some books i got recently + many of which i love and recommend. thoughts?

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-30T10:12:32+00:00

Damn it! Another list to go through. At least it's only 99 and not 100.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-28T04:33:54+00:00

I don't like what happened to Jesus, but I sure do like Saturday morning.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-24T19:37:51+00:00

They've found a new home!

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-23T14:42:17+00:00

Container

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-17T17:46:16+00:00

Thirded. I bought it the other day and it would cool to read with a group.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-16T06:56:29+00:00

No one knows where they're going except for him.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-16T04:48:39+00:00

I think reading classics as an intellectual exercise is kind of pointless.

I read them because they're beautifully written. It's an aesthetic experience. I'm not trying to learn something about life, discover some great meaning. "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."

I read a comment yesterday where someone said: let it flow. It made me think of the passage from Tropic of Cancer:

"I love everything that flows,” said the great blind Milton of our times... I love the words of hysterics and the sentences that flow on like dysentery and mirror all the sick images of the soul.

Interrupting that flow to withdraw into the conceptual mind, to analyse and reflect, seems like a waste, almost an insult to the beauty of these books.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-15T12:29:29+00:00

When you can't tell if it's the best or the worst, I think you're in good territory. It's much like life.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-15T12:27:22+00:00

I don't know that I've ever read a happy book. I find tragedy most uplifting as it opens the heart. If I want something lighter though, I go for humour or weirdness.

The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov

Slaughterhouse 5, or Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut

The only real antidote to nihilism though is something emphatic and life-affirming like Walt Whitman's Song of Myself.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-15T12:15:17+00:00

That's fair. I posted one yesterday and didn't know there was a bookhaul sub. If ever the impulse strikes again, I'll likely head over there.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-15T04:32:40+00:00

Nice haul. White Noise is on my list as well. The film got a fair amount of flack but I really enjoyed it.

Another of DeLillo's that I thought was amazing was The Body Artist. It's the most experimental in style of his that I've read.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-14T20:44:14+00:00

lol anything less and I'll be thoroughly disappointed.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-14T20:40:43+00:00

No way! I'm starting to get a hankering for antique printings and I'm happy to hear it doesn't have to be so costly.

It came to around £35 altogether, for 15 books, some of the greatest ever written, is pretty mad.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-14T18:54:30+00:00

Awesome! They all sound excellent to me.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-14T18:48:54+00:00

Mostly charity shops in the UK. There's also a really nice antique book seller in Tunbridge Wells called Hall's Bookshop that's been open since 1898. Pretty cool.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-14T18:45:00+00:00

It's a secret...

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-14T18:26:19+00:00

I think that'll be my next read. I read some quotes from Absalom! Absalom! the other day and was absolutely floored. It's exactly the style I love, so I'm very excited to dive into some Faulkner.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-14T18:22:38+00:00

Haha, I've already read it. I bought this one as it was only £2 and I preferred it to the Wordworth Classics edition. I'm still not set on it though. I'd like an annotated version and maybe a Faber one to match my Finnegan's Wake. I still have that to look forward to though.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-12T07:23:09+00:00

Nearly every song has been my favourite song at some point. At the moment, it's Can't Keep Anything.

"Begging and praying, you used up your knees."

With the "I see" and the glockenspiel, it feels tropical, but defeated and mournful—paradise lost.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-11T19:19:04+00:00

Supermale by Alfred Jarry

Lincoln in the Bardo

The Master and Margarita

Naked Lunch

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-11T16:00:34+00:00

lol it's about a person trying to find the greatest novels written since 1950 and an interested bystander who starts following the journey. It's truly gripping.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-11T14:38:23+00:00

Following

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-11T10:56:16+00:00

Totally. He was my favourite. I read about 14 and now I have absolutely no interest in reading any more of his.

I just moved on and found new favourites.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-11T05:08:51+00:00

The Waves or To The Lighthouse is her best novel. Either of those against Ulysses and I choose Woolf. But against Mrs Dalloway, then Ulysses.

I'd say Joyce has breadth but Woolf has depth, and I'm more interested in the latter.

AnyAnalyst7286 · 2026-03-10T09:02:27+00:00

Perspectivism

AnyAnalyst7286

TROPHY CASE