science is a process of constant revision.

So what's your point? Observing facts, coming up with a hypothesis, falsifying it, and producing a theory to explain the relationships between the facts you're documented and tested, then correcting it when new facts are discovered is a pretty damn good way of learning about the world and the way all humans have done it since we gained sapience.

When humanities scholars say that "indigenous cultures had the scientific method forced upon them by colonists," they're not decrying colonialism as much as they're insulting indigenous cultures by refusing to acknowledge that they too understood how science works and conducted some form of scientific studies.

u/jorio · -4 pointsr/askphilosophy

>Are there any good academic critiques of it?

Fashionable Nonsense is probably the most widely circulated criticism of this general school of thought.

> In some of the intervening time, it seems to have become dominant (at least in internet dialogue).

I'm not sure this is the case, certainly not in America.

u/permanent-throwaways · -8 pointsr/AdviceAnimals

To my knowledge, gender doesn't mean male and female, but masculine and feminine.

http://www.amazon.com/Gender-Trouble-Feminism-Subversion-Routledge/dp/0415389550/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382651230&sr=8-1&keywords=gender+trouble+judith+butler

Hence, gender roles will always exist and that's not necessarily a bad thing because being masculine and feminine has traditionally been a requirement for being male or female.

If you just look at it and accept that females can be both masculine and feminine and the same for males, then there's nothing wrong with gender roles because it has nothing to do with sex (i.e. being male or female), but gender (being masculine or feminine).

edit: To clarify I'm not saying that women should be relegated to any traditional role, but that a yin-yang dichotomy will still exist of masculine and feminine gender roles and that both males and females are free to take up.

u/learnyouahaskell · -12 pointsr/WorldofTanks

You need to learn how to read. You haven't asked a proper question or formulated a proper response to the facts. The only proper response here is to ignore anything that is not a direct question, i.e. an attempt to ascertain the facts, or to speak legitimately according to limited knowledge, which you do not even have.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Z5PpkQadm5EC&q=disagreeing#v=snippet&q=disagreeing&f=false

Especially poignant section: http://puu.sh/vlzl7/3d7ae87aba.jpg

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095/

u/scartol · -16 pointsr/AskLiteraryStudies

Dear Despondent,

I am not the Highly Qualified Literary Academic you really need, but I've spent enough time in academia to have an opinion anyway.

The vast majority of literary study work that I have come upon in the 21st century consists of incredibly arcane deconstructions of minutiae that have a very small chance of ever helping someone trying to understand literature.

I don't know anything about your professors, but my guess is that they are (a) desperately trying to justify their own existence in the academy by writing material of the type described above — and therefore unable/unwilling to carefully review your work to see if it fits the mold; and/or (b) too unclear on what exactly you should be expected to compose in order to grant you a seal of approval for your own work.

This is a common trend in cultural studies, sociology, and some schools of philosophy as well. I wish I had some advice on how to navigate it all, but I can only tell you, as someone who enjoys reading the 10% of well-written, worthwhile literary analysis that makes it into print: Please make sure your work actually contributes meaningfully to the world, instead of merely pumping it full of more fashionable nonsense to acquire tenure and/or publication.

Good luck!

Kind regards,

HS English Teacher Who Wishes He Could Do More Analytical Scholarly Work Instead of Grading Papers All the Time