Best american literature criticism books according to redditors
We found 87 Reddit comments discussing the best american literature criticism books. We ranked the 59 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 87 Reddit comments discussing the best american literature criticism books. We ranked the 59 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Want to add a couple things:
My go-to suggestions for Shays readings are Szatmary's Shays' Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection and Leo Richards's Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle.
I view The Broom of the System as, like you said, him trying to prove to his professors just how smart he was. He had dropped out of Amherst twice due to depression and he had already written another thesis on philosophy (which you can apparently buy [here] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fate-Language-David-Foster-Wallace/dp/0231151578))- he really had to step up to the plate to prove himself as a writer. Nevertheless, I view it as an admirable feat of writing, especially at such a young age. I think it is important to keep in mind just how much writers progress over time, as they gather life experience, knowledge, and skill.
Lots of other writers kind of do something similar. Take a look at James Joyce's Dubliners. Compare that to Ulysses or Finnegans Wake. It is a walk in the park in comparison to what those two texts offer to the reader, and it sometimes seems downright amateurish. However. The text itself is still pretty good. And even in a non-literary genre, authors still grow amazingly quickly. JK Rowling's skills increased greatly over the Harry Potter series, both in terms of prose and plot complexity.
I don't know, man. The Broom was not my favorite, but I respect it because DFW did it when he was only 22 or 23. Besides, it would be unfair to DFW to hold all of his work to the level of Infinite Jest or Hideous Men, only to excuse The Broom as nothing special; it was good for what he was doing at the time, and he grew beyond it.
tl;dr- writers grow up and get better.
I hear you, but to be fair anal-retentive attention to detail has always been a feature of military service, even in World War II. Paul Fussell, a writer who served as an infantry officer in World War II, wrote a chapter in one of his books about what was referred to as "chickenshit". Basically it refers to any small-minded and petty discipline that had nothing to do with winning the war. Having to wear a reflective belt in a combat zone is a great example of chickenshit.
As someone who does a lot of meta and academic literary discussion on comics, I am 100% certain that a paper exists about psychopathy and the Batman universe; it might not be about Bruce and psychopathy (most essays about psychopathy related to Batman that I've read have focused on either the Joker or Two-Face), but there have definitely been papers written about the philosophy, ethics, morality, and psychology of Batman and the Batfamily. You're going to find most of these types of discussions in the field of comics studies and academic historical/literary criticism rather than psychology due to the nature of the topic. For some interesting paper/essay collections, see:
It uh....honestly might also be worth it to read into the 'Seduction of the Innocent' controversy and relevant academic papers about the work, given that it directly involved Batman comics. Books like Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code and The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America would be particularly helpful there.
Edit: Also just as a sidenote, as you mentioned in another comment Batman as a psychopath isn't even a hot take; it's a lukewarm take made by people who don't actually read comics. Batman, as he is generally portrayed in mainverse comics, is decidedly not a psychopath.
Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah
Night-Vision: Illuminating War and Class on the Neo-Colonial Terrain by Butch Lee and Red Rover
The Weapon of Theory by Amilcar Cabral
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
Mediations on Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth by James Yaki Sayles
I wouldn't consider myself off-topic by far at all.
The deficiency was that though the fascist industrial base could build tanks which were of paper wonderful, they failed to even build enough tanks to replenish losses. The Wehrmacht was a force designed to win quick victories against opponents in Western Europe, where the distance between starting line and objective isn't very far, and there is a large and robust transportation network to rely on.
In Barbarossa alone, during the depths of the first period of war, when the Fascists had the strategic initiative, the Nazi losses were staggering. 18 Pz.Div had below 50 operational tanks by mid-august, and by 9 November only 14 tanks.^1 18th Pz.Div's problems did not stop there, as Bartov continues.
>Where?
In that the Great Patriotic War involved a great deal of armored warfare, and the Nazis were unable to fight and win it.
>What was a failure?
They couldn't build tanks that were good enough in large enough numbers to make a difference, and furthermore were out fought and out fought at the operational level, where the fighting quality of individual tanks becomes less important than the structural organization of the military.
>Fast nimble tanks?
Which they used astoundingly at Kursk to get all of, what, 8-10km in the North and 35km in the south? Even if their tanks were tactically mobile, such as the Panther was when it worked, they were not able to turn this into operational victory after Kursk.
>Armament capable of eliminating any opposition?
Which is nice, so long as the tank is in a position to shoot at other things. But each tank is only in one place at a time, and so you can't possess strength everywhere on the front. Combine that with the excellent Soviet reconnaissance capability and you get operations like Uranus, where they broke through the poorly equipped Italian and Romanian forces flanking Stalingrad and encircled an entire army, one of the greatest maneuvers of all time!
>Armour that was a problem even for the best allied guns?
Other than the point I made above, I don't have much to say to this, they did build well armored tanks! Even if they were impractical and didn't make much sense. See: Pz.Tiger Ausf.B, which had lots of armor and a stonking big gun, but they only made what, 450 of? To use on a front stretching from Leningrad to the Black Sea?
>The best optics of war?
If you'd watch the video, Moran an actual tanker explains the fallacy of this statement. The Germans may have had the best glass, but not the best optics, by virtue of poor arrangement and positioning.
>Vehicles that could fight outnumbering opponent and survive the engagement?
The Sherman did that fine at Arracourt. But to go on a little from here, why should you fight outnumbered? Isn't this a symptom of a greater strategic failing that these vehicles are fighting outnumbered? Shouldn't the mighty German economy, in addition to the bulk of conquered Western Europe, be able to produce a well designed tank in enough numbers to fight on equal terms? The Soviets certainly were able economize their production, they reduced man-hours required to produce a T-34 1941g/1942g by something like 1/3-1/2. link
Or perhaps indicative of the great Soviet strength, their ability to concentrate forces so as to have an overwhelming localized advantage while remaining at a far less decisive correlation of forces throughout the front? Certainly, this is an impressive feat of generalship, being able to do more with less.
>Or perhaps you aim at the fact that German tanks often lacked parts they were intended to have?
Not sure what you mean here, but my area of expertise isn't rivet counting, it's operational maneuver warfare. I don't know what wish list the Nazis had for their tanks, because I don't really care what their imagined super tanks were. You fight the war with the weapons you have, and that you can build. They didn't have enough tanks, and couldn't build enough to alter this difference.
>Where is a design flaw here?
Generally the failing to build a sufficient number of tanks which were able to function well enough to win the war. But, of course, tanks aren't the only thing which wins wars, generalship wins wars, and in that the Nazis were outmatched in theory before the war began, and in practice from 1943 onward.
>I always though it is a common knowledge that apart from Russians the allies had a prognostic ability of a fortune teller. That it took Russians a great deal of time before they were able to put already developed theory in useful practical form or even such basic things like coordinating support units to keep the tanks rolling.
The Red Army learned consistently and rapidly from its various mistakes, correcting them rather quickly. For example, the trial-and-error of creating a better armored unit organization which resulted in the 1943 model Tank Army, as orchestrated by Fedorenko, which served as the base model for further tank armies as the war continued, but which came out of the various mechanized corps concepts which were in service from 1941. This, of course, was all based on the theories of Tukachevsky, both deep operations and the need for continuous operations, which were far beyond the old-school Prussian ways of the Whermacht. The Nazis may have fought and won battles, though they increasingly were unable to win them as the war progressed and Soviets learned, but they were unable to translate this into winning the war. This truly is the ultimate test of a military, and of the society it is part of. The Soviet victory over Nazi Germany was total, and its peace Carthaginian, splitting Germany for 45 years among the 4 allied powers.
The Nazi and Soviet ways of war, and their entire societies, were put to the test, and the Nazis were found wanting. Their ideas, concepts, and vehicles were proved largely unsuitable in modern warfare. They tried to destroy the Soviet Army in one large operational maneuver in 1941, and yet they failed to understand both the immense soviet ability to generate forces very rapidly through the cadre and reserve systems, and that in the age of mass armies decision cannot be forced in a single operation. The Soviets understood this, it was Tukachevsky who explained it! Once Stalin realized his generals were competent and let them fight the war, they continually attempted to put into practice their theories of deep operations and continuous operations. From 1943 to the end of the war the Soviets unleashed a near continuous series of operations where they advanced hundreds of kilometers at a time and destroyed large Nazi forces.
>Is also the level at which the biggest successes of Wehrmacht were achieved. Is where schwerpunkt, envelopment and exploitation enabled Germans to fight enemies much bigger and better equipped than them.
Yes, but their concept of operations was found wanting, especially by Kursk. They were unable to translate their style of warfare, designed around fighting in Western Europe, to Eastern Europe and the European Soviet Union. Citino explains this far better than I could in this lecture
>Not sure if you heard about the fact that Germans critically lacked fuel from 1941 onwards. Assault on Stalingrad began with almost empty petrol tanks. Oil required for the success of the Wacht am Rhein/Ardennes offensive was within the enemy to be captured. Germans weren't encircled repeatedly because they were bad at planning but simply because they had nothing to move with. This is a reoccurring theme not only on the Eastern front. At El Alamein Rommel had fuel for literally one single defensive manoeuvre to counter the British assault.
This counts as being outfought. What sort of incompetent fights a war without petrol? OR continually builds larger and more fuel intensive tanks with a fuel shortage. This is emblematic of the failures of the German military. Even then, so much of their supply apparatus relied on horses that this is a bit of a red herring. 77 of their infantry divisions in barbarossa were horse drawn between the rail-head and front. As materiel losses mounted during the war this ratio only increased.
Furthermore, in operations like Vistula-Oder they certainly were out-fought. Or in Operation Kutuzov.
I would suggest you read the revised (2015) edition of Glantz's When Titans Clashed. It's the most balanced and authoritative general history of the Nazi-Soviet war to date. Or Bartov's Hitler's Army, or Citino's series starting with the German Way of War, through Death of the Wehrmacht, and on to his books on 1943 and 44+45. They should likely dispel a lot of this mythologized view of the Nazi military you have.
https://www.amazon.com/When-Titans-Clashed-Stopped-Studies/dp/0700621210/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0057CZ560/
https://www.amazon.com/German-Way-War-Thirty-Studies/dp/0700616241
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Wehrmacht-German-Campaigns-Studies/dp/0700617914
https://www.amazon.com/Wehrmacht-Retreats-Fighting-Modern-Studies/dp/0700623434/
https://www.amazon.com/Wehrmachts-Last-Stand-Campaigns-1944-1945/dp/0700624945/
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If you're gonna buy this book for Breaking Bad cred, you should get the same edition they use in the show
For criticism of HPL's works i would highly recommend:
Dissecting Cthulhu
A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H.P. Lovecraft
Lovecraft: Disturbing the Universe
or any volume in the Lovecraft Annual
For Biography on Lovecraft:
H.P. Lovecraft: A Life
...or the expanded version of the above I Am Providence
And Lovecraft's letters (edited and compiled by Joshi) are really the best way to get deep into Lovecraft, although I'll warn you, you really are reading HPL's conversations with his friends, so there is a tremendous amount of biographical detail, but not a terrible amount in the way of talk about his own work. Some of the best:
Letters to James F. Morton
A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard
O Fortunate Floridian: H.P. Lovecraft's Letters to R.H. Barlow
Ugh. I wish I had done college differently. I would have studied linguistics. Here’s another of my favorites: a good book
So far:
I believe that's it, currently I'm reading All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy as well as Alphabet Juice by Roy Blount Jr.
Here ya go bitch!
Classics: Tristram Shandy, Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, The Grapes of Wrath. All wonderful in their own ways. Tristram Shandy is very 'post-modern' in feel depite being from the 1700's
I'm also rather fond of 'classic' short stories, so I can reccommend various collections like this or this or this - all collections I've read and enjoyed. Cheever, O'Hara, Chekov, Carver are all well worth your time.
Borges is fascinating and strange - a great conversation starter.
Mystery/Thrillers: James Ellroy's LA Quartet, George V. Higgins (The Friends of Eddie Coyle, etc.), Chandler's The Long Goodbye, Ross MacDonald's The Chill, Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me...
There's loads of great sci-fi out there - start with a Gardner Dozois "Best of" and branch out. Philip K Dick (Ubik is a good start). Charles Stross Accelerando. William Gibson. Collections of short stories are great: Rewired, Mirrorshades, various 'best of' collections. Swanwick, Sterling, Egan.
As mentioned Douglas R Hofstadter's stuff is great non-fiction (philosophy? linguistics? cogsci? AI?) with a decidedly playfull streak that makes it a joy to read.
I would like to echo the recommendations of Epictetus, who was the teacher of Marcus Aurelius. He wrote no books, but we have two sayings collections written by a student, the Discourses and the Enchiridion (or Handbook); the Enchiridion is just a digest of the Discourses, but includes sayings from the portions that haven't survived.
One modern philosopher who often wrote in a similar format—brief personal reflections in no particular sequence—is Eric Hoffer, an autodidact who wrote philosophy in his spare time while working as a longshoreman. Check out The Passionate State of Mind.
I think this is a good candidate for the first one you're looking for, it matches a lot of what you've said:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4145837-the-spirit-of-canada
https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Canada-Canadas-Legends-Fiction/dp/1894121147
fun fact: we use the french term because of when the french invaded/conquered england in 1066. all the aristrocrats spoke french, while their servants spoke english. so the english servants would be all talking about cows, but when the meat got to the table the french would call it boeff (sp? my french is rusty). neat eh? i read that in a book called "the adventure of english" by melvyn bragg. very neat book if you're into etymology.
http://www.amazon.com/Adventure-English-Biography-Language/dp/1611450071/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302927494&sr=8-1
What's wonderful and frustrating about the English language is that there's no single standard and all of those books out there that try to tell you that there's one absolute rule of English are full of it.
The English language is amazing because of its ability to adapt, change, absorb other languages and remain fluid-- I'd recommend checking out Bragg's Adventure of English to anyone interested in the history of the language as it paints a wonderful picture of the language being in flux.
While I was trained in a "prescriptivist" approach to grammar, I've now fallen fairly firmly in the "descriptivist" camp. That doesn't mean that we should accept anything that anyone writes as being "correct"; it means that there's a purpose and logic behind grammar and that understanding how language works gives you power to communicate more effectively.
Grammar should help illuminate the author's purpose, add meaning, and clarify ambiguities-- not drive us all insane. We should think of grammar as a set of tools to use, not a set of laws to be obeyed and feared.
I believe that the oxford comma generally clarifies the meaning of a sentence, so I use it. But if I'm reading something that's perfectly clear that doesn't use it, I'd be in no way offended, and I don't think anyone else should be.
/rant
Probably not. The stress under danger can be equivalent to torture.
https://www.amazon.ca/Wartime-Understanding-Behavior-Second-World/dp/0195065778
This book cites studies done during WWII regarding how long it took for soldiers to become effectively useless due to the accumulation of stress in combat.
I'm in the same boat. My work involves a lot of academic reading and I had got out of reading for pleasure in the past couple of years because it was such a slog during the day. I've started again recently, beginning with short story compilations to make it easier to keep my attention. It also gives me an idea of authors whose work I'd like to explore further.
The Oxford Book of American Short Stories
That Glimpse of Truth
the funny thing is, the dude the quote is from wrote a book on that too
http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0231151578
I think by the whole ‘nobody is an atheist’ thing, he means that nobody is without a captivation toward something exterior or bigger than themselves (i.e. God, a project, a deity, sports team etc.). All people are worshipers of something. Therefore, there are no people who are without or indifferent to (a—) an object (God) (—theist) of worship/attention/praise. Nothing about this is weak logical reasoning—you just have to see into the meaning through how the terms are used. That’s a very brief Wittgensteinian analysis of this, at least, who was a great philosopher and was a massive influence on DFW. Though I could be mistaken here, since you’re use of ‘literal’ might be more narrow. Although, I don’t see what’s not literally obvious about what he was intending.
As to you’re later point about him not being a philosopher nor a logical thinker, I’d really push back. The dude had an undergrad in philosophy, published work (see here) and went to graduate school for a short time—all of which was primarily centered around symbolic logic and semantics.
My interpretation of what you were getting into could be wrong and perhaps you have countless other examples of his logical lacking ‘rigour.’ I realize that this is the exact kind of fan-boy analysis one would expect to defend DFW. This isn’t meant to be that. I just think you’re mistaken.
Here you go
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0195183428/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1377229678&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX110_SY165
Well I'll be damned... Link, for those interested. Most recent review on the page.
TL;DR: found out my great-uncle has a secret son with a terminal illness, and he still won’t acknowledge him. My grandparents (and everyone else in New Mexico) are related to each other.
I’ll share 2 stories related to 23andMe testing I had done. I tested my father, my mother’s father, and my mother’s mother’s brother (because my grandma has already passed on). So from this point I pretty much equate my maternal great-uncle with my grandma.
My father had a 1st cousin listed in his relatives who we didn’t recognize. Eventually the cousin reached out to me and asked me if I knew [name] which he had heard from his mother, and I said yes, that is my dad’s uncle. So this guy had been searching for his biological father because he had a type of end-stage disease which was genetic, and no one on his mother or supposed father’s side had it. This confirmed it, because my great-uncle and great-grandfather suffered from the same disease. I wanted to help him, so I secretly found out as much as I could and told him everything. The cousin tried contacting my great-uncle, but he didn’t want a relationship with him at all- the responses were not straight-up denials of being his father, it was like “good luck with your disease! Laters.” But I now have a long-lost cousin and we’re friends on Facebook.
Whew. Story 2. In New Mexico there’s a strong Hispanic culture that goes back hundreds of years. The DNA testing showed that my mom’s father and maternal uncle were distantly related- they share 0.92% of their DNA. 0.92% should be third-ish cousins, which I was sure they were not that closely related. My tree was already pretty far along at this point, but I HAD to find out how my grandma and grandpa were related, they weren’t even from the same part of the state. Eventually I was able to make so many connections, like 8th cousins, 7th cousins once removed, etc. I guess all those cross-relations added up, they shared so much DNA it looked like they were 3rd cousins. My coolest tree I made though, starts with one guy Miguel Quintana (1675-1748). It shows that my mom’s FOUR grandparents all lead back to this one guy. So all four of my great-grandparents are related to each other. So I have a very strong hunch that ALL Hispanic New Mexicans are related if you dig hard enough.
nemo. My passion is reading. This book looks awesome. Thank you for the link. here is the book I would like.
It is actually very interesting the way Webster proposed to change the language and in reality the logic is admirable. A Lot of people think that Americans changed the spelling of English deliberately to make themselves different from England. Webster however was already in the process of proposing the changes before the Revolution occurred. The Revolution perhaps helped to shed light upon his efforts and lend them support, but it was not in itself a cause for the changes.
If you like the idea of the history of the language an easily readable book on it is called The Adventure of English and though it sounds geek supreme, it is actually and easy read that teaches a lot.
Some of my favorites that's relevant to this subreddit:
Check them out:)
This is one of my favorite periods. Read the following:
Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West by Dale Morgan
The Course of Empire by Bernard DeVoto
Across the Wide Missouri by Bernard DeVoto
1846 the Year of Decision by Bernard DeVoto
The above are all great books written in the early 20th Century
Three source material must-reads are
The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana
I can't remember any contemporary books that stand out right now but I'll look through my books at home.
>>We can stay faithful because, even though it might be in our genetic interest not to, we really care about someone.
>Wanting to prevent another human being from having positive or pleasurable experiences in order to preserve illusions in your own mind of security in a relationship, ownership, possession, and supremacy (that is, I'm the one and only, the best, I'm not replacable etc.) is not "really caring". And faithfulness has to do with being true to your word, doing what you say, not betraying. It's offensive to suggest that either a person practicing promiscuity or one of multiple partners in closed arrangement freely entered are being unfaithful. Edit: And also offensive to imply that those of us who do maintain multiple relationships are less "really caring".
I'm gong to end this debate on my side, but before I do I just want to say a few things. First, that I never equated faithfulness with monogamy. I was careful not to do that. Poly people need to remain faithful to all their partners too (IMO). It is still possible for them to go outside the set parameters of the relationship and cheat.
Second, the prehuman monstrosity thing is unsupported by what I said, I didn't really flesh out the idea enough. But I got the idea from Reflections on the Human Condition by Hoffer, if you at all want to read his books. It is not science so much as social philosophy. I highly recommend anything he has written.
If you do not want to commit to the full length Joshi biography this might be a good alternative. An earlier, more compact version of Joshi's biography.
The Oxford Book of American Short Stories - A lot of classics, and a range of genres and styles.
More Classics - and it contains "To Build a Fire" which is one of my all-time favorite short stories.
I prefer my sci-fi in neatly digestible bites - there are some great ones in The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories if you want some genre options.
A couple good books on the topic if you're further interested: Shays' Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection and Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle
Step 1) Buy friend Breaking Bad DVDs, including this book with the same inscription Gale had.
Step 2) Wait for the text several months later from friend, freaking out about the cliffhanger, and having possession of the book.
Joyce Carol Oates edited The Oxford Book of American Short Stories (1994 edition). I studied it in college and found it a great introduction to the short story in general.
Yep, $20 on Amazon. That publishing company must be cleaning up right now. First Denny's, then the cars, and now this. Not liking the prominent product placement as of late.
By the way, poetry is shit for bathroom reading because good poetry is worth more thought than the length of time it takes for you to drop a deuce no matter how clogged up you are. Poetry that does take that short a time is bad poetry and bad reading unless you're just looking for something to do, in which case the back sticker of the shampoo bottle is a cheaper equivalent.