^For more challenging theories, especially existential ones, definitely read his "The Possessed" or "Demons". I'm not sure what's the right translation in English. From the Russian title, I think Demons is more spot on. Another great book.

Reading Romeo and Juliet for school. Goddamn is it boring.

^^I never find any Shakespeare boring

Halfway through Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow

I know I'm late for this particular conversation but .. The Brothers Karamazov is not only my favorite Dostoyevsky but also one of my favorite-ever novels. Crime and Punishment is great as well but feels small-time in comparison. The Idiot was the most difficult of his writing for me to get into (but I haven't read all of his, fer instance, I've started and stopped reading Demons a few times).

Shakespeare? In general I say No, thanks.

Normally I don't like reading poetry at all but I'm reading knots by R.D. Laing right now. This is some strange but extremely sensible stuff..

http://i43.tower.com/images/mm101800...-cover-art.jpg

I've just started reading "Q Special Edition - Here's the True Story of Punk"..
I am keen on reading books about music..

Started reading Crime and Punishment for class. It's pretty decent so far.

http://www.pfspublishing.com/.a/6a01...65c7970b-320wi

Or rather I was reading it, quite enjoying it before I got hit with dissertation meetings and looming coursework deadlines and just reminded myself that I really should pick it up again sometime very soon.

Still on Dostoevsky: While I like his works, his characters seem to act very... extremely. But maybe "extremely" isn't quite the word. They have strange motivations and don't seem to act very normal. They're very dramatic, so to speak. And they do other strange things as well. Just focusing on The Brothers Karamazov, we have people relying way too much on Alyosha, freaking out over such small things as someone not kissing their hand (granted, Grushenka *was* pulling somewhat of a backstab move, but Katerina's reactions seemed to be very exaggerated, especially since she goes all hysterical (according to Khokhalov, anyway) after that), and Fyodor Karamazov acting like he does (and sure, that was intentional since he's supposed to be very unlikeable, but who really does that?). Eh. Those are just things that get on my nerves a bit. I like the book, but everyone just seems so irrational. Unless I'm missing something, of course.

(These names are from the Andrew MacAndrew translation by the way. I went cheap and bought that one instead of the Pevear/Volokhonsky one, which is supposedly better, but i managed just fine I think.)

I write it down the the period when the books were written. I imagine people acted rather differently 150 years ago...

OT: Ulysses

Oh yeah, I went there.