Recommend some must-read literature

[Creepy-Snaps]

I think being in a state of empowerment and control shouldn't create a blame game within yourself. If you are in control, you can change the outcomes. That's an empowering feel. Now you have the power to change what you don't like. You don't need to wait for others to change it for you. But that most certainly doesn't mean that everything around us is our fault and the government takes no responsibility at all. That's taking it a bit too literally. If education systems are poor, you don't suddenly tell yourself, oh my god! What have I done! But, yes when we ALLOW a system to continue, then maybe that's something to change. What's the saying... it takes good people to do nothing, for evil to survive? I think when you have power, don't fret over blame, just feel good that you can change what went wrong. No power like that power that can change wrongs to rights. Blame and guilt happen when there is no control and no way to make things better.

I like this, but taking control is not something I blame myself for or feel guilty for. 'Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.' I agree, of course there are factors you can't control. I, however, do take full responsibility for the situation, regardless if it's completely my fault or not.

[Kent Lorne]

Hey sorry I think I deleted the post by mistake. I am sorry I wasn't responding to the conversation between you guys, was just responding to what hkkmr said. Sorry about that. Shall be more careful next time. I didn't realize the context of the conversation. But since I was reading a bit now, if I could just add that taking control of one's life and designing it to the way you wish to experience and live it is the greatest form of creativity according to me. But sometimes the human soul can't always function from a state of " I am gonna take control of my life". When I am low I need to vent, talk it out, just cry and after sometime let some catharsis happen where I feel better and then I enter my tool room (metaphorically) and start recreating and redesigning my life. Sometimes trying to fix people's problems doesn't really work. And they really do need to be heard out. There is a lot that goes from our conscious into our subconscious and allowing the subcon to communicate with the con can be had work. I think Carl Jung mentions that in the Wounded healer... Sometimes it's not about fixing things more than releasing things. Healing happens in different ways. Talking allows the subcon to re-establish it's connection with the consciousness and then suddenly you have these insights and that itself gives you answers in how to fix things. So the outside party need not really say anything. The mind like the body has an ability to heal.

[Morcheeba]

Anything by Henry Miller

[Kent Lorne]

Henry Miller is good... Fanny Hill is good too!
Anyone ever come cross Anne Rice's The claiming of Sleeping Beauty?

[anndelise]

Anyone ever come cross Anne Rice's The claiming of Sleeping Beauty?

I wouldn't call this one literature, heh. Though I suppose it is considered as such in some circles.
This, and those similar to it, however, would not be an appropriate book to recommend to jinxi.

If you liked this series/subject matter, I recommend The Marketplace Series. Much better characterization and character development. (still not a book for jinxi, though)

[Kent Lorne]

I wouldn't call this one literature, heh. Though I suppose it is considered as such in some circles.
This, and those similar to it, however, would not be an appropriate book to recommend to jinxi.

If you liked this series/subject matter, I recommend The Marketplace Series. Much better characterization and character development. (still not a book for jinxi, though)

Ya it's not literature... haha. I haven't read it actually, just skimmed through it. I didn't know she had written it. I have read most of her other works but ... wow.. this was a surprise! But knowing her work, one should have seen it coming right? (: I'll check out what you mentioned. Thanks! Oops... Sorry I guess your right. I don't know the members well, my bad.

[boitsfortian]

As a well-read philistine*, I'd say that most of the literary canon is bumf. Most of it's written for people who like introspective navel-gazing, realism, & lots of gloom, rather than imaginative storytelling. In school & universities, who do we study? Austen (the Mills & Boon of the Regency period), Proust, Beckett, gloomy books by the Russians (interminable descriptions of potato farming), James Joyce going on about potatoes ... (Has anybody written a thesis about the influence of the potato on literature, or the influence of literature on the potato? If you have potatoes with yoghurt, they'd be cultured. Nowadays, though, we're all couch potatoes.) Why is something interesting just because it's true to life, because it could have happened? Surely it means that the writer's got no imagination! And apart from being boring, they're also usually depressing - people leading drab lives & having horrible things happen to them until they die. Such larks, Pip!

*: I have a degree in English - & hate literature (or, rather, the husks whereof the highbrows do eat - usually with potatoes). A literary friend of mine - poet - recently praised Hemingway on Facebook, for being "heartbreaking". Me: "You like Hemingway? Good grief, man! Hemingway's greatest contribution to literature was his suicide." He promptly accused me of trying to get a rise. How well he knows me.

And what do good books have? Storytelling; Lots of incident & imagination; interesting settings with atmosphere; & memorable scenes & characters. A story's improved by larger than life eccentrics, cannibalism, witchcraft, spontaneous combustion, lost civilisations, exploding ostriches, steampunk, & locked room murders. The best books are full of life & energy & humour. In other words, why read something that isn't FUN?

Which is why anything by Dickens beats Austen & the Brontes hands down. Dumas's Count of Monte Cristo has everything you could want: dramatic escapes from prison, treachery, bandits, insane woman poisoners, infanticide, elaborate revenge schemes - and, as Steven Moffat would say, LESBIANS. (The TV series with Gerard Depardieu is great.) I, Claudius is jam packed with megalomaniacs, murders, treason & treachery - & the TV series is a brilliant black comedy, with every British actor in it, & lines so good you could sing them. (Nero probably would, & force pregnant women to give birth in the theatre.) Sherlock Holmes & Father Brown!

Humour - where to start? Terry Pratchett's the spiritual heir to Dickens - a great entertainer who's used his books to say serious stuff about life (& potatoes, mashed or reincarnated) - &, in another century, will probably be looked on as one of the great writers of the 20th century. P.G. Wodehouse, Gerald Durrell, Douglas Adams, Evelyn Waugh (but keep away from A Handful of Dust, unless you like wallowing in misery), Saki, & Tom Sharpe.

At the moment, I'm reading Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy, which is splendid - very funny, great world-building, interesting characters.

[force my hand]

Not a huge fan of literature, but Robertson Davies is fucking fantastic. I'd start with his first novel and go on from there: Tempest-Tost