The Return of the Well Cultured Anonymous/Literature

OH SHI-, LITERATURE!

So, you've cleaned yourself up, probably gotten yourself the standard issue McJob and are most likely starting to feel the onset of Loli-lust. Now that you can just barely pass for trailertrash, it's time you get cultured. Hard.

This entails you READING, something you should have started doing a long time ago, but were probably too stoned to bother with at the time. Obviously, I'm not going to assume that you, the average Anon, is going to bother reading War and Peace just because Wikichan told you to. We understand that your brain has limited space and that you'd rather reminisce about Azumanga Daioh than the rocking fury that is The Collective Works of Shakespeare. However, should Anonymous begin to pursue a (hopefully) lifelong acquaintance with books, he may come to discover that the powers of his imagination, heretofore only set to work analyzing the myriad of positions two lolis can take in the sack, are far more entertaining and illustrative than television and magazines could ever be.

Where to start?

Obviously, where to start depends entirely on what kind of books you like. Clifford does not count. I'll allow myself to assume that since you do frequent /b/, you're probably tickled by anything featuring small girls, shiny things and pretty fucked up humor. Thusly, I'll permit myself to recommend you Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash, which luckily enough, happens to feature all three. If you really like loli then you can read the book lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. He was a sick fuck, but if you like loli then it is a good book.

How many books must a man read...

Reading isn't something that you finish. Much like alcoholism, at best you'll just be inactive, waiting for the day when you fall backing into the habit of turning tricks for used copies of Annie On My Mind or anything by Sarah Waters. On a slightly more serious note, there is no set number of books you have to read to become cultured. Obviously, the more you read, the better, but try to pace yourself or your excessive culturing might just turn you British-British, complete with Yorkshire accent, bad dental work and complete lack of sex drive.

Digestion of said literature

Assuming you are not a complete antisocial slothtroll (then again if you frequent /b/, you probably are), you must have some somewhat intelligent friends around, propose that you form a book club, where you meet once a set period of time to talk about the books that you agreed to read together, that's the best way to understand books, not sparknotes or cliffnotes you cheating faggot, talking about it with your peers, they can give you new perspectives on passges that initially puzzled you, and you might be able to clear up a few things for them too. If you are reading for a class you are taking at school, you probably won't be reading very interesting literature, so finding peers to talk about the books will better your understanding.

Of course if I initially assumed wrong, and that you ARE, in fact a complete antisocial slothtroll with a neckbeard and all your social activity is limited to the internet, these kinds of book club discussions can take place online, in fact some people even prefer it that way. I'm sure there's an internet book club somewhere that you can join. try http://www.bookcrossing.com/

You expect me to buy these?

The easiest way to get yourself a book is of course, by visiting a bookstore or raiding your local library. The best part is, most famous works of literature were written by people who are now dead, making the price somewhat lower without all those pesky royalties. Many thrift stores and usually your local library will have yearly (or year round) sales on old books, this way you can find yourself a large sum of fat old books for practically nothing (one dollar for Moby Dick? Fuck Yeah). Because lets face it, it's impressive to the ladies and intimidating to other guys to come into your place and see a towering 15 foot wide bookshelf packed with classic thought evoking literature. But suppose for a second that you're shit-broke (As the majority of Anonymii are) or you don't have the balls to check out Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, for fear of Party-vanning, What then are you to do? Fret not, for Anonymous has come up with a genius solution for this simple problem. Behold the glory that is, Bookchan.

Bookchan

Bookchan is exactly what it says, a *chan that caters for the niche of people that are literate human beings. But occasionally, helpless /b/astards wander into Bookchan without knowing what the hell to do. This is how to use Bookchan THE RIGHT WAY:

1. Search the Archive threads for your book before whining about not finding it.
2. Copy or Save As the actual IMAGE, not the thumbnail.
3. Add .rar to the end of the filename and run it. (with Winrar, ofcourse)
4. Obligatory "???" post.
5. Reap the Profit, AKA your newly acquired book.

Bookchan is sadly no longer with us, but an even better system of free books has emerged in it's wake;

#Bookz

#bookz is an IRC channel on the Undernet Server; A server which specifically allows for file transfer from peer to peer. A number of clever individuals have created bots that automate the file transfer process and can distribute any called file automatically.

To connect to undernet, simply load up your IRC program of choice, select the undernet network, and join the <nowiki>#bookz</bookz> channel. Once you have connected to undernet and are in the channel called #bookz, it should be pretty easy to figure out what is going on there. However, a quick set of instructions might be necessary for novice users:

• Figure out what you want to read. For example, you wish to read "Dune" by Frank Herbert.
• Search for what you want. #bookz has several "bots" that will quickly search through all of the files hosted within the channel. To do a search, you must use the correct command words within the channel before you will be able to see a list.
• Example: @find Frank Herbert
• Doing a search like this will give you back a text file list of ALL the titles and ALL the files that contain the words "Frank" and "Herbert." There is a very good chance that you will find "Dune" on that list. However, that search is too broad, perhaps you want to narrow that down a bit so that you get a shorter list of files to choose from?
• Example: @find Frank Herbert Dune
• This search will give you a list of all files containing both the author and the title of the file you are looking for.
• Once you have that text file full of all those files you want, simply select the best version available. Do this by copying the whole line of text that contains the file you wish. Start with the exclamation point (!) and keep selecting all the way to the file size. Copy that line.
• Paste that line directly into the channel. This will tell the file server that you wish to download that file. You will be placed in a queue that usually moves pretty quickly owing to the fact that text files and .pdf files are generally small in size.
• Wait.
• Your file should automatically begin downloading to your IRC client's default download folder.
• Once the download is complete, you can unrar, unzip, or open the file and read it as you would any other sort of eBook or txt file.

Hook me the fuck up, doc

Now that you have access to a VAST amount of literature, you'll probably want some recommendations. Behold the list of books worth reading, by order of Genre. Do it fgt.

Classics:

A word about the classics - these are books that you have to read sooner or later, there is a reason that they endured the test of time, because they are so fucking delicious. Put down the fucking fanfics and hit the fucking library, fatass. Here are a few interesting ones, because a lot of classics are admittedly boring crap.

• Anything that came out of Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Ancient anything. Like the Satyricon. Loli sex? check. Shiny things? check. Fucked up humor? Check!
• Victor Hugo: Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Crime And Punishment, The Brothers Karamozov, Notes from Underground (And learn to pronounce his fucking name, people. Doss-toy-YEV-skee. There are few things that will make you look like more of a prick than talking about the "Dustuvskoy" or "Dostivskay" or "Dasti'mashitfucker" novel you're reading)
• Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace, Anna Karenina (both are heug thousand page epic novels)
• Shakespeare: everything you can get your hands on. (PROTIP: Juliet is a loli)
• Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
• Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights (the only book she ever wrote, but it's a delicious read)
• Machiavelli: The Prince (read: how to be a douche) Actually, it's a great read if you're looking to be a dictator or gangleader. Replace 'principalities' with your turf, and 'the people' with the asshole inhabitants of said turf, and you've got the guide on running your kingdom.
• Mario Puzo: The Godfather (rape, drugs, raids, racism, an hero, even anonymous, this book has all of this and more)
• Marquis de Sade: Justine, Incest (alternately titled Eugenie de Franval) (Anything by this author is rated "/b/tard only", written mostly in the 1700s, some of his works are considered fucked up even by todays standards)
• Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises, For Whom The Bell Tolls (Contains tits and shooting)
• Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged (overtly philosophical and verbose to an extreme, but similar philosophy to the one behind WellCultured).
• Mark Twain: Letters from the Earth (letters Lucifer sent Michael and Gabriel with his observations of humanity--well-written and very, very /b/ sense of humor); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (an anti-slavery novel that uses the word "nigger" 212 times); The Collected Short Stories. (It's all good stuff. Twain would have made an excellent /b/tard.)
• James Joyce: Ulysses (800 pages spanning 24 hours, difficult to read, worth the experience) and Finnegans Wake (a book told entirely in puns, that has no beginning or end. It's a literary oddity, and damn near the most unreadable, most unfinishable book ever written in what is mostly the English language)
• John Milton: Paradise Lost (Milton's prose is purpler than Barney the fucking dinosaur, but the story draws Satan as a remarkably sympathetic character.)
• Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy (Superior to Paradise Lost in its simplicity and humanity; hell is also a badass fucking nightmare)

Nonfiction:

• Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf (It is actually impressive to talk about the strong points and good qualities of someone so universally hated.)
• Karl Marx: The Communist Manifesto (A great fucking read, but don't act like King Shit or go Bosnian/Anarchist because you read it.)
• Edward Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: This is a very, very detailed account of how Rome fell (duh), and it's worth the read. Six volumes in all, but there's a thick-ass condensed version in paperback at most bookstores.
• Edith Hamilton: Mythology (Contains short versions of all the classic myths of the Greeks and Romans, and touches upon the Norse myths, which were infinitely more badass.)
• Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene (Book on evolution, very well written)
• Charles Darwin: The Origin Species (outdated, but a classic.)

Fiction (Uncategorized):

• Kurt Vonnegut: Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five
• J. D. Salinger: Catcher in the Rye and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
• Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita (read: instruction manual on poopering a loli, written in prose)
• George Orwell: Animal Farm, 1984
• Joseph Heller: Catch-22 (read this one multiple times, its fucking good)
• Stephen King: Dolores Claiborn (explains why murder is sometimes the best option.)
• Koushun Takami: Battle Royale (unusual concept worth looking at; however, do not go in expecting greatness. It is entertaining, but nothing revolutionary)
• Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde describes the typical /b/tard strikingly well)
• King James: The Holy Bible (Now wait a minute--before you go batshit crazy or start LOLing at the notion, consider that the Bible is full of war, hatred, bigotry, injustice, incest, and every atrocity committable by men, all sanctioned by God, and all relevant to /b/'s interests; it's only in the New Testament that God gets religion, and anyhow, even if you're not in it for the violence, this is a book two billion people hold to be truth. Some of it is beautifully poetic; but mainly you'll want to read up on Lot and his saucy daughters.)
• Mark Z. Danielewski: House of Leaves, (this book is very strange and may seem a bit daunting at first with it's strange formatting, but it's definitely one of the most rewarding books I've ever read) the Whalestoe Letters (basically the expanded version of one of the last parts of the book. I'd recommend just buying this book and skipping that section.)

Fantasy:

(Note: Getting too heavy into reading fantasy is a quick way to turn yourself into a neckbeard-sporting D&D troll creature. Having said this, there is a ridiculous number of extremely great fantasy novels out there. Just remember to diversify, people)

• Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman - The Death Gate Cycle. The most original story evar. No really. It's a post-apocalyptic Earth meets Quantum Mechanics but it's not sci-fi. Plus a whole fucking cast of UNIQUE memorable characters including some badass villains. Oh, and there's sex too. READ NAO.
• Terry Pratchett: Night Watch, Small Gods...fuckit, pretty much the entirety of his Discworld series.
• J.R.R. Tolkien: Big fucking guess (Also: Tol-KEEN, not Tol-KEN)
• Clive Barker: Abarat
• George R. R. Martin: Song of Ice and Fire (Basically anything a /b/tard could want in a fantasy. Rape, Incest, Loli, murder, war, and a whole lot of plot twists. With a definite cutting down on fucking elves, orcs, and other bullshit.)
• Scott Lynch : Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard series) A new series in company of all the classics on this list, but some critics will tell you this will be "the" series people talk about in 10-20 years. A story that starts out as a story of con men in a "next world over" fantasy world, and quickly becomes much more.
• (Warning, addictive material) The DragonLance Collection: Made by various writers, straight out of a D&D gameboard, central story by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, OVER 9000 novels!! (more like 190). Quite original, real badasses, neat evil, hot girls, adventures to your heart's content, magic, dragons, and many others.
• L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology creator inadvertently. He has written some fairly interesting fiction/fantasy.
• Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere, Mirrormask, American Gods (Gaiman writes like a dream.)
• Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett: Good Omens, or, The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (This is the single funniest book ever written in the English language. Shit you not.)
• Terry Brooks: The Herritage of Shannara books, an excellent place to start with the fantasy genious that is Terry Brooks.

Sci fi:

(The same rules for fantasy apply to Sci-Fi; there is a stigma against some of the nerdier bits in this genre. If you stick on the classy side of this literature, you'll be in fine shape.)

• Douglas Adams: Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Dirk Gently books (you need to read the Dirk Gently book a couple of times to actually get it all as it cotnains a lot of nice details that come out on successive readings)
• Isaac Asimov: The Foundation Series and I, Robot (Again, forget the movie, Will Smith needs to get his fresh ass back to Bel-Air and refrain from raping good books)
• Orson Scott Card: Ender's Game series, and the Ender's Shadow sister series
• Arthur C. Clarke: 2001: A Space Odyssey
• William Gibson's Sprawl Triology; Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. Bonus points for short stories like Johnny Mnenomic.
• Robert A Heinlein: Starship Troopers (forget the crappy movie and the meme, this book kicks ASS)
• Frank Herbert's Dune series (The original, not the one by his son. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH)
• Aldous Huxley: Brave New World.
• Neil Stephenson: Snow Crash and The Diamond Age.
• H.G. Wells: The War of the Worlds. (The movie is similar to the original book in only two things: AIDS and humans being surprise buttsecksed, everything else is diferent AND better in the book)
• Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ubik, A Scanner Darkly (better than the movie). Heartily recommended for fiction with heavy themes of mindfuckery. Also check out VALIS, The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer to see just what a brilliant mind whacked out on drugs can create. (Especially VALIS.)
• Edgar Rice Burroughs: John Carter Books(Epic old sci-fi. Generally good Books. He also wrote Tarzan.)

Lesbian Fiction:

• Nancy Garden: Annie On My Mind and Good Moon Rising.
• Sarah Water: Fingersmith (Granted, also a Victorian crime novel)

Gonzo Journalism:

• Hunter S. Thompson: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It's the story of a man who is sent to cover the Mint 400 race in Las Vegas. Him and his attourney go, while taking various drugs and searching for the american dream. What's not to like?

Warhammer 40k:

• Dan Abnett's Horus Heresy series. (Disclaimer: This WILL NOT earn you much respect with most people, but fuck it. It's a great read.)

Fun Stuff

• Max Brooks: The Zombie Survival Guide, and World War Z: An oral history of the zombie war

Poetry

Poetry is a bit odd to work with so I felt that it deserves its own section. As a /b/tard you are probably conditioned to associate poetry with faggotry and queerness, but I assure you, it is not so. Most of the world's greatest works of literature is in poetry form, English prose wasn't published until 1100 something, so before then, anything that is written down is poetry. Of course, that faggot in your philosophy class who claims to be a poet probably does write poetry, but honestly, half the work in being a poet or writer or any artist is the ability to appreciate the work of others without your ego's interference. What that means is shut the fuck up, and read some fucking poetry. Being the generous anon that I am, I will, of course, point you in the right direction.

• It might be helpful to buy an anthology, it will cover a lot of ground and save you a lot of money on buying expensive books.
• Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs Du Mal (The Flowers of Evil), somewhat long and somewhat cryptic but this will give you insight on many things in life, including why hipster faggots act the way they do.
• William Shakespeare - All of his sonnets. Most Shakespeare scholars regard his sonnets as his real work, all his plays, while brilliant, was written on commission. In /b/ terms, if William Shakespeare is Kurt Cobain, all his plays = Nevermind, all his sonnets = Bleach
• Beowulf - a bit of work to get through, but just imagine Angelina Jolie's tits while you read. (if you've seen the shittastic movie)