I read 8! it might not seem like a lot but i'm quite proud because 2 of them are over the 700 hundred pages witch is something that i didn't managed to do since i was about 14 probably, and the book i'm currently reading is also like 700 pages why do i do that to myself?.

The good thing is that i liked almost every book i read so far, for the second half of the year i would like to read more of my physical tbr and finish some of the books i have paused.

So far my favs have been the two bricks, Royal Assasin and Assasin's Quest by Robin hobb (and i'm loving East of eden witch im reading right now ) and my least favourite would be Lapvona (i'm sorry guys)

You're free to tell me about your half year wrap up if you want to! i would love to hear it from you!!

Hi, so I've been trying to get into actually analysing books and picking up on underlying themes, symbolism, and deeper meanings instead of just reading for the plot.

Sometimes the themes are pretty obvious, but a lot of the times I struggle to collect my thoughts and put them into words in a way that feels accurate to the book, or even insightful enough. Usually, I just read a book, enjoy the vibes, know what happened, and know what I loved about it. That kind of thing. But I want to actually understand a book on a deeper level, if that makes sense.

I tried annotating, but I genuinely had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, and I mostly ended up writing wattpad-level comments in the margins lmao.

Does anyone have any tips or methods or resources that helped them learn how to analyse books more deeply and like intentionally?

Fellow readers. I wanted to know if there’s a convenient method to collect information and quotes from a book. I annotate books but then I don’t have a well organised system where I can keep all the information or beautiful lines as I want. I used to write them down but it’s very time consuming and even though I still do that sometimes but I can’t seem to maintain this. So I was hoping y’all can give me tips and suggestions. I mostly read physical books and pdfs(I also read random articles from basically anywhere). Thankyou in advance

I've seen a lot of discussion recently online about how fast different people read and also the different ways people approach reading books and what effect that has on reading speed.

I saw a post which said some people only read dialogue in books and skipped descriptions which is fascinating to me so if that's you I would love to hear more about how you started doing that and if you enjoy books more now.

In a conversation with a friend they said that when they read, they hear each word in their head as if said aloud which is so different to how I read and I was wondering if maybe that affected reading speed.

I'd love to know how everyone processes words when reading and also if you consider yourself a fast or slow reader?

Question - which translation of the title suits this book best? Outsider or Stranger?

Persepolis author Marjane Satrapi died yesterday morning.

I was so happy to have analysed Persepolis in English literature class during high school. When I received the news, I immediately grabbed my copy and reread some passages - her writing and art were just as striking as I remembered. I'm also reading The Lion Women of Tehran at the same time, and it's fascinating to read how the same historical events are told from different perspectives.

I am so happy this book was picked as part of the summer readalong, and that so much discussion has been brought forth! This is a pretty divisive book, and I fully understand that some people might hate it, but as a French person who studied/read a lot on Camus and loves his work a lot, I figured I could maybe share some nuggets of clarification on his philosophy, to perhaps explain what his intention with The Stranger was, and give further readings to people who might be interested in learning more!

All throughout his life, Camus centered his literary work around his philosophy, which is the philosophy of the Absurd. It is divided in three cycles that each explore one step in the reflexion with several works: the Cycle of the Absurd, the Cycle of Revolt and the Cycle of Love. Each cycle is centered around one mythical figure (Sisyphus, Prometheus, and Nemesis) and aims to answer the questions of the search for meaning in existence and life.

Cycle I: The Absurd

This was the starting point of Camus' philosophy, and this is where The Stranger falls (as well as The Myth of Sisyphus, which you may have heard about too). It is the simplest expression of the absurdity of life; it starts with a realization that life is meaningless, and so is the world, and all our actions; we came from nothing, we will return to nothing, we will amount to nothing. Like Sisyphus and his boulder, we carry our burdens up a hill just for them to roll down every night, and every morning we will push them up again for no reason other than this is what we've always done. This realization comes from lassitude, and disgust, and a sort of existential crisis that's prevalent in every book. It also interrogates the questions of suicide (if life is meaningless and I will die anyway, what's stopping me from exerting the tiniest bit of free will and choosing to die?), and murder (does murder have meaning if life doesn't?). The Absurd, here, is the contradiction between man's stubborn quest for meaning and understanding, and the profound irrationality of a world devoid of answers.

If you think this is a bleak outlook on life, it is! And reading The Stranger will probably leave you a little depressed. Fear not, however! Camus proposes three escapes:

• physical suicide, which he rules out as a cowardly way of running away from the problem
• spiritual suicide, that is to say resorting to religion to artificially fill the void
• revolt, which is the subject of his second cycle.

Cycle II: The Revolt

This is the immediate response to the absurdity of life, and the only viable one according to Camus. Revolting, in his terms, means to accept wholeheartedly the meaninglessness of the world and the universe, and to make your own meaning through your actions. It does not mean necessarily a literal revolt, though his experience as a World War 2 Resistant probably influenced him greatly (and The Plague, this cycle's most important book, is a thinly-veiled allegory for Nazi occupation); to revolt is to accept that life is pointless and hopeless, to love that fact with all your might, and to accept also that you are the sole creator of your meaning. To live in an absurd world is to passionately seek out new experiences in order to face the world as often as possible; one must live with time and die with it. This philosophy may be linked to optimistic nihilism, though they are not exactly the same. Just like Prometheus accepted his mere mortal condition, insignificant against the gods and destined to die and be forgotten, yet revolted by stealing fire from them and freeing his people. He is, according to Camus, the "very first revolted man".

Cycle III: The Love

The Cycle of Love aimed to offer a conclusion to the philosophy of the absurd. The point was not only to accept the pointlessness of life, but to embrace it, with a special emphasis on the love of the mother and of one's childhood, the camaraderie that comes with friendship, and a measured temper to avoid excess of revolt and hatred, in a similar vein to epicureanism. Unfortunately, this cycle remained unfinished as Camus died brutally in 1960... in the most absurd circumstances of all: a car crash.

Of course, this is a very superficial exploration of Camus' life work and philosophy, and I can only encourage you to read more of his works if you're interested in knowing more!! Hope this sheds a little light on the (admittedly obscure at times) meaning of The Stranger!

i'm curious because i was explaining my dislike of 'you made a fool of death with your beauty' to a friend, and realized it's a book i can talk about extensively. i've seen arguments about how it works as a romance, how it shouldn't be considered one, why the exploration of grief is good, why the exploration of grief is bad... and i honestly love discussing all of those points about it and more, haha. it's gotten to the point that i question my dislike of it, but i think ultimately i disliked the characters and a lot of the execution/messaging, but i consider it to be a great discussion piece.