I haven't read Ulysses yet because I want to get a good amount of the references. It also helps that I'm Irish so I can understand a lot already but I can imagine that Finegan's is like Legal Chinese without a guide.

Visited the Greenwich Observatory and prime Meridian in the middle of reading Longitude, so that was kinda cool.

If you are interested, Haynes is doing an AMA right now.

This person is saying it doesn’t hold up and we are downvoting them. Why?

People like this need to be shot out of the atmosphere.

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I really liked (and still like) the Escape from Furnace series - but I just can’t take it seriously when it constantly reminds me that the characters are like 10-14.

In what way does their post imply they're "obviously privileged af"

I got something out of it. I said "you get nothing out of it" because that will be true for 99% of people who try to read it.

Nope.

I think everyone zones out to some degree, people just do it to different levels. I understand your post though, because I used to get anxiety over the same thing and it made me not want to read at all. It goes away with time when you realize what sentences or paragraphs are more important than others. Don't be afraid to read slow, but also don't be afraid to skim over some sentences. You won't remember every sentence anyway, the important part is understanding the plot and for the reading to be enjoyable.

I didn’t like it. I read “the scene” that got Flaubert sued and thought “wow this is a really weird carriage scene”

Omg I forgot about those I loved them! I think I'll keep them as memories tho :)

I also zone out from time to time. I take it as a sign that the book's just boring.

Reading's hard work. Sitting in an armchair while reading...pfff...

Finnegans Wake is a remarkable book and artistic achievement. I run a blog on it (a work in progress), and I’ll link to my essay on how to approach the book: https://thesuspendedsentence.com/how-to-read-finnegans-wake/

As well as my partial explication of the first page: https://thesuspendedsentence.com/2022/08/07/the-first-page/

Too many people don't want to believe their history is based on aggression, slavery, or violence. I think they think they'll sleep better if they can pretend it was someone else who started the violence.

The only thing is that Joyce spent 17 years on the book and alienated many of his supporters by continuing to work on it (and, in their estimation, waste his talent on what seems like gibberish).

It’s certainly been suggested that the book is a joke, but it’s doubtful that he would devote so much time and energy to a joke.

I think the quality is going downhill because the publication "market" is mostly moving towards online only publishing. So it might be a by-product of the bigger changes in academic publishing. A lot of academic publishing houses have outsourced most of their publishing processes to whoever is cheapest.

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You say that but someone literally asked how to read in an armchair once.

I did get a kindle a few years ago, but just couldn’t get into reading it. I kept going back to reading physical books. I’ll take a look at getting some hardbacks in the future.

If you don't care about what the books look like or having them around I think it's definitely worth it to have an ebook reader. They can be quite cheap and are wonderful to read on. I find it more comfortable than both paperbacks and hardbacks. But I usually get hardbacks when I get physical books because they are more durable and don't get ruined

This should be a Tinder profile quick match service. Books you would ban: none

Next on r/books:

How should I turn the page? Should I flip from the top of the page or the bottom? Or should I alternate so the top of the book doesn't get deformed.