How are these being chosen and is there any order? Curious when we’ll be getting to some of the good ones like Lolita, Handmaid’s Tale, Brave New World, Beloved, Grapes of Wrath etc? It’s just been YA type stuff so far. Also, is it just things banned in the US? What about books banned from places like USSR (Master and Margarita, Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, etc). Sorry for all the questions.
Lovecraft is awesome if you want some short stories. Call of Cthulhu, Colour out of Space, and Rats in the Walls area my personal favorites.
It’s incredible. Probably the most “human” book I’ve ever read in my life. It sounds boring but I was absolutely enthralled with this old butler taking a road trip from the first 3 pages. There’s a bit of unreliable narration and a lot of nuance to the writing. The prose is beautiful and the characters are incredibly memorable and amazing.
Remains of the Day is maybe my favorite book of all time. Never Let Me Go was fine but paled in comparison. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. I’m glad you’re liking it. I think RotD set up some unrealistic expectations.
All in English because I’m an Anglo moron who only speaks one language.
Crime and Punishment (Ready translation)
The Stranger (Ward translation)
Ficciones
Literally anything by Hermann Hesse (maybe my favorite author)
Yeah I realize now that my comment was a tad more aggressive than it was meant to be. I think there’s some value in Day’s stuff. He gives some interesting perspective and analysis on Tolkien. You just need to remember to take nothing of his as fact.
Nothing David Day writes should be given any credibility. He made stuff up, like, all the time. Treat it as fan fiction.
Counterpoint: Guillotines
This and Homage are his two best imo. His fiction is a little too on the nose and heavy handed.
It’s literally the most basic and textbook form of allegory you can find in literature. There’s absolutely no depth to it at all.
Orwell paraded as a socialist which is why he knew who were true leftists and who weren’t. Dude was a narc of the highest order, and a traitor to the cause any way you look at it.
Which is true in real life too so I don’t see the issue. Think of climate activists and how they’re treated in the US. Or those supporting socialist policies like right to housing or food. They are treated as an absolute joke, just for wanting to do the right thing at the expense of those in power.
If I had to pick a character who does the right thing more often than anyone, it’s probably Hermione.
Ok there’s a bit here I disagree with.
I feel like one of the messages I got out of HP is that chosen family means more than given family. Such as when Harry gets sweater from Mrs Weasley and nothing from Dursleys
Just because slavery exists in the story, doesn’t mean it’s treated positively. There’s an entire revolutionary movement for them in one of the books and Hermione is active in it. And Hermione is often a pretty safe moral compass.
No defense of the Goblins, this one is pretty bad.
Again, just because this idea exists doesn’t mean it’s supported. In fact, the bad guys are the ones always supporting it so it’s pretty clearly a villainous idea.
Your arguments remind me of the illiterate folk who claim that Lolita supports pedophilia when the opposite is true. Just because something is present in a story doesn’t mean it’s presented as a good thing, or something worth supporting.
For the record, I do not support JKR and kind of wish HP would fade into obscurity, even if it was a defining moment of my childhood/generation.
Beatles: Hard Days Night - Tomorrow Never Knows
David Bowie: Suffragette City - Warzsawa
Miles Davis: 'Round Midnight - Miles Runs the Voodoo Down
Radiohead: Creep - Kid A
Beach Boys: California Girls - Wind Chimes
Kanye West: Jesus Walks - Black Skinhead
It is when you start assuming non-bigots are bad people because of what they look like.
You know, people say this, and I agree to an extent but if the major dystopias, I actually think it’s the least relevant? Brave New World is probably #1 for me for relevance, with Handmaid’s Tale sadly not far behind it.
I have. Been stuck on them for about a month with not a ton of progress on books.
Paved Paradise would be fairly interesting to someone that knows nothing about city planning and such. It will definitely make you notice just how much useless space is around you for parking, and probably make you mad about it. It also goes into some be interesting history about how the mobs controlled parking in cities like New York and Chicago.
It definitely makes you look at things differently, which is always a good thing.
My three favorite artists are Miles Davis, David Bowie, and Kanye West. Three artists that changed their sound every single album.
So no.
The Iron Heel, by Jack London
Basically one of the first major political dystopias written in the modern sense. It’s super cool too, basically the book is an old manuscript about an attempted socialist revolution, before the world was taken over by oligarchic tyrannical capitalists. There’s basically two stories being told, one in the socialist narrative itself occurring in the past, and one in the footnotes, showing glimmers of some of the capitalist horrors in the “present time”. Super neat way to tell a story, and I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s super heavy handed, and I would maybe call it similar to a socialist version of an Ayn Rand dystopia, like Anthem, but you know… Actually good. And thematically opposite to any coherent thought Ayn Rand tried to impart onto her readers.
I’m about halfway through and enjoying it quite a bit. It a LOT different than anything else by Jack London I’ve read (just his Yukon/Alaska stuff)
Paved Paradise, How Parking Explains the World, by Henry Grabar
A book about parking. The history of parking, parking policy, and how it has basically ruined American cities over the past 80 years. Sounds boring but I have really been getting into city planning books recently so I’m enjoying it.
The King of Elfland’s Daughter, by Lord Dunsany
As a huge Tolkien fan, it has taken me far too long to read this one. Considering Lord Dunsany was a huge influence and inspiration for JRR Tolkien, I don’t think it’s that controversial to say this is one of the most influential works on the fantasy genre of all time. It’s beautifully written, with very poetic prose. Story is fine so far, not much to write home about but plot doesn’t really matter when the writing is this pretty.
Honestly of the 4 major dystopias, I gotta say this one might be my least favorite. The themes are a little too on the nose, and kinda simplistic (the book is basically 200 pages of convincing the reader that TV bad, books good).
Also, it seems like everyone really misses the point of this book. This book is not about censorship. This book is about anti-intellectualism. The important part isn’t that the books are being burnt, it’s about why they’re being burnt, and who is doing the burning. The censorship is just a plot device to show the values society is trying to impart on itself. 1984 is a better example of a dystopia about true censorship.
Nonetheless, I still think it’s an important book, and an incredibly easy read. It can be knocked out in an afternoon by a middle schooler no problem.