Norwegian Wood fucked me up for awhile.

Finnegan's Wake was by far the most difficult.
Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow a distant second/third.

Honestly light from uncommon stars as I was reading it early in my transition.

“Know my name” by chanel miller was quite tough to get through, as you might imagine. There were multiple points where I needed to take a break just to rest emotionally

Geek Love was like that for me. Remarkably imagined and strikingly told, but when things go south, they get hard. Whole concept is twisted of course and we know early on something bad is going to happen, but early on things are bright, they're intriguing, they're fun, they get you really locked in, and then...

Truly, one of the funniest books I've ever read (four times cover to cover, no less) is technically 'a novel', but for its most part reads like an autobio. This, coming from an almost entirely nonfiction kinda reader.

John Kenney was a copywriter in a NY ad agency for something like a decade-plus, as well as having contributed to The New Yorker magazine some smart-humored content to boot.

Turns out, his Truth In Advertising (released 2013?) is a terrific three-night read loaded with heartfelt legitimacy, snark-filled approaches in thought and dialogue, plus it effuses a most pleasant feel of pacing.

In fact, he himself cameos for a few seconds in the book's little three-minute intro over on y.t. titled (keywords) Focus Group Truth In Advertising John Kenney.

Hope you find it as engaging as I do!

Read 200-400 page standalone novels. Don’t start off with series, as character development is usually a larger arc and there’s potential for a lot of characters.

Also really hone in on the genre you’re looking for in fiction, as well as the plot. Is romance your thing? Science? Swords and shit? I recently read the Martian and I loved it - way more science based than a fiction I’m used to, and no romance so pretty good for nonfiction readers.

Read fiction about historical events. Fiction that takes place in a certain time that focuses on the perspective of an individual.

Or read fiction about different cultures, it's hard to lose interest if you are experiencing something new

I don't read fiction at all unless it's considered classic literature. I don't have a lot of patience for sci-fi or fantasy and I really hate romance so, it's Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Orwell, Mitchell, Austen and CS Lewis are my go-to's...

Maybe start with Life of Pi by Yann Martel but only if you haven't seen the film

Talking about books that hit you hard and make you feel depressed, look no further than The Book of Despair, by Fernando Pessoa. No other book that I know of goes even closer to that one, at least for me. It it greatly written, but I couldn't finish it, because it wasnt good for my mental health at the time.

EDIT: I've seen that they translated it into English as The Book of Disquiet.

I just say all of them…because I honestly do like to read from tons of different genres. Some times I’ll go on a certain genre kick and will say that that’s the type of book I’m liking at the moment.

This is my pick as well. It's just the densest read ive ever attempted and I didn't come close to absorbing it all when I read it.

I'm looking forward to revisiting it later in life though.

Find historical fiction about time periods you're interested. I can recommend something if you give me a period.

Stefan Zweig's writing is truly beautiful but it is also heartbreakingly sad. If you read his autobiography it explains so well why his writing is so sad. He really cared about people and his beloved Europe. Seeing it ripped to pieces by war, economic collapse and the rise of Nazism utterly destroyed him.

Some of W Somerset Maugham's work is just as hard to read. His short story The Unconquered is really hard to get through.

Have you read any postcolonial critique of American and British lit, just as it exists for Russian lit?

I remember The Sound and the Fury as hard to read when I was younger, but I haven't revisited it as an adult

Rothschild's Violin by Anton Chekhov. It's short story but it cut me to the heart and immersed me into the great grief. Sometimes I read it again and still feel the same way. Another similar one is The dead by James Joyce.

Most of Hesse, especially Magister Ludi, are must reads imo. They helped me find my "inner man" if that makes any sense. I was also reading into a lot of wild/hairy myth at the time, so maybe it was a good coincidence, but I've told a lot of women that I think Hesse is a nice portal into a healthy search for a masculine psychology. If there was a male gender studies class, I'd hope that his literature would be included.

He was a patient-student of Jung iirc, you can feel the influence in his writing and meditations. Read Demian.

It was a pleasure to burn.

Phenomenal way to describe the MC's journey, how he burns through his old life in order to seek genuine pleasure. The surface level meaning of enjoying his work too is also really clever since his work reinforces conformity/cheap thrills (which is something Guy grows past very quickly/the main thing he shuns when he develops as a character).

M&D was a walk in the park compared with Gravity's Rainbow, though!

It is different if you read a book on paper, yes it is easier on a screen. And I'll never say that my answer is the only ansawer, there are as many point of view as readers

>I think that you should not care to much about it, because it break your reading and make it less enjoyable.

If I'm reading a digital book and I come across a word I don't know, and not 100% sure if it's meaning with context clues I check the definition. In already "interrupted", it's only a click to highlight it.

I don't think it's much of an issue. People look up meanings to words all the time and it doesn't destroy people's enjoyment.

I then write them in a journal at a later point. But I don't make much effort to concertedly use them again.

Are you talking about the (major spoilers) >!death of Wen?!< I don’t know how you’d adapt this successfully without it.

MAUS by Art Spiegelman, which details his father's experiences in the camps during the Holocaust.

Since I stopped paying for ebooks I've gone from reading 2 a month to 9 a month. Should I cut down on 80% of my reading just to make sure Amazon gets their share?

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