A subreddit to thoughtfully discuss books of all kinds – novels, poetry, fiction, non-fiction – as well as all things relating to them, from the publishing industry to literary criticism.
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Wish I'd made a more worthy first post here, but pictures under 1MB do work (around 800k for this one, but failed at 1.2MB before resizing.
So anyway, what's everyone favorite book? Current read?
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. Shit was dope.
Haven't read that one.
I'll add it to the list but I don't read much these days.
My favorite books probably have to be sci-fi novels, specifically Michael Crichton stuff like Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park I read as a kid and so now the nostalgia keeps them safely ensconced in the top positions.
I recently read Ministry for the Future, which I liked. It left me feeling odd about the future. Not exactly hopeful but ready for whatever comes. Right now I'm reading 'Rage Becomes Her' and random Discworld stuff when I need something lighter.
I've been going back and reading Freud's Civilisation and its Discontents again. I still think it has some pretty profound wisdom about the nature of desire, conflict, violence, and what it takes to make civilisation possible!
The fun thing about such books is they take on different meanings as you read them at different times in your life as your perspective changes.
Definitely. About two years ago, I read Michel Houellebecq's Soumission. And it's still just sort of constantly in my head. I don't read it as a kind of reactionary book at all – in fact it's a strangely utopian book, pessimistic about the possibility of secular politics to rectify deep metaphysical questions in our societies, but strangely curious and probing about whether Islam could in fact at least answer them. The ambiguity at the heart of that novel still puzzles and interests me.
I should read it again...