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Attempting to start reading Infinite Jest for the hundredth time.

I made it to somewhere around page 600, then I went on vacation from it. It's brilliant I guess but damn it's exhausting.

Currently reading Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland & The End of The World. The last book of his I need to read. As always, it's wonderfully written. My favorite author.

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I made it to somewhere around page 600, then I went on vacation from it. It's brilliant I guess but damn it's exhausting.

Currently reading Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland & The End of The World. The last book of his I need to read. As always, it's wonderfully written. My favorite author.

 

I've heard great reviews on Murakami's work, but I've never delved into him.  How are the translations?

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anything and everything HP Lovecraft.

About to finish "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" for the first time in a long time.

 

I've spent countless hours reading TVtropes and wiki pages on the Cthulu mythos but have never read a single page of Lovecraft.  I love the lore, but I feel that it would be a massive ouvre to take on.

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It's like jumping into the Zappa of literature, though!  So much to tackle at once.  Is the first of his work best place to start?

This is where I started

http://www.amazon.com/Cthulhu-Stories-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0141182342/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1433743313&sr=8-5&keywords=HP+lovecraft

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I've heard great reviews on Murakami's work, but I've never delved into him.  How are the translations?

I've read most of his work in german, only a couple in English. Both translations were equally enjoyable. All of his work is influenced by western culture a lot, it feels natural to read them in your own language. Really wish I'd be able to read the originals nonetheless.

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Awesome, I'll definitley have to snatch that up!

 

 

 

I've read most of his work in german, only a couple in English. Both translations were equally enjoyable. All of his work is influenced by western culture a lot, it feels natural to read them in your own language. Really wish I'd be able to read the originals nonetheless.

Sometimes translations fail to capture the beauty of the language and sentence structure of the original.  It takes true talent to be able to successfully translate a story while still retaining the spirit of the source text.  I know a few of Dostoevsky's pieces have been subject to less-than-stellar translations.

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With Lovecraft, it would be good to start with The Call of Cthulhu, or whatever kind of collected paperback there is with that story in. That way, you get the iconic story, a good introduction to the mythos, plus it's not as well written as a lot of his other work so other stories you read will be even better!

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It's like jumping into the Zappa of literature, though!  So much to tackle at once.  Is the first of his work best place to start?

Honestly, most of his stories are so short that it won't take you long to blow through everything he wrote.

The longer ones will take a week, depending how much/how fast you read.

Just finished The Case of Charles Dexter-Ward for maybe only the 2nd time... so awesome.

My favorite is still The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath though.

Followed.... man, I don't even know by what.

Lovecraft wins so hard. He would be so unimaginably blown away to know what his work has become. Dude was a nobody when he was alive. So weird.

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I've spent countless hours reading TVtropes and wiki pages on the Cthulu mythos but have never read a single page of Lovecraft.  I love the lore, but I feel that it would be a massive ouvre to take on.

It really isn't. Granted, I've been reading him religiously since high school.

Dude... just start. Get any of his compilations.

It's awesome because even after so much exposure, his mythos and lore is still mysterious and novel to me... it's amazing.

Dreams in the Witch-House is a good starting place. That one kind of touches on everything he did.... the old school regular horror stories, the mysterious dreamer stuff, and the Cthulhu Mythos characters.

Other good ones to check out first:

The Temple

The Festival

The Haunter In The Dark

The Nameless City

The Call of Cthulhu

Nyarlathotep

Dreams In The Witch-House

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I started reading The Flame Alphabet yesterday and am taking it back to the library today. Not because it was so good  that I stayed up all night reading but because it was awful. I only read 3 chapters before deciding to call it quits. The author's style did not work with my brain. The way he composed whole paragraphs in single sentences separated by 10 commas was too much.  

 

Can anybody suggest a good read? Let me know a couple of your all time favorite books.

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I started reading The Flame Alphabet yesterday and am taking it back to the library today. Not because it was so good  that I stayed up all night reading but because it was awful. I only read 3 chapters before deciding to call it quits. The author's style did not work with my brain. The way he composed whole paragraphs in single sentences separated by 10 commas was too much.  

 

Can anybody suggest a good read? Let me know a couple of your all time favorite books.

 

I'm glad you said that about the Flame Alphabet, because I felt the exact same way. Read 3 chapters, and then just had to stop. And I read a lot, and really do try to get through books if I can.

 

Here are a few of my recent favourites (I'm not overly a genre person, so nothing horror/Lovecrafty on my list):

 

A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan (great read - related short stories that all come together perfectly)

Wolf in White Van - John Darnielle (of the Mountain Goats)

Remainder - Tom McCarthy (delightfully bizarre and brilliant)

Inverted World - Christopher Priest (cool sci-fi, very much like that recent film Snowpiercer)

Domestic Violets - Matthew Norman (fun 'guy' fiction a la Nick Hornby - my favourite subgenere of male narcissist fiction)

Ian McEwan - Amsterdam (brilliant book, though I haven't liked any of his other ones)

Unchangeable Spots of Leopards - Kristofer Jansma (really well done 'first book')

 

 

Currently reading Adam Levin's the Instructions, which is a 1000 page clusterfuck about a brilliant and violet ten-year-old who has been kicked out of every Jewish day school in the Chicago area, and is trying to cope with the special behaviour class in his public school. it's pretty amazing and ridiculous.

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