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Whats your favorite book? EDIT: apologies I don’t respond to your recommendations but I highly appreciate the community hooking me up with good reads. Stay lit with literature. <3 (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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Need to get back into reading. Usually read horror literature and Russian works. But regardless, tell me your favorites !

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[–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. Kind of a weird one because it’s technically incomplete, assembled by his longtime editor and his wife from materials going back to the 90s. I think it could’ve been his best work, even though I’ve always held that his nonfiction is superior.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    As someone who loves Infinite Jest and enjoyed Brief Interviews, The Pale King didn’t do it for me.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago

    Entirely fair! I think the posthumous assembly of the novel — leaving most storylines necessarily incomplete — made it more of a rough draft than anything. I’m just glad it got published, since I love any literature about bureaucracy. My favorite part of IJ is the footnotes/endnotes, if that says anything.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    Really enjoyed Pale King. IJ is my favourite book ever, and I also love his non fiction.

    What did you think of The Broom of the System? I've started it twice and given up both times. I just cannot get into it at all.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Same. I made it about halfway through at the furthest. It kinda shows that it was an undergrad thesis project, and I think his own assessment that it seemed to be written by “a very smart fourteen-year-old” speaks to the roughness. I get it though — he’s chasing the sparks that we find developed later on. It’s funny how close this was written to Girl with Curious Hair, which is so much better.

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