What Book Are You Currently Reading? (2.0.)

[Middle-aged Europe]

Dracula by Bram Stoker

[PSOL]

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

I’m sorry for you having to pull through with that kitsch trash

Why would you go out of your way to make a rude and dickish comment like this? Just let people enjoy what they're reading without trashing it.

Enjoy it all you want, literature speaks to the reader.

However, from my experience reading Breakfast of Champions and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-five, is it really hard to see how it isn’t some angsty schlock writing with radical chic that leads nowhere but basic statements like “duuuude, war is bad man” or “duuuuuuude, America is really wacked out”. I did not find the jokes funny, in fact it was really hard to find much humor at all in the work, and it is immensely simplistic for something considered commercially popular. He just lists a bunch of concepts without any serious threading to attach these ideas, leading nowhere.

People have made more simpler satire focusing on fewer core ideas that are just as effective and funny, if not more.

Yes, this is the hill I’m willing to die on.

[Aurelius]

Read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

About to attempt Heidegger's "Being and Time". Key word being attempt.

[Schiff for Senate]

The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Yes, this is the hill I’m willing to die on.

Why in this thread in particular, though?

[Middle-aged Europe]

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

I’m sorry for you having to pull through with that kitsch trash

Why would you go out of your way to make a rude and dickish comment like this? Just let people enjoy what they're reading without trashing it.

Enjoy it all you want, literature speaks to the reader.

However, from my experience reading Breakfast of Champions and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-five, is it really hard to see how it isn’t some angsty schlock writing with radical chic that leads nowhere but basic statements like “duuuude, war is bad man” or “duuuuuuude, America is really wacked out”. I did not find the jokes funny, in fact it was really hard to find much humor at all in the work, and it is immensely simplistic for something considered commercially popular. He just lists a bunch of concepts without any serious threading to attach these ideas, leading nowhere.

People have made more simpler satire focusing on fewer core ideas that are just as effective and funny, if not more.

Yes, this is the hill I’m willing to die on.

I don't think that Breakfast of Champions is one of the best books ever written nor will it likely become one of my favourite books. I enjoyed reading it for what it is though. Then again, as something I read on three consecutive evenings to pass the time I didn't analyze it as thoroughly as you did it.

That's not something I will die on because I've got better things to do.

[Brother Jonathan]

Read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

About to attempt Heidegger's "Being and Time". Key word being attempt.

Best of luck with Heidegger. I like Heidegger, he's an interesting thinker, but he is very hard especially on the first reading. I was recently revisiting portions of The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, and it is much easier after you have read it through before.

Speaking of philosophy, I'm just wrapping up Strauss's On Tyranny and I am preparing to move on to The Restitution of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism by Michael D. Aschliman

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

[PSOL]

Yes, this is the hill I’m willing to die on.

Why in this thread in particular, though?

I was traumatized when I was reading it

[Schiff for Senate]

Done with the Wodehouse - finished it this morning.
Will be returning to Trent Lott's Herding Cats. I had to pause it because it was due at the library and was no more renewable than coal, but I got it back a few days ago and am ready to resume reading now. Starting with the chapter "The Tobacco Wars".

[Brother Jonathan]

Done with the Wodehouse - finished it this morning.

Are you a Wodehouse fan at all? I just read Cocktail Time myself recently, and it was fine, though I did miss the classic Jeeves/Wooster dynamic (which Wodehouse kind of recreates in some form in many of his works, including here, but the Jeeves stories do it better I think).

[Schiff for Senate]

Done with the Wodehouse - finished it this morning.

Are you a Wodehouse fan at all? I just read Cocktail Time myself recently, and it was fine, though I did miss the classic Jeeves/Wooster dynamic (which Wodehouse kind of recreates in some form in many of his works, including here, but the Jeeves stories do it better I think).

Only of Jeeves. Not read any of Wodehouse's other works and not particularly interested in doing so. I've read all 34 Jeeves short stories, and all but three of the full length novels.

[Schiff for Senate]

I finished all but the Epilogue of Lott's book yesterday, and finished the Epilogue this morning.

Have since started Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. I've only read a little bit (the first chapter) right now, because a.) I haven't spent much time reading it yet and b.) it's a slow read given the quaint language/vocabulary (I'm reading the unabridged Penguin Classics edition - I read Great Expectations from Penguin Classics around the time I joined this site, but this text is less easy to understand/follow compared to that).

[HillGoose]

Finally finished "Go Dog Go", now I'm reading "Derivatives Analytics with Python" which is much easier.

Also could use some advice, I would like to read the Tanakh and Talmud, is order important?

[Schiff for Senate]

Read all of chapters 2 and 3 of Wuthering Heights yesterday, as well as the first few pages of chapter 4. I stopped where Lockwood's housekeeper begins narrating her story, and the perspective shifts from first person (Lockwood) to first person (housekeeper). Today, I've already dedicated a good amount of time to reading it further, and finished off chapter 4, as well as all of chapters 5 and 6 and a good part of chapter 7. All of what I have read today thus far was told from the perspective of Lockwood's housekeeper.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Just finished that, found it surprisingly modern and genuinely quite good. Anyway i'm reading.

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

[Schiff for Senate]

Read all of chapters 2 and 3 of Wuthering Heights yesterday, as well as the first few pages of chapter 4. I stopped where Lockwood's housekeeper begins narrating her story, and the perspective shifts from first person (Lockwood) to first person (housekeeper). Today, I've already dedicated a good amount of time to reading it further, and finished off chapter 4, as well as all of chapters 5 and 6 and a good part of chapter 7. All of what I have read today thus far was told from the perspective of Lockwood's housekeeper.

100% sure about all of this except for where I finished on Day 3 and where I began on Day 4.

Page numbers are from the Penguin Classics edition.

Day 1 (8th): Chapter 1 (pages 3-8)
Day 2 (9th): Chapters 2-3 and part of 4 (pages 9-35)
Day 3 (10th): Part of chapter 4, all of chapters 5-7 and part of chapter 8 (pages 35-68)
Day 4 (11th): Part of chapter 8 and all of chapters 9-11 (pages 68-119)

[Anna Komnene]

Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier

[Schiff for Senate]

Read all of chapters 2 and 3 of Wuthering Heights yesterday, as well as the first few pages of chapter 4. I stopped where Lockwood's housekeeper begins narrating her story, and the perspective shifts from first person (Lockwood) to first person (housekeeper). Today, I've already dedicated a good amount of time to reading it further, and finished off chapter 4, as well as all of chapters 5 and 6 and a good part of chapter 7. All of what I have read today thus far was told from the perspective of Lockwood's housekeeper.

100% sure about all of this except for where I finished on Day 3 and where I began on Day 4.

Page numbers are from the Penguin Classics edition.

Day 1 (8th): Chapter 1 (pages 3-8)
Day 2 (9th): Chapters 2-3 and part of 4 (pages 9-35)
Day 3 (10th): Part of chapter 4, all of chapters 5-7 and part of chapter 8 (pages 35-68)
Day 4 (11th): Part of chapter 8 and all of chapters 9-12 (pages 68-119)

16th (so far): Chapters 18-20 (pages 189-210)
15th: Part of Chapter 17 (pages 173-188)
14th: Part of Chapter 17 (pages 171-173)
12th to 13th: Chapters 12-16 (pages 120-170)

EDIT: I believe this is the breakdown for the 12th and 13th:

13th: Chapters 14-16 (pages 145-170)
12th: Chapters 12-13 (pages 120-144)

[Schiff for Senate]

Read all of chapters 2 and 3 of Wuthering Heights yesterday, as well as the first few pages of chapter 4. I stopped where Lockwood's housekeeper begins narrating her story, and the perspective shifts from first person (Lockwood) to first person (housekeeper). Today, I've already dedicated a good amount of time to reading it further, and finished off chapter 4, as well as all of chapters 5 and 6 and a good part of chapter 7. All of what I have read today thus far was told from the perspective of Lockwood's housekeeper.

100% sure about all of this except for where I finished on Day 3 and where I began on Day 4.

Page numbers are from the Penguin Classics edition.

Day 1 (8th): Chapter 1 (pages 3-8)
Day 2 (9th): Chapters 2-3 and part of 4 (pages 9-35)
Day 3 (10th): Part of chapter 4, all of chapters 5-7 and part of chapter 8 (pages 35-68)
Day 4 (11th): Part of chapter 8 and all of chapters 9-12 (pages 68-119)

16th (so far): Chapters 18-20 (pages 189-210)
15th: Part of Chapter 17 (pages 173-188)
14th: Part of Chapter 17 (pages 171-173)
12th to 13th: Chapters 12-16 (pages 120-170)

EDIT: I believe this is the breakdown for the 12th and 13th:

13th: Chapters 14-16 (pages 145-170)
12th: Chapters 12-13 (pages 120-144)

16th: Chapters 18-20 and part of Chapter 21 (pages 189-219)
17th (thus far): Part of Chapter 21 (pages 219-228)

[Schiff for Senate]

Just finished Wuthering Heights. Don’t know what to make of the ending.

[Schiff for Senate]

Just finally concluded God’s Own Party…ironically, the same day they scored their biggest victory in decades and defeated Roe after nearly 50 years of fighting it.

[Schiff for Senate]

Started Bernie Sanders’ Outsider in the White House (I acquired it just three days ago from Half Price Books). So far I’ve read the Acknowledgments and Preface. I feel like reading this book might move me to the left on economic issues.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe