Best Ever Books (preliminary discussion) - Lounge

Silver

LusciousOverload wrote:

A non-fiction tourney would be impossible: since Happymeal frequents the site, we're sure to have a book on advanced eskimology nominated; now, the book is actually highly flawed; but since none of us takes active interest in eskimology, none of us could possibly tell. We could then do like Squishy suggets and judge it according to a purely aesthetic criteria; since the flawed eskimology book is very nice aestheticswise, a flawed eskimology book might win our tourney and thus be best ever non-fiction. (Also, we'll get arguments on whether we can nominate The Bible). Also, at least I would not be able to judge a non-fiction book by aesthetic criteria, as I'd feel that understanding a science is necessary for understanding the aesthetics of the science: Proustian prose is nice aestheticswise when it deals with being some French bloke, but maybe sentences of Proustian length would render a book on axiology rather clumsy, and thus (I guess) not-so-aesthetic. However, given that philosophy eludes me, I would not be able to tell that the book is actually clumsily written, and thus I would probably find it aesthetic enough to vote for sometimes. How is one able to judge the beauty of a mathematical proof if they do not understand the proof? With this in mind, I'd claim that we'd only be able to nominate extremely laymanesque non-fiction, although maybe this was the intention all along (since some of you talked philosophy, I was beginning to think that you'd beckon each other into reading Phänomenologie des Geistes or some other badass stuff, and surely I would not then participate)

Sorry for this rambling post, especially considering that you all seem more interested in a fiction toruney anyway, but sometimes too much shit piles up in my lobes, and then I must sometimes jot the shit down in order to not go insane

Happymeal deleted his account, if you were truly sorry for that post you wouldn't have made it in the first place. Not talking

Satie

the non-fiction idea has been thoroughly trounced. the opposition rests and retreats to their non-fiction reading nook to hurl spitballs at the fiction crowd who can find widely applicable criteria that apply to a variety of approaches to fiction. the opposition concedes the stupidity of their idea and prostrates themselves publicly and graciously for the delight of all.

alelsupreme
Awful.

Gender: Male
Age: 27

Yeah tbh non-fiction book tourney sounds like a bad idea, especially considering it's more likely less people have read them and they'll likely be harder to get a hold of than fiction books.
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LusciousOverload

Silver wrote:

Happymeal deleted his account

shit

Satie

*BRUHs repeatedly until people stop complaining about a non-fiction poll whose sole advocate is not wanting it anymore*

i only suggested this because I haven't read a novel in like three or four years and wanted to be able to participate in a separate tournament for my own typical reading habits. just as the novel and film polls are hardly discursive (it's just a bunch of lists of different stuff that gets tallied up, and the world of both is obviously vast with the same problems with overlay as a non-fiction tournament would have), the non-fiction polls wouldn't be, either. just as some people "specialize" in watching anime or French New Wave or whatever their tastes are, so too do people "specialize" in certain subjects wrt non-fiction. still, there are obvious touchstones that everyone reads as a Western reader, same as films that everyone watches as a Western viewer - your political economy canon like Smith, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Bourdieu and Giddens, Hayek, etc. is not so different from canons for specific niches in fiction. it's just as plausible for two users to be into structuration theory (hypothetically) as it is for two users to be into expatriate American literature. it's totally fine that not that many people read non-fiction here or think it wouldn't offer enough variety for this specific userbase. cool. fine. let's move on.

samistake2ice
General Grievous Angel

Gender: Male
Age: 37
Location: Houston

BEBooks sounds fun. Im in.
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craola
crayon master

Location: pdx

mmm. books are much harder to get a hold of than albums and take way way much morer time to get through as well and take longer to digest and more absorb and then some.

it makes this kind of competition difficult and ultimately pretty narrow. i'm all for trying it out though. i'm going all in on neverending story, for what it's worth.
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undefined

LusciousOverload wrote:

A non-fiction tourney would be impossible: since Happymeal frequents the site, we're sure to have a book on advanced eskimology nominated; now, the book is actually highly flawed; but since none of us takes active interest in eskimology, none of us could possibly tell. We could then do like Squishy suggets and judge it according to a purely aesthetic criteria; since the flawed eskimology book is very nice aestheticswise, a flawed eskimology book might win our tourney and thus be best ever non-fiction. (Also, we'll get arguments on whether we can nominate The Bible). Also, at least I would not be able to judge a non-fiction book by aesthetic criteria, as I'd feel that understanding a science is necessary for understanding the aesthetics of the science: Proustian prose is nice aestheticswise when it deals with being some French bloke, but maybe sentences of Proustian length would render a book on axiology rather clumsy, and thus (I guess) not-so-aesthetic. However, given that philosophy eludes me, I would not be able to tell that the book is actually clumsily written, and thus I would probably find it aesthetic enough to vote for sometimes. How is one able to judge the beauty of a mathematical proof if they do not understand the proof? With this in mind, I'd claim that we'd only be able to nominate extremely laymanesque non-fiction, although maybe this was the intention all along (since some of you talked philosophy, I was beginning to think that you'd beckon each other into reading Phänomenologie des Geistes or some other badass stuff, and surely I would not then participate)

Sorry for this rambling post, especially considering that you all seem more interested in a fiction toruney anyway, but sometimes too much shit piles up in my lobes, and then I must sometimes jot the shit down in order to not go insane

hey Borve

Muslim-Bigfoot

Gender: Male
Age: 33
Location: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

I think this is as a whole very nice but deeply flawed idea that doesn't take into account the economy of time management,at least if we're presuming it to be a serious affair where we're not deciding what member favorites overlap by chance; in that case it'll most likely gonna be a hasty promotion of the 10 classics that I wanna push ahead of your favorite classics. What I think can work is a long-term project of every member nominating books and we reading them and taking a poll in a year or something; this will admittedly have very limited participation and will gradually die out (is that redundant?) but in my opinion is better than the other option. The other option is very easy tho so we can do that too Laughing

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mickilennial
The Most Trusted Name in News

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Age: 35
Location: Detroit

Quote:

books are much harder to get a hold of

I've never had a problem with it.

Perhaps a 'read that book above you' type thread would help as a companion thread?