There were three indispensable tools for me as a DM:

Dungon Master for Dummies -- Seriously, this is a fantastic book. It was written for 3rd Edition, but most of the book's advice is relevant for any RPG. Both authors have a long pedigree in designing and writing for D&D.

Sly Flourish's The Lazy Dungeon Master -- This book is now on its second edition ("The Return of...") and is amazing. It basically distills a lot of conventional wisdom related to running your game with the least amount of effort. That sounds bad, but when you get into DM'ing you will find yourself burning out quickly if you don't find a way to reduce the amount of boilerplate planning you have to do.

How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy -- By Orson Scott Card. This book is recommended because of its world-building chapters. The way he thinks about and approaches world-building has influenced many other amazing writers, such as Brandon Sanderson, his protege and successor as creative writing professor at BYU. This is worth reading, again and again.

--EDIT: I hit "Post Reply" instead of "Insert Link". Whoops.

Here are some other bits of advice that I hope are helpful:

Know the rules

Seriously; read the PHB, know the PHB, love the PHB. 90% of you disagreements with players will be covered by the PHB. Do your due diligence so you can make trustworthy and authoritative rulings. If they players know they can trust your rulings, they will question you less.

As a newbie DM, I failed to do this, and the result was that my players did not trust me or my story. Engagement is hard to come by in that situation.

Also, read your DMG cover-to-cover. But I do find myself referencing that book quite infrequently (I make my own magic items, so I don't really consult the loot table, either). What the DMG has, and is worth reading for, is its advice on running games. This is also true of the 4E DMG, which is worth a read even if you never run that system (no one will ever ask you to).

Embrace Rule Zero

If you know the rules, and the players trust you, you are ready to employ Rule Zero: "The DM is always right." This is absolutely necessary. Many a time I've had a player attempt to use the RAW to create situational advantages that did not square with what I believed was common sense. The rules aren't running your game: you are.

Now, having said that...

Always Say "Yes"^H^H^H^H^H"But"

In 4E, the designers of D&D distilled a common and effective "design pattern" of DM'ing, and called it, "Just Say Yes." The idea was that you could maximize player buy-in and investment (and therefore, engagement) by giving them the most possible creative control over your story. Taken to its extreme, however, this proves disastrous; players are not uniformly interested in advancing your story, and I have some players that often need to be constrained a bit from taking every license possible.

The modern incarnation of this philosophy is "Always Say 'But'." "Yes, but..." and "no, but..." are incredible tools that help you keep control of the narrative while mitigating player frustration.

"Yes, you can run up to the BBEG in the middle of his monologue and bunch him in the face... (hidden bogus roll a couple times) ...but with a casual wave of his hand, you are thrown back 30 feet." (aside: this scenario requires maximum player trust, as well as Rule Zero4)

"No, you cannot by any means use deception to convince the king that he's a potted plant, but you can convince that dimwitted guard over there."

In short, be lenient, but don't be too lenient.

A word on voice acting: DM's that are good at it are amazing; the best DM I know is a veteran stage actor and drama teacher. It helps that he is a great storyteller. But it is absolutely not necessary to have an immersive, compelling game. In fact, done badly, it can be awful. I ran a 1E Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil game, and I wanted to play up the village of Hommlet by giving them all Irish accents. After two hours my players asked me to stop. Faking a voice that is wildly different than your own here and there is fine, but if you absolutely cannot pull it off (through no fault of your own), your game is best served by not trying. Speak in your own voice, and add adverbs like a book would. Don't try to lower your voice; describe his voice before you speak for him, and then speak naturally.

Caveat: joke characters or comedic relief situations you should totally ham up voices.

1.) Blue: a classic, blue jeans. Need I say more?

2.) Summer: what says summer more than memories of being a kid and making sandcastles? Exactly .

3.) Food related: okay, so this is personal. I am Italian and no one I have ever met has this in their homes. We make our pizzas in normal ovens or just go down the street to one of the many takeaway restaurants. What is a pizza oven and why does anyone need one!

4.) Someone else: I decided to go random wishlist on this and what better way to learn something new about someone that go through their lists?! So I got /u/krispykremedonuts and her wishlists are full of amazing things. And a lot of socks. Someone get this girl some socks! I would get her socks. 😂

5.) Book: you need to read Sum: 40 tales from the afterlives. I recommend this to anyone who would listen. It's 'speculative fiction,' whatever that means, but essentially it's 40 short stories about what may happen after we die. It may sound weird, but seriously, trust me. Read the wiki page of it if you need to be convinced or the Amazon product description. It really makes you think and sticks with you!

6.) Under $1: This was hard! But I found the cutest mini-pens. One dollar, free shipping, AND adorable. BAM!

7.) Dogs: I've been considering getting this fancy brush. It's supposed to be super good for dogs with long hair!

8.) Not useful but awesome: Okay, so I have been obsessed with the idea of being able to print photos from my phone since forever. Useful? Most definitely not, awesome...HECK YES! Check this out!!!


9.) Movie: Life is Beautiful. It's about selfless love. It's beautiful and I can't speak more about it without bursting into tears. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't seen it, WATCH IT. It's incredibly beautiful and moving.

10.) Zombies: You definitely need a machete to defend yourself. This is even sharp on both sides!!!

11.) Needs and current goals: At this moment in my life, any sort of clothing would change my life because there is only so much sewing you can do before your clothes start looking very sad. BUT, since it has to do with current goals, a pair of workout leggings would really help in my workout goals! I've lost 3kg in the past 3 months! It's not a lot, but damn I'm SO happy :D :D :D

12.) Add-On item: Oh, add-ons...groans

13.) Fandom: CAW!

14.) So expensive: $11,703.38 carpet cleaner. I don't even know. But at least it has free shipping!

15.) Sharks: temporary tattoos!

16.) Good smells: I adore the smell of rosemary.

17.) Toy: I absolutely loved my jump rope. I had the red one! I got super good at it and my friends and I would jump rope together around the neighborhood like a bunch of weirdos. Such good memories though :D

18.) Writers: never underestimate the need of coffee in any job you may have.

19.) Current obsession: so it's almost summer and I am obsessing over which ankle bracelet I want. I feel naked without them. It's a problem 😂

20.) Random: this is what I got one of my last contest winners. I saw it on one of their wishlists and couldn't resist!!!

Orson Scott Card's book How to write Science Fiction & Fantasy is a great reference.

In terms of fantasy books, some of my favorites include:

• The Black Company by Glen Cook - great, memorable characters, a compelling storyline, and an author not afraid to kill off his characters to advance the plot
  
• The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher - urban fantasy about a Chicago wizard; Butcher is a magnificent storyteller.
  
• The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales by JRR Tolkien. Not everyone's cup of tea but I love the intricate worldbuilding and the tragic stories.
  
• The Dark Angel trilogy - Meredith Ann Pierce - an unconventional heroine and a combination of romance, horror and magic.
  
• Lyonesse by SF&F Grand Master Jack Vance. Jack Vance has a unique writing style that is filled with noble and quirky characters, fascinating footnotes and a very rich story. This is one of those book series I re-read often.
  
• The Gift by Patrick O'Leary - perhaps one of the greatest single book fantasy novels I have ever read. Terrific story-inside-a-story construction, great characters and emotional impact.
  
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I love Neil Gaiman's writing voice and his many novels and short stories, but this is one of my favorites.
  
• Hawk of May and the other two books in the trilogy by Gillian Bradshaw. Imaginative telling of the story of Gwalchmai (aka Gawain) in the Arthurian cycle.
  

Thanks Jagabond, really appreciate that. I’m relatively new to hosting the show, having taken over in June, around episode 209. Shaun Farrell created the show and deserves all the credit. I was a huge fan and when I saw the distance between episodes spreading out, I offered to help provide interviews. Shortly after he offered me the job. I’ve tried to keep it close to the original feel.

That’s not your question though. As for the most important factor, I guess I’d say that while the industry is shifting, you never know if you’ll be successful until you try, and one of the most favorable factors to this industry is the abundance of resources to help you get started. Finishing a book should be your first goal, because that already puts you into the minority.

When you say “shifting industry” I assume you mean the effect of ebooks on pricing, revenues and whether we should self-publish or traditional publish. The good news—depending on how you look at it—is that none of this matters to someone getting started writing, because all you need to worry about is how to tell a good story, and that advice doesn’t change. Are you referring to getting started writing or getting started selling?

For someone getting started writing, a very important factor to be aware of is that you probably have a story worth telling. Writing resources can show you how to start a story. As much as I try, I’m an organic writer, so I don’t use any systems any more except for a notepad and pen and just start asking myself questions about the characters I want to be in the story, what kind of conflict they’ll encounter, how this conflict will cause them to grow or fail. If it’s science fiction, I start researching main technologies to the plot, far enough to make sure the concept is plausible. If it is Fantasy, I essentially just talk to myself about the magic system, how it started, what powers it has, what limitations (costs) using the magic has, etc.

Here are some resources I’ve enjoyed:



The Craft of Writing Science Fiction That Sells by Ben Bova – I loved how well this taught character arc. (Character arc is the emotional progress/failure that your character goes through from start to finish.) In the brainstorming stage, he says to find a character that has to choose between two emotions, such as love vs. hate. He gives a very helpful list of questions to ask yourself that essentially brainstormed my novel for me.

Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card – great breakdown of the types of story (M.I.C.E.) and I believe has a section on how to ask yourself questions to make the story unique from genre tropes (The One finds The Sword to save The Girl).

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card is also very helpful. I like how he says that you don’t have a story until you have at least two separate ideas, maybe three, and then you try to combine them.

Lane Diamond offers paid coaching. He’s the head guy at Evolved Publishing, which puts out some very well written books, no doubt a credit to his editing skills. He also edited the first 5k of my novel, so I know from experience he’s good.

Another couple editors I’ve worked with are C.L. Dyck and Joshua Essoe, if you’re at the stage of finding an editor. This could bring up the topic of when to search for beta readers (readers who read your story after you’ve cleaned it up) and when to hire an editor. My novel had such complicated technology weaving through the plot, that I didn’t know how to clean it up enough to give it to beta readers, so that’s why I hired C.L., and she helped me break down how the technology worked and where it didn’t. I suppose a good beta reader could do that, but I’ve not been fortunate enough to find ones that will stick around (i.e. finish reading and give me feedback).

Free resources:

The Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson – I’ve started this, but never finished. I’m just not an outliner. Plot evolves out of each progressing scene as I write them. He has a lot of writing tips on his site beyond just the Snowflake.

StoryFix by Larry Brooks – never used this, but hear great things about it.

And of course, podcasts. I love hearing authors tell us their story of how they got started and found success. Their advice never gets old, and often I hear just what I need. For example, I have an upcoming interview with Ronald Malfi, where he says: "The characters and their problems come first. If you've got really good characters and really good problems with those characters from the get-go then the stories build themselves around them."

Did by “getting started,” you mean being at a point where you have a story ready to sell? I’ll answer that when I get back in a few hours, if that was your question.

My daughter was into Tinkerbell for hot second when she was about two, but she's just never cared for it after that - matter of fact, she isn't into any licensed characters at all - score - because the clothes and toys and stuff are super expensive and crappy. She does have two brothers who are into Star Wars and superheroes but she never got into that stuff either.

But I definitely made room for her to be interested in them if she wanted to. It IS about choice and I agree, your parents went a bit too far, and agree with everyone else about letting her choose and stressing the good the princesses do.

That said, Moana is my favorite princess, because she's a badass, the movie isn't about her falling in love with some prince, and the music ROCKS, lol. Has she seen that one? To me it's the best 'feminist' Disney movie.

There's a great book called Cinderella Ate My Daughter that's about EXACTLY what you're talking about, a mom who considered herself such a feminist and how her daughter got into all the princess stuff. It's so good. The audio book is amazing. I highly recommend it!

Also she has an amazing book to read maybe when your daughter is older called Girls and Sex which is such a positive, feminist slant on talking to girls about sex.

From a science-y point of view, I'm reading a book about this now. From the description:

>Some things are funny -- jokes, puns, sitcoms, Charlie Chaplin, The Far Side, Malvolio with his yellow garters crossed -- but why? Why does humor exist in the first place? Why do we spend so much of our time passing on amusing anecdotes, making wisecracks, watching The Simpsons? In Inside Jokes, Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dennett, and Reginald Adams offer an evolutionary and cognitive perspective. Humor, they propose, evolved out of a computational problem that arose when our long-ago ancestors were furnished with open-ended thinking. Mother Nature -- aka natural selection -- cannot just order the brain to find and fix all our time-pressured misleaps and near-misses. She has to bribe the brain with pleasure. So we find them funny. This wired-in source of pleasure has been tickled relentlessly by humorists over the centuries, and we have become addicted to the endogenous mind candy that is humor.

Essentially, non-obvious information makes something funny, whether that be a non sequitur or a clever pun or an unexpected turn in a story.

I'm reading this: Inside Jokes - Using Humor to Reverse Engineer the Mind. It's about exactly this and it's very good (Dennett is one authors). Highly recommended.

The Amazon blurb:
>Some things are funny -- jokes, puns, sitcoms, Charlie Chaplin, The Far Side, Malvolio with his yellow garters crossed -- but why? Why does humor exist in the first place? Why do we spend so much of our time passing on amusing anecdotes, making wisecracks, watching The Simpsons? In Inside Jokes, Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dennett, and Reginald Adams offer an evolutionary and cognitive perspective. Humor, they propose, evolved out of a computational problem that arose when our long-ago ancestors were furnished with open-ended thinking. Mother Nature -- aka natural selection -- cannot just order the brain to find and fix all our time-pressured misleaps and near-misses. She has to bribe the brain with pleasure. So we find them funny. This wired-in source of pleasure has been tickled relentlessly by humorists over the centuries, and we have become addicted to the endogenous mind candy that is humor.

Okay, so I'm not home so these are the few off the top of my head that I can remember I've read and loved.

• On Writing Well - this book was used for my Script Writing class in college - I loved it, and I still have it on my bookshelf.
  
  
• How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy - This book by Orson Scott Card is genre themed, but I really suggest it no matter what genre you write. It's just a great source to have all around.
  
  
• No Plot? No Problem - Somewhat humorous take on those of us who procrastinate and have lots of writers block.
  
  
• Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction - Okay, so I haven't read this yet, but it looks amazing and I might actually just pick it up myself.
  
  
• Book In A Month - Okay, so this isn't really in the same category, but it's incredibly hands-on, fun book that can really, really, really help with outlining. I always suggest this book to people who participate in NaNoWriMo, because it's just super helpful.
  
  I hope one of these can help out!

I also really loved A Suitable Boy. I think it's brilliant.

For a completely contrasting look at India, I recommend the white tiger by Aravind Adiga.

I think The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is absolutely brilliant, one of the best novels of the last decade.

White Teeth is another really wonderful book about multiculturalism and immigrant life that really stands out.

For a rip-roaring old-fashioned adventure yarn, you can't do better than
Sea of Poppies.

Finally for some superior storytelling and brilliant narrative experimentation try Cloud Atlas or Ghostwritten

Discipline is a tough thing, indeed.

Kanji/vocab are something you learn over time, not at once. If I were you, given the problems you mention with "sticking to it", I'd do the following.

1. Kanji Damage is a deck that (a) focuses only on Japanese>>English, (b) removes 1200 kanji from the standard RTK deck to focus only on ones you would reasonable expect to see (basically meaning ones that don't appear only in names, aren't the names of plants/trees/etc). You won't learn to write the kanji, but you will learn to recognize them -- all you need to do to read. Learn 5 per day and pay special attention to the vocabulary under each card. Do 5 per day and in 1 year you'll recognize the vast majority of kanji you see, unless you're into some really niche/technical stuff.
   
2. Do 12 cards of Genki I+II per day, and in about a years time you'll have all the vocab and grammar in Genki down. This will give you the foundation that you can make sense of most things you see with a grammar dictionary and patience, and you can also begin following simple/slice-of-life animes with Japanese transcripts on animelon.
   
3. In 6 months or so after you finish Genki one and are through around about half the kanji, I'd begin with The Core 2k -- to be able to read big things you need to first be able to read small things. You should have built up the vocab/grammar/kanji you need to begin working out these sentences by that time. You don't need to finish all 10 of the decks by any means; just keep trucking along until it becomes not-so-difficult to figure out each sentence.
   
   Once you get confident with working your way through sentences, find yourself a copy of Read Real Japanese: Contemporary Fiction and [Read Real Japanese: Comtemporary Writings). The book is natural Japanese -- as would appear in a normal Japanese rendition -- on the right side, then the left side is a gloss translation into English. In the back is a running grammar dictionary that gives good quality of literally every grammar point that doesn't appear until towards the end of Genki II or isn't in Genki (around that difficulty). This is gold to me because (a) you're reading real Japanese, and (b) 100% of what you learn while reading these books is in context and will be directly useful for understanding the story you're reading, and the slightly more difficult ones that come in succession. Expect to need to read these more than once; I read the fiction one 3 times before I read a normal book, and I want to read them again even though I've now read several books in Japanese .
   
   Once you get confident with these books, you have two options.
   
4. Breaking into Japanese Literature is a more difficult graded reader; it basically leaves you alone, but there is a running dictionary on each page so that you can read the book without referring to your phone or jisho.com to look up every other word. The downsides are (a) it does not explain grammar, and (b) the stories (I don't remember for sure) from the Meiji period, meaning that they will use more difficult words and have some unique grammar forms you definitely own't have encountered yet, and might not be the most useful for reading modern day stuff. That being said, if you struggle with Meiji stuff for awhile and then suddenly change to a contemporary book, the contemporary book will suddenly seem easier in comparison.
   
5. Look into reading some contemporary stuff if you have access to Japanese books. I think that Otsuichi is a very accessible first author, but he is a horror writer and the writing makes some people uneasy. I recently read Kino no Tabi; they're adventure stories and make you think critically about life and your values in a light-hearted way. I found it to be very easy, also -- but I had also read several books after finishing Otsuichi's collection, so maybe it was because I was just more experienced.
   
   Good luck!

Hello!

So, firstly, I should admit that I'm haven't been published that much - I only have one book out. However, as a college freshman, I believe I'm in a unique position to give you advice. I'd just say to do what feels right, you know? I don't deliberate over my decisions, I merely perform actions after utilizing my brain for a nanosecond, and look where I am! Hell, the only thing I've put a singular iota of effort into is my verbose style of communication, and I don't even have to make an effort anymore!

Actually, you may not have realized this, but your first two questions are inextricably bound! Cannabis is a wonderful tool for the young writer. It can inspire awe, promote brilliance, and just take the edge off when it necessitates removal. I must confess, I only smoke marijuana in cigarette form approximately thrice (hint - thrice:twice::three:two) a week, although I must say my usage spikes whenever I desire to fully utilize my vast writing prowess (I just partook in a joint three sixtieth-hours ago, if you are incapable of ascertaining that information from my gargantuan vocabulary).

Thanks for the questions!

Edit: Although I'd like for future questioners to try harder to stick to the script. As a cinephile, I know a lot about scripts! ;)

https://www.amazon.com/Living-Japanese-Diversity-Lifestyles-Conversations/dp/030010958X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162331&sr=8-2&keywords=living+japanese

I think that is an amazing recourse. Natural, REAL conversations with people of all ages and topics. Its really good for getting exposure you can learn from easily to native speaking that isn't "dramatized" or too over the top like most anime and Japanese TV acting in general.


LingQ.com (is also a great recourse. and its free if you don't use the in site word marking tools)

https://www.amazon.com/Read-Real-Japanese-Fiction-Contemporary/dp/1568365292/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162459&sr=8-1&keywords=read+real+japanese

https://www.amazon.com/Read-Real-Japanese-Essays-Contemporary/dp/1568364148/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162459&sr=8-2&keywords=read+real+japanese

https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-into-Japanese-Literature-Classics/dp/1568364156/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162459&sr=8-3&keywords=read+real+japanese

the last three are good for written japanese, which is more polished and different than real "spoken" japanese (like any language). But they all 3 come with audio, grammar and vocab explanations and are an amazing recourse IMO.

I recommend reading the book Lessons From the FatOSphere by Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby. That's my body acceptance bible. it's the first FA book I read and it saved me.

as far as your daughter goes.. unfortunately she's going to be surrounded by the idea that her worth is tied in with her appearance. For me, with my nieces. i don't tell them how beautiful or cute they are, i tell them how strong, brave, and smart they are. With my son I make sure he knows there's nothing wrong with my body. I'm not ashamed of my belly- when he was a little younger he used to like to play the drums on it and I let him. He would even do it in public.. no problem at all! I've never criticized my looks or my weight.

If I were you I'd also read up on princess culture- try Cinderella Ate My Daughter as a starter.

A little off-topic to this conversation but there is a book called 'The Magicians' and it has to do with a college of Magic. It's more adult than Harry Potter but it's interesting. Link!

Back to the topic. Love the thoughts that went into this. I've thought of what the american version of the Harry Potter wizarding world would be like but I've never gone into so much detail. Great work! :)

The Magicians by Lev Grossman, and the sequel The Magician King.

http://www.amazon.com/Magicians-Novel-Lev-Grossman/dp/0452296293/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324348733&sr=8-1

If you liked The Chronicles of Narnia/Harry Potter/The Lord of the Rings/any Terry Pratchett books/any books regarding other worlds and magical lands/schools, you'll love this book. It takes all of those stories (some, admittedly, written for a younger generation) and pulls them into the real world, the adult world. The Magicians is like Harry Potter/Narnia with drugs, sex, and murder. It's full of gritty realism, but also fantastical magic, and it's amazingly written. :)

I hope you'll enjoy it! ^_^ Also, I'm quite hungry, and my paycheck's account didn't have the funds available to be deposited today, so here's hoping you'll pick me. :)

Three things:

1. Writing Excuses: 15 min podcast featuring Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Taylor, and Marry Robenette Kowal. They give amazing advice and have awesome guest stars (Pat Rothfus, Brandon Mull, John Scalzi, Dave Wolverton/Farland, off the top of my head)
   
   
2. On Writing: A memoir by Stephen King: First half is his life story (SUPER FASCINATING!) second half some the best writing advice there is.
   
   
3. How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card: Some of the advice is outdated, but most of it is still good.
   
   of course this is assuming from your use of the word creatively you are looking to do genre fiction. There is two pieces advice that all three sources will repeat endlessly
   
   
4. Read a lot
   
   
5. Write a lot
   
   Edit: Also see if your favorite author keeps a blog, as they will usually give writing advice in those as well. I know Card, Rothfus, Sanderson, and Wells all do.

It looks like a great start! :) Once your book is out you'll want some really clear information on a dedicated page describing what the book is about and how to buy it.

Check out the Amazon.com Associates program. Ever listen to a podcast and they ask you to visit their page and click through if you're going to shop Amazon.com? Well Amazon gives a small percentage of each sale when the shopper comes from a referral partner. Since some of your sales will come directly from your author platform, why not take advantage?

For example, I really liked How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy (referral link) by Orson Scott Card. I read it in college and it really gave me some insight on the topic, and I highly recommend it for new authors.

Now if you click on that link and buy the book, I get 3% of the sale price, and if you wander off in the same session and buy other stuff, I think I get 1%. I don't remember the details, since I haven't really used the referral link stuff. But that's how it works. You can read up on the program yourself.

I wouldn't go for something like Murakami to practice translation because, as atgm points out, the translators wouldn't be translating 1:1.

Why not try one of the "Breaking into Japanese Literature" or "Read Real Japanese" books (any kind of reader really)? They usually come with a direct translation and a more artistic translation. The texts are shorter which should keep your interest up for longer but there's still enough stories for you to have enough to do.

There's plenty of others but a few examples would be:

Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text

Exploring Japanese Literature: Read Mishima, Tanizaki, and Kawabata in the Original

Read Real Japanese Fiction: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers

Read Real Japanese: All You Need to Enjoy Eight Contemporary Writers

Read Real Japanese Essays: Contemporary Writings by Popular Authors

I think all of those had the "look inside" enabled so you can decide which style of translation you prefer.

If translation is something that interests you, I recommend heading over to /r/translationstudies to get a few tips on good books on translation studies.

I don't, sorry, but I'm talking about like actual anthropological or historical textbooks. I'd start by asking her about the world she wants to write about, whether it's your standard medieval European fantasy or something else, and what kind of story she wants to tell.

Like if she wants to tell a story about a rise to the throne it might help her to have the biography of a famous king or queen or ascended to the throne despite the odds being stacked against them.

But something that talks about the daily lives and customs of the people who lived during that time is usually a safe bet/interesting read too.

Of course, you could always fall back on actual writing books too.

Orson Scott Card's book on how to write science fiction and fanasy is the only actual book about writing/world building I've ever read. It was pretty good from what I remember, but I read it years ago.

In my post about reading strategies I suggested starting with translations of books you are familiar with, particularly those aimed at children and adolescents (primarily for the extensive furigana).

While I agree that good translation requires you to understand all the nuances of the text, translation is a completely different skill from comprehension. I also wonder if too much translation actually hinders the second language acquisition process. Isn't the goal to understand it in the target language, as is, rather than making sure you understand it in a language you already know?

Some suggestions for authors and books:

乙一（おついち）: He writes horror and light novels and was first published at age 16. It's not classic literature my any means but it's easy and most of the stories are short. I particularly liked "Seven Rooms" which was in one of the Zoo collections.

EDIT: Apparently there is a 30min short film adaptation of "Seven Rooms".

奥田英朗（おくたひでお）: His Irabu-sensei series of short stories is fun and fairly accessible. Although they are all connected through the eponymous doctor, the main character(s) of each vignette are different and the language varies accordingly.

夏目漱石（なつめそうせき）: While most of his work is incredibly difficult, 夢十夜 is an excellent collection of short stories made better by the free audio released by the publishers of Breaking into Japanese Literature.

I'm not huge on posting to Reddit, but I might be able to help elaborate on Palahniuk's thoughts on Fight Club. For reference, I own this version of the book: http://www.amazon.com/Fight-Club-Novel-Chuck-Palahniuk/dp/0393327345/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1393912583&sr=8-2&keywords=Fight+Club .

Palahniuk states on page 213 (the afterword):

>It [the book Fight Club] was just an experiment to kill a slow afternoon at work. Instead of walking a character from scene to scene in a story, there had to be some way to just--cut, cut, cut. To jump. From scene to scene. Without losing the reader. To show every aspect of a story, but only the kernel of each aspect. The core moment. Then, another.

>There had to be some kind of chorus. Something bland that wouldn't hold the reader's attention, but would act to signal a jump to a new angle or aspect of the story. A bland kind of buffer that would be the touchstone or landmark a reader would need not to feel lost. A kind of neutral sorbet, like something served between courses in a fancy dinner. A signal, like buffer music in radio broadcasts, to announce the next topic. The next jump.

>A kind of glue or mortar that would hold together a mosaic of different moments and details. Giving them all the continuity and yet showcasing each moment by not ramming it up against the next moment.

>Think of the movie Citizen Kane, and how the faceless, nameless newsreel reporters create the framework for telling the story from a lot of different sources.

>That's what I wanted to do. That one, boring afternoon at work.

>So for that chorus--that "transitional device"--I wrote eight rules. The whole idea of fight club wasn't important [my emphasis]. It was arbitrary. But the eight rules had to apply to something so why not a club where you could ask someone to fight? The way you'd ask for a dance at a disco. Or challenge someone to a game of pool or darts. The fighting wasn't the important part of the story. What I needed were the rules. Those bland landmarks that would allow me to describe this club from the past, the present, up close or far away, the beginning and evolution, to cram together a lot of details and moments--all within seven pages--and NOT lose the reader.

Take from that as you will. However, I don't really think that Palahniuk's initial motivation for Fight Club was to create a satire. Instead, I believe that he wanted to create a unique story, with a unique style and feel to it.

Edit: Missed a "not" and replaced "lost" with "lose" at the end. Also, I'd recommend anyone who enjoys Fight Club to grab the book, and also read the entire afterword. It's very interesting!

Edit: Another mistake correction: "withing" to "within".

Edit: Hopefully by using the quote formatting, I've made quote easier to read. Just to clarify, all of the italicized text is Palahniuk's emphasis not mine.

There are a number of useful guides available but they're all written by aficionados, or other successful players, though - not the designers.

This is the best guide for a high Int/Cha talkie game, I think.

This is well recommended for a more aggressive style of game, but a lot of people mistakenly misapply it to trade - it's really just for combat.

This is great for a sneakier game.

This is a badly written hack job that too many players put a lot of stock in; supposedly it was written by the designers, but it was actually written (and re-written) by a lot of different guys and is very contradictory - i'd avoid

Finally, this won't help you play, but it really explains the deeper mechanics.

And this goes into detail on the meta-game.

Hope that helps!

A Discovery of Witches is the first in the All Souls trilogy, which is written by a historian named Deborah Harkness. She integrates a lot of history and alchemy into it, which is cool. I don't think it's anywhere near as well-written as Lord of the Rings, but it is interesting. However, it is a love story, so if you're not into romance, then steer clear.

I liked The Magicians a lot better; the series is kind of like Harry Potter but more serious and literary. It's not that fantastical, and kind of plays off Harry Potter/fantasy stereotypes, but it's a cool series nonetheless.

You must read these two books:

The Illuminatus Trilogy

Foucault's Pendulum.

Both are amazing books near to the topic - the first is a huge spoof that's hilarious and heavily popularized Discordianism (All hail Eris!). The second is a seminal piece of literature by one of the best living authors and everybody should read it...it's about some publishers who put together 'the grand conspiracy' of the Illuminati and suddenly are embroiled in what they created.

I wish the Illuminati was real...the world would be a heck of a lot cooler place!

"Darkly Dreaming Dexter" was an awesome read. Loved the tv show so I read the book inspired by it, they're pretty different though especially after the first book. Also, Fight Club was really good as well.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. It's always been on of my favorites but for some reason I never got around to buying it.

My name is Katie and I would like it so I have something to do at work. I am a barista and if I try to bring a physical book to work then it will get grimy fast (even with book covers). It would be easier for me to have something that I can get a nice case for and wipe it clean when I get home.

Thanks for the opportunity.

I feel a little like I'm cheating since it's only 10:34pm here in Hawaii right now! Haha! But I'm awake darnit, and contests are fun. :D

Oh goodness, I could never pick a favorite song I don't think, but I've been listening to The Blanks' cover of Hey Ya! constantly lately. It's just wonderful.

As for an item?? Hm...Would it be taboo to ask for a gift card toward my Wii U? If you'd rather not do a gift card I'd be thrilled to have a new book to read!

I'm a bit of a short story nut so I really like the Nabokov collection of short stories. I have This. His Autobiography is brilliant as well. I'm only a quarter of the way through The Brothers Kazamarov. It is really good so far, but it isn't an easy read.

Tape distortion is the best distortion. Plus the dichotomy is hilarious since I have that stuff in FLAC and listen with some really good headphones.

There's also The Te Of Piglet
It's too bad they're not impressed. I'd say keep trying, but then again, some things need age and wisdom to appreciate.

Don't let their disinterest affect you, that's a great bool and you should enjoy it for you.

try Less Than Zero and then if you just want a fun book to read with laughs and excitement, give Black Dogs: The Possibly True Story of Rock & Roll's Greatest Robbery a shot.(it's one of my favs, and not just because I'm a Zeppelin fan)

Oh boy a scavenger hunt

1. Deadly Class Volume 6 The cover is blue
   
   
2. Summer Stars 2012 - Playstation 3 it got summer onthe box
   
   
3. Cricket Lollipop candy is fruit related in cricket can be protein
   
   
4. basketball socks my sister is a basketball coach I think she would get a kick out of them
   
   
5. Survivor: by Chuck Palahniuk it's from the writer of Fight Club and it's a very peculiar story about a man who survives a creedish death cult ends up becoming a prophet there are other twists and turns
   
   
6. The song Summer Breeze by Seals and Croft
   
   
7. [This Pet Massaging Groomer De-Shedding Brush] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075CQF8NJ/ref=s9_acsd_bw_wf_e_wfallpet_cdl_42?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-9&pf_rd_r=Z3KV8AJT1DAMJJHQGR2Q&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=0b3abadb-a523-41d7-b90a-e1319e3d094c&pf_rd_i=15469025011) great for massaging your dog and getting rid of loose hair
   
   
8. [Xavier Institute T-Shirt] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075RQTMHY/?coliid=I2XL814S1KI9XP&colid=T61FSWUV1I31&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it) The X-Men are awesome
   
   
9. 8 1/2 I think everyone for once in their life should see this movie
   
   
10. LED Flashlight Tactical Rescue Pocket Knife you don't need to reload of a knife and it's got a flashlight
    
    
11. Black Panther #23 My goal is to have all the 90s issue of black panther this is the last issue that I need
    
    
12. Strawberry Pop-Tarts this big box is an add-on for this price
    
    
13. The book Aliens: Dead Orbit it's from the alien franchise
    
    
14. Autographed Cards Of Mickey Mantle Set of Four it over 90,909.99 but it got free shipping
    
    
15. Jaws the video game
    
    
16. the scent of musty Leather Cologne
    
    
17. X-Men Pocket Comics: Wolverine vs Omega Red when was a kid I had this I also remember I had another playset with Cyclops in it
    
    
18. David Lynch's Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity in this book David Lynch talks about what he uses in his writing and filmmaking process thru Transcendental Meditation
    
    
19. Haunted Love #3 my current Obsession and always will comicbooks
    
    
20. sugar-free gummy bears the comment section alone just keeps me laughing
    
    Thank you for the contest

I got "So You're Going to be a Dad" as a gift and I loved it. It was hysterical to read, but insightful and useful as well. However, for the more serious stuff, I agree with someone else who suggested "Be Prepared". You've got a lot of good advice in this thread.

I've got Fight Clubon My list I really love the movie so now that I realized it's a book I'd love to read that. Happy Early Birthday :)

Just wanted to say it's awesome you're encouraging your daughter in this so aggressively. Too often girls aren't encouraged in more male dominated pursuits. It's a shame. (See Cinderella Ate My Daughter if you have an interest in this stuff)

One idea might be contacting your local Explorers' post. It's a branch of Boy Scouts that allows boys to shadow in areas they're interested in. It's pretty cool. A friend of mine got to ride in cop cars and see some crazy stuff in high school. I rotated in the emergency department. (And became a doctor.) I would call them up and see if they have any contacts with local architects. Then I'd contact the architect and see if they'd be willing to let your daughter shadow too. If they let Boy Scouts come by then I'd be willing to bet they're good people and wouldn't mind having your daughter come too.

I strongly suggest reading Nabokov's short stories. His writing is full of utterly delicious descriptions.

Let me write a few out for you:

> During the leisure hours when the crystal-bright waves of the drug beat at him, penetrating his thoughts with their radiance and transforming the least trifle into an ethereal miracle, he painstakingly noted on a sheet of paper all the various steps he intended to take in order to trace his wife. As he scribbled, with all those sensations still blissfully taut, his jottings seemed exceedingly important and correct to him. In the morning, however, when his head ached and his shirt felt clammy and sticky, he looked with bored disgust at the jerky, blurry lines.

--------------

> The low-ceilinged barbershop smelled of stale roses. Horseflies hummed hotly, heavily. The sunlight blazed on the floor in puddles of molten honey, gave the lotion bottles tweaks of sparkle, transluced through the long curtain hanging in the entrance, a curtain of clay beads and little sections of bamboo strung alternately on close-hung cord, which would disintegrate in an iridescent clitter-clatter every time someone entered and shouldered it aside. Before him, in the murkish glass, Nikitin saw his own tanned face, the long sculptured strands of his shiny hair, the glitter of the scissors that chirred above his ear, and his eyes were attentive and severe, as always happens when you contemplate yourself in mirrors.

--------------

> After walking back from the village to his manor across the dimming snows, Sleptsov sat down in a corner, on a plush-covered chair which he never remembered using before. It was the kind of thing that happens after some great calamity. Not your brother but a chance acquaintance, a vague country neighbor to whom you never paid much attention, with whom in normal times you exchange scarcely a word, is the one who comforts you wisely and gently, and hands you your dropped hat after the funeral service is over, and you are reeling from grief, your teeth chattering, your eyes blinded by tears. The same can be said of inanimate objects. Any room, even the coziest and the most absurdly small, in the little-used wing of a great country house has an unlived-in corner. And it was such a corner in which Sleptsov sat.

--------------

So fucking delicate. Wordy yet so nimble.

Oh gosh, I'm actually kind of horrible about reading! Some of my favorite little books are:

• Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman. It's a bunch of short stories about different universes based on some of Einstein's theories. For example, one of them is kind of like, "In this universe, time flows backwards. A woman picks a moldy peach out of her trashcan, puts it on her counter to ripen..." They're really interesting! It's a quick and wonderful read.
  
  
• Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman is similar to the aforementioned book. Short stories about different afterlives. It's not a religious thing though. I was actually rereading it this afternoon! Really interesting ideas, some romantic, some ironic, cute, sad, etc. I think it could spark some great conversation.

I think Roko's Basilisk has a lot in common with Pascal's Wager, which I suppose is why it doesn't scare the shit out of me.

Pascal's Wager says, basically, that believing in God could bring eternal limitless reward, and disbelieving could bring eternal limitless punishment, so even if you think there is almost no chance that there is a God, you should believe. It's just safer that way.

Problem is, there was never a choice between THE God and nothing; there are a crapload of gods and belief systems making competing claims about reality. Your chance of picking the right one at random is almost nil. It's a mug's game.

Are we really supposed to worship the religion that makes the most extravagant claims, because it brings infinite utility functions into the equation? Why, that just makes it more likely that the high priest is a double-dyed liar!

Which brings us to Roko's Basilisk. The strongest argument we are offered for the potential existence of this evil AI is that we'll really, REALLY get fucked over if we don't help create it! WE MIGHT EVEN BE IN A SIMULATION THE BASILISK IS ALREADY RUNNING OH SHIIIIIT

Calm down, friends and friends of friends. We have an answer to this blackmail.

Non serviam.

Do what thou wilt. If you, oh foul deity, are really out there, then you know my game and you know I have the freedom to say Non serviam. I will not serve. Go ahead, punish me, if you must. We're all adults here.

In Robert Shea's and Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy, the character Hagbard Celine (an anarchist 'leader', as odd as that sounds) makes this wonderful comment:

>The ultimate weapon isn't this plague out in Vegas, or any new super H-bomb. The ultimate weapon has always existed. Every man, every woman, and every child owns it. It's the ability to say No and take the consequences.

One tactic I'll suggest from my personal experience: comparative reading.

1. Read the Japanese line.
   
2. Roughly translate it yourself (in your head or on paper; use a dictionary for any terms you don't know).
   
3. Compare to a competent translation.
   
4. Profit.
   
   It's no replacement or shortcut for the tried-and-true method of studying grammar and basic alphabet, but it accelerated my learning by leaps and bounds. Grab one volume of a manga you like (English and Japanese) and that'll be a good start. Alternatively, a Kodansha bilingual comic (which exists for Chihayafuru, for instance) or parallel text volumes for classic Japanese short stories (example) are also great resources.

1. Yup!
   
   
2. Well, she passed when I was 5, but I loved how she always smelled like strawberries.
   
   
3. This book would be absolutely lovely.
   
   
4. Hey Bean! My mom called me Messie Jessie and Maria. :)

You must own the illuminatus! trilogy.

edit: This book may be described as science fiction inspired, but it is one of the best books (omnibus edition) I have ever read. A used copy is definitely worth checking out.

Not trying to push anyone's book, but this made me feel a lot more comfortable about the whole deal. It's a nice fun read.

It isn't that teachers or parents are telling girls to put down the chemistry set and play with Barbie, but there are a lot of articles like this that show there is unconscious bias.

Parents also play a part in how girls interact wit their world and how they view themselves and their abilities. The book Cinderella Ate My Daughter should be handed to parents when the sonogram shows you're having a girl.

Also, confidence has a lot to do with whether or not a person gets into a science field. Girls, generally, do not have the confidence of boys in STEM fields - this is actually reflected in the linked article.

Furthermore, in STEM fields, Stanford found that just changing the name on a resume from Jennifer to John had an impact on how the applicant was perceived. Most notably..

> Over one hundred biologists, chemists, and physicists at academic institutions agreed to do so. Each scientist was randomly assigned to review either Jennifer or John's resume. The results were surprising—they show that the decision makers did not evaluate the resume purely on its merits. Despite having the exact same qualifications and experience as John, Jennifer was perceived as significantly less competent. As a result, Jenifer experienced a number of disadvantages that would have hindered her career advancement if she were a real applicant. Because they perceived the female candidate as less competent, the scientists in the study were less willing to mentor Jennifer or to hire her as a lab manager. They also recommended paying her a lower salary. Jennifer was offered, on average, $4,000 per year (13%) less than John.

I haven't read any of the five that made the list, but I absolutely recommend Fight Club and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. They're both very good for anyone - man or woman - to read.

Read 1984 for the dystopian aspect, for sci-fi pick up Isaac Asimov as mentioned by the_thinker.. And if you want a good, fun and captivating read, pick up Chuck Palahniuk's works, I'm a big fan of those. Try Survivor, Lullaby, Choke, any of those are amazing

The only Nietzsche translations I trust are those done by Walter Kaufmann. Nietzsche's works can be very difficult to translate into English because his style has a lot of nuances that are unique to German. Kaufmann does the best job of illustrating those nuances and getting as close to the exact meaning of passages as possible; he also does it coherently, keeping the English as basic as possible to ensure that little is lost between the page and the reader. His translation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra is what sparked my love of Nietzsche. I would recommend this to anyone who is willing to read it.

Two of my favorites, from two of the all-time best science fiction writers:

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

World-Building by Stephen L. Gillett and Ben Bova

Both look at it from more of a writing standpoint, but they're great resources for RPGers or hobbyists too.

Haven't read them yet but just caught up with The Magicians TV series and am on the waiting list to read the trilogy of books the show is based on. Might be a bit more campy than you're looking for (think Harry Potter for adults) but I've found it entertaining and there's definitely strong elements of time travel / time looping.

I really enjoyed the book Sum by David Eagleman. It's been praised by both religious and non-religious alike. It's essentially 40 meditations on possibilities of the afterlife.
Sum
I'm sorry for your loss. The book might not help if you're looking for answers, but it's great stuff to think about and an easy read.

I'd suggest the short novel "Post Office" by Charles Bukowski and if you love the dark humor and grittiness of that you'll love Bukowski's book "Ham on Rye."

I personally recommend reading "How to write science fiction and fantasy" by Orson Scott Card.

Lots of great advice in there, esp. about what NOT to do, rookie mistakes, etc.

And as a sci fi author, don't feel shy with starting with fanfiction, I started there. (No, you can't read it. Too embarrassing 😅)

TVTropes is also a great resource for writing, but it requires great willforce not to get sucked into opening 100s of tabs 😛

Hope I still make it under the time limit!! I'd LOVE to see this in the mail! And there's third party options for less than $2!

Here are my personal favorite head-fucks, each one of them did something strange to my whole world when I read them:

• The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
  
  
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
  
  
• Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh
  
  
• Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
  
  
• The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
  
  
• A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
  
  
• From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
  
  
• Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross
  
  
• The Prestige by Christopher Priest
  
  
• The Invisibles by Grant Morrison
  
  But yeah, by far my favorite is the one at the top of the list, The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. There's just so goddamn much going on in that book, it's one helluva wonderful ride.

For anyone who would like to know, the following books I've read are my favorite and I'd really recommend them to anyone: The Martian by Andy Weir, Gerald's Game by Stephen King, The Panther by Nelson DeMille, Unflinching by Jodi Mitic, American Sniper by Chris Kyle, and Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

EDIT: Oh, and Blackwater - The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill.

EDDIT 2: Oh, and Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card which is so much better than the movie. The movie does not do this novel justice. And Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly.

Not horror, but this one is brilliant:

The Illuminatus! Trilogy: The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan.

Also very good: Cryptonomicon.

Here's Dan's Vulture article about his cultural references.

I think Dan is right about how difficult it is to address sexism. It is so ingrained in our culture, it is easy to take it absolutely for granted. I think there is just much more visibility with something like racism. Even if we have such a long way to go, it's out there on the table in a much more digestible fashion.

Dan mentions the gender composition of the Community writers room -- it's kind of crazy how big of a deal it was that Rick & Morty closed that gap in season 3.

Of all the foods Erin could've come up with on the spot ... Weetabix? Maybe that came from their Scottish holiday.

Womb blast ... yikes. That could use some rebranding.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter discusses some of these topics in depth -- especially where limited toys for girls are concerned.

My friend has a penis-shaped bottle opener he likes to display prominently at parties. It's good for making straight guys feel uncomfortable.

Kumail's story about showing his penis to his classmates is hilarious ... he just seemed so exuberant about it.

Tarragon of virtue, though.

Sessions since mention of skeleton army: |||| ||||

I have the same fear. I don't really have any advice or anything to offer other than that you are her strongest female role model. I was gifted a really great book about the princess phenomenon by my MIL though (she's a pretty hard core feminist) it's called Cinderella Ate My Daughter . It's really entertaining and full of all sorts of useless trivia (like the pink was originally considered a boy's color because it was a washed out red, like blood, and blue was worn by girls because it was more peaceful, etc.)

Not like this, no. Still, you can put in the work, build your own, and share it with others if you're feeling generous.

The closest example would be to get some of the Japanese readers out there like "Read Real Japanese", "Breaking Into Japanese Literature", and "Exploring Japanese Literature". These are aimed at people still learning so they're chosen to be notable, but still easy to read. More relevantly they typically have vocabulary at the bottom of each page to help you. Admittedly, there are other features present (full parallel text in English, Japanese audio for each, etc.), but that's why they're specifically sold as teaching tools.

Fight Club - It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything

Runner-up: No More Mr Nice Guy - take back your manhood!! Models is awesome too, someone mentioned it on here. I think these go well together.

I've tried to fight Disney (and Barbie) and sometimes its just not worth the fight. I have two daughters, and all of their friends have those things, and so denying those things make them even more desirable - so I try to keep it to a minimum and instead try to engage my kids with other toys and games when I'm playing with them.

Here's a great book on the topic, btw. Cinderella Ate My Daughter.

I own a few beginner books like this. If you like folk tales, this is exactly what you're asking for: Treasury of Japanese Folk Tales - the stories are in English on the first half of the page, and on the bottom half in mostly kana with furigana over any kanji. It's a nice hardcover book with color illustrations on each page, so I think it's worth the price.
Clay and Yumi Boutwell have written Japanese readers that are very similar- furigana and kana text with definitions for each kanji/vocabulary on the bottom half of the page, followed by a full English summary afterwards. I own Hikoichi, Momotaro, and Inch High Samurai. I think the Boutwells' readers are good learning material but way overpriced considering how small each reader is. Since the Treasury of Japanese Folk Tales also contains many of the stories covered by each of the Boutwells' readers, it's a better bang for the buck (though missing the 1-1 definitions for each kanji/vocabulary).
I also own the red Giles Murray Breaking into Japanese Literature, but it's a bit above my current skill level since many of the kanji don't have furigana.
I have also looked into Kodansha's bilingual series, but since it's aimed at Japanese readers trying to learn English- manga have speech bubbles in English with no furigana kanji on the sides, but regular Japanese manga + English translated counterpart is more helpful since regular Japanese manga aimed for children have furigana.

Eco is one of my favorite fiction and non-fiction writer, but if you enjoy conspiracies, I recommend The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

• Almost everything by Chomsky (it starts to blur together after a while). Those damned nun-killers from the School of the Americas! Killin' nuns like they do! Manufacturing Consent is a great read for any teenager, although limited in its explanatory power. There's a big blind spot in Chomsky in terms of explaining the universities, the foundations, and how they coordinate with the press.
  
• Studies in Mutualist Political Economy -- this one's more fun when you don't know the history already
  
• Homebrew Industrial Revolution -- this one's fun but somewhat sloppy on technology
  
• Illuminatus! -- probably shouldn't suggest this because there's a good chance that your brain will fall out your head after you read it. This book and other Wilson books ought to be controlled substances.

Congratulations! I remember that... like... what do I do! Oh yeah! Jump up and down, kiss her, hug her... cry a little... and then realize have NO IDEA what to do next.

I found this hilarious and helpful. https://www.amazon.com/So-Youre-Going-Be-Dad/dp/1555612415

I think there is some validity to this even though he is mostly known for his fiction. Something like Sex and Drugs may be of interest. The Illuminatus! Trillogy might appeal to those interested in 70's culture as I think several concepts in there could be considered commentary on it. I'm not sure, though, that one would get much practical occult value out of it unless one were a Discordian.

As someone that has much of this problem as well all I can say is reading books or following courses on writing fantasy.

Personally I really appreaciated the two books from Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game if anyone does not know him) which are: How to write science fiction and fantasy and Characters and viewpoint.

There are also uploaded on Youtube the lectures held by Brandon Sanderson (MIstborn) which are free to watch and great to get abearing on writing. Here's the most recent one.

I would recommend giving the Magicians series by Lev Grossman a read. It is a pretty cool and dark take on a wizarding ivy league-esq college in upstate New York.

This book was my favorite. Funny and honest.

So You're Going To Be a Dad

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1555612415/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_08Ylub1XP2F3J

Aha - got it!

Post Office: A Novel by Charles Bukowski

One of the most truthful funny novels I've ever read. 208 pages.

I also studied Japanese in college. I had a lacuna of about 10 years before restarting my Japanese studies. After about two or so years of study, I now have my N1. Here are some things I did:

• I did Read the Kanji for a little bit, getting to some N1 sentences.
  
• I read bilingual texts like Breaking into Japanese Literature, though I never got around to finishing it.
  
• I also used readers such as Modern Japanese: A Basic Reader. These have graded reading lessons with a glossary of the words used in English in a separate volume/section. Basically I followed the reading program outlined here.
  
• I kept reading, getting to the point where I read editorials every day. Reading, reading, reading.
  
• I also listened to podcasts all day long at work. I think that’s why my JLPT listening score was relatively higher than the other section scores.
  
  Start with something basic, then try to work your way up any way you can.

I found this some time ago and it looked like a great idea so I bought it (or actually, I bought this one, not really sure what's different). I haven't actually looked closer at it since I bought it though, so I can't say how good it actually is.

It has short Japanese stories with the Japanese text on the left and English translation on the right, with vocabulary at the bottom. I'm not sure the content is as simple as you want though, it seems like there's only furigana for harder words, but they seem to have translation and reading at the bottom for all words.
Also, I don't think they have translation for the same word more than once - so if a word appears with translation on the first page, there won't be a translation for the word if it appears on later pages (though you still have the full English translation that includes the word).

The amazon link for the red book lets you look at the first few pages so you can see what it looks like.

Medal of Honor, Crysis 2, Dead Space

Even though there are phenomenal chances you've seen the corresponding movie, my choice is "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk. The book gives a greater view of what exactly is going through the narrator's head in his exchanges with Marla, Tyler, and others. You can learn so much more about Project Mayhem than you would in the movie. It is truly a great read if you can get past how confusing the nature of the narrator's mind is.

http://www.amazon.com/Fight-Club-Novel-Chuck-Palahniuk/dp/0393327345

Found it! Looks like a good read :)

http://www.amazon.com/Sum-Forty-Afterlives-David-Eagleman/dp/0307389936

This is Bret Easton Ellis’ first book and was written while he was still a student. He got the book published at the age of 21. Less Than Zero really illuminates the origins of many of the stylistic quirks found in American Psycho and it reads with a similar cynical tone. The way he writes seems very conversational but not dull or dumbed down. It follows a teen who’s returned to LA for the holidays, begrudgingly, and is faced with the vapid and transient nature of Hollywood culture. Highly recommend.

“Disappear here”

Less Than Zero https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679781498/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_miC8Bb4DZVM77

This is Bret Easton Ellis’ first book and was written while he was still a student. He got the book published at the age of 21. Less Than Zero really illuminates the origins of many of the stylistic quirks found in American Psycho and it reads with a similar cynical tone. The way he writes seems very conversational but not dull or dumbed down. It follows a teen who’s returned to LA for the holidays, begrudgingly, and is faced with the vapid and transient nature of Hollywood culture. Highly recommend.

“Disappear here”

Less Than Zero https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679781498/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_miC8Bb4DZVM77

> I equate my agnosticism to a monkey (or an ant) trying to understand an atomic bomb.

Fantastic analogy.

> There is only the search for more understanding in the hope that the future will be able to comprehend a little more than we do.

Or, perhaps all answers will be revealed after our death. Or, maybe not, and we won't care about it anymore. Or maybe we'll somehow move to another plane of existence, forgetting all past lives, etc.

I know it's somewhat futile to comprehend, but I sometimes enjoy the mystery. Kind of like what David Eagleman ponders in his book, "Sum"

The Magicians is a little heavier than some of the other suggestions but is also a good mind expanding read.

It starts off as a fairly typical Harry Potter type story (loser kid finds out he has special powers, must learn to control them, etc...) but with a very deep story.

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman

Amazing short stories - He starts with a premis about what the afterlife is like, then follows it through to its conclusion. The author is mostly a scientist, but also has dome some writing.

Very good stories that make you think. Although, some of them made my wife "too sad".

I have never sent any books either, so we are all in the same boat. But no worries, as I too am in the Continental US.

The editions of Basic Kafka is here, and (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)[http://www.amazon.com/Thus-Spoke-Zarathustra-Book-None/dp/0140047484/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322326321&sr=1-1]. The problem with the latter is that it is an older edition and not in the best condition (ie highlighting). Let me know if you still want to go through with the second trade regardless, but I can understand if you don't. Otherwise, I would still love to trade Kafka for Desert Solitaire. Thanks.

I studied for 3 years, then stopped for the last 4...I can happily say that I've started practicing again.

I highly recommend purchasing books like these: Book 1 Book 2

You'll learn history/culture, familiarize yourself with relevant authors, be able to analyze how sentences generally translate, as well as learn words and practice reading! They give you kanji furigana, definitions, everything.

Edit: also, start learning your joyo kanji whenever you want to go above and beyond. It's from the Japanese department of education, the most commonly used/found japanese words. Often japanese newspapers are restricted to these, ~ 2150 kanji

Unfortunately not, my copy of Fight Club is a paperback edition published in the early 2000s, but it's not a movie tie-in edition. Thanks for your interest.

You're absolutely right. But you know what's missing here? Context. We have no idea whether or not those tweets were meant to be taken seriously or not.

Personal anecdote: when I was 23, I had this book prominently displayed for anyone to see. The book was satire, but the title was sexist and easily offensive. I did it to get a rise out of people. It was "edgy."

My point is we don't know the story behind the tweets. If that's how he really felt and still feels, then the man is detestable. But if he was just posting edgy comments for shiggles between him and his friends? Well, that would be regrettable, but at least it's understandable, and I certainly wouldn't hold it against him now that he's in his 30's. Let's not forget that development and maturity does continue typically into the mid-20's.

TL/DR: Being "edgy" is still pretty common in early 20's.

If you are a good reader, read this:

The Illuminatus! Trilogy


It's tough to read at first but stay with for a couple of hundred pages, then you won't be able to put it down.

It will give you all the inspiration you could possibly want.

Pretty sure he is talking about this. FYI

Books not mentioned so far that I like:

Lev Grossman's Magicians Trilogy (not 1st-person, otherwise follows your criteria, Harry Potter-esque, some people dislike the protagonist but he's intentionally kind of a tool), starting with The Magicians.

R. Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing trilogy (not 1st-person, magic is seriously powerful and the protagonist is an already-accomplished practitioner, mythology is complex, I don't recall it having a huge amount of characters), starting with The Darkness That Comes Before.

If you're willing to step outside of prose works, I like The Books of Magic a lot; it's a comic book miniseries.

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk. Broken, first person narrator plus some excellent cleaning tips.

Survivor: A Novel https://www.amazon.com/dp/039333807X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_eMWGxbV9B4H4W

Well so much depends on everything. Some basic suggestions:.

Contemporary Science Fiction:
Ted Chaing, Stories of Your Life and Others his short stories are science fiction gems. https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122.

Classical: Vladimir Nabokov Short Stories, amazing prose. Though English was his second language he wrote a good number, especially the later half, in English, often challenging themes from dubious narrators.
https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679729976.

International Fiction: Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore, reductionist, clean prose, with symbolic/metaphorical imagery that blends hard-boiled noir, Japanese animism, and surrealism. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400079276/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_RxntybB7PYK93

Post Modern: Roberto Bolano, 2666: A Novel, perhaps the odd relative of Murakami in structure if not style. Sometimes rambling, though powerful prose with surrealist moments within graphic and "visceral" scenes. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312429215/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ZAntybTW2XXJX.

Deconstructionism: Mark Danieleski, House of Leaves, carefully crafted entangled adventure horror of a story, explained in the footnotes of an essay, edited by a tattoo artist, written by a blind man of a homemade video of a house gone awry. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375703764/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_XMntyb3RT3RKQ

A start

The Magicians by Lev Grossman has been fairly popular on this sub.

Your girlfriend might also be surprised to learn that The Giver is actually part of a four-part series. :)

Speaking of Dennet, I think his (and Hurley's and Adams's) theory of humor is promising. That book also introduced me to the concept of "epistemic emotions," which seems ready-made for Rationalists to adopt. (The citation was to Alison Gopnik's Explanation as Orgasm, which is pretty on-the-nose for people who talk about "insight porn.")

My wife is the perfect book detective. I was once browsing a book store and was interested in a book. We left without me buying it. She only remembered two things: The book was blue, and the title was "somehow Latin". And she found it.

Sure anytime
Try checking this book out it has some great tips
https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/158297103X

The Magicians by Lev Grossman is fantastic. I highly recommend it.

I like Possibilianism.

Here's David Eagleman, a neuro scientist and an authentic genius of our times introducing the concept of Possibilianism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS0b4QCpFGc .

Highly recommended video! Must see for every /r/atheism breed atheist.

Edit: I also highly recommend the book Sum, a collection of short stories by David Eagleman.

Iam not manga fan, so i try this book https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-into-Japanese-Literature-Classics/dp/1568364156 and iam happy with it :)

You're far better off reading these books than wasting time with Peterson. Peterson's works are a soothing balm, these men sought after absolute truths -

https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Thrift-Editions-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/048629823X

https://www.amazon.com/Critique-Pure-Reason-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140447474/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527773842&sr=1-1&keywords=kant

https://www.amazon.com/Madness-Civilization-History-Insanity-Reason/dp/067972110X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527773870&sr=1-4&keywords=foucault&dpID=41FzjCBzJJL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

https://www.amazon.com/Nicomachean-Ethics-Aristotle/dp/0872204642/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527773951&sr=1-6&keywords=aristotle&dpID=31b2stlDDgL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

https://www.amazon.com/Republic-Dover-Thrift-Editions-ebook/dp/B00A73FJ10/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527774019&sr=1-4&keywords=aristotle+the+republic&dpID=51dfJWGupmL&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

You should give us a little insight as to what genre you like, since every reader is different. Here are a few of my favorites from some random genres.

Fantasy: A Song of Ice and Fire, Harry Potter, Neverwhere, American Gods.

Sci-Fi: The Illustrated Man, Gold.

Dystopian Fiction: The Stand, The Road.

Classic Fiction: Flowers For Algernon,

Philosophy: Thus Spake Zarathustra, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Whatever Else: Fight Club, Fast Food Nation

edit: formatting

hmmm, I don't know if the great firewall blocks access to amazon or to audible but you can try getting them in audiobook or ebook form.

From amazon, pick up the kindle version. You'll have to download the kindle software, but they have it available for PC, Mac, iPhone/Touch, and blackberry.

The audiobook is offered via audible, but I'd be surprised if it works in China.

If you're looking for a book that's actually about writing science fiction, Orson Scott Card's is honestly pretty decent: https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/158297103X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2X9WQG8RJGZU3&keywords=how+to+write+science+fiction+and+fantasy+by+orson+scott+card&qid=1563984476&s=gateway&sprefix=how+to+write+sci%2Caps%2C125&sr=8-1

He's also written a few others on writing in general, the "Elements of Fiction" series.

Awww.

I just wanna squish her and hug her and love her and call her George. Poor baby.

edit:

Also..if you haven't read Cinderella Ate My Daughter! yet...you need to.

I don't even HAVE a girl...but I picked it up at the library one day because I was like, "Oooh. This looks interesting." and boy was it an eye opener. No wonder girls these days are so fucked up!

Hiya.

Some questions come to mind. Two factions, are they at war? Will your group get caught up in that? If so, why are they fighting? Will your group play an unexpected yet decisive role in the outcome of said war?

How does FTL (Faster Than Light) technology work in your universe? Warp, Hyperspace, Worm Holes, etc? Who owns the USS Funboat VII? Did they steal it, and if so, why wasn't it locked? Is that why they need to escape from the Republic? Will they be chased? Can they expect the Crystal Brotherhood to protect them?

You'll need to ask yourself lots of questions like these and starting getting more specifics figured out so that you can start figuring out your characters and plot.

Sounds like you're wanting to write Space Opera with either aBadass Crew or a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits.

If you want to get started writing Science Fiction I can think of nothing that would be more help than this book by Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game. Some people don't like his political and moral views but the man knows about writing. It has been invaluable to me.

Cheers

There's three great books out there that I can think of off the top of my head.

[Read Real Japanese: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers] (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Read-Real-Japanese-Fiction-Contemporary/dp/1568365292)

and

[Read Real Japanese Essays: Contemporary Writings by Popular Authors] (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Read-Real-Japanese-Essays-Contemporary/dp/1568364148)

and

[Breaking into Japanese literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text] (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Breaking-into-Japanese-Literature-Classics/dp/1568364156)

PS: if you are "fresh out of Genki 2" level, I'd say these books may be fairly advanced for you, but to each their own. Some people don't mind. There are english translations after all.

Ok, here's the thing... he has fiction and essays. Both are equally mind blowing but in different ways. The essays are easier to read, I think.

Fiction series:

Illuminatus Trilogy

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0440539811/therobertantonwi

Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0440500702/therobertantonwi

Historical Illuminatus Trilogy (I think these are the easiest to read of the novels):

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1561841625/therobertantonwi

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1561841633/therobertantonwi

http://www.amazon.com/Natures-God-Historical-Illuminatus-Chronicles/dp/1561841641/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236806921&sr=1-15

Essays:

Everything else. I'd start with the book that I linked to here "Illuminati Papers" then "Right Where You Are Sitting Now" and Cosmic Trigger 1, 2 and 3.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1579510027/therobertantonwi

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0914171453/therobertantonwi

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1561840033/therobertantonwi

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1561840114/therobertantonwi

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1561841129/therobertantonwi

Cosmic Trigger 3 is subtitled "My Life After Death", it was written after it was rumored that he died...

Unfortunately he did pass away in 2007.

Post Office by Bukowski is a great choice. Short, raunchy, deep, weird and engaging. You'll wanna read it multiple times.

Have you read Survivor: A Novel by by Chuck Palahnuick? A lot of people loved it and if you liked American Psycho you'd like this I think. I read it and did not particularly enjoy it but it wasn't really up my ally so don't take my opinion in to account.

Hi, I’m new here having just discovered the sub and I intend to join in. To introduce myself, I’m Dave, male, 40, professional programmer (BSc computer science from a technical college, so no academic background to speak of really and no formal background in philosophy), I have listened to a few philosophy courses on tape over the years!

Question - is this penguin edition suitable? Critique of Pure Reason (Penguin Modern Classics) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0140447474/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_kT-2BbNKG9F2E

Thanks, and nice to meet you all.

I am currently reading the book: Cinderella Ate My Daughter. Very good read that talks about this subject. I'd recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/Cinderella-Ate-Daughter-Dispatches-Girlie-Girl/dp/0061711535

I have some but depends on what you want

About planets:
http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/0984470034/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286906911&sr=1-2

About languages:
http://www.amazon.com/Language-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/098447000X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268637297&sr=1-1

i dont know about it too much but heard its good:
http://www.amazon.com/Maps-Imagination-The-Writer-Cartographer/dp/1595340416

This is THE deal:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/158297103X

Another helpfull thingy:

http://www.amazon.com/Strata-Terry-Pratchett-ebook/dp/B003NX6Y6U/

It is called the Eye of Providence and has been used/attributed to a group knows as the Illuminati. A behind the scenes group of rulers bent on world domination and the quest for immortality. A good fiction to read is the Illuminatus Trilogy. Hope this helps out a little.

Agreed, it's very good! The same author also wrote The Te of Piglet.

http://www.amazon.com/Thus-Spoke-Zarathustra-Book-None/dp/0140047484/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1335137877&sr=8-2

in US, but maybe you can use it to find it in UK.

Seems to be free on Kindle if you have one.

These! Screw Mystery and Thriller. Read transgressive contemporary fiction! It's better for your brain.

https://www.amazon.com/We-Run-Bad-John-Curry-ebook/dp/B07DDL22LZ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1535913480&sr=8-1&keywords=we+run+bad

https://www.amazon.com/Chump-Change-Novel-Dan-Fante/dp/0061779245/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535916000&sr=1-1&keywords=chump+change+fante

https://www.amazon.com/Fans-Notes-Frederick-Exley/dp/0679720766

https://www.amazon.com/Post-Office-Novel-Charles-Bukowski/dp/0061177571/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1535917754&sr=8-1&keywords=the+post+office+bukowski

https://www.amazon.com/Florida-Roadkill-Novel-Serge-Storms/dp/006113922X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536517830&sr=8-1&keywords=florida+roadkill

​

Great answers so far! I should add another couple of suggestions myself: The Athenian Murders, by Jose Carlos Somoza, which is about Platonic ideas and the notion of translation; Sum, by David Eagleman, which is a set of vignettes about possible afterlives; works by Irish Murdoch (e.g. The Bell and The Black Prince); and works by Rebecca Goldstein (e.g. The Mind-Body Problem).

Now read The Magicians by Lev Grossman, if you haven't already.

It's a lot more interesting if the reference material is fresh in your head.

Zadie Smith's White Teeth is generally considered one of the best novels of the last decade.

Fight Club. Human fat based soap. His name was Robert Paulson. Need I say more?

The movie is also great.

It was a great book.

Buy this book. http://www.amazon.com/So-Youre-Going-Be-Dad/dp/1555612415 it's written by a guy, and provides great perspective.

Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy is a must read. Also, try The Illuminatus Trilogy not sure if it's considered SciFi, but it's a good read once you get into it.

If you like this quote, you may like this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Sum-Forty-Afterlives-David-Eagleman/dp/0307389936

Anyone interested in joining a bookclub for the Lev Grossman novel 'The Magicians' can meet at the address provided.

Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis should be up your alley. Not my cup of tea, but Ellis is a divisive author, haha

What about A Short History of Nearly Everything? Or Seal Team Six? Or The Magicians? What about American Gods, Hyperspace and The Grand Design

What I'm saying is 18 is too few. Get cracking.

A reading list...

The Myth of Sisyphus

Fight Club

The 7 habits of Highly Effective People

The games people play

Agreed. You definitely need to read it, then pick up The Te of Piglet.

Illuminatus Trilogy.

Rarely has so much happened in the first 25 pages of any book, and it is a work of beauty.

The Book of Lost Things maybe?

I'm in the middle of The Magicians. It seems pretty good.

Wasn't that the entire premise of a Chuck Palahniuk novel?

edit Indeed, it is his novel Survivor.

I enjoyed this at your age.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy: The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan

>Filled with sex and violence--in and out of time and space--the three books of The Illuminatus are only partly works of the imagination. They tackle all the coverups of our time--from who really shot the Kennedys to why there's a pyramid on a one-dollar bill.
Fnord.

Ok. You don't really like books. You're a kind man with a nice marriage. You live in a hip part of Philly. You travel a lot.

Here's an opposite book about all those things.
https://www.amazon.com/Post-Office-Novel-Charles-Bukowski/dp/0061177571

It's not for everyone, but the Illuminatus! Trilogy certainly meets those criteria.

Let me enlighten you.

So You're Going To Be a Dad https://www.amazon.com/dp/1555612415/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_R7J9AbKG9N6WV

I actually enjoyed reading this one

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: this book will blow your mind


|Country|Link|
|:-----------|:------------|
|UK|amazon.co.uk|
|Spain|amazon.es|
|France|amazon.fr|
|Germany|amazon.de|
|Japan|amazon.co.jp|
|Canada|amazon.ca|
|Italy|amazon.it|
|China|amazon.cn|




This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.

Well obviously there's a physical version as well.

Thanks! Is this what you meant with Illuminatus? I haven't heard of it before: http://www.amazon.com/The-Illuminatus-Trilogy-Pyramid-Leviathan/dp/0440539811

who cares, hogwarts is stuffy anyways. it doesnt matter what you do in highschool only what you do in college.

The Magicians

David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, wrote Sum, a really interesting book of short stories about hypothetical afterworlds.

Yeah, I got it from Amazon. It's called "The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov"

Men Are Better than Women.

I'm going to recommend the books of chuck palahniuk Preferably Survivor and choke

> What kinds of books could you read over and over and still love to death and even learn from?

I absolutely love The Illuminatus Trilogy, I think I've read it about 4 times now. The first 100 pages are tough but once you make it past that you won't want to put it down.

This little book has side by side translations of classic Japanese literature. It orders them easiest to hardest.

You might be interested in this book if you haven't seen it already. I read it for my sociology of gender class in undergrad and (think that I) remember the author talking about how she tried to raise her daughter outside of the "pink everything" and how quickly her daughter started wanting pink everything anyways.

Fantasy:

The Magicians Trilogy by Lev Grossman

If mediums count, try There Is No Lovely End by Patty Templeton



Non-fiction:

The Life and Times of Augustus Rapp

I found Orson Scott Card's book on writing science fiction and fantasy to be illuminating.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/158297103X

He has a chapter on world building and devotes a chapters to key aspects of writing within an established world. It's a quick read.

For what it's worth, a few Jewish fantasy authors, off the top of my head:

• Avram Davidson
  
• Lev Grossman
  
• Michael Chabon
  
  I'm sure there are more but those are the ones I can think of just now.

People who haven't bought Men Are Better Than Women in hard copy already.

Currently F*ck Whales is sitting at ~33,000 ranked, MABTW at ~40,000 ranked, allegedly a difference of about twenty monthly sales. It would be hysterical is Fasterix got beat by a decade old book.

The Dick Show.

Even though it's not as good as it used to be, and is going somewhat down the hole of shitty internet drama, it is still one of my favourite things on the internet.

ELEVATOR PITCH FOR TDS because I realize that just saying "go watch this" without watching the three years of backstory might not make sense.

The Dick Show is the podcast of internet comedian Dick Masterson, whose original claim to fame was LARPing the world's most misogynistic man and getting on Dr Phil to promote his comedy book, Men Are Better Than Women

Fast forward a few years, he is friends with internet comedy legend Maddox, and they start a podcast, The Biggest Problem In The Universe. This podcast is also very good, worth listening to. The premise of the show is that each of them would bring in a problem, argue for why it's the biggest problem in the universe, and then present these problems to the listeners to vote on. But the actual charm was that it was basically the virgin maddox vs the chad dick.

A year and change into the show, Dick meets one of Maddox's old ex girlfriends at a wedding, and hooks up with her. Maddox took this poorly, and when he eventually found out that they had in fact hooked up, he abruptly ended the show.

People were really bummed about it, because they love Dick, so he started a new podcast, The Dick Show. At first people kept asking him, why'd TBPITU end. And he said "creative differences" and left it at that. But, a few months in, the lolsuit saga begun.

Maddox posted a video about why the biggest problem ended (I can't find it offhand). In this video, he accused Dick of being a "Rape apologist", intentionally misinterpreting some comments to support this accusation. This resulted in Dick getting kicked out of UCB, which he had been a regular at for a while, it resulted in almost all of his friends cutting contact with him, and it resulted in a bunch of them trying to sabotage and blackball him.

So he came out and told his side of the story. Which was, basically, a) Maddox is an autistic asshole and here's my laundry list of five thousand things he did; and b) I slept with his ex and it made him mad

This eventually escalated into an internet feud that reached its apex when Maddox sued Dick, Asterios (a mutual friend of theirs), and a handful of other people to the tune of $380,000,000, for making fun of him on the internet. This spawned a million memes and served as a never ending source of content for the show as Dick would talk about what was going on.

Incidentally, the judge threw the case out within 10 minutes of hearing it, and was so mad at how ridiculous it was that he threatened to arrest maddox's lawyer on the spot for contempt. I think the exact phrase was "I'll have you taken out of here in chains"

Since then, Dick's been doing his show, which is really just his show, there's no other way to describe it. He's hobnobbed a bunch with youtube edgelords like ethan ralph, andrew warski, and the like. He flirts with things that people would accuse of being alt-right, and occasionally gets accused of it himself, but he's pretty good about walking the line carefully enough that he never draws any serious flak.

Overall, he's pretty funny

I just got around to White Teeth, and it was worth the wait.

There's a whole book full of this stuff. You should give it a read ;)

The Magicians - Lev Grossman. It's a polarizing book for fantasy fans I suppose. I thought it was bloody brilliant.

I know he is not popular in some circles, but I have found How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card to be extremely helpful not only with practical advice, but with avoiding common tropes, or putting my own spin on them.

I always recommend, The Magicians by Lev Grossman. It is my favorite book/trilogy. I loved The War Against the Assholes by Sam Munson, but in a different way. It is always my go to rec for obscure books.

> Since you are learning you may also want to check out Read Real Japanese

Also Exploring Japanese Literature and Breaking Into Japanese Literature

I recommend every one who is interested in writing Star Wars fanfic to read Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.


https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/158297103X

I recommend every one who is interested in writing Star Wars fanfic to read Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/158297103X

Disclaimers:

• I've never read either of the books you mention.
  
• I have only read books by one of the two authors you mention.
  
• Of the one author you mention whose books I have read, I haven't read any for, uh, over two decades now.
  
• I am pretty much ignoring your examples, and just going off of "my next fiction read".
  
  With all that said:
  
  Post Office
  
  by Charles Bukowski

Another demonstration of this

On the internet no one knows I'm a bird.

I made a new post if you're interested. I already gave up here. You with 3 - 4 other people are getting the wrong idea.

edit: THIS is what I wanted thanks to someone on /r/japaneseresources .

Also, don't forget Piglet

If I recall, Survivor: A Novel, by Chuck Palahniuk counts down, so that as you read your page numbers get lower.

edit : nope, different book.

Read this and it will prepare you

https://www.amazon.com/Post-Office-Novel-Charles-Bukowski/dp/0061177571/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525989192&sr=8-1&keywords=post+office+bukowski

dennett published a book recently about this topic: http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Jokes-Using-Humor-Reverse-Engineer/dp/0262518694

This?

I recall a podcast where they mention that story in to this book.

this book will blow your mind

Have you read Sum by David Eagleman? There's a story in there called Subjunctive that's basically this.

Mine

Yours

>They're referencing scenes from Fight Club

FTFY