Asklemmy

43893 readers

953 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

What books do you consider must reads? (beehaw.org)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Alice@beehaw.org to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

100 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So basically I was unschooled, and the amount of books I've read in my life is embarrassingly low. It was never emforced like in a school, and with my family's religious hangups, I never tried getting into new things because I never knew what would be deemed "offensive".

But I'm always interested when I hear people talk about both storycraft and also literary criticism, so I want to take an earnest stab at getting into books.

No real criteria, I don't know what I like so I can't tell you what I'm looking for, other than it needs to be in English or have an English translation. Just wanna know what y'all think would make good or important reading.

ETA holy shit thanks for all the suggestions! Definitely gonna make a list

ETA if I reply extremely late it's because it took me this long to get a library card in my new locale.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Quintus@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Books are not meant to entertain. If you "realize" when you are over 30 that books are only for entertainment, then you are simply put, a lazy person.

Classics never outdate. They will forever remain as the must-reads for people who want to expand their knowledge and perception of the world because they come from a time where information was not as easily exchangeable as it was today. The only way to share ideas effectively and permanently was writing books.

You have no right to downlook on classics. Reading a classic book that has proven it's value long ago will forever be more beneficial to a person than an author's silly book that is written with the sole purpose of entertainment.

Reading 1984 WILL make a person clever.

Of course, you can always say some stuff like "damn who hurt you" and leave the discussion if you wish. Don't make ignorant comments if you don't know what you are speaking about.

lmao.