🐴 
IRL 🎠 stallion
For being a longstanding community focused on a show with a book horse, I'm surprised there aren't any threads about reading, books, or literature. Now there are a couple.
Discuss whatever you're reading, be it poetry, fiction, non-fiction, [cybertext](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybertext), technical manuals, TV static, [ergodic literature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergodic_literature), [Funko^®^ POP!™s](https://old.reddit.com/r/bookscirclejerk/), or short stories.
Light meta-discussion about reading (such as discussion on the reliability of Amazon reviews, whether Goodreads is worthwhile, or your opinions on /r/bookscirclejerk vs. /r/TrueLit) is acceptable, too.
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If you want to discuss fanfiction you're reading, [there's a thread for that in the fanfiction forum](https://derpibooru.org/forums/writing/topics/what-are-you-reading-fimfiction-edition)
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For this year, I've decided to limit myself to one fictional story and one nonfiction narrative at a time. Poetry, short story fanfiction, and technical manuals aren't part of the count. The hope is that the singular focus will mean I actually start finishing books again instead of having two bookshelves full of half-finished books.
**Fiction slot**: _If on a winter's night a traveler_ by Italo Calvino
**Nonfiction**: _Time Travel_ by James Gleick
On deck after _Time Travel_ for the nonfiction slot are the remainder of _Farewell to the Horse_ by Raulff Ulrich and then _Ride the Right Horse_ by Yvonne Bartneau. I have not decided what my next fiction book will be after _Winter's night_. Maybe more Calvino, maybe my Borges short story collection, quite possibly JS&MN or the Illuminatus! Trilogy.
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Some recommendations pulled from turning around in my chair and looking at my bookshelf:
* Danielewski, Mark: _House of Leaves_. The typical introduction to ergodic literature. I recommend reading the full _Whalestoe Letters_ in addition, as it contains a few more letters than Appendix II-E.
* Gleick, James: _The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood_. James Geick is a writer who leaves you feeling smarter for merely having read his book. The four chapters of _Farewell to the Horse_ I've read so far have the same energy.
* Stoll, Cliff: _The Cuckoo's Egg_.
* Bök, Christian: _Eunioa_ and _Crystallography_. Eunoia [beautiful thinking] is the shortest word in the English language containing all five vowels (oiseau [bird] is its French counterpart). _Crystallography_ is a galaxy-brained melding of materials science and poetry.
* Danielewski, Mark: _The 50-Year Sword_. It's a Halloween ghost story in book form. In spite of its nearly 300-page length, its formatting tricks allow it to be easily read in under three hours.
* _The Big Book of Jerkcity_ as well as the Jerkcity-inspired poetry collections _Leo the Lion_ and _All those Prostitutes_. They're all highly NSFW and often in bad taste, but that's exactly why you would love them.
* (I can't see the author's name because the book is buried in storage) _Exploding the Phone_. A story of the phreaks who whistled their way into free long-distance calls and stumble upon classified military telephone systems. Steves Wozniak and Jobs make a guest appearance.
* Hall, Stephen: _The Raw Shark Texts_. Eric Sanderson wakes up with no sense of self or any concrete memories of what happened before he woke up. Letters from the first Eric Sanderson guide him on a journey to discover the truth behind his amnesia.
Discuss whatever you're reading, be it poetry, fiction, non-fiction, [cybertext](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybertext), technical manuals, TV static, [ergodic literature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergodic_literature), [Funko^®^ POP!™s](https://old.reddit.com/r/bookscirclejerk/), or short stories.
Light meta-discussion about reading (such as discussion on the reliability of Amazon reviews, whether Goodreads is worthwhile, or your opinions on /r/bookscirclejerk vs. /r/TrueLit) is acceptable, too.
------
If you want to discuss fanfiction you're reading, [there's a thread for that in the fanfiction forum](https://derpibooru.org/forums/writing/topics/what-are-you-reading-fimfiction-edition)
------
For this year, I've decided to limit myself to one fictional story and one nonfiction narrative at a time. Poetry, short story fanfiction, and technical manuals aren't part of the count. The hope is that the singular focus will mean I actually start finishing books again instead of having two bookshelves full of half-finished books.
**Fiction slot**: _If on a winter's night a traveler_ by Italo Calvino
**Nonfiction**: _Time Travel_ by James Gleick
On deck after _Time Travel_ for the nonfiction slot are the remainder of _Farewell to the Horse_ by Raulff Ulrich and then _Ride the Right Horse_ by Yvonne Bartneau. I have not decided what my next fiction book will be after _Winter's night_. Maybe more Calvino, maybe my Borges short story collection, quite possibly JS&MN or the Illuminatus! Trilogy.
------
Some recommendations pulled from turning around in my chair and looking at my bookshelf:
* Danielewski, Mark: _House of Leaves_. The typical introduction to ergodic literature. I recommend reading the full _Whalestoe Letters_ in addition, as it contains a few more letters than Appendix II-E.
* Gleick, James: _The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood_. James Geick is a writer who leaves you feeling smarter for merely having read his book. The four chapters of _Farewell to the Horse_ I've read so far have the same energy.
* Stoll, Cliff: _The Cuckoo's Egg_.
* Bök, Christian: _Eunioa_ and _Crystallography_. Eunoia [beautiful thinking] is the shortest word in the English language containing all five vowels (oiseau [bird] is its French counterpart). _Crystallography_ is a galaxy-brained melding of materials science and poetry.
* Danielewski, Mark: _The 50-Year Sword_. It's a Halloween ghost story in book form. In spite of its nearly 300-page length, its formatting tricks allow it to be easily read in under three hours.
* _The Big Book of Jerkcity_ as well as the Jerkcity-inspired poetry collections _Leo the Lion_ and _All those Prostitutes_. They're all highly NSFW and often in bad taste, but that's exactly why you would love them.
* (I can't see the author's name because the book is buried in storage) _Exploding the Phone_. A story of the phreaks who whistled their way into free long-distance calls and stumble upon classified military telephone systems. Steves Wozniak and Jobs make a guest appearance.
* Hall, Stephen: _The Raw Shark Texts_. Eric Sanderson wakes up with no sense of self or any concrete memories of what happened before he woke up. Letters from the first Eric Sanderson guide him on a journey to discover the truth behind his amnesia.