GQ declares 21 novels you dont need ro read. Spoiler alert: all by white males
| Sexy home crotch | 04/20/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/20/18 | | Sexy home crotch | 04/20/18 | | hyperactive 180 national blood rage | 04/20/18 | | irradiated ungodly love of her life | 04/21/18 | | sable histrionic range gay wizard | 04/21/18 | | Vibrant school | 04/20/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/20/18 | | Offensive slap-happy hall codepig | 04/20/18 | | Mahogany Theater Stage | 04/20/18 | | Mind-boggling Light Boistinker Dragon | 04/20/18 | | mint hell | 04/20/18 | | hyperactive 180 national blood rage | 04/20/18 | | Fishy partner tattoo | 04/20/18 | | Laughsome giraffe | 04/20/18 | | exciting toaster regret | 04/20/18 | | rose patrolman | 04/21/18 | | vivacious point | 04/21/18 | | Magical puce library quadroon | 04/21/18 | | Sapphire Electric Spot | 04/21/18 | | Ruddy Racy Cruise Ship Party Of The First Part | 04/21/18 | | Hairraiser trailer park chad | 04/21/18 | | Cracking ultramarine center | 05/03/18 | | comical coffee pot shrine | 04/20/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/20/18 | | Thriller dilemma | 04/21/18 | | irradiated ungodly love of her life | 04/21/18 | | Motley rigpig | 04/21/18 | | Twinkling coiffed dingle berry | 11/03/18 | | Twinkling coiffed dingle berry | 11/03/18 | | greedy chartreuse meetinghouse shitlib | 04/20/18 | | confused sneaky criminal stag film | 04/20/18 | | Sexy home crotch | 04/20/18 | | Sexy home crotch | 04/20/18 | | Motley rigpig | 04/21/18 | | Aggressive orange business firm rigor | 04/20/18 | | hilarious bateful place of business | 04/20/18 | | Fighting buck-toothed institution | 04/20/18 | | comical coffee pot shrine | 04/20/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/20/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | Offensive slap-happy hall codepig | 04/20/18 | | Fighting buck-toothed institution | 04/20/18 | | Laughsome giraffe | 04/20/18 | | talented claret friendly grandma knife | 04/20/18 | | irradiated ungodly love of her life | 04/21/18 | | Alcoholic weed whacker | 04/21/18 | | Translucent Karate Parlour | 04/21/18 | | greedy chartreuse meetinghouse shitlib | 04/20/18 | | ruby stage | 04/21/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | Razzmatazz naked dopamine headpube | 04/21/18 | | Vibrant school | 04/20/18 | | confused sneaky criminal stag film | 04/20/18 | | greedy chartreuse meetinghouse shitlib | 04/20/18 | | Twinkling coiffed dingle berry | 04/20/18 | | Mahogany Theater Stage | 04/20/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/20/18 | | hilarious bateful place of business | 04/20/18 | | Odious Zippy Field | 04/20/18 | | Alcoholic weed whacker | 04/21/18 | | Jet Roommate | 04/22/18 | | greedy chartreuse meetinghouse shitlib | 04/20/18 | | Spectacular Background Story | 04/20/18 | | glittery fortuitous meteor | 04/20/18 | | Sexy home crotch | 04/20/18 | | glittery fortuitous meteor | 04/20/18 | | hilarious bateful place of business | 04/20/18 | | Motley rigpig | 04/21/18 | | excitant onyx church building prole | 04/21/18 | | duck-like water buffalo | 04/21/18 | | Deep zombie-like crackhouse | 04/20/18 | | Swashbuckling wagecucks legend | 04/20/18 | | Vibrant school | 04/20/18 | | ruby stage | 04/21/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/20/18 | | Mahogany Theater Stage | 04/20/18 | | purple infuriating resort jewess | 04/21/18 | | Swashbuckling wagecucks legend | 04/20/18 | | comical coffee pot shrine | 04/20/18 | | Sexy home crotch | 04/20/18 | | greedy chartreuse meetinghouse shitlib | 04/20/18 | | comical coffee pot shrine | 04/20/18 | | hilarious bateful place of business | 04/20/18 | | hilarious bateful place of business | 04/20/18 | | Sexy home crotch | 04/20/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/20/18 | | hateful house | 04/20/18 | | Fishy partner tattoo | 04/20/18 | | Magical puce library quadroon | 04/20/18 | | ruby stage | 04/21/18 | | excitant onyx church building prole | 04/21/18 | | Translucent Karate Parlour | 04/21/18 | | flushed international law enforcement agency bbw | 04/21/18 | | Deep zombie-like crackhouse | 04/20/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/20/18 | | greedy chartreuse meetinghouse shitlib | 04/20/18 | | talented claret friendly grandma knife | 04/20/18 | | Contagious topaz principal's office gunner | 04/21/18 | | hyperactive 180 national blood rage | 04/20/18 | | Carmine Toilet Seat Indian Lodge | 04/21/18 | | irradiated ungodly love of her life | 04/21/18 | | Canary Sandwich Milk | 04/21/18 | | pungent bat shit crazy trust fund | 04/21/18 | | curious volcanic crater | 04/21/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | Cobalt Macaca | 04/21/18 | | Sexy home crotch | 04/20/18 | | Soul-stirring kitchen | 04/20/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/20/18 | | Magical puce library quadroon | 04/20/18 | | galvanic cuckold | 04/20/18 | | Thriller dilemma | 04/21/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | Sexy home crotch | 04/21/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | Alcoholic weed whacker | 04/21/18 | | curious volcanic crater | 04/21/18 | | charismatic khaki base masturbator | 04/30/18 | | hateful house | 04/20/18 | | Razzle-dazzle Deranged Orchestra Pit Boltzmann | 04/21/18 | | Soul-stirring kitchen | 04/20/18 | | coral fiercely-loyal depressive | 04/20/18 | | Sexy home crotch | 04/20/18 | | coral fiercely-loyal depressive | 04/20/18 | | Sexy home crotch | 04/20/18 | | talented claret friendly grandma knife | 04/20/18 | | Thriller dilemma | 04/21/18 | | purple infuriating resort jewess | 04/21/18 | | excitant onyx church building prole | 04/21/18 | | Fighting buck-toothed institution | 04/20/18 | | hyperactive 180 national blood rage | 04/20/18 | | excitant onyx church building prole | 04/21/18 | | Mind-boggling Light Boistinker Dragon | 04/20/18 | | Odious Zippy Field | 04/20/18 | | exciting toaster regret | 04/20/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | Translucent Karate Parlour | 04/21/18 | | hateful house | 04/20/18 | | Ocher metal chapel | 04/21/18 | | Jet Roommate | 04/22/18 | | maroon parlor | 04/20/18 | | Fighting buck-toothed institution | 04/20/18 | | impertinent marvelous roast beef indirect expression | 04/21/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | Thriller dilemma | 04/21/18 | | honey-headed stain stage | 04/21/18 | | Motley rigpig | 04/21/18 | | excitant onyx church building prole | 04/21/18 | | Hairraiser trailer park chad | 04/21/18 | | Contagious topaz principal's office gunner | 04/21/18 | | duck-like water buffalo | 04/21/18 | | exciting toaster regret | 04/30/18 | | Know-it-all plaza | 04/20/18 | | hilarious bateful place of business | 04/20/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/20/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/20/18 | | hyperactive 180 national blood rage | 04/20/18 | | pungent bat shit crazy trust fund | 04/21/18 | | excitant onyx church building prole | 04/21/18 | | comical coffee pot shrine | 04/20/18 | | awkward juggernaut | 04/20/18 | | Spectacular Background Story | 04/20/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/20/18 | | Carmine Toilet Seat Indian Lodge | 04/20/18 | | confused sneaky criminal stag film | 04/20/18 | | comical coffee pot shrine | 04/20/18 | | umber thirsty messiness whorehouse | 04/21/18 | | Alcoholic weed whacker | 04/22/18 | | Motley rigpig | 04/21/18 | | exciting toaster regret | 04/20/18 | | hilarious bateful place of business | 04/20/18 | | exciting toaster regret | 04/20/18 | | overrated disturbing set | 04/20/18 | | hilarious bateful place of business | 04/20/18 | | overrated disturbing set | 04/21/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | Carmine Toilet Seat Indian Lodge | 04/20/18 | | exciting toaster regret | 04/20/18 | | Odious Zippy Field | 04/21/18 | | exciting toaster regret | 04/20/18 | | Motley rigpig | 04/21/18 | | misunderstood puppy | 04/20/18 | | exciting toaster regret | 04/20/18 | | comical coffee pot shrine | 04/20/18 | | Odious Zippy Field | 04/20/18 | | Mahogany Theater Stage | 04/21/18 | | arousing state dog poop | 04/20/18 | | exciting toaster regret | 04/20/18 | | Thriller dilemma | 04/21/18 | | Vibrant school | 04/20/18 | | copper lodge | 04/21/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | Brilliant private investor | 04/21/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | Painfully honest internal respiration | 04/21/18 | | ruby stage | 04/21/18 | | Carmine Toilet Seat Indian Lodge | 04/21/18 | | Geriatric location | 04/21/18 | | Soul-stirring kitchen | 04/21/18 | | confused sneaky criminal stag film | 04/21/18 | | fear-inspiring ticket booth | 04/21/18 | | confused sneaky criminal stag film | 04/21/18 | | fear-inspiring ticket booth | 04/21/18 | | Shivering Tantric Office Legal Warrant | 04/21/18 | | Alcoholic weed whacker | 04/21/18 | | purple infuriating resort jewess | 04/21/18 | | Shivering Tantric Office Legal Warrant | 04/21/18 | | confused sneaky criminal stag film | 04/21/18 | | out-of-control site queen of the night | 04/21/18 | | Magical puce library quadroon | 04/21/18 | | Translucent Karate Parlour | 04/21/18 | | Magical puce library quadroon | 04/21/18 | | Provocative ladyboy windowlicker | 04/21/18 | | fear-inspiring ticket booth | 04/21/18 | | Contagious topaz principal's office gunner | 04/21/18 | | Fragrant mentally impaired doctorate | 04/21/18 | | Magical puce library quadroon | 04/21/18 | | cordovan brunch | 04/21/18 | | umber thirsty messiness whorehouse | 04/21/18 | | titillating kitty | 04/21/18 | | Soul-stirring kitchen | 04/21/18 | | Bat-shit-crazy Cerise University Pisswyrm | 04/21/18 | | Motley rigpig | 04/21/18 | | Fragrant mentally impaired doctorate | 04/21/18 | | confused sneaky criminal stag film | 04/21/18 | | Fragrant mentally impaired doctorate | 04/21/18 | | confused sneaky criminal stag film | 04/21/18 | | coral fiercely-loyal depressive | 04/21/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/21/18 | | greedy chartreuse meetinghouse shitlib | 04/21/18 | | erotic chest-beating clown jap | 04/21/18 | | vivacious point | 04/21/18 | | Fragrant mentally impaired doctorate | 04/21/18 | | greedy chartreuse meetinghouse shitlib | 04/21/18 | | talented claret friendly grandma knife | 04/21/18 | | Soul-stirring kitchen | 04/21/18 | | vivacious point | 04/21/18 | | Know-it-all plaza | 04/21/18 | | honey-headed stain stage | 04/21/18 | | excitant onyx church building prole | 04/21/18 | | coral fiercely-loyal depressive | 04/21/18 | | vivacious point | 04/21/18 | | Motley rigpig | 04/21/18 | | Sexy home crotch | 04/21/18 | | excitant onyx church building prole | 04/21/18 | | talented claret friendly grandma knife | 04/21/18 | | Fragrant mentally impaired doctorate | 04/21/18 | | cerebral bright tank scourge upon the earth | 04/21/18 | | Fragrant mentally impaired doctorate | 04/21/18 | | Soul-stirring kitchen | 04/21/18 | | excitant onyx church building prole | 04/21/18 | | vivacious point | 04/21/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/21/18 | | Fragrant mentally impaired doctorate | 04/21/18 | | Translucent Karate Parlour | 04/21/18 | | Fragrant mentally impaired doctorate | 04/21/18 | | Translucent Karate Parlour | 04/21/18 | | erotic chest-beating clown jap | 04/21/18 | | Fragrant mentally impaired doctorate | 04/21/18 | | vivacious point | 04/21/18 | | talented claret friendly grandma knife | 04/21/18 | | Fragrant mentally impaired doctorate | 04/21/18 | | vivacious point | 04/21/18 | | Cobalt Macaca | 04/21/18 | | Nudist Ivory Corn Cake | 04/21/18 | | umber thirsty messiness whorehouse | 04/21/18 | | charcoal rambunctious address | 04/21/18 | | Bespoke Mustard Half-breed Electric Furnace | 04/21/18 | | excitant onyx church building prole | 04/21/18 | | Alcoholic weed whacker | 04/22/18 | | Cobalt Macaca | 04/21/18 | | coral fiercely-loyal depressive | 04/21/18 | | vivacious point | 04/21/18 | | Soul-stirring kitchen | 04/21/18 | | Cobalt Macaca | 04/21/18 | | Hairraiser trailer park chad | 04/21/18 | | Heady Jet-lagged Yarmulke | 04/30/18 | | Bespoke Mustard Half-breed Electric Furnace | 04/21/18 | | Fighting buck-toothed institution | 04/21/18 | | Sepia pozpig | 04/21/18 | | excitant onyx church building prole | 04/21/18 | | duck-like water buffalo | 04/21/18 | | excitant onyx church building prole | 04/22/18 | | Canary Sandwich Milk | 04/21/18 | | stirring impressive keepsake machete menage | 04/21/18 | | exciting toaster regret | 04/27/18 | | aromatic underhanded school cafeteria | 04/27/18 | | Razzle Insane Piazza | 04/27/18 | | Soul-stirring kitchen | 11/03/18 |
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Date: April 20th, 2018 10:42 PM Author: Sexy home crotch
21 Books You Don’t Have to Read
Books
21 Books You Don’t Have to Read
Photograph by Ryan Segedi
Photo of The Editors of GQ
BY THE EDITORS OF GQ
1 day ago
And 21 you should read instead (technically 20 books—Adventures of Huckleberry Finn did not fare well).
We've been told all our lives that we can only call ourselves well-read once we've read the Great Books. We tried. We got halfway through Infinite Jest and halfway through the SparkNotes on Finnegans Wake. But a few pages into Bleak House, we realized that not all the Great Books have aged well. Some are racist and some are sexist, but most are just really, really boring. So we—and a group of un-boring writers—give you permission to strike these books from the canon. Here's what you should read instead.
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1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Instead: The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford
I actually love Lonesome Dove, but I'm convinced that the cowboy mythos, with its rigid masculine emotional landscape, glorification of guns and destruction, and misogynistic gender roles, is a major factor in the degradation of America. Rather than perpetuate this myth, I'd love for everyone, but particularly American men, to read The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford. It's a wicked, brilliant, dark book set largely on a ranch in Colorado, but it acts in many ways as a strong rebuttal to all the old toxic western stereotypes we all need to explode. —Lauren Groff, 'Florida'
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2. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Instead: Olivia: A Novel by Dorothy Strachey
I have never been able to fathom why The Catcher in the Rye is such a canonical novel. I read it because everyone else in school was reading it but thought it was totally silly. Now, looking back, I find that it is without any literary merit whatsoever. Why waste adolescents' time? Alternatively, I'd suggest Olivia, the story of a British teenage girl who is sent to a boarding school in France. It is short and written in a kind of levelheaded and deceptively straightforward style. Olivia eventually falls in love with her teacher Mademoiselle Julie T, who in turn, and without reciprocating that love out loud, is equally in love with Olivia. Julie never takes a wrong step, but there are signs for those who know how to read them. I read Olivia many, many times, bought it for many of my friends, and consider it the inspiration for Call Me by Your Name. —André Aciman, 'Call Me by Your Name'
3. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
Instead: Dispatches by Michael Herr
Goodbye to All That, the autobiographical account of Graves's time in the trenches during World War I, is entertaining and enlightening. It's also incredibly racist. Graves includes samples of near unintelligible essays produced by three of his students (“Mahmoud Mohammed Mahmoud,” “Mohammed Mahmoud Mohammed,” and “Mahmoud Mahmoud Mohammed”) from his postwar stint as an English instructor in Cairo. The joke is twofold—all these silly natives have similar-sounding names, and they lack the basic intellectual capacity to grapple with the literature. A better option is Dispatches by Michael Herr. It concerns a different time, country, and war, but this is still, in my mind, the most indispensable personal account of the cruelty and violence of modern warfare. —Omar El Akkad, 'American War'
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21 Books You Don’t Have to Read
4. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Instead: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
My father loved The Old Man and the Sea, so I tried to love it. It left me unmoved. Mostly, I kept hoping the fish would get away without too much damage. (When my grandpa pushed me to catch a trout at a fish farm, I threw the rod into the pond.) I'd rather read Tove Jansson's The Summer Book. This series of vignettes about a grandmother and granddaughter living on a remote Finnish island is not just heartwarming: In its views of both Nature and human nature, it teaches us what it is to be in sync with the world. All of Jansson's adult fiction is deeply humane and beautiful. —Jeff VanderMeer, 'Annihilation'
5. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Instead: Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector
Somehow, even at 208 pages, The Alchemist is 207 pages too long. A dude wanders the desert, trying to uncover his Personal Legend (capitalized as such throughout the book) while meeting people who speak in the inane aphorisms of a throw pillow: “Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.” If you're after a book of existential meandering by a Brazilian author, pick up the similarly slim Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector. Unlike the entitled desert wandering of The Alchemist, Wild Heart's contemplations are inward and complex. For Lispector, there aren't easy answers—and her universe sure as hell is not interested in your hopes and dreams. —Kevin Nguyen, GQ senior editor
6. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Instead: The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
Hemingway's novels—with their masculine bluster and clipped sentences—sometimes feel almost parodic to me. If you want to read about the intersection of love and war, Hemingway's subjects in A Farewell to Arms, consider Shirley Hazzard's The Great Fire, about the fallout of the Second World War. Though it was published in 2003, the book feels both contemporaneous with that period and wholly contemporary. Hazzard just writes so damn well, every sentence a gem.
—Rumaan Alam, 'That Kind of Mother'
7. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Instead: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
I'm a great admirer of Cormac McCarthy's sparer masterpieces, but I'm ambivalent about Blood Meridian, the historical epic often cited as his greatest work. Set in the Old West and written in an impenetrable style that combines Faulkner and the King James Bible, Blood Meridian is a big, forbidding book that earns the reader bragging rights but provides scant pleasure. If you're looking for a more human-scaled, emotionally engaging novel set in the same time period, I'd recommend The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt. It's a dark, funny, brutal Western about a pair of hired killers, at least one of whom has a conscience. It covers some of the same ground as Blood Meridian and has a lot more fun along the way. —Tom Perrotta, 'Mrs. Fletcher'
8. John Adams by David McCullough
Instead: Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard
David McCullough is one of our foremost historians, and his books are written with great care and impressive attention to detail. They also happen to be the driest, boringest tomes you'll ever sludge through. One time I read his book about the history of the Panama Canal, and it required about as much sweat and labor as it took to build the actual canal. For some kick-ass history, read Destiny of the Republic, about the assassination of President Garfield, the doctors who tried to save him but actually ended up killing him, and the frantic attempt by a deranged Alexander Graham Bell to invent a machine to find the bullet located in the president's body. All in a relatively tidy 339 pages. At no point will you feel like there's a test at the end. —Drew Magary, GQ contributor
9 & 10. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Instead: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Fredrick Douglass
The worst crime committed by Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is that it makes first-time Twain readers think Twain wrote tedious, meandering stories. He did, as is evidenced by this, his book of tedious, meandering stories—but he also wrote a lot of richly entertaining meandering stories that are not constrained by the ham-fisted narration of a fictional backcountry child or suffused with his sweaty imitation of a slave talking. Alternatively, read Frederick Douglass's firsthand account of slavery, which is equal parts shocking and heartbreaking. It's also an invigorating revenge story: Douglass identifies slave owners by name and hometown, detailing their crimes with such specificity that their descendants will be embarrassed forever. While Jim, the affable slave friend of Huck Finn, exclaims things like “Lawsy, I's mighty glad…,” Frederick Douglass makes observations like “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” You were saying, Mr. Twain? —Caity Weaver, GQ writer and editor
Instead: The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Alvaro Mutis
Mark Twain was a racist. Just read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He was a man of his time, so let's leave him there. We don't need him. If you want adventure, or misadventure, read The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll, by Alvaro Mutis. It's one of my favorite books: sad, poetic, philosophical, and funny, with some of the best writing I've read. —Tommy Orange, 'There There'
11. The Ambassadors by Henry James
Instead: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer
Several people described The Ambassadors by Henry James in such a way as to make me impatient to read it, but between those descriptions and my experience of the book lay a chasm of such yawningness that it will never be crossed. Alternatively, I recommend The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. I suspect that contemporary readers feel no great urge to pick it up because—in a way that doesn't happen with fiction—it has been rendered somewhat obsolete by more recent books on the subject. It's actually still as gripping as any literary classic. —Geoff Dyer, 'White Sands'
12. The Bible
Instead: The Notebook by Agota Kristof
The Holy Bible is rated very highly by all the people who supposedly live by it but who in actuality have not read it. Those who have read it know there are some good parts, but overall it is certainly not the finest thing that man has ever produced. It is repetitive, self-contradictory, sententious, foolish, and even at times ill-intentioned. If the thing you heard was good about the Bible was the nasty bits, then I propose Agota Kristof's The Notebook, a marvelous tale of two brothers who have to get along when things get rough. The subtlety and cruelty of this story is like that famous sword stroke (from below the boat) that plunged upward through the bowels, the lungs, and the throat and into the brain of the rower. —Jesse Ball, 'Census'
13. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Instead: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
I loved all of Salinger's books when I was young, but now I feel that they're shallow. It's not that Salinger isn't a very accomplished writer, but there's a sort of slick, brittle, midcentury veneer to his work. It's very polished and not very profound. With Franny and Zooey, there's some Buddhist-y stuff in there, and there's stuff about being disenchanted and the real world around you seeming fake, but is that really profound? Instead I'd recommend a hidden gem, Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop. Cather is a beautiful writer. She's very unfashionable, and I love that about her. Death Comes for the Archbishop is about a priest in what I'm pretty sure is Santa Fe. And it's incredibly calm and contemplative and open. It's the opposite of the kind of glossy, slick New York narrative. When you read it, it's like having a spiritual experience. It's not too long, and it's not effortful. —Claire Messud, 'The Burning Girl'
14. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
Instead: Earthsea Series by Ursula K. Le Guin
I liked The Hobbit. A lot. But while Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books are influential as exercises in world building, as novels they are barely readable. It never seemed to me that Tolkien cared about his story as much as he cared about rendering, in minute detail, the world he built. Why not instead read Ursula K. Le Guin's magnificent (and as beautifully rendered) stories and novels surrounding Earthsea? Le Guin captures the world of Earthsea through a powerful, dark, gorgeous kind of storytelling that is irresistible. Perhaps Le Guin's work—along with an entire universe of fantasy fiction—wouldn't have been possible without Tolkien's influence behind it, but in its time, Le Guin's books are more influential and make for better reading. —Manuel Gonzales, 'The Regional Office Is Under Attack!'
15. Dracula by Bram Stoker
Instead: Angels by Denis Johnson
Gothic-horror classics like Dracula and Frankenstein always leave me cold. If you want to read a truly terrifying literary gem, try Johnson's Angels. It unspools as a sort of nightmare that begins on a Greyhound bus. Poor Jamie grew up in West Virginia and leaves her abusive husband back in their trailer when she runs off with her two small children. On that fateful Greyhound bus she meets Bill Houston, who's done everything bad except kill someone, although by the end of the book he will have done it all. —Matthew Klam, 'Who Is Rich?'
16. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Instead: The American Granddaughter by Inaam Kachachi
I never could get into Joseph Heller's Catch-22. It fails to capture the absurdities and impossible conflicts of war. However, one of the most arresting novels I've read about war is Kachachi's The American Granddaughter. Set at the beginning of the Iraq war, this book tells the story of Zeina, an Iraqi-American who signs up to be an interpreter for the U.S. Army and finds herself stationed in her hometown of Baghdad, where she must hide her work from her formidable grandmother. What follows is a thoughtful, nuanced, and often uproariously funny meditation on war in the 21st century. —Emily Robbins, 'A Word for Love'
17. Life by Keith Richards
Instead: The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
I've nodded along—or maybe plain lied in agreement—when people extol Keith Richards's memoir, Life. Richards's cockiness and conceit about the wrong things jars; it's a book that somehow makes me sympathize with Mick Jagger. I'd rather read The Worst Journey in the World, a memoir in which the author spends no time at all trying to convince the reader of his own greatness. Quite the opposite. In 1910, a 24-year-old Cherry-Garrard joined a British expedition to the South Pole. As the title of his book hints, it didn't go well. Their leader, Captain Scott, was beaten to the Pole by a Norwegian explorer, and those who reached the Pole died on their return. Keith Richards suddenly looks very petty. —Chris Heath, GQ correspondent
18. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Instead: Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal
Freedom is intolerably boring. The risks of frustration and asphyxiation while reading in bed are equally high with this huge, much vaunted American über-tome. But freedom is at the heart of this tiny Czech novel, Too Loud a Solitude. In around a hundred pages, it tells the story of Hanta, who has found wisdom in his job, compressing paper and books in a totalitarian state. The jokes are funny, and the stories lead us to ever richer revelations. The book is over almost before it has begun. —Richard Flanagan, 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North'
19. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Instead: Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
When young Thomas Pynchon was writing Gravity's Rainbow, he was fixated on the Big Things (punishingly boring and confusing things) of a Big World War II Novel that would announce him as a Big American Writer in 1973. Fortunately for us, nearly four decades later he brought us his recollections of everything else that was swirling around him back then. The world Pynchon conjures in Inherent Vice (published in 2009) is the world he himself was living in while writing Gravity's Rainbow, when he was shacked up in a small apartment in the real-life Gordita Beach. Inherent Vice is where you should start if you want to dine on a small plate of Pynchon's stuff instead of a potluck platter. —Daniel Riley, GQ features editor
20. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Instead: Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
When men on dating apps list a book, they invariably list Slaughterhouse-Five. I'd rather not get a drink with a person who's taking his cues from Vonnegut: The few women in Slaughterhouse-Five die early, are porn stars, or are “bitchy flibbertigibbets.” Instead, read Gaitskill's Veronica, in which emotions are so present and sensory they almost hold a physical weight. Gaitskill understands how you can sense a loved one's mood radiating from the next room as clearly as rain out the window. This empathy drives her characters closer to cruelty than to kindness. —Nadja Spiegelman, 'I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This'
21. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Instead: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
Why Swift's dreary satire is routinely inflicted on high school English classes is a mystery to me. Tristram Shandy at least has the virtue of occasionally being funny. It's also deeply weird: postmodern 200 years before postmodernism, with a deeply unreliable narrator, typographic trickery (a death early in the book is followed by a solid-black page), and a list of character names that would make Pynchon jealous (Dr. Slop, Billy Le Fever, and a certain Hafen Slawkenbergius). It is an important achievement in the history of the novel, a reminder that literature is an ongoing experiment—which means you should treat it like Don Quixote and read the first half before calling it a day. One can admire the pyramids without feeling the need to scale them. —Christopher Cox, GQ executive editor
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This story originally appeared in the May 2018 issue with the title "21 Books You Don't Have to Read Before You Die"
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21 Mixed-Race Historical Figures You Thought Were White
21 Mixed-Race Historical Figures You Thought Were White
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886019)
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Date: April 21st, 2018 2:19 AM Author: Painfully honest internal respiration
While Jim, the affable slave friend of Huck Finn, exclaims things like “Lawsy, I's mighty glad…,” Frederick Douglass makes observations like “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” You were saying, Mr. Twain?
Ohhhhhhh! She got Twain good! These people are literally delusional - she's implying that just because the book didn't focus on the horrors of slavery that Twain is denying those horrors existed.....
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886862) |
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Date: April 21st, 2018 2:21 AM Author: Painfully honest internal respiration
The odds are zero - I haven't met a single person who's attempted Catch 22 who didn't find it belly-laugh inducing hilarious.
But I'm sure the "story of Zeina, an Iraqi-American who signs up to be an interpreter for the U.S. Army and finds herself stationed in her hometown of Baghdad, where she must hide her work from her formidable grandmother" is a riot.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886865)
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Date: April 20th, 2018 10:49 PM Author: Deep zombie-like crackhouse
I have never been able to fathom why The Catcher in the Rye is such a canonical novel. I read it because everyone else in school was reading it but thought it was totally silly. Now, looking back, I find that it is without any literary merit whatsoever. Why waste adolescents' time? Alternatively, I'd suggest Olivia, the story of a British teenage girl who is sent to a boarding school in France. It is short and written in a kind of levelheaded and deceptively straightforward style. Olivia eventually falls in love with her teacher Mademoiselle Julie T, who in turn, and without reciprocating that love out loud, is equally in love with Olivia. Julie never takes a wrong step, but there are signs for those who know how to read them. I read Olivia many, many times, bought it for many of my friends, and consider it the inspiration for Call Me by Your Name. —André Aciman, 'Call Me by Your Name'
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damn, that's like my 2nd fav book. salinger is 180
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886058) |
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Date: April 21st, 2018 2:25 AM Author: Painfully honest internal respiration
"the story of a British teenage girl who is sent to a boarding school in France"
Andre - you're gay we get it. His parents owned a knitting factory and I'm sure he knitted while reading Olivia, the story of a British teenage girl who is sent to boarding school in France, multiple times over. While knitting and fantasizing about being a British teenage girl.
"Aciman was born in Alexandria, Egypt, the son of Regine and Henri N. Aciman, who owned a knitting factory.[12][13][14] His mother was deaf.[15] Aciman was raised in a French-speaking home where family members also spoke Italian, Greek, Ladino, and Arabic.[7]
His parents were Sephardic Jews, of Turkish and Italian origin, from families that had settled in Alexandria in 1905" - odd case
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886876) |
Date: April 20th, 2018 10:53 PM Author: Swashbuckling wagecucks legend
hay, don't read the bible, which is, for better or worse, one of the key texts of all of western civilization
ignore all of that shit and focus on a marvelous tale of two brothers who have to get along when things get rough
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886077) |
Date: April 20th, 2018 11:00 PM Author: Deep zombie-like crackhouse
"Also, William Shakespeare. I mean, really, is he even that good? Zoya Jackson's play, 'the african whore,' follows in similar line to 'the merchant of venice,' and, quite frankly, is superior in its characters, plot, and dialogue. I remember reading Shakespeare in school and thinking 'wow, i'd rather be smoking weed,' but with Zoya's recent rendition, I find myself thinking, 'wow, i'd like to see this play in the theatre, and i'd like Zoya's autograph as well because she's amazing!"
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886121) |
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Date: April 21st, 2018 12:40 AM Author: Carmine Toilet Seat Indian Lodge
you laugh, but give it 10 more years.
10 years ago, could anyone imagine the ABOVE list? or that libs would SERIOUSLY be calling for the razing of George Washington statues?
this is the propaganda game they play. it's a jewish plot to *keep the pressure on*, incrementally, relentlessly moving us further afield into looney land, never letting you re-establish your bearings.
see: Cass Sunstein's 'Nudge' concept.
ABN = Alway Be Nudging.
this is how (((they))) operate. NUDGE, NUDGE, NUDGE.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886575) |
Date: April 20th, 2018 11:03 PM Author: hateful house
The winner for most audacious, retarded shitlibbery goes to:
If the thing you heard was good about the Bible was the nasty bits, then I propose Agota Kristof's The Notebook, a marvelous tale of two brothers who have to get along when things get rough.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886139) |
Date: April 20th, 2018 11:15 PM Author: maroon parlor
"I never could get into Joseph Heller's Catch-22. It fails to capture the absurdities and impossible conflicts of war."
The book literally introduced a phrase to the modern lexicon that captures absurd, impossible conflicts.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886215) |
Date: April 20th, 2018 11:19 PM Author: Know-it-all plaza
"Mark Twain was a racist. Just read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He was a man of his time, so let's leave him there. We don't need him."
LMFAO
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886236) |
Date: April 20th, 2018 11:25 PM Author: Spectacular Background Story
12. The Bible
Instead: The Notebook
Lmao
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886267) |
Date: April 20th, 2018 11:30 PM Author: Carmine Toilet Seat Indian Lodge
just... what the fuck?
a men's magazine makes a list of books that are 'bad' because they are too 'masculine'?
i'm just... at a loss at this point. where are we going here? we are now committed to the premise that men should be *less* male? and women are all BADASSES?
has anyone stopped to note the reasoning behind any of this?
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886287) |
Date: April 20th, 2018 11:33 PM Author: overrated disturbing set
obviously this is mostly nonsense but some of the takes are correct; The Alchemist sucks, 'Freedom' sucks, 'Inherent Vice' is better than 'Gravity's Rainbow' and Blood Meridian is massively overrated (and so is McCarthy in general).
I am a little confused as to why Geoff Dyer thinks "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" is at all a substitute for "The Ambassadors". Is he a Boomer old? "Literary fiction is boring, let's read this Rommel biography!"
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886298) |
Date: April 20th, 2018 11:42 PM Author: misunderstood puppy
12. The Bible
Instead: The Notebook by Agota Kristof
The Holy Bible is rated very highly by all the people who supposedly live by it but who in actuality have not read it. Those who have read it know there are some good parts, but overall it is certainly not the finest thing that man has ever produced. It is repetitive, self-contradictory, sententious, foolish, and even at times ill-intentioned. If the thing you heard was good about the Bible was the nasty bits, then I propose Agota Kristof's The Notebook, a marvelous tale of two brothers who have to get along when things get rough. The subtlety and cruelty of this story is like that famous sword stroke (from below the boat) that plunged upward through the bowels, the lungs, and the throat and into the brain of the rower. —Jesse Ball, 'Census'
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886357) |
Date: April 20th, 2018 11:47 PM Author: exciting toaster regret
White Men Are Mad That This ‘GQ’ List Dismisses Books By White Men
BY TAYLOR BRYANT · APRIL 20, 2018
White Men Are Mad That This ‘GQ’ List Dismisses Books By White Men
Yesterday, GQ published an article titled “21 Books You Don’t Have To Read.” In it, the editors, along with many acclaimed authors, compiled a list of works they think are overrated and should be, if not struck from the canon, at least passed over in favor of other often overlooked, but excellent works.
Now, because some of the books GQ insists "you don't have to read" include Catcher in the Rye, The Alchemist, A Farewell to Arms, The Lord of the Rings, and Catch-22, and those books are very near and dear to many, some controversy was bound to ensue. But because all 21 of those books were written by men, and overwhelmingly white men at that, the controversy was particularly whiny, because, well: white men. They like to whine.
Not going to link to this GQ piece about 21 classic books you can skip (here's a suggestion: READ THEM), but I am going to gently suggest that the person who wrote this sentence not write about books again. Ever, please. pic.twitter.com/7zZJE0Wzn0
— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) April 20, 2018
The whole point of GQ magazine was supposed to be to help guys become more like Hemingway, not to replace him with the latest chick lit. WTF is wrong with you people?
— Ricky Velasquez (@QueenMengerKarl) April 20, 2018
Ironically, the books that are replacing those that "you don't have to read" are also overwhelmingly by... white men. While there are more women authors included, those women are also mostly white. In fact, Frederick Douglass is the only black person listed and there is not one black woman or Asian author in the mix.
So while those whining white dudes should definitely try picking up some James Baldwin or Toni Morrison or Audre Lorde or Amy Tan, so should the writers who GQ's editors polled—as well as the editors themselves. They might learn something in the process.
https://nylon.com/articles/gq-books-dont-have-to-read-white-men?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nylon
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886376) |
Date: April 21st, 2018 12:23 AM Author: copper lodge
hey hey ho ho
western civ has got to go!
[100 years later]
fuck why did we piss away 2500 of wisdom?
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886519) |
Date: April 21st, 2018 2:05 AM Author: Painfully honest internal respiration
I actually love Lonesome Dove, but I'm convinced that the cowboy mythos, with its rigid masculine emotional landscape, glorification of guns and destruction, and misogynistic gender roles, is a major factor in the degradation of America. Rather than perpetuate this myth, I'd love for everyone, but particularly American men, to read The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford. It's a wicked, brilliant, dark book set largely on a ranch in Colorado, but it acts in many ways as a strong rebuttal to all the old toxic western stereotypes we all need to explode.
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Is this satire? If not these people are a scourge on the earth - but seriously look what this paragraph implies. "I actually love Lonesome Dove" but.....
Translation: I'm smart enough to appreciate this great book but the common person, whom I stick up for politically, is not and will be negatively influenced by these stereotypes.
There are some great books on that list - authors should kill themselves if not satire.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886822) |
Date: April 21st, 2018 2:15 AM Author: Painfully honest internal respiration
MORE STORIES LIKE THIS ONE
Not Every Gay Man Is DTF
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886849)
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Date: April 21st, 2018 2:18 AM Author: Carmine Toilet Seat Indian Lodge
down with christian bible, down with manhood, down with white/european culture!
up with homosex!
kill these ppl
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35886860) |
Date: April 21st, 2018 8:03 AM Author: fear-inspiring ticket booth
12. The Bible
Instead: The Notebook by Agota Kristof
This is Onion level stuff.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35887289) |
Date: April 21st, 2018 8:38 AM Author: Provocative ladyboy windowlicker
The worst crime committed by Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is that it makes first-time Twain readers think Twain wrote tedious, meandering stories. He did, as is evidenced by this, his book of tedious, meandering stories—but he also wrote a lot of richly entertaining meandering stories that are not constrained by the ham-fisted narration of a fictional backcountry child or suffused with his sweaty imitation of a slave talking. Alternatively, read Frederick Douglass's firsthand account of slavery, which is equal parts shocking and heartbreaking. It's also an invigorating revenge story: Douglass identifies slave owners by name and hometown, detailing their crimes with such specificity that their descendants will be embarrassed forever. While Jim, the affable slave friend of Huck Finn, exclaims things like “Lawsy, I's mighty glad…,” Frederick Douglass makes observations like “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” You were saying, Mr. Twain?
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35887360) |
Date: April 21st, 2018 10:14 AM Author: Bat-shit-crazy Cerise University Pisswyrm
LJL:
The worst crime committed by Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is that it makes first-time Twain readers think Twain wrote tedious, meandering stories. He did, as is evidenced by this, his book of tedious, meandering stories—but he also wrote a lot of richly entertaining meandering stories that are not constrained by the ham-fisted narration of a fictional backcountry child or suffused with his sweaty imitation of a slave talking. Alternatively, read Frederick Douglass's firsthand account of slavery, which is equal parts shocking and heartbreaking. It's also an invigorating revenge story: Douglass identifies slave owners by name and hometown, detailing their crimes with such specificity that their descendants will be embarrassed forever. While Jim, the affable slave friend of Huck Finn, exclaims things like “Lawsy, I's mighty glad…,” Frederick Douglass makes observations like “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” You were saying, Mr. Twain? —Caity Weaver, GQ writer and editor
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35887650) |
Date: April 21st, 2018 10:39 AM Author: Fragrant mentally impaired doctorate
as usual, xo is angry only because something white and male is being criticized
if this were a list of 20 books by female authors, for example, xo wouldn't give a shit. Or if the list were mixed. How predictable; I knew what the entire thread was going to be before I opened it.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35887760) |
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Date: April 21st, 2018 11:37 AM Author: Know-it-all plaza
setting aside whether it would be possible to write those comparable lists, in the real world none of those groups are the targets of a public "THEY MUST GO!" campaign. lol @ bringing up xo's hypothetical lack of anger to an article tearing down Chicano lit (that you had to imagine because it obviously doesn't exist) as a point in your favor lmao.
anyway, do you agree with the spirit of the piece? essentially "they were men of their time, fuck them, we have nothing to learn from them". it kinda seems like insane and unhealthy fanaticism to me no matter who the targets are.
and lol how you have nothing to say about the article and immediately go after the identities of the other responders - so bored and tired of this standard evil shitlib tactic which seems drilled in your heads to the point of instinct now. every time: insane article gets written, staying quiet gets taken for acquiescence and something even more insane comes down the line next month. if any white men rise to the bait and say "this seems insane" nobody has to engage on substance and can just jeer at them for their "predictable" whiny white male tears. poor guys can't even bitch anonymously in a web 0.5 safe space without someone popping up to play this game!!
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3955424&forum_id=2#35888073) |
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