Depends on your level. I personally have thrown myself in the deep end with reading starting from complex fantasy stories and have learned how to distinguish between words really useful and those I could leave out. I think this is the key to get over with a fact that it's impossible to pay attention to every detail and not get bore to death. Reading should be enjoyable and as long as you understand let's say 80% of each page, your are fluent-reader - as you come across some unkown expressions you will finally absorb them. Plenty of them are really unnecesary for daily life and even natives deem them weird or quirky.

Seems I'm in a slightly different camp than folks here, David Mitchell is my favorite author, but my favorite books are Slade House and Bone Clocks.

I love the mythos of carnivores and vegetarians he has set up, and transmigration.

And across all his books, it's just amazing how he can write ANYONE. 16th century Japanese manservant, Dutch sailor, jazz player, depressed teen, romantic composer. His characters are just so rich and grey and fascinating

When I read Beloved, the chapter in Beloved’s own voice nearly broke me. It took a Google and several re-reads to understand the basics of what Morrison was trying to convey there.

I would also say the entirety of Cloud Atlas was like this for me (and the middle chapter is probably closest to what you describe here). There is just so, so much in those books that you could probably read them a dozen times and still find things missed on previous reads.

Wow that's a big jump. From 300 pages in 6 months to 600+ pages in a week. I can see that your work and patience paid off. Hearing that really encourages me. And thanks for the advice.

It's a sprawling and very engaging series that brings to life a number of fascinating historical characters and mixes enlightening bits on natural science, banking, politics etc. with swashbuckling adventure. I'm also a big fan of Stephenson's wry sense of humour and his characters' dialogue. I realise that three 1000-page doorstoppers is quite a commitment, but personally I can't recommend it enough, and since you have the books already, you might as well give the opener a try.

this is interesting. I do realize that masculinity is defined by social norms not by "Biological" urges.

I guess it's because doing stuff in your mother tongue feels like 'home' :)

My heart like a batted baby seal.

Quote that remained me for such a long time.

You might like “story of your life” by ted chiang, which the movie arrival is based on. It is only a short story, around 40 pages and a quick interesting read

Honestly, I think Ulysses is meant to be understood lol, you just have to work a bit for it. If anything, it's the ultimate analysis and process novel, kind of a culmination of what was canonical Western literature at that point while also pointing towards something new.

Finnegans Wake is a totally different beast, tho.

I learned English in school, but I became good at English from reading. I think I was fourteen when I read the Lord of the Rings and Hitchhiker‘s Guide to the Galaxy without consulting a dictionary and let me tell you, it was rough.

I don’t think I understood more than 30% of Hitchhiker and it took me half a year to get through the first three hundred pages of LotR (which was also partly because there’s not that much going on for a long time at the beginning of the book, at least not stuff that’s interesting to a fourteen year old).

But then something happened and during one week I read the remaining 600+ pages. I had been a bad to average English student until that summer, but from that point on I always was best in class.

One thing I should add is that I had a really great English teacher in middle school. Basically from eleven years old I never learned a translation for new English words, instead we always looked up the word‘s English definition and learned that.

So if you take away anything from my slightly rambling comment: just read, don’t look stuff up while reading so not to stop your flow and if you really want to look stuff up, don’t look for the translation of the word but for an English definition.

This is the “is/ought” fallacy. Someone describing a situation does not mean that they think the situation is good. To be specific it is quite possible to think that the decline of non-sexual same-sex public intimacy was an unfortunate side effect of the otherwise beneficial rise of homosexual relationship acceptance.

Hopefully, if homosexual relationships are completely destigmatized this process will slowly reverse as people will not care if they are classified as being “gay“.

I really enjoyed the first book, but i had a lot of trouble getting through the next two. For me the pacing just got thrown all out of whack. The baroque cycle is where I mark Stephensons’ work as getting too meandering for me. I’ve enjoyed some of his books after it, but that’s kind of the line I draw between the tightly paced works and the self indulgently paced works.

Loved it when I was twelve. I've resisted reading it again because I'm pretty sure I'll be disappointed.

Start with reading something you love and know very well in your own language, that's what I did. I loved Eragon when I was about 15 and read it so many times over and over in my native language when I picked up the English version I just knew what I was reading even though I didn't understand every word.

I (English speaking American) did this while learning French. I would put on a Harry Potter audiobook on my iPod as I read along with the physical copy in French.

Very helpful in acclimating to the pronunciation and proper tempo of whichever language you’re trying to learn.

The Charterhouse in “The Charterhouse of Parma” by Stendhal is not mentioned till the last page of 500 page novel.

It might just be me but dont be disappointed if you dont get the same pleasure from reading in a foreign language. I've read several hundred books in english and pretty much exclusively watch english tv shows and I still vastly prefer reading in my mother tongue.

That advice and quality of life quote is tops and one I am glad to be reminded of.

I prefer not to read work by people of any race or gender who are just banging on and showing off all the words they know.

I am french and mostly read English or Americans books, and I only read in English - translations just doesn’t to it for me. I also read in Spanish when I find an interesting story. Reading a story in another language can be so liberating and challenging ! Don’t hesitate to look for words or expressions you don’t know, I promise it will not undermine the pleasure you get from it :)

Oh my god please recommend further reading on this topic

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He was a lost relation. That was his motive. Believed it was his right to inherit. He was killing the usurpers with the stolen family legacy.

This is my #2 favorite book, and I also gravitate toward re-reading favorites when life is stressful. Everything about the writing seems so natural - I recall telling a friend that The Wedding Bash chapter was like attending a family wedding as it (to me at least) captured just how people behave and talk at a wedding or big family event, and I consider the passage in the labyrinth one of the most beautifully written scenes ever.

I’m also just a few years younger than the Holly character, and the last episode makes me wonder about the future and hope that it will be less bleak.