General TBB Chat/questions thread - I'm on Earth in 2023.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > General TBB Chat/questions thread - I'm on Earth in 2023.

bearic: Apr 14, 2004; john brown split this heart

My books are mutilated. Every page has multiple sentences underlined and things written in the margins, along with "important" pages dogeared (either from just a compulsion to dogear them or for marking them for when I have write about them in class). I'm almost done with Nabokov's The Gift and I have an ungodly amount of text underlined and circle, pages dogeared, and little illustrations drawn in the margins. I always try to leave a mark of my first reading of books so I can "recreate" the feelings I had when reading the book -- you can only read a book for the first time one time.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

(though I never do this to books I borrow or check out from the library. Those books are left pristine)

# ¿ Mar 27, 2010 04:57

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 15:32

bearic: Apr 14, 2004; john brown split this heart

Hughmoris posted:

I need help identifying a story. It is typically taught in most American literature classes. I don't remember anything about the plot or characters except for the ending. The main female character in the story was depressed (maybe from the loss of a child, can't remember) and decided she was going to swim out into the ocean and drown herself.

Thats all I remember. I know its vague as poo poo but its a classic book so I'm hoping TBB can help me. I initially thought it was written by James Joyce or Emily Dickinson but I can't seem to find it.

Thanks!

The Awakening by Kate Chopin. There is a whole thread for identifying books, I think. Or maybe not.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2010 03:59

bearic: Apr 14, 2004; john brown split this heart

Absolutely. There really isn't a drama thread anywhere in SA that I know of, and it's a huge and broad concept. Of course, it'll likely get to 3 pages then sink into oblivion while fantasy and YA threads will be around forever, but oh well.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2010 15:26

bearic: Apr 14, 2004; john brown split this heart

Cap. Monocle posted:

Right there is no way to right that with out sounding like a sperg but I need some help so i am just going to throw this out there then go hide myself in shame.

I keep having trouble organizing my book shelf. I have it divided up into genres, but not alphabetically. Instead I put my favorites at the top and ones I don't like that much at the bottom the bottom. The sorting them in to genres is getting to be a problem though. If it is a book that has a wizard in space is it sci/fi or fantasy? Does a book that has aliens showing up in World War II go in alternate history or sci/fi? Should alt history even have it's own sub-section?
Then there are just standard literature novels. Do I just cram them in on one case or do I try to sort them?

The biggest problem though is that I will have everything where I want it, but then I get a new book that won't fit in were I want to put it so I have to rearrange everything. This happens way to often.

So how do you other bibliophiles sort your collection?

By country of author, then alphabetically and by style. Like for my Nabokov, I put all of the Vintage editions of the fiction together, then the other editions of fiction I have, then his short stories, then his Russian poetry, and finally Speak Memory. I mostly have fiction so the country thing works out for me, but I would go by genre if I were you. Even if it's like "Literature," "Sci-fi," "Trashy sci-fi," and so on.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2010 03:32

bearic: Apr 14, 2004; john brown split this heart

Kneel Before Zog posted:

Any suggestions on where to start with David Foster Wallace. I'm primarily interested in reading any of his essays or short stories that dealt with his rage for grammar in the english language.
Actually I think I know what essay to find what I'm looking for in. I just don't have the name here. Can someone who knows more elaborate on the things David Foster Wallace had issues with with regards to English?

This is the essay you're looking for: http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html

Any DFW is obviously great. If you want fiction, start with Brief Interviews with Hideous Men then move on to Oblivion. Brief Interviews has much shorter, succinct stories with an obvious overarching theme. Oblivion has longer stories (for the most part) that might be better overall, but a tiny bit less accessible.

For essays/non-fiction, you can't go wrong with starting with either Consider the Lobster or A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. The latter's eponymous essay is probably the most famous thing he's done outside of Infinite Jest, and rightly so.

Back to your central question, I don't think he wrote much else exclusively about English grammar. But you should read the syllabus for the English class he taught. It's amazing: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/press/releases/2010/dfw/teaching/#syllabus

bearic fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Dec 31, 2010

# ¿ Dec 31, 2010 21:11

bearic: Apr 14, 2004; john brown split this heart

z0331 posted:

What happened to the Russian literature thread? I recently started Crime and Punishment and wanted to see if anyone had posted about it.

I was wondering that too. I posted the thread like a year or two ago but it just sunk, sunk, sunk. Now it's gone.

I'll restart it now.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3390257

bearic fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Feb 17, 2011

# ¿ Feb 17, 2011 06:31

bearic: Apr 14, 2004; john brown split this heart

Ulio posted:

Quick question

Where do you guys and gals buy your books? Is there any good online option?

Other than the usual suspects, you really, really should check out Better World Books:

http://betterworldbooks.com

Free shipping on everything (even though it can sometimes take a bit to get your stuff) and it's all pretty cheap. There are always great bargain bin sales, too.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2011 02:41

bearic: Apr 14, 2004; john brown split this heart

barkingclam posted:

Anybody doing a big summer read? I'm thinking when I get some time, I'm going to finally start on Fielding's Tom Jones.

I try to do one big summer read every year. I did Idiot + Brothers Karamazov three summers ago, Anna Karenina two summers ago and War and Peace (entirely during trolleybus and metro rides in Russia!) last summer. This summer, I'm just tackling my reading list for courses next semester. However, my goal for this summer is to finish that reading list and then tackle Infinite Jest.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2011 04:20

bearic: Apr 14, 2004; john brown split this heart

GZA Genius posted:

If by bad taste you mean 300+ pages of how a guy wants to fondle a 12 year old every chance he can get, than yes I guess my taste is bad.

This is adorable. I want to print it out and use it as a bookmark. If you really want to be that reductive, then stop reading literature and stick to NCIS and Family Guy.

If you want to actually read the book, get the annotated edition of Lolita by Appel and follow along with the annotations.

GZA Genius posted:

I just dont see how its a literary classic. It just seems like smut material for goons to sperg on.

You are clearly just trolling at this point. There are plenty of criticisms you can lay upon Nabokov, but calling it "smut material" is an argument on the level of a buzzed 19-year old who is angry because got a D+ on his reading reponse on Lolita and, dammit, he's pre-med and will be a doctor one day! Please enlighten us about your favorite literary classics.

bearic fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Sep 21, 2011

# ¿ Sep 21, 2011 03:57

bearic: Apr 14, 2004; john brown split this heart

Reading Moby Dick is like reading War & Peace: you will hate it as you read it and feel like abandoning it forever, but once you finish it, it feels goddamned good and it all comes together as something greater than the sum of its parts. I love both books and will probably read them again someday.

That said, it made me really want to go whale watching or something else that's ultra white up in New England or British Columbia.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2012 04:27

bearic: Apr 14, 2004; john brown split this heart

Benny the Snake posted:

I've also got a presentation next Thursday. I'm to apply Victor Shklovsky's Art as Technique to Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust. Now, Shklovsky's main point was this:

I'm kinda stuck, though. This is my second time reading Waugh, so I'm familiar with this story; I just can't figure out where to start on the whole defamiliarzation thing. I'm thinking approaching it from the book's structure in how scenes will change from paragraph to paragraph. I'm also thinking on going on Shklovsky's point about aesthetics by describing the ever-present Arthurian theme within the book. Any suggestions?

I've never read Waugh before, but I've read a lot of stuff on Shklovskii (though admittedly, most of it was related to Tolstoi). The changing from paragraph to paragraph thing could be promising if you think that it was done with the intention of disorientating the reader, thus giving him/her a new/fresh perspective on something. What do you think the author's intention was in using such a narrative technique? Does she try to get that same impression by using any other devices/techniques?

bearic fucked around with this message at 23:38 on May 2, 2012

# ¿ May 2, 2012 23:18

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 15:32

bearic: Apr 14, 2004; john brown split this heart

CloseFriend posted:

Quick question: I loving adore The Master and Margarita; I think it's currently my favorite book that I've ever read! I've only read the Ginsburg translation, though, which had 12% of the text expurgated. I wanted to read the whole thing. Does anyone recommend any translation in particular? I bought a copy of the Burgin/O'Connor translation, which I've heard the best things about, but I haven't gotten around to actually reading it yet.

The fairly recent P&V translation is by far the best. Reread it--the Ginsburg translation is ancient, unless you have one that's been revised with the text added back in.

If you liked M&M, try Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog, Zamiatin's We, Platonov's Foundation Pit, or something more contemporary with Pelevin's Omon Ra.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2013 18:03

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