Solenoid!! I'm feeling huge admiration (some jealousy!?) that you're tackling this one (it's on my list). Can't wait to hear your take– and Martha's! Cărtărescu visited my grad program's campus last fall, and while I didn't manage to attend the event, I did hear of an amusing moment where Cărtărescu was really going on about how popular his work is with the women in Romania, how much women love his incredible writing, etc., only for Sean Cotter to come in and break it to him that in the English, Solenoid is really has a bit of a "lit bro" following
so i just started since I read slowly, martha is starting next week. once she dives in we will have a better idea of the pace, but probably try to finish beginning of may
Ok amazing amazing, no promises since I’ve got a busy couple months ahead but very excited about potentially attempting the journey & will keep you posted!!
I'm so so intrigued by Solenoid! Keen to know how you feel about it. The most difficult book I read so far has been Proust's In Search of Lost Time, moreso out of sheer length than anything.
Ahh I’ve started and stopped volume I SO many times, that is quite an accomplishment! With solenoid I anticipate the challenge is the density of the text and the surrealism that can be hard to follow. Will report back
These are some really handy tips and tricks. I also think easing yourself into it is key. Rather than trying to tab/note/highlight all at once if you’ve not done it at all before. This year is the first year I’ve engaged in prebook “research” to see how it changes the reading experience, works better on some books than others (naturally). You’ve got some additional suggestions that I might try out on my next paperback.
Good tips for difficult books, especially Engage in some research and side questions. First time through Ulysses in class 47 years ago I kept up pretty well through the first 8 episodes are so but was increasingly more lost for much of what followed. Then read about it over the years and enjoyed going through it on my own but still had to skip or skim a couple of episodes like Oxen of the Sun, and Eumaeus. Then in a group 15 years ago. We spent a year on it, 6 discussions. A lot of fun. Even appreciated somewhat the Oxen episode. Gearing up for another group discussion next year, again a year’s worth of discussions. Some of the same group and several folks new to the challenge. Prepped for it this time by reading the Odyssey, Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man over past year. And will recommend that folks reread Hamlet. This “research approach” was essential for me for Gravity’s Rainbow and The Satanic Verses.
this is so impressive, not to mention you actually read Dubliners! You are a master at getting the most out of your reading experiences. With Solenoid I didn't think to figure out what his influences were but there are specific instances where I will, like I want to read Howards End before On Beauty since it is a modern retelling, but that is a bit obvious I suppose.
Thanks, Natalie. Very impressed with what you and your group have accomplished here. A book that really helped me with my latest reading of Dubliners is Craig Hansen Werner’s Dubliners: A Student’s Guide to the Stories. It helped me make a lot more sense of the book and how the different stories fit together. “Counterparts” is my favorite story title in the book (although far from my favorite story). The idea of various characters, themes, etc. being “counterparts” to others in the book rings true for me. Very musical although I don’t know much about music. The first story, “The Sisters,” strikes me as so impressive for a 22 year old to come up with this idea and then rewrite it a year or 2 later and improve it greatly. For me this story sets up a lot of what Joyce deals with the rest of his career. We just talked about “The Dead” a couple nights ago. What a pleasure to bring completely different experiences to that story than when I first read it. That story was written a couple of years after Joyce had sent the first 14 for publication so we were fortunate he was unsuccessful until years after writing “The Dead.” It seems a response in some ways to the first 14 stories he had sought to publish. I see Werner’s book is on Thrift Books for $5. I meant to mention in my first note that I’ll never attempt to read Finnegans Wake (although the last several pages are sublime) but I have enjoyed reading about it over the years, especially Joseph Campbell (Power of Myth, The Hero with a 1000 Faces) and Henry Morton’s Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. For those on Audible I see it’s on sale there for $3.50 for a couple more days. $17 for the book on Thrift Books, much more than I’ve been fortunate to pay at used book stores.
Finnegans Wake is a whole separate beast to tackle. I love the idea of using student guides for the more challenging reading experiences. I too rely heavily on thriftbooks.com!!
I love to always have a "big book" going, and I track my reading as part of my daily habits. I usually do a few pages each morning. I am currently 30% through with Atlas Shrugged (30 chapters, app. 1100 pages) and my goal is 1 chapter / week so it will take 30 weeks to read but at the end the sense of accomplishment is worth it.
okay i have never heard of this book but immediately adding it to my TBR - tell us how it is!!!
i'm in the middle of war & peace (ish, i put it on pause a few weeks ago and need to get back to it) but i feel like the best advice i have for reading intimidating books is just...consistently committing. no matter what method you take - physically reading and annotating, getting the 35hr+ audiobook, or bringing your ereader everywhere for weeks, the most important thing is doing a little every day. it took me like eight weeks to read LOTR last year and it felt like such a slog because i was reading about 2% during my hour lunch breaks every day, but eventually all those little percentages build up! and i feel like there eventually hits a point after the halfway mark where you can really start to breeze through it if it's compelling enough - that's how it was when i read les mis and it was so thrilling to get to the end.
this is very good advice. When i think about it, building that consistency and momentum is really what is behind the section breakdown - like just get through this small page count per day that is all you must do. I read Anna Karenina like that - 2% each day for like a year. Cheers to you reading LOTR I am not sure I would have the fortitude for that.
OK. This post for me is almost pornographic because it hits so many of my reading pleasure buttons - Eastern Europe / Cold War narrative, thoughts on annotation, approaching challenging reading, etc.
For an accessible comp title, I totally recommend 'I must betray' you by Ruta Sepetys which is often labeled as a cross-over work (YA/literary). It's a historical thriller about communist Romania and its citizen spy network, I loved it and her work is meticulously researched.
Also - I share the struggle re: the aesthetic sticky tab/highlighter choices. It IS more visually pleasing to stay within a muted color scheme but if your goal is to then use the annotations for future writing and referencing, going standard tacky colors is the way to go. It's much easier to pick out the difference between orange and green than pale gray and medium gray, especially in the dark!!! (Especially as you slide into your 40s lol).
i almost used the word GIRTHY again and thought once a year was enough, but that would have really sent this into porno territory
communist Romania CITIZEN SPY NETWORK. We watched Red Sparrow a few weeks ago and I think about it at least once a day I cannot get it out of my head (might have something to do with the current US political climate). I am adding that to cart now.
standard tacky colors win, even with - i hate to say it - substack branding. all i want is dark muted colors but they do not come out so well.
She is a serious, committed reader! I can't wait for this buddy read - I'm going in so blind to the novel (which sounds like the complete opposite to you) and I kinda love this experiment we are accidentally conducting of having 2 diff approaches to it! I haven't read a thick book I've enjoyed since the Bee Sting over 6 months ago (!) and I want to love a chunky book again.
This is impressive. Looove me some juicy author deets.
I do have interest in reading Solenoid but looking forward to hearing what you and Martha think of it.
I LOVED reading Ulysses. It felt like attending a word party.
"Her antiquity in preceding and surviving successive tellurian generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant implacable resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible." 💥
I doubt I will ever hear someone refer to Ulysses as a word party by anyone but you!!! I once wrote a college paper comparing the Ulysses burial scene to the one in the movie Garden State, and looking back, I now recognize this as my creative origin story - high literature mixed with niche pop culture.
So glad you're keeping track of the lines you love! I am behind on mine and am kind of stressed. Maybe what I need to do is pick up those highlighters you love and a ruler like Haley's and I'll find some new energy!
Ok but you know what? I have terrible depth perception and every time I get back home and have to park in my parking lot, I sing myself a little song that 'I can do hard things' to calm down so I don't freak out about hitting cars. (This has never happened.)
OMG. I am definitely waiting to hear if all this was worth it. I wish I would have had those tabs when I was supposed to read War and Peace in college. Maybe I would not have faked it! I still regret just skimming that book but not enough to read it… yet.
another idea for supplies: you could replace the ruler with a sturdy and straight bookmark so you can get the crisp lines but have a prettier bookmark lol
Solenoid!! I'm feeling huge admiration (some jealousy!?) that you're tackling this one (it's on my list). Can't wait to hear your take– and Martha's! Cărtărescu visited my grad program's campus last fall, and while I didn't manage to attend the event, I did hear of an amusing moment where Cărtărescu was really going on about how popular his work is with the women in Romania, how much women love his incredible writing, etc., only for Sean Cotter to come in and break it to him that in the English, Solenoid is really has a bit of a "lit bro" following
read it with us!!!!!! if you feel like it of course.
Solenoid is very surrealist DFW so far, he absolutely deserves that lit bro title 😂 embrace it honey
This might just be the nudge I need…..do you guys have an end date in mind?! …thinking I’ll put in a library request 🫢 feeling wild
so i just started since I read slowly, martha is starting next week. once she dives in we will have a better idea of the pace, but probably try to finish beginning of may
Ok amazing amazing, no promises since I’ve got a busy couple months ahead but very excited about potentially attempting the journey & will keep you posted!!
We had to plan this out way in advance so I totally understand 😆 life be life-ing
I'm so so intrigued by Solenoid! Keen to know how you feel about it. The most difficult book I read so far has been Proust's In Search of Lost Time, moreso out of sheer length than anything.
Ahh I’ve started and stopped volume I SO many times, that is quite an accomplishment! With solenoid I anticipate the challenge is the density of the text and the surrealism that can be hard to follow. Will report back
These are some really handy tips and tricks. I also think easing yourself into it is key. Rather than trying to tab/note/highlight all at once if you’ve not done it at all before. This year is the first year I’ve engaged in prebook “research” to see how it changes the reading experience, works better on some books than others (naturally). You’ve got some additional suggestions that I might try out on my next paperback.
You are so right! I kinda got the system down when reading Calculation of Volume but that text was way less complicated.
Good tips for difficult books, especially Engage in some research and side questions. First time through Ulysses in class 47 years ago I kept up pretty well through the first 8 episodes are so but was increasingly more lost for much of what followed. Then read about it over the years and enjoyed going through it on my own but still had to skip or skim a couple of episodes like Oxen of the Sun, and Eumaeus. Then in a group 15 years ago. We spent a year on it, 6 discussions. A lot of fun. Even appreciated somewhat the Oxen episode. Gearing up for another group discussion next year, again a year’s worth of discussions. Some of the same group and several folks new to the challenge. Prepped for it this time by reading the Odyssey, Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man over past year. And will recommend that folks reread Hamlet. This “research approach” was essential for me for Gravity’s Rainbow and The Satanic Verses.
this is so impressive, not to mention you actually read Dubliners! You are a master at getting the most out of your reading experiences. With Solenoid I didn't think to figure out what his influences were but there are specific instances where I will, like I want to read Howards End before On Beauty since it is a modern retelling, but that is a bit obvious I suppose.
Thanks, Natalie. Very impressed with what you and your group have accomplished here. A book that really helped me with my latest reading of Dubliners is Craig Hansen Werner’s Dubliners: A Student’s Guide to the Stories. It helped me make a lot more sense of the book and how the different stories fit together. “Counterparts” is my favorite story title in the book (although far from my favorite story). The idea of various characters, themes, etc. being “counterparts” to others in the book rings true for me. Very musical although I don’t know much about music. The first story, “The Sisters,” strikes me as so impressive for a 22 year old to come up with this idea and then rewrite it a year or 2 later and improve it greatly. For me this story sets up a lot of what Joyce deals with the rest of his career. We just talked about “The Dead” a couple nights ago. What a pleasure to bring completely different experiences to that story than when I first read it. That story was written a couple of years after Joyce had sent the first 14 for publication so we were fortunate he was unsuccessful until years after writing “The Dead.” It seems a response in some ways to the first 14 stories he had sought to publish. I see Werner’s book is on Thrift Books for $5. I meant to mention in my first note that I’ll never attempt to read Finnegans Wake (although the last several pages are sublime) but I have enjoyed reading about it over the years, especially Joseph Campbell (Power of Myth, The Hero with a 1000 Faces) and Henry Morton’s Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. For those on Audible I see it’s on sale there for $3.50 for a couple more days. $17 for the book on Thrift Books, much more than I’ve been fortunate to pay at used book stores.
Finnegans Wake is a whole separate beast to tackle. I love the idea of using student guides for the more challenging reading experiences. I too rely heavily on thriftbooks.com!!
Here’s one book group’s experience with Finnegans Wake.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/12/california-venice-book-club-finngeans-wake-28-years
I love to always have a "big book" going, and I track my reading as part of my daily habits. I usually do a few pages each morning. I am currently 30% through with Atlas Shrugged (30 chapters, app. 1100 pages) and my goal is 1 chapter / week so it will take 30 weeks to read but at the end the sense of accomplishment is worth it.
Atlas Shrugged is massive but I found it oddly compelling. that is a great way to get through a big book!
The metal book darts have become my friend. I use them and then at some point reflect if that portion of the book is still impactful. Remove, reuse...
these book darts look awesome!!! I've never seen those before thank you
okay i have never heard of this book but immediately adding it to my TBR - tell us how it is!!!
i'm in the middle of war & peace (ish, i put it on pause a few weeks ago and need to get back to it) but i feel like the best advice i have for reading intimidating books is just...consistently committing. no matter what method you take - physically reading and annotating, getting the 35hr+ audiobook, or bringing your ereader everywhere for weeks, the most important thing is doing a little every day. it took me like eight weeks to read LOTR last year and it felt like such a slog because i was reading about 2% during my hour lunch breaks every day, but eventually all those little percentages build up! and i feel like there eventually hits a point after the halfway mark where you can really start to breeze through it if it's compelling enough - that's how it was when i read les mis and it was so thrilling to get to the end.
this is very good advice. When i think about it, building that consistency and momentum is really what is behind the section breakdown - like just get through this small page count per day that is all you must do. I read Anna Karenina like that - 2% each day for like a year. Cheers to you reading LOTR I am not sure I would have the fortitude for that.
OK. This post for me is almost pornographic because it hits so many of my reading pleasure buttons - Eastern Europe / Cold War narrative, thoughts on annotation, approaching challenging reading, etc.
For an accessible comp title, I totally recommend 'I must betray' you by Ruta Sepetys which is often labeled as a cross-over work (YA/literary). It's a historical thriller about communist Romania and its citizen spy network, I loved it and her work is meticulously researched.
Also - I share the struggle re: the aesthetic sticky tab/highlighter choices. It IS more visually pleasing to stay within a muted color scheme but if your goal is to then use the annotations for future writing and referencing, going standard tacky colors is the way to go. It's much easier to pick out the difference between orange and green than pale gray and medium gray, especially in the dark!!! (Especially as you slide into your 40s lol).
i almost used the word GIRTHY again and thought once a year was enough, but that would have really sent this into porno territory
communist Romania CITIZEN SPY NETWORK. We watched Red Sparrow a few weeks ago and I think about it at least once a day I cannot get it out of my head (might have something to do with the current US political climate). I am adding that to cart now.
standard tacky colors win, even with - i hate to say it - substack branding. all i want is dark muted colors but they do not come out so well.
She is a serious, committed reader! I can't wait for this buddy read - I'm going in so blind to the novel (which sounds like the complete opposite to you) and I kinda love this experiment we are accidentally conducting of having 2 diff approaches to it! I haven't read a thick book I've enjoyed since the Bee Sting over 6 months ago (!) and I want to love a chunky book again.
at the very least we will have a LOT to talk about!!
This is impressive. Looove me some juicy author deets.
I do have interest in reading Solenoid but looking forward to hearing what you and Martha think of it.
I LOVED reading Ulysses. It felt like attending a word party.
"Her antiquity in preceding and surviving successive tellurian generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant implacable resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible." 💥
I doubt I will ever hear someone refer to Ulysses as a word party by anyone but you!!! I once wrote a college paper comparing the Ulysses burial scene to the one in the movie Garden State, and looking back, I now recognize this as my creative origin story - high literature mixed with niche pop culture.
Your paper sounds incredible 😍 and I love that it was your creative origin story.
So glad you're keeping track of the lines you love! I am behind on mine and am kind of stressed. Maybe what I need to do is pick up those highlighters you love and a ruler like Haley's and I'll find some new energy!
Yes do it because it will make going back and scanning for quotes SO much easier. And thank you for the inspiration 😃
SOLD!
Ok but you know what? I have terrible depth perception and every time I get back home and have to park in my parking lot, I sing myself a little song that 'I can do hard things' to calm down so I don't freak out about hitting cars. (This has never happened.)
Check box number 182 why we must be related (I say it during unprotected left turns)
Bi-coastal sisters from other misters!!
OMG. I am definitely waiting to hear if all this was worth it. I wish I would have had those tabs when I was supposed to read War and Peace in college. Maybe I would not have faked it! I still regret just skimming that book but not enough to read it… yet.
Like me with all the Dickens novels I was assigned 🤣 I think it will be simply because this novel is so dense
I also listen to the audiobook while reading; it helps a lot with books that might seem like too much, especially as someone who is neurodivergent.
This is a great tip I never considered! An alternating experience might be really useful for me
another idea for supplies: you could replace the ruler with a sturdy and straight bookmark so you can get the crisp lines but have a prettier bookmark lol
Oooo yes I love this
Genuinely this is so helpful thank you! There are some books out there and on my shelf I’ve been putting off
So so glad to hear it!