What do they all mean? Literary, Non-literary Fiction, Genre, Classics, Bestsellers. I mean what do you call the stuff I like to read? How do you tell which one a book is? If only there were places you go or sources to refer to that would help with these questions.

If this seems a bit off, it because I am probably a bot.

Fortunately Sanderson has provide an excellent metaphor for explaining the topic of why I spoil books for myself. Otherwise, I am ignoring much of the journey as I think obsessively about what might be the destination.

Behold Martin, King, Salinger Foster Wallace. Fortunately Brando has avoided this curse.

Here they all are. An eclectic bunch, aren't they? And a bit about what I think about them so far. And Questions, so many questions, that I might be able to answer myself if and when I finish reading them, But for now let's discuss them. And I will start a couple new ones.

Really hard to read a book without one. I feel like my parents or a teacher or someone should have made sure I acquired one somewhere along the way. Failing that, help me, reddit.

Thought this seemed like a good place to start my journey with the classics.

I flicked through it a little earlier, and was surprised to see they removed all the football scenes, and also that Viola and Sebastian look nothing like Amanda Bynes. But I'm still going to give it a shot.

https://preview.redd.it/sqsoz29zrnxd1.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5e1110886cbd446052e8473f0bf674de86195faa

Happy Halloween, readers!

I was just thinking about the briefness and insignificance of every human life in that grand opera we call the universe; and I then I got to thinking about who I would most like to spend an infinitesimal fraction of my single, singular existence with. I thought immediately of dead writers — my truest friends.

So, fellow readers. With whom wouldst thou spend an hour?

… For me, the obvious answer is Mary Shelley, but I actually think she’d hate it. What with the whole unnatural conception thing. So my final answer is Melville and Hawthorne. I won’t even speak; I just need to assess for myself what the situation is.

Actually, how do I even get him to read, much less enjoy it? Beating him over the head with books is just not working. Should I do it more often? Harder? With bigger books? Refuse to feed him until he reads?

Aren't we all, one way or another?

Of course a certain presidential candidate had to go spoil that.

It is just to hard to figure out what to read next and it will probably just be disappointing in the end. This how people end up reading Harry Potter 27 times. Just find a new hobby.

I personally don't know anyone who has read and enjoyed both. Apparently this is the great fault line running through lovers of classic literature.

for me it would have to be paragraphs.

I realize this may be a challenging opinion to accept, but the decline of true literary engagement has one clear culprit: audiobooks. Imagine, if you will, the great thinkers of history—Socrates, Shakespeare, Tolstoy—sitting in serene silence, grappling with the very fabric of human existence. Now imagine them doing this… while on a treadmill. Or in the car. Can you picture Plato’s Republic streaming through Bluetooth speakers between podcasts? Exactly. It’s an intellectual tragedy.

Reading with one’s eyes is not just reading; it’s a ritual, a deeply personal experience, an unspoken pact between the reader and the author. When I hold a physical book, I am not merely consuming information—I am in communion with the author’s essence, each page a sacred relic of their mind. Audiobooks, on the other hand, feel like the literary equivalent of eating microwaved leftovers in a Tupperware container. Yes, you’re technically 'getting the nutrients,' but are you truly savoring the flavors?

Every punctuation mark, every page turn, is intentional and demands focus—a reverence that audiobooks simply cannot provide. I’ve seen people claim to “read” Dostoevsky while jogging. Jogging! How can you contemplate the depths of Raskolnikov’s guilt and anguish while trying not to trip on the sidewalk? It’s a disservice to the text, reducing art to background noise.

And then there’s the narrator. Am I supposed to trust some random person’s interpretation of Ulysses? With each pause and inflection, they’re imposing their understanding, robbing me of the pure, undiluted stream of the author’s thoughts. Imagine receiving divine wisdom, but through a chain of intermediaries—each one adding their own spin. That’s what audiobooks feel like. Literature should be raw, unmediated, dripping directly into the reader’s soul.

In the end, audiobooks may be “convenient,” but true literature demands sacrifice. It demands we sit with the words, struggle with them, let them seep into our consciousness slowly, like ink into fine parchment. Is it elitist to demand that literature be experienced in its fullest, most potent form? Perhaps. But in an age of fast food and fast information, I remain unshakeable in my belief: great literature deserves great effort.

It’s not their fault, really. I’m just so deeply connected with literature that I sometimes forget others don’t feel the same. The emotional catharsis I experience after reading an obscure 800-page novel from the 1800s is indescribable. I wish everyone could know what it’s like to cry over a protagonist’s existential crisis on a Thursday night.