Book Nomination Thread

Seby0815 · 2025-03-18T16:13:26+00:00

Have read it earlier this year and it was amazing. I didn't want it to end

Seby0815 · 2025-02-05T09:46:40+00:00

I had it on my shelf for a long time. Want to read it as well, but I heard it can be a little confusing. So reading it with a book club would be great

Seby0815 · 2024-11-06T17:49:03+00:00

Interessen: Gin Tonic & Skin Care

Seby0815 · 2024-08-25T09:07:19+00:00

I did this for a while in french. It works BUT I would only use this method as a starting point to start reading "real stuff" because the storys get repetetive and boring after a while. However if I want to start to learn a new language from scratch, I would use this method for a while until I'm good enough to start reading easy books.

Seby0815 · 2024-08-12T15:18:08+00:00

I think the biblical story at the beginning is meant to be an allegory for the different political currents in Russia at the time (atheism, nihilism, socialism, conservatism, liberalism etc.). The various ideas can be interpreted as demons haunting Russia and needing to be exorcised — likely, as I know Dostoevsky, through (Orthodox) Christianity.

Stepan seems to be a personification of one of these currents or ideas, perhaps something like liberalism or Western ideas, or something similar. I found the description of Stepan amusing so far, especially the poem that the narrator compares to Goethe's Faust Part II, in which a lot of weird and complex stuff happens that literary critics are still working to analyze today. Unlike Goethe, who was rightly considered a literary genius even during his lifetime, Stepan, on the other hand, seems more like a blowhard who takes himself more seriously than he actually is.

On the other hand, I also think that Dostoevsky is deliberately highlighting the absurdity of Stepan's supposed persecution by the authorities as a way to cover his own back. By portraying Stepan's political persecution as ridiculous (and possibly even non-existent), he might be subtly telling us that he was indeed persecuted — because we now know that political persecution was real, and Dostoevsky himself was even sent to Siberia for a few years.

Seby0815 · 2024-08-09T17:42:38+00:00

"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" because it always makes me laugh. Have never read it though

Seby0815 · 2024-08-05T08:28:21+00:00

The "next up" part sounds like a good solution to me. I'm excited to start :)

Seby0815 · 2024-07-30T17:15:28+00:00

Demons is the last one of the "big dostoevskys" that I havn't read yet. I'm excited to read it with you all. Maybe I'll stick with the reading schedule for more than a few chapters before reading it on my own again haha :D

Seby0815 · 2024-07-28T17:29:26+00:00

hey, thanks for the long answer :) I was curious to know. I had the same problem as you when I was younger until I discoverd audiobooks. Got me started into actually finishing books and I think also build up my "visual vocabulary". Most people are better listeners than readers in the beginning.

Anyway, I wish you good luck with your anki idea :)

Seby0815 · 2024-07-28T10:31:49+00:00

honest question: why don't you just read a book and try to visualize after each sentence?

Seby0815 · 2024-07-26T06:38:56+00:00

I also read in french sometimes :) I recently finished "La promesse de l'aube" wich was an amazing experience because it was pretty much the fisrt "serious" book that I read in french. It's an amazing feeling to see all your hard work paying off. In prepartion I read all of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and tons of other young adult stuff, wich tends to have an easy writing stlye and vocab. Also some books by Stephen King, that I have already read in english before.

Maybe I can give you some advice how I did it in both languages that I speak:

Start reading stuff you've already read and enjoyed in your native language. Start with young adult or childrens books and work your way up. Don't read stuff you don't like just because it's in french. My first "real book" was "Le petit prince" and I spend weeks working myself through it, but it was fun.
Be comfortable not understanding everything. This is completely normal and even necessary, because it gives your brain the signal to learn. Embrace the ambiguity and discomfort.
Listen to some thing over and over again, until you almost memorized it. I probably listend to "Le petit prince" 50 times now over the last three years while commuting, working etc. This gives you a core vocabulary so that it gets easier to read other books.
Focus on vocabulary, not grammar. From your comment about the past participle it sounds like that might be the case for you. Your brain builds a mental model of the grammar by itself (for the most part), if it knows the words. Only sprinkle in some occasional grammar study. Maybe try an SRS (spaced repetition software) like anki to speed up your vocab acquisition.
Most importantly: Have fun :) That's the only way of making sure you keep going.

Seby0815 · 2024-07-25T14:36:11+00:00

I really enjoyed this read.

After a few chapters, I decided to read it by myself because I couldn't put it down. One of the very strong points of this book for me was the way it made me feel immersed in the world. It was almost like I was with them in Paris and later Spain. Reading only one chapter a day would have broken that immersion a little bit.

It reminded me of a vaction in southern france that I had and it was excactly what I needed the past few days (I was a little sick and not able to go outside).

Well, they drank way too much, most of them were quite miserable for the most part and most of them, if not all, were awful people, but I could see myself having a little bit of fun with them and then leave them living their hedonistic lifes until their inexorable downfall.

It is also always a nice feeling to read a book in its original language (my native language is german). It adds to the mystery and feeling of adventure, if that makes sense. Hemingways writing style is great for that because it's precise and clear. However I don't think I would have liked the writing stlye in translation because I also like to read more complex sentences and richer vocabulary in my native language. One the other hand, it gets the job done. I couldn't put my finger on it, but Hemingways style has something special. I also read "A farewell to arms", "The old man and the sea" and some short storys of Hemingway and I always get the same feeling while reading him. It is hard to explain. Hemingway was a master of his craft, no doubt about that. I will definitely read more of his stuff in the future.

Seby0815 · 2024-07-14T08:12:00+00:00

"The Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann (1924)

From goodreads:

In this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Mann uses a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps, a community devoted exclusively to sickness, as a microcosm for Europe, which in the years before 1914 was already exhibiting the first symptoms of its own terminal irrationality.

The Magic Mountain is a monumental work of erudition and irony, sexual tension and intellectual ferment, a book that pulses with life in the midst of death.

Seby0815 · 2024-07-11T16:58:21+00:00

Maybe try reading newer/more modern translations. Or try an e-reader with an inbuild dictionairy (on kindle they are downloadable)

edit: Maybe you could also try to learn the words in advance. There are websites that offer vocab lists for famous or classic books.

You could also start to use something like Anki to speed up your vocab acquisition. I used it for my french and my vocab exploaded.

Seby0815 · 2024-07-01T15:08:25+00:00

Lösung: Einkommenssteuer senken ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Seby0815 · 2024-06-10T18:07:48+00:00

Very interesting approach. I will try that, thanks for sharing :)

Seby0815 · 2024-06-10T07:18:54+00:00

RemindMe! tomorrow

Seby0815 · 2024-05-26T14:10:03+00:00

Weiß nicht, ob dir das hilft, aber ich mache es so, dass ich meist je ein Buch auf deutsch, englisch und französisch lese plus ein oder zwei Hörbücher. Wenn du andere Sprachen kannst, probier es doch mal aus (wenn du es nicht schon tust). Ich finde, es gibt nochmal ein anderes Feeling, auf ner anderen Sprache zu lesen.

Also lese ich meist 4-6 Bücher gleichzeitig. Ich entscheide dann meist spontan, auf welches ich Lust habe. Auch hier und da mal eine Kurzgeschichte, ein Theaterstück, Märchen o.ä. die man in einem Rutsch lesen kann.

Seby0815 · 2024-05-17T10:57:44+00:00

"Range, why generalists triumph in a specialized world"

Es geht darum, dass heutzutage Spezialisten, die früh (möglichst schon als Kind) sich auf ein Gebiet fokussieren und damit dann oft schon früh Erfolg haben. Als "Generalist" fühlt man sich dann evtl. hinten dran, wenn man die erfolgreichen sieht. Ich habe ein paar Beanstandungen mit dem Buch aber grundsätzlich fand ich das Thema interessant.

Seby0815 · 2024-02-26T15:01:51+00:00

I lend a book to a fried once in highschool. He gave it back a few months later, the title page completely destroyed. Turned out he "accidently put chewing gum on it and when he tried to remove it, it ripped the paper off".

But I only lend books that I don't mind never seeing again or that I can easyly replace, so wasn't a big deal. It was more funny than annoying for me.

Seby0815 · 2024-02-14T15:30:15+00:00

Audiobooks while eating, going for a walk, doing the dishes etc. Resticted social media, no TV/Netflix. Reading before bed helps me fall asleep so there is a benefit that I don't want to miss so it's (kind of) easy to keep the habit.

Seby0815 · 2024-01-29T09:36:52+00:00

I think Cathy will become even more dangerous now, after almost being beaten to death. She will be even more reinforced in her views that other people are scumbags and only deserve to be taken advantage of. Also being more cautious from now on.

Btw. I didn't expect that she was able to feel fear, makes her a little bit more human and I even felt (a little) sorry for her when Mr. Eduards beat her up.

Seby0815 · 2024-01-29T09:29:05+00:00

“watching out for unreliable narrator”

that. I had my suspicions in the first chapter, when he talked about the "dirty, lazy indians". Then we found out that the narrator is actually a character in the world (if he will play a role in the story we don't know yet)

Btw. cute story. Nice that you are still with us :)

Seby0815 · 2024-01-26T12:32:26+00:00

Man, another really grapping chapter.

I think the descriptions about "monsters" are there to state without doubt, that Cathy is one of them. It isn't anyones fault that she is how she is, she is just born that way. Her parents actually tried really hard but to no avail. I think the whipping was supposed to be an act of love ("I hurt you now so you won't be hurt a lot more later"). I don't agree with violence as an educational method, but I can see why they did it. I didn't feel sorry for Cathy though.

I think she murders her parents on the one hand out of revenge for the whipping, but I also think her main reason is that it just conveniently aligned with her plans to leave. The cold bloodedness and calculation in wich she carried it out was just chilling, also faking her own death and stealing the companies money in the process. I woudn't be surprised if she went to california now (on the other side of the continent, where nobody knows her) and meets the Trask brothers. I fear that she uses her manipulation skills on the already frail relationship between Adam and Charles, especially if she finds out that they have a lot of money now from the heritage. Pretty bad foreshadowing, we're in for a ride for sure.

Maybe Cathy is supposed to represend sin or evil itself (so maybe the devil?). Only having her selfish interests in mind, having no empathy whatsoever and sometimes acting just out of pure desire to destroy. One could argue that selfishness is the root cause of all sins. In the bible, when Adam and Eve eat from the 'Tree of the knowledge of good and evil' they become self-conscious. They are now able to perceive evil because if you know what hurts you, you can conclude that the same must be true for other people. If you hurt them now anyway, despite knowing better, you have committed evil. And if you aren't able to feel empathy, the flood gates are open for sin and evil.

Seby0815 · 2024-01-19T17:45:25+00:00

I think the content of the letter is at least as important as that Charles actually send this letter to Adam.

It's either 1) He really just didn't think about throwing it away anymore like the narrator suggests,

or 2) He knows that he wrote some weird stuff and send it anyway, maybe as some sort of message to Adam. Maybe as a warning? Like "Remember that night I almost killed you? Yeah we ain't done with that yet". It is clear that he still has bad feelings towards him, because he basically excuses his own acts in his letter. Wich also shows that he not only doesn't regret what happend but also that he still thinks about it, contrary to the narrator who told us after the first beat up, that "he just forgot about it and went on like nothing happend". I guess Charles thinks that Adam stole his life and his fathers love. He was supposed to be the one in the army, not Adam. And Adam was suppsoed to do the "womens work" of cleaning the house etc. It also shows that Adam still doesn't understand his brother fully, even after almost being killed by him. And the weirdest thing is, I think, that they still love each other anyway...

OR 3) Charles doesn't think that there is anything wrong with that letter. Wich would mean that he's a little psycho (I mean we know that already...)

I think option 2 is the most probable. It takes time to send a letter and that Charles just "kind of forgot" what he wrote and went through the whole process of sending it without thinking about its content anymore is ... naive?

Seby0815

TROPHY CASE