Favorite Books

irreduciblekoan
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by irreduciblekoan »

Oh ok, thanks for the clear reply. Well then, you aren't saying that literature is innately inferior to movies and music, you were just replying to someone who stated that literature was a superior art form. Fair enough.

"I want to SEE what things look like and HEAR the music that's playing during the scene. Reading someone's description of somewhere, or their description of music just doesn't do it for me."

Also fair enough. These are the exact reasons why my girlfriend doesn't like reading. Some people don't want to exercise their imaginations too much, and I'm not gonna be one to judge them (after all, I'm dating one). I myself PREFER to have to picture descriptions of people, places and actions in books, because then I can control the "camera angles," so to speak, and the appearance of the cast members, and exactly how the settings look. I like to have that control. Instead of a movie telling me "ok, this is how the main character looks" and "this is how the love interest looks," I would rather imagine my own main character and love interest. The writer can just give me a few pointers (hair color, type of body figure, personality, etc) and I color in the rest with the exact faces I want. A book's love interest will always be attractive to me, whereas for movies and television, I'm stuck with whoever is cast.
Gillingham
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Gillingham »

Bruce wrote:
Gillingham wrote:as eyeopening, challenging or horryfying as any non-fiction work.
I don't read to be challenged or horrified. I read to gain more information about subjects I care about.

Why would anybody WANT to be horrified?
One is bound to be horrified if reading a lot of non fiction works. It's not about wanting to be horrified, it's about gaining information.
But I'll rest my case.
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Bruce
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Bruce »

Gillingham wrote:
Bruce wrote:
Gillingham wrote:as eyeopening, challenging or horryfying as any non-fiction work.
I don't read to be challenged or horrified. I read to gain more information about subjects I care about.

Why would anybody WANT to be horrified?
One is bound to be horrified if reading a lot of non fiction works. It's not about wanting to be horrified, it's about gaining information.
But I'll rest my case.
I read pretty much exclusively about music and baseball. Nothing horrifying there, other than some of the music that some people like.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by irreduciblekoan »

I LOVE it when works of art make me horrified or depressed. Come and See? 12 Years a Slave? Herzog? Camus? Kafka? Dozens of documentaries? Bring it on, I say. The way I see it, the world contains as much darkness as light, if not more. Instead of trying to hide from the darkness, I embrace it, learn about it, try to figure it out or at least come to terms with it.

But besides horrifying art, I love art that makes me think. I don't like to be passive in anything, but certainly not when taking in literature, cinema and music. I say, engage my mind or my mind will turn into mush. Godard might be my favorite filmmaker. Vonnegut may be my favorite author. Dylan might be my favorite musician. Because all of them give me works that not only entertain me, but make me think.

But again, I know many people (such as the girl I'm seeing) who don't share these characteristics at all, so I won't judge. Maybe I'm the weird one for wanting to be challenged.
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Bruce
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Bruce »

irreduciblekoan wrote:I LOVE it when works of art make me horrified or depressed.
Maybe that's because you have not yet had those things happen to you in real life.

There's enough bad things that happen in real life. When I listen to music or watch something on TV or a movie I want to be entertained and to be made happy.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Nick »

Bruce wrote:
irreduciblekoan wrote:I LOVE it when works of art make me horrified or depressed.
Maybe that's because you have not yet had those things happen to you in real life.
Don't give me that. Whenever I'm depressed I take comfort in art that focuses on such feelings. It reminds me that the negativity I'm feeling isn't something that I'm experiencing alone, it reminds me that there are others out there who know what it feels like. And that is much more comforting than any blindly happy song.
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Bruce
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Bruce »

Nick wrote:
Bruce wrote:
irreduciblekoan wrote:I LOVE it when works of art make me horrified or depressed.
Maybe that's because you have not yet had those things happen to you in real life.
Don't give me that. Whenever I'm depressed I take comfort in art that focuses on such feelings. It reminds me that the negativity I'm feeling isn't something that I'm experiencing alone, it reminds me that there are others out there who know what it feels like. And that is much more comforting than any blindly happy song.
Here's one for you the next time you think you have problems:
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by irreduciblekoan »

Bruce, I'm not sure whether you meant I like depressing art because I'm not depressed in life (or haven't had a hard life), or whether you're saying I like depressing art because I haven't had the situations in those works happen to me. In either case, you're incorrect.

Two examples, one of each. I didn't have a happy childhood, and i haven't had the happiest adult life. No, I'm not saying I've had it terrible. Yes, there are always those who have it worse. So yes, I feel privileged in some ways. But that doesn't change the fact that I myself grew up in a broken, poor family. Plus, being kind of a loner myself (shy, Asian in a white neighborhood, bookish/nerdish, mature for my age...) I didn't grow up with many friends. So with a bad family life and a bad social life, I withdrew into myself a lot and felt very depressed. This was all as a kid until I started college. Yet, I became addicted to dark, depressing art BECAUSE I was like that. I felt that I could relate. And it helped me through that stage in life.

Second example: I love stories where the characters go through the same depressing situations I have. Bad family life? Social outcasts? Living in poverty? I eat up those books and movies. I lost a few friends, one through suicide and a few through car accidents and one through sickness, and so I find myself really drawn to films about death. On a somewhat lighter note, I'm also notorious among my social circle for being aimless and quite terrible at the game of love. I go from heartbreak to heartbreak, not being able to commit or keep a girl. My current girlfriend and I have only been together for a few months, and that has been the average for me, really. Therefore, I love stories about romances that don't work out. I love stories about heartbreak. Again, they get me through my own similar troubles.
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Bruce
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Bruce »

irreduciblekoan wrote:Therefore, I love stories about romances that don't work out. I love stories about heartbreak. Again, they get me through my own similar troubles.
This is bad. You've got yourself into a cycle here of bad things happening, then you document them with literature, music, movies, etc... and then repeat them so you can get to the documenting again.

You need some positive reinforcement. Start listening to music about great relationships that work out, and watch some movies about the same thing. Maybe you can break the pattern.

Women can sense a defeatist attitude a mile away.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by irreduciblekoan »

Who says I don't delve into positive works of art either? My library of books and movies and music isn't all darkness and dreariness. I'm just saying what kinds of things especially speak to me, and why, but it doesn't mean I'm not optimistic about myself and my future, or that I'm incapable of enjoying lighter stories.

I don't think enjoying depressing works of art makes me worse. On the contrary, as I said, it helps me through. It IMPROVES my mood. I'm not joking when I say that after a few depressing foreign films, I'm easily in the mood for a night on the town with friends. Whereas before that I was probably withdrawn and therefore watching such films in the first place.

As a matter of fact, watching happy stories can make me worse, because I wish I could be like the characters, but I remain pessimistic that I won't. On the other hand, I guess you could say more solemn stories give me inspiration. Now remember that solemn, even depressing stories can still have hopeful, optimistic elements. Examples are two of my all-time favorite films: "Poetry" (the Korean film from 2010) and Ikiru (the Japanese film from 1952). Both films aren't easy watches. In fact, for much of the time they are downright uncomfortable to go through. They are both about old people, near the end of their rope, trying to find last minute meaning in their lives. Many would say both films are challenging and depressing, and they would be correct, but just as many would say the tones of the movies, by the end, are ultimately hopeful. Because, although the main characters do pass away in both films, they do so with relative peace of mind, even if their paths to such enlightenment weren't easy, for them or for us (the audience). And it's those sort of depressing stories I'm talking about, the ones that are still inspirational.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Gillingham »

Bruce wrote:
irreduciblekoan wrote:I LOVE it when works of art make me horrified or depressed.
Maybe that's because you have not yet had those things happen to you in real life.

There's enough bad things that happen in real life. When I listen to music or watch something on TV or a movie I want to be entertained and to be made happy.
Maybe that's because you have not yet had those things happen to you in real life.

See what a ridiculous argument you were making?
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Bruce
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Bruce »

Gillingham wrote:
Bruce wrote:
irreduciblekoan wrote:I LOVE it when works of art make me horrified or depressed.
Maybe that's because you have not yet had those things happen to you in real life.

There's enough bad things that happen in real life. When I listen to music or watch something on TV or a movie I want to be entertained and to be made happy.
Maybe that's because you have not yet had those things happen to you in real life.

See what a ridiculous argument you were making?
Do you know what "maybe" means?
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by irreduciblekoan »

By the way everyone, thegreatestbooks.org has updated. I don't know exactly when, but I randomly checked the site a few days ago and noticed it had changed. The site now incorporates 51 lists (8 more than before) and an improvement in its algorithm.

Early impressions: the mathemathics makes more sense now, and therefore the placement of the books mean much more. The site still isn't perfect by any means, but it's a vast improvement. I still think certain awards are given far too much weight compared to lists (sure, a Pulitzer is a big prize, but it's still no match for a best-of list because the latter takes hindsight/influence into account), and I'm still confused about all those entries in the lower parts of the rankings (after around 1164th and so for the fiction books) that are on no lists but are still on the site.
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Re: Favorite Books

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Excellent, Thanks for the update!
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Re: Favorite Books

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I have to say, I admire this guy's endeavors greatly, and think the list is really good in places, but I still find it to be a very flawed list, and can't entirely embrace it as a definite meta-list (I'm not trying to start an argument once again, or anything.) There are so many basic flaws that make it hard for me to take it seriously. The Stories of Anton Chekhov, for example, are listed like four separate times each, even though I am pretty sure they should be combined as a single entry. I also noticed that some lists weren't included, like the Zeit lists, Le Monde's preliminary 200 list, and the recent EW books list.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by wtf242 »

Thanks for the feedback JimmyJazz. I fixed the issue with Anton Chekhov. That book is now #48 of all time. I have a pretty big list of lists I need to add. It's a slow process though! I also just redid the rankings a bit. I decreased the weight of yearly awards, and deleted "The Big Read" which was by far the worst "reader-voted" list I've ever seen.

Those books that aren't on any list are just books that were probably once on list that i deleted so now they are just books without any points. I just checked the database and they all have 0 calculated_score. I should just not display them.
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Re: Favorite Books

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Happy to provide the feedback! The changes you made I definitely think are ones for the better! As for your point about the individual Top Ten ballots, that was an issue I definitely did not really thought of until you mentioned it. I do have some solutions for that, though. Perhaps you could choose only certain authors ballots to include: major ones like King, Oates, etc. Of course, this could irk some people who want ALL of the authors represented as well. I definitely do think you should go beyond just the Top Ten for that list, though, maybe you could expand to the Top 100 of that list at least, so that other novels get some of that major weight for them. I would be happy to do just that for you!

I also found a few more lists:

W Somerset Maugham's Top Ten Novels of All Time (from the year 1948, which would make it the oldest list on the site by far!)
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
The Guardian's 1000 Novels list
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by irreduciblekoan »

wtf242 wrote:Thanks for the feedback JimmyJazz. I fixed the issue with Anton Chekhov. That book is now #48 of all time. I have a pretty big list of lists I need to add. It's a slow process though! I also just redid the rankings a bit. I decreased the weight of yearly awards, and deleted "The Big Read" which was by far the worst "reader-voted" list I've ever seen.

Those books that aren't on any list are just books that were probably once on list that i deleted so now they are just books without any points. I just checked the database and they all have 0 calculated_score. I should just not display them.
Ah excellent, I'm liking those fixes already. Now a book like Faulkner's A Fable, which won the Pulitzer and the NBA, but hasn't made it on any lists, is ranked lower than the books that made it onto the Great Books of the Western World list, which makes far more sense. Winning a couple of awards, as big as they are, shouldn't mean more than being considered one of Western Civilizations greatest works.

Also, I'm extremely glad to hear that your update isn't "final" yet. I will definitely be checking your site continuously. Thanks for all your work!
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Re: Favorite Books

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I have been in contact with Shane, the guy who runs the book site over the past few weeks, and he has been tweaking his formula for awhile. He has a huge amount of lists he is going to add, including a bunch I have been sending him, so this next update sounds like it will be awesome!
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Re: Favorite Books

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It always bothers me to see genre fiction thrown under the rug like it doesn't matter. If the pretty much agreed upon best fantasy work still struggles to garner respect, I guess I'm a washed up hack before I even begin.

And then we get Ursula K. Le Guin who gets completely overlooked due to being a lesser known genre writer, while she's written one of the few books to make me question what it means to be human. The Left Hand of Darkness should be required reading, as should her short "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." Here's a link to "Omelas":

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/dunnw ... omelas.pdf
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Re: Favorite Books

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BleuPanda wrote:It always bothers me to see genre fiction thrown under the rug like it doesn't matter. If the pretty much agreed upon best fantasy work still struggles to garner respect, I guess I'm a washed up hack before I even begin.

And then we get Ursula K. Le Guin who gets completely overlooked due to being a lesser known genre writer, while she's written one of the few books to make me question what it means to be human. The Left Hand of Darkness should be required reading, as should her short "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." Here's a link to "Omelas":

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/dunnw ... omelas.pdf
BleuPanda, you may like to know that Shane Sherman, the guy who runs the Greatest Books site, has a whole bunch of lists he's going to add he told me, and that includes quite a few genre specific lists. Like horror, Sci Fi, crime, and fantasy, often from lists compiled by major experts and actual writers in the genres themselves.mso hopefully this will correct even slightly, the genre underrating in the literary rankings.
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Re: Favorite Books

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It's just one of those things that has leaked heavily into my field to the point of great annoyance. So many MFA programs won't allow you to work on genre fiction while in them. It's really quite depressing that I can have some of the harshest professors I work with actually warm up to my fantasy stories and tell me there's something worth pursuing in my current novel-in-progress, but then have it shot down by others simply for involving fantasy elements. The last Creative Writing workshop class I had, the professor just straight up wouldn't allow us to do genre fiction short stories. It' s like, yeah, it generally involves a different style of criticism, but I'm not being helped in my actual pursuits as a writer. And all of this goes back to this ideology that only literary fiction deserves respect. Thank God I have as much interest in Post-Modernism as I do fantasy. Most of the stories I want to work on contain elements of both, and I guess Snow Crash gets respect every once in a while, so maybe there's hope for me yet.

I think the most telling experience for me was the time a college course I took read The Left Hand of Darkness. The instructor noticed that nearly half the class was struggling to understand the book, and when she asked, the overwhelming response by these people were their difficulties in remembering the names of characters and places. These people didn't dislike fantasy because of its setting, but because the names were too foreign to be remembered. Because genre fiction is so overlooked in our education system, there are people who literally don't know how to interpret fantasy and sci-fi. In the same class we read The Grapes of Wrath, Lolita, and White Noise, yet this comparatively simple sci-fi novel proves the most challenging for the class as a whole. And it basically comes down to the fact that a group of white Midwestern college students have a hard time with foreign names, which I think is a prime example of the issue being the reader and not the work itself.

And then there's works like The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which owe everything to the influence of the so-called 'low' culture and manage to win the Pulitzer Prize. So, fantasy can't garner respect, but stories about characters being affected by fantasy which require basic familiarity with certain works can.
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Re: Favorite Books

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BleuPanda wrote:It's just one of those things that has leaked heavily into my field to the point of great annoyance. So many MFA programs won't allow you to work on genre fiction while in them. It's really quite depressing that I can have some of the harshest professors I work with actually warm up to my fantasy stories and tell me there's something worth pursuing in my current novel-in-progress, but then have it shot down by others simply for involving fantasy elements. The last Creative Writing workshop class I had, the professor just straight up wouldn't allow us to do genre fiction short stories. It' s like, yeah, it generally involves a different style of criticism, but I'm not being helped in my actual pursuits as a writer. And all of this goes back to this ideology that only literary fiction deserves respect. Thank God I have as much interest in Post-Modernism as I do fantasy. Most of the stories I want to work on contain elements of both, and I guess Snow Crash gets respect every once in a while, so maybe there's hope for me yet.

I think the most telling experience for me was the time a college course I took read The Left Hand of Darkness. The instructor noticed that nearly half the class was struggling to understand the book, and when she asked, the overwhelming response by these people were their difficulties in remembering the names of characters and places. These people didn't dislike fantasy because of its setting, but because the names were too foreign to be remembered. Because genre fiction is so overlooked in our education system, there are people who literally don't know how to interpret fantasy and sci-fi. In the same class we read The Grapes of Wrath, Lolita, and White Noise, yet this comparatively simple sci-fi novel proves the most challenging for the class as a whole. And it basically comes down to the fact that a group of white Midwestern college students have a hard time with foreign names, which I think is a prime example of the issue being the reader and not the work itself.

And then there's works like The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which owe everything to the influence of the so-called 'low' culture and manage to win the Pulitzer Prize. So, fantasy can't garner respect, but stories about characters being affected by fantasy which require basic familiarity with certain works can.
I understand how you feel. It is a very hostile world to be a genre writer in the literary world, much more so than being a Hollywood or genre director in the film world, just by comparing TSPDT to that Greatest Books site for a comparison. This is why I think some of those lists might help change up the canon as presented on that site, and maybe even convince those snobby and close minded academics to reconsider their prejudices.

BTW, I hope we didn't get off on the wrong foot with our disputes about TSPDT or anything. I guess I can be very defensive of it and the guy's methods because I have used the site for so long, and it really helped to shape my nature as a film buff and get me into film. I hope we can simply agree to disagree about that issue :greetings-waveyellow:
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Re: Favorite Books

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Oh, I actually really like TSPDT, I just word things more strongly than I intend sometimes. I've been making my own way through the list. The only movie I have left in the top 100 is A Mother and A Whore. My only issue is his formula seems to hold bias for older films when the lists he's using also have a bias toward older films. Like the idea of no film from 2013 being able to break into the top 100 for just this century doesn't sit well with me, but the films featured are all worthy. I just look at individual years more than the overall rankings.
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Re: Favorite Books

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BleuPanda wrote:It always bothers me to see genre fiction thrown under the rug like it doesn't matter. If the pretty much agreed upon best fantasy work still struggles to garner respect, I guess I'm a washed up hack before I even begin.

And then we get Ursula K. Le Guin who gets completely overlooked due to being a lesser known genre writer, while she's written one of the few books to make me question what it means to be human. The Left Hand of Darkness should be required reading, as should her short "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." Here's a link to "Omelas":

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/dunnw ... omelas.pdf
You still have some hope. Tolkien and Lewis wrote classics, and authors like Borges and Murakami managed to earn loads of critical acclaim by writing magical realism.
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Re: Favorite Books

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Nick wrote:
BleuPanda wrote:It always bothers me to see genre fiction thrown under the rug like it doesn't matter. If the pretty much agreed upon best fantasy work still struggles to garner respect, I guess I'm a washed up hack before I even begin.

And then we get Ursula K. Le Guin who gets completely overlooked due to being a lesser known genre writer, while she's written one of the few books to make me question what it means to be human. The Left Hand of Darkness should be required reading, as should her short "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." Here's a link to "Omelas":

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/dunnw ... omelas.pdf
You still have some hope. Tolkien and Lewis wrote classics, and authors like Borges and Murakami managed to earn loads of critical acclaim by writing magical realism.
Yeah, the thing I don't get is that there are some truly great genre writers out there, but they get dismissed. But then others either become supremely respected in literary circles, like Poe, Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, Lewis Carroll, Kafka (his stories are essentially horror), Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment is as much a thriller as a psychological meditation on the nature of crime itself), and all of the magical realists from Latin America, or they at least become popular enough to warrant begrudging critical respect from the literary elites, like Tolkien and Lewis and Rowling and King. One major genre writer I absolutely love is Lovecraft, who doesn't get a lot of love on book lists at all outside of Horror genre specific lists. Joyce Carol Oates has however, compared him to Poe, and his greatly influenced no less than Borges. I think his stuff is fulling deserving of more praise than it gets (although granted his notorious politics probably get in the way, but that doesn't stop the academics from praising say, Nabokov, or Saul Bellow, or Borges, even when they drifted into crazy political ramblings.)
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Re: Favorite Books

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For some reason magical realism has been treated like literary fiction even though I find it has more in common with genre. The problem is why we try to separate works into these two categories to begin with, and why simply applying a label to something affects how it is received. And note how all those genre writers you mentioned are from a while ago. Literary reception in general has never learned how to evolve to accept modern works, which I think is the inherent flaw of having literature taught in schools. We learn that certain works are good for certain reasons, but it's rarely applied to anything from the past 30 years. There's this sad state where the actual great works of modern literature are less read than the classics, which makes me question what the point of literature even is in modern times. Does it matter if x author influenced y author if new literature is treated like a devoid wasteland? If that's the case, does literature even carry true value as a form of human expression?

Of course that isn't the case, and this has been a sad truth for over a century. Many great artists die poor and unrecognized, and then centuries later we have the gall to claim it's a shame they got no respect in their own time. If that's the case, why don't we push to recognize our own living greats? Why must a work sit for 50 years before we admit it had a major social impact? Why had I never heard of DeLillo before a random college class focusing on more recent literature?

To me, all forms of art exist to express the human condition of their respective eras, and the general tendency to ignore recent releases is an insult to artists. All novelists approach writing with the idea their book holds little value, because we as a collective culture have decided to ignore new works. Literary culture is obsessed with a supposed canon that refuses to change because we were taught at a young age to treat certain works as if they are on an untouchable pedestal.
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Re: Favorite Books

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I agree and disagree with you. On the one hand, if all of this older literature (or any medium for the record) wasn't taught and praised, many younger people may not ever discover it and be influenced by it, as every single medium is essentially a carrying of the torch and baton, so to speak. So I do think that a canon with the classics is important to have, in order to preserve the history of a medium, present knowledge consistently, and to allow younger people to look outside their time frame (basically remember that their lifespan is just a tiny sliver of all of human history and, in the case of something as old as literature, this medium.

Nonetheless, I do think that modern writers should be given more praise and recognition in schools as well. It is trying to find a more perfect balance that is the key.
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Re: Favorite Books

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The problem is our perception of the baton gets lost somewhere along the line.
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Re: Favorite Books

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I recently came across this book-lists source: http://www.themodernnovel.com/lists/the ... erbest.htm
There are some hidden gems in there. I already bookmarked some to check.

JimmyJazz, saw you're in contact with the compiler of thegreatestbooks.org.
Maybe you could tip this to him, if he didn't know it already.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by JimmyJazz »

Chambord wrote:I recently came across this book-lists source: http://www.themodernnovel.com/lists/the ... erbest.htm
There are some hidden gems in there. I already bookmarked some to check.

JimmyJazz, saw you're in contact with the compiler of thegreatestbooks.org.
Maybe you could tip this to him, if he didn't know it already.
Actually, I selected a whole bunch of lists from that site which sounded like a good fit, and put the links in to each of them in a massive word document (I have actually sent him a second of these documents a few weeks ago, and am currently typing a third one). So he has most of the interesting lists from that site, which is quite nice, and some of the lists that he has recently added are from it as well. As he and I have been discussing in our email correspondence lately, neither of us ever thought there were THIS many book lists out there! The list is now getting some real meat behind it with the number of lists added.

Also, I have been coming up with suggestions on tweaking the site's layout, in very minor ways, to suggest to him.
He also recently told me about a great idea he had for the site, which is ultimately to make it easier for users to navigate the site based on specific categories. Essentially, he wants to create tags to put on every single book's page, indicating things like genre, time period, style/literary period, author, country, language, (and for non-fiction, category and topic).

I would strongly suggest anybody who wants to help with this endeavor go the website and email him about it for more info, as I myself seem to have lost that email where he discusses it, which is weird.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by irreduciblekoan »

I have been periodically checking back to that site a few times a week. Have noticed the changes, and I must say that it looks MUCH better. Like, it's really night and day compared to how the site originally was with just 43 lists and the shoddy algorithm. I can safely say that I want to read almost all of the top 1000 now. I love that books which have only won awards but haven't made it to any best-of lists have all dropped out of the top 1000. For example, Faulkner's A Fable is 1134th, which is a GREAT thing. If there is one very minor complaint I still have with the formula, it's that the Amazon list "100 Books to Read in a Lifetime" probably has a bit too much weight. Questionable choices on that list include "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," "Gone Girl," "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," "The Fault in Out Stars," and "The Hunger Games," and all of those books are in the top 1000 simply on account of being on the Amazon list. I''ve never been a fan of Amazon's lists, of anything. I don't think their editors are actually "experts" of any field.

Still, it's a very minor complaint, and admittedly there is some very good stuff on the Amazon list as well. For the most part, I love the progress of Shane's work on the site, and I'll have to thank him, JimmyJazz and whoever else helped for bringing it ever nearer to the definitive site for book lists.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by JimmyJazz »

irreduciblekoan wrote:I have been periodically checking back to that site a few times a week. Have noticed the changes, and I must say that it looks MUCH better. Like, it's really night and day compared to how the site originally was with just 43 lists and the shoddy algorithm. I can safely say that I want to read almost all of the top 1000 now. I love that books which have only won awards but haven't made it to any best-of lists have all dropped out of the top 1000. For example, Faulkner's A Fable is 1134th, which is a GREAT thing. If there is one very minor complaint I still have with the formula, it's that the Amazon list "100 Books to Read in a Lifetime" probably has a bit too much weight. Questionable choices on that list include "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," "Gone Girl," "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," "The Fault in Out Stars," and "The Hunger Games," and all of those books are in the top 1000 simply on account of being on the Amazon list. I''ve never been a fan of Amazon's lists, of anything. I don't think their editors are actually "experts" of any field.

Still, it's a very minor complaint, and admittedly there is some very good stuff on the Amazon list as well. For the most part, I love the progress of Shane's work on the site, and I'll have to thank him, JimmyJazz and whoever else helped for bringing it ever nearer to the definitive site for book lists.
I absolutely do agree that the Amazon list is the worst of all official book lists included on the site, yet it DOES meet a lot of the criterion, and so I can't see how it would decrease in weight to be honest. The only thing, as you mentioned, is maybe the "weird source for books" category, but Amazon does have a longer history with books than other mediums, having started out as a simple online book seller, and it seems it was compiled by their book staff and critics.

I do agree though, the list is definitely more legit looking, and with the knowledge of the giant amount of lists that he will be adding (seriously, I have discovered a huge amount of book lists I have been providing him over the past two months basically. As he and I were discussing, there are actually more book lists out there than we ever realized, which is nice, to give the list more meat to it.) It is very exciting to see the site in its progress over each weekend or so. I would strongly recommend Henrik actually include this site under the TSPDT banner at the bottom of the AM home page, as it is definitely a respectable list now. I definitely hope that all of the other sites I am involved in helping to make currently (TV shows, video games, comic books, classical music, etc.) could be linked as well. I might alert Bill Georgaris of TSPDT to link these sites to his as well. I actually noticed that while he used to link AM, he hasnt since the site changed of few years back. It would be great if all of these sites could become interconnected, as a web of recommendation, meta-lists.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by DDD troll account »

JimmyJazz wrote:classical music
You're involved in the making of a site like this for classical music? That's pretty awesome as I've been looking for such a thing for a quite a while now. Link?
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by JimmyJazz »

pauldrach wrote:
JimmyJazz wrote:classical music
You're involved in the making of a site like this for classical music? That's pretty awesome as I've been looking for such a thing for a quite a while now. Link?
Oh, it's still in the making. Unlike the games, TV, and comics lists, where I'm helping out a guy, this site is my own project actually. I am currently swamped with adjusting to college right now though, and trying to work on those aforementioned lists first before I start work on the classical site, so expect a long time before it gets ready. Sorry.
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Re: Favorite Books

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Be sure to let me know when it's finished then and whether you need any help in the making.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Listyguy »

JimmyJazz wrote:
pauldrach wrote:
JimmyJazz wrote:classical music
You're involved in the making of a site like this for classical music? That's pretty awesome as I've been looking for such a thing for a quite a while now. Link?
Oh, it's still in the making. Unlike the games, TV, and comics lists, where I'm helping out a guy, this site is my own project actually. I am currently swamped with adjusting to college right now though, and trying to work on those aforementioned lists first before I start work on the classical site, so expect a long time before it gets ready. Sorry.
You just started college too?
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Blanco »

If Gabriel García Márquez could see that his work "One Hundred Years of Solitude" usually appears as the best work in Spanish language, he would sigh, go to his own bookshelf, he would take two small books, and place them in front of you; just as someone once put them in front of him. From the table, "Pedro Páramo" and "The Burning Plain" would wait to be read. And maybe, just maybe, you would agree with him.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Nick »

I think it's about time for a revised top ten novels...

1. Infinite Jest- David Foster Wallace
2. Catch-22- Joseph Heller
3. Slaughterhouse-Five- Kurt Vonnegut
4. 2666- Roberto Bolaño
5. Don Quixote- Miguel de Cervantes
6. The Pale King- David Foster Wallace
7. Underworld- Don DeLillo
8. Snow Crash- Neal Stephenson
9. The Savage Detectives- Roberto Bolaño
10. Norwegian Wood- Haruki Murakami
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by DocBrown »

Nick wrote:I think it's about time for a revised top ten novels...


6. The Pale King- David Foster Wallace
I find this one so difficult on a best-of list. While it's undoubtedly brilliant, funny writing, probably better than Infinite Jest, it's still a stub. And a tragic reminder of a brilliant life cut short.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Nick »

DocBrown wrote:
Nick wrote:I think it's about time for a revised top ten novels...


6. The Pale King- David Foster Wallace
I find this one so difficult on a best-of list. While it's undoubtedly brilliant, funny writing, probably better than Infinite Jest, it's still a stub. And a tragic reminder of a brilliant life cut short.
It really is tragic. I'm pretty much certain that if Wallace ever finished it it would be my number 1 or number 2 novel of all time. But as it stands, "The Pale King" is still an incredibly moving tribute to tedium, boredom, and the world's unsung heroes that keep this earth moving. It's a hard book to sell- the major theme is boredom and all the characters are IRS workers- but the fact that Wallace could take something as seemingly mundane as that and turn in into a loving (and immensely readable) tribute to the mundane, is just astounding.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by whuntva »

I have a Tumblr post of my Top 10.*

http://honorable-dr-w.tumblr.com/image/54074105078

*Yes, Merchant of Venice is a play. If that's cheating, my next pick would be Neil Gaiman-American Gods.

Some other books I really like are HP Lovecraft-Shadow over Innsmouth, Charles Dickens-Great Expectations, and on the graphic novel side Alan Moore-Watchmen
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by JimmyJazz »

I have been sending Bill at They Shoot Pictures Don't They some lists recently before his deadline at the end of November, and I also suggested linking the Greatest Books site. Lo and behold, he has along with Acclaimed Music!

I was wondering, Henrik, if you could add Greatest Books to the links along with TSPDT on this site? I know Shane will greatly appreciate it, he already has been getting a lot of traffic thanks to Wikipedia articles citing his rankings, and I'm sure the TSPDT link will help immensely with it as well. This site would do wonders too.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by irreduciblekoan »

Speaking of which, I wonder if Shane has taken a break or something. His site has stalled at 69 lists since September.

Not that I'm complaining. Actually I wouldn't mind it if he kept a set schedule for updating his site, such as how AM updates every June and They Shoot Pictures the beginning of each year. But if Shane does go that route, I would rather he say so on the site itself, so I know not to keep returning every day, haha
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by JimmyJazz »

He was actually vacationing in Peru for the last week or so. His life has been very busy these past few months, but he told me in a recent email that he will start to work on the site, including finishing that 69th list which is still in the process of being added, this week (or more likely weekendish). He also has a TON of lists that are still on the back burner, like close to 200 I believe.
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by prosecutorgodot »

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami is by far my favorite book!

I also have a soft spot for Animal Farm, Pride and Prejudice, The Green Mile by Stephen King, and Donald Duk (forgot the author).
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by tieb »

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Re: Favorite Books

Post by prosecutorgodot »

Top tier: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
Holy crap, this book is the greatest ever.

Second tier:
The Green Mile (King)
Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
Eagle Strike (Horowitz)
Harry Potter (Rowling)

Third tier:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Kesey)
The Da Vinci Code (sorry to those who hate this book)
Inheritance Cycle (Paolini)
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Snicket/Handler)
His Dark Materials (Pullman)
Animal Farm (Orwell)
The Brief Life of Oscar Wao (Diaz)
Invisible Man (Ellison)
Donald Duk (Chin)

A very strange book I'm not sure I love: The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner)

Also, read some Shakespeare plays, or Sherlock Holmes mysteries, they're pretty good.

Whoops, didn't know I already posted!
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by Nick »

prosecutorgodot wrote:Battle Royale by Koushun Takami is by far my favorite book!
I liked this book a good amount (I didn't love it though, but it did make a lasting emotional impact on me). That being said, I think this is one of those uncommon cases where the movie was superior to the book.

Have you seen the movie? How do you feel about this?
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Re: Favorite Books

Post by prosecutorgodot »

Nick wrote:
prosecutorgodot wrote:Battle Royale by Koushun Takami is by far my favorite book!
I liked this book a good amount (I didn't love it though, but it did make a lasting emotional impact on me). That being said, I think this is one of those uncommon cases where the movie was superior to the book.

Have you seen the movie? How do you feel about this?
Oh man, I definitely don't like the movie as much as the book. Movie is okay/good. To me, the back stories are what make BR for me, and of course they don't work too well in a movie format.
Acting is good, but I think the script and directing weren't really there.
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