That last quote is funny, though, because Vonnegut liked Joyce. Hell, he even praises Joyce in the very same essay that this quote comes from.

It took me like 3 times to read Ulysses, but when I did, I genuinely loved it. That has nothing to do with feeling superior. I loved it enough that I ended up writing my undergrad thesis about it.

Finnegan’s Wake, though, I couldn’t make heads or tails of. I gave up after a couple dozen pages. That doesn’t make it nonsense. But it also didn’t pull me in in a way that made it seem worth the effort. Nobody I’ve ever spoken to has made it seem worth the effort.

It was never meant to be read. It was an experiment. If he was writing a paragraph and somebody came into his room and started talking to him, he wrote that down in the middle of the paragraph. It was pure experimental fiction. No one really understands why it’s considered a classic other than the fact that people want to seem intellectual. By Joyce’s own words, it is not understandable by anybody but him. to me the analogy is Lou reeds metal machine music. I’m at her how her to try, there’s no melodies there, just like there’s no plot here.

You explained why I read every winter much better than I did!!

Epic fantasy just goes so well with winter when you're stuck inside because it's too cold or dark to do anything but read in the afternoon. And then you have The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with the "Always winter but never Christmas" to set the mood.

Thing is a study and a half, isn't it?

I actually do pause and Google words I don’t know if it isn’t immediately obvious from the context.

It actually helped me understand the way my mom treated my Uncle. As a kid he had that cool uncle vibe. As an adult it was like oh he's a flake who job hops, moves a lot (During a time when it wasn't due to economic reasons) , does coke etc.

Is this actually a big issue in books? I know the topic of forced diversity pops up in discussions of TV adaptions of books, like House of the Dragon, but I haven't heard people complain much about it when it comes to the books themselves.

I mean, I've never heard anyone say something like, Lord of the Rings could have been a decent book, but it just really needed more black, gay dwarves.

OP, which books are you talking about in particular?

This is exactly why Kerouac is so divisive. The vast majority of people who first read him as adults are disgusted.

The Noonday Demon was excellent

This is the way to read the count of monte cristo.

At 15, did not enjoy it at all. At 36, thought it was a masterpiece. But that goes for so many books. Anna Karenina at 12? Was underwhelmed. At 30? Was both enchanted and devastated. When I read Tess of the D’Urbervilles as a kid, I found it dull and it made so little impact on me that I barely remembered anything apart from it being depressing, having a sad ending, and a rough outline of the plot. I read it again when I was like 26 and it utterly destroyed me, to the point where I thought of it constantly for like a month.

I watched that documentary about Britney Spears, and it shocked me how little agency she had in her life. And how can anyone stay sane with that level of stalking behavior from the paparazzi?

I kept hoping for a whole month off from work so I could read Ulysses (Joyce) without interruption and without getting sidetracked by rereading The Odyssey for context.

Then the pandemic happened and I thought, "Oh! This is perfect!" But you know what? I got distracted by reading The Odyssey a 4th time again and never got back to Ulysses ¯\(ツ)/¯

EDIT: escape character typo

PS. I have read The Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man so Ulysses isn't my first Joyce experience. I just have a compulsive need to do competitive lit analysis with it and The Odyssey.

I never liked the Alanna books as a kid - I read all of them but I didn't like the main character (just didn't connect to her at all which was odd because I like badass female characters) and I'm not too found of Pierce's writing.

I did really like her Circle series, though! I liked almost nothing else by her but I loved books. I wonder if they would stand up to a reread.

I'm saving the overstory, the invention of nature, wild and a john muir collection for the summer when I'll be backpacking the Appalachian trail and working remotely from remote cabins in the northeast.

I'm so excited! Any other recommendations would be great!

It's not about anything. The point of the text is to push the boundaries of what one can do using language.

No I haven't ever done this

I mean, you're talking about Stephen King, the master of batshit crazy. The Dark Tower is exactly what I would expect from King writing his version of epic fantasy. If you want the more coherent, well crafted story, Hyperion takes it hands down.

Sure

I liked Dark Tower, but it was kinda batshit at times. Like a lot of it was just a bit disjointed.

Lieterally I think Hyperion is the better books, they're super well crafted and intracetly woven.

Me neither. I started it right after I read Desperation, but picked something else up instead. I'm a slow reader, and I pick my fiction pretty carefully these days.

Edited to clarify: any time I use girl, she, her, first, second third, I am taking about me in the dreams. All characters are me…

The idea was to get people out of the building so the building could be swept through by authorities. The bombs that were described in the threat were pipe bombs, which wouldn’t hurt anyone from that distance if it was in the middle of the building.

It should also be noted that there was a full scale evacuation because of a similar threat 2 days prior in the district, but there weren’t any bombs found.

I’m in the same boat, if it’s going to be a competition then turn it into a reading challenge with yourself. Last year I had three and for each month I read a book about Ireland or by an Irish author, a novella and a memoir. This year I’m rereading a book I loved from prior to the year 2000, a book by an Asian or Asian diaspora author and a book by a dead female author whose works I’ve never read before. You can definitely use it your advantage in trying to learn about something, someone or some place new, or for your career, or even mental health. That way your adding a productive component to a reading competition.