Literature

[Skeptical]

You didn't like Huckleberry....

 

And Ayn Rand is a nutjob. If it wasn't for the fact that most of what he said is completely useless, I would deny him the title of philosopher.

[Range_This11]

And Ayn Rand is a nutjob. If it wasn't for the fact that most of what he said is completely useless, I would deny him the title of philosopher.

You're clever, or can't type a sentence. Either way is funny :shades:

[Skeptical]

I can't type a sentence, yet you replace periods with smiley faces...

[Serpent Eye]

I can't type a sentence, yet you replace periods with smiley faces...

I think he was referring to the fact that Ayn Rand was, quite unquestionably, a female.

[1_man_army]

Holy cow.

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/scores/top#books-last30

 

You can find pretty much every classic in here. At a glance, I saw Kafka, Twain, Poe, [bleep]ens, Verne, Hugo, Dumas, Wells, Machiavelli, Dante, Stoker, Thoreau and Joyce. They're all free, just click the title and click "HTML" and it opens it in your browser with no download or fee.

 

I found this place when my English teacher assigned a short story and told us to just read it on there. It was "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", and I thought it was pretty good. If not worth going out of your way to read, it's definitely worth the time, considering how easy it is to get stuff there.

 

When I was at uni we published a copy of Hound of the Baskervilles using text from Project Gutenburg, it's a really useful resource. That being said, I tend to avoid translations of foreign language works as some of the translations aren't great.

[Dupin]

I'm thinking about starting Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Anyone read it?

 

I thought it was a good book. While rather long and plodding it is certainly better then the drivel most other similar (contemporary) philosophers have published.

 

Lol. To cite Ayn Rand as better than most other contemporary philosophers is insane. !

This really depends on what you count as philosophy. I've got about twenty pages left of The Stranger and it's been brilliant. Some might say that's not necessarily philosophy, if it weren't for the fact that Camus is constantly associated with absurdism.

 

I've got a question to any who feel qualified to answer: Which is the scariest Stephen King book? I've only read The Shining and It, and of the two I thought the former was scarier and probably a better book overall, but it's also the first I read, so I may have become desensitized.

[Skeptical]

I'm thinking about starting Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Anyone read it?

 

I thought it was a good book. While rather long and plodding it is certainly better then the drivel most other similar (contemporary) philosophers have published.

 

Lol. To cite Ayn Rand as better than most other contemporary philosophers is insane. !

This really depends on what you count as philosophy. I've got about twenty pages left of The Stranger and it's been brilliant. Some might say that's not necessarily philosophy, if it weren't for the fact that Camus is constantly associated with absurdism.

 

I've got a question to any who feel qualified to answer: Which is the scariest Stephen King book? I've only read The Shining and It, and of the two I thought the former was scarier and probably a better book overall, but it's also the first I read, so I may have become desensitized.

 

I honestly never found King very scary, although I did enjoy Cell - not sure why, though. I found the Shining a bit scary, and I agree that it was better written.

[Guest Rob]

I'm reading "All the King's Men" right now. My mental-voice reads in a Louisiana-type accent for this book. If you read the first the pages of this book, you'd understand why.

[ThurinEthir]

Can someone reccommend me to some classics. Short list of what i've read and enjoyed (or not enjoyed).

 

Lord of the Rings :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

The Hobbit

 

Anymore worth reading? I need about 3.

Not quite a classic, but if you're just looking for something to read, The Silmarillion is a good option if you really enjoyed LotR and The Hobbit.

I'm reading The Scarlet Letter in English class right now...quite possibly one of the worst books I've read. I guess it's not too bad plotwise, and the writing certainly isn't crap, but I manage to fall asleep every time I read it. And I also fall asleep while reading the Sparknotes version somehow.

[Dreamtongirl]

I finally read The Catcher in the Rye. I heard it was somewhat similar to The Perks of being a Wallflower (which I enjoyed immensly) so I had very high hopes for it, but it turns out I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. That said, I've only just finished it and it usually takes me a little while to digest everything I've read. So maybe I'll read it again before giving it my final opinion.

[All_Is_Great]

Is The Catcher in the Rye something every high schooler is supposed to read? or is it just in the States?

 

Anyway, I HATE Shakespeare!!!! Ugh, every year we have to put up with his stupid iambic pentameters and sentences that take forever to understand... why?! /rant.

[Shiny]

Shakespeare is easy to understand, I find. You just really need to put yourself in a 17th century context. And The Catcher in the Rye it is a must-read in most western countries, I believe.

[All_Is_Great]

Shakespeare is easy to understand, I find. You just really need to put yourself in a 17th century context. And The Catcher in the Rye it is a must-read in most western countries, I believe.

 

Yea i guess Shakespeare isn't as hard as i made it out to be, i just find it annoying to learn it every single year tbh. I mean, aren't there any other famous writes from back then? there must be...

[Dizzle229]

I finished Catcher in the Rye today. Don't really understand why it was banned.

[Dreamtongirl]

Is The Catcher in the Rye something every high schooler is supposed to read? or is it just in the States?

 

Anyway, I HATE Shakespeare!!!! Ugh, every year we have to put up with his stupid iambic pentameters and sentences that take forever to understand... why?! /rant.

 

 

-Shrug-

Not here. I heard it was just in the States, but who knows.

I don't understand why it was banned either. Same with Looking for Alaska.

 

How can you not like Shakespeare. :mellow:

[Saru Inc]

Because he uses obnoxious sentence structure, awkward phrasing and now cliche topics?

[Giordano]

now cliche topics?

I said we should use the time machine to kill Shakespeare and avoid all annoying clichés, but they said killing Hitler was better. <_<

[Saru Inc]

or we could kill both.

[Serpent Eye]

I finished Catcher in the Rye today. Don't really understand why it was banned.

Here. :P

 

Currently reading Catcher in the Rye. Why was thing thing banned?

The Catcher in the Rye has been banned in the past for its:

 

• Sexual content
  
• Offensive language
  
• Mild violence/references to suicide
  
• Use of alcohol and smoking

[Dizzle229]

OH NOES :eek:

 

They're right! This thing needs to be destroyed at once!

 

...yeah, banning any kind of media should be illegal.

[Alg]

The Catcher in the Rye has been banned in the past for its:

 

• Sexual content
  
• Offensive language
  
• Mild violence/references to suicide
  
• Use of alcohol and smoking

I think the bit that was most shocking about it was that all of that was from the point of view of a teenager. Y'know, they read about a whiny brat doing all that and inexplicably think "Hey, I want to be like him!". And parents don't want their kids to be drunken, sexed-up emos, do they?

[H2PM]

The Catcher in the Rye has been banned in the past for its:

 

• Sexual content
  
• Offensive language
  
• Mild violence/references to suicide
  
• Use of alcohol and smoking

This is why we can't have nice things. Because of the over protective soccer moms.

[All_Is_Great]

The Catcher in the Rye has been banned in the past for its:

 

• Sexual content
  
• Offensive language
  
• Mild violence/references to suicide
  
• Use of alcohol and smoking

I think the bit that was most shocking about it was that all of that was from the point of view of a teenager. Y'know, they read about a whiny brat doing all that and inexplicably think "Hey, I want to be like him!". And parents don't want their kids to be drunken, sexed-up emos, do they?

 

Wait, so why are they making everyone read it?

[Kalphite]

Lol, the Catcher in the Rye still isn't allowed to be taught in my school district because it takes a stand against authority or something, though people can't be stopped from reading it on their own.

[Skeptical]

Teachers, in my opinion, are fond of having their students read Catcher as an example of a banned book, because there really is not much of a real departure from society's sense of normality: it's very much something that most teenagers can relate to.

 

I've never met a teacher (or any adult, really) that actually advocates any truly dissident books: The Satanic Verses instead of The Communist Manifesto, Phillip Pullman instead of Hitchens. I felt that banned book week, was, for the most part an empty gesture.