# Can anyone recommend me some good books?



## Doc Dangerstein (Mar 8, 2013)

de Quincey is brilliant. I'm aware of the essay's existence except I haven't gotten around to reading it. I've completely forgotten about it. Some recent additions. Les Enfents terribles by Jean Cocteau. Sometimes the title gets translated into Holy Terrors and Children of the Game. My copy is in English but retained it's French title. Brilliant, disturbing little book. 

I've read Shirley Jackson's The Lottery long ago and completely forgot about this woman's existence. I'm really wanting to give one of her novels a try. You could check out New York Trilogy by Paul Auster: he seems to experiment with Hofstadter's idea of self-reference in linguistics, the idea of primal language, etc. 

I really enjoyed the three Oedipus plays by Sophocles. If you score a good translation, they're quite amazing. I've read Walting's translation and I have another contemporary one. Colleges like Lattimore's, but he's boring as .... Dante was excruciating; the Italian politics, the theology, the dogma. Unbearable. Inferno is worth reading strictly for its gore; that's about it. I'm actually liking Truman Capote's stories. They're simple, the language is quite charming. But that might be getting into mushy NF territory. What else; I found an anthology of Colette's novel recently. I'll probably end up finishing it.

Ne things, Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World was pretty cool. But yeah, I must read that essay sometimes.


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## Cosmic Hobo (Feb 7, 2013)

The Experiment said:


> de Quincey is brilliant. I'm aware of the essay's existence except I haven't gotten around to reading it. I've completely forgotten about it.


Oh, you must. It's hilarious.

Greek tragedy - I prefer Euripides to Sophocles; Sophocles is impressive, but I like Euripides's sense of dramatic irony and black humour a lot more. He's aware of the tropes and dramatic conventions, and subverts them. (Post-modernism in Ancient Greece?!)


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