what book on my shelf should i read next?

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it depends on yr own individual and unique tastes ~

What kind of mood are you in? Close your eyes and think of where you'd like to be - then pick the book that takes you closest. Probably 'Borstal Boy'.

think about what colour your soul is, and then choose the book with the spine colour nearest to diametrically opposite to that colour

play video games instead imo

I voted with mookieproff: go M&M!

the james ellroy novel is dope as fukk but its better if u read american tabloid first

i read 'american tabloid' a few years ago. one of my faves.

flann o'brien.

Got to be M & M - that is a masterpiece. After that though, that's the real problem. Probably, personally, I'd go Slaughterhouse 5, then Flann O'Brien, then Cider With Rosie.

i have a habit of buying books and never reading them.

i know right: it's like why would you read something now that you will have forever, and can just read later. i will never get around to reading the trial.

i'd say 'the master and margarita' as well. there's no single right answer to the question, 'what is the greatest novel ever written?' but M&M is one of the few novels i can think of that would be tied for first place, as it were.

I'd go for M&M as well. I've read around half the books on that list and it's easily the one I liked best. I didn't like Drop City (never made it to the end) or Life of Pi.

Wrt Satre and Wilde:

Both best at plays. Sartre's collection of short stories, 'The Wall', still holds up but I don't think I'd really recommend his novels. Much of the signature wit of Wilde in PODG is in other plays and better expressed, too.

Third Policeman is an insoluble pancake and completely nuts. Read that.

Did you buy Drop City because of the butts on the cover?

drop city is my favorite boyle

drop city is pretty good

read wuthering heights if you would like to feel really depressed

the copy of 'drop city' i got belongs to my older brother. hes a fan. i loaned 'the tortilla curtain' from him as well. i enjoyed that. tried 'third policeman' but found it quite grim tbh which i wasnt expecting.

There are many very good books you've proposed here, but they satisfy very different psychic needs and we can't suss out what state your psyche is in.

I voted Third Policeman just because it is my favorite of those listed, but it really does have a grimness that isn't disguised by the humor.

Both the flann o'brien and the bulgakov are excellent, but depend very heavily on your entering their peculiar fantasy land. The t.c. boyle might be a better option if you are looking for a more reality-based entertainment.

My suggestion: browse them. Open them up at randonm and read two pages. See if any of them strike a note with you.

I chose Death in the Afternoon because it's bloody awesome.

However, the real correct answer is "The Cold Six Thousand, but only if you've read the first one, because the third one is coming out next month and it will be amazing."

Okay, now that I read the thread I see you have read American Tabloid and therefore you must read TC6000 asap. It's even better than Tabloid.

wuthering heights

i think im ready for something challenging.

Third Policeman also, although I'd have a look at the Eagleton every now and again :-)

I find James Ellroy more challenging than pretty much anything else I've ever attempted. I was pleased recently to discover that The Big Nowhere is relatively straightforward.

i will never get around to reading the trial.

awwww

you should - language is not difficult at all, quick read, but such a mindfuck

true. i had that one on my shelf forever and finally read it a couple years ago and i still think about it a lot.

master and margariya youll read anyway so ill go with the third policeman or the human factor.
both awesome and lesser known

Of the few I've read, I'd recommend "Nausea".

hello. nate

Hi. How's it going?

Nausea wd be my 2nd choice on this list, esp if "ready for something challenging". I don't normally advocate reading novels because they're "important" but I'd make an exception for this one. If you read about it in a philosophy primer, existentialism can come across as a not-very-intellectually-rigorous passing fad. Nausea gives you a real sense of what it FELT like to stumble across a new way of seeing the world - why it seemed glamorous and exciting and so influenced a generation of artists and thinkers. And unlike, say, The Roads to Freedom trilogy, it's not JUST novelised philosophy - it works beautifully as a poetic novel, albeit a somewhat unconventional one. Bits of it - the encounter with the tree, the scratchy jazz record - still resonate in my mind like passages of Eliot, years after I read it.

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yeah i don't think i like 'the master and margarita' very much

yeah i started it but didnt finish it cos college year started and i had to turn my attention to other stuff so left it aside. i did like what i read though. out of the list above, the only one ive read since is 'slaughterhouse 5' and i loved it.

I'll bet that Hindu myths book is p cool

i mean it was totally my third favourite absurdist soviet prose work