Recommendations Book Report

Or
-The book thief - Markus Zusak
- American Gods - Neil Gaiman
- Old Mans War - John Scalzi

 

See anon's post.

I'll check it out.

Problem there is I don't know where to start. This thread helps point me into a good direction.

Again, I'll check it out.

 

Can't do The Book Thief as that was a required book for Honors English 9. But I'll check out the other two along with the Shadow of the Wind. Thanks for your suggestions.

 

Artemis Fowl is fun and it has been adapted into comics if you want to cheat

But i dont see a why not for a NU kind of novel, you will surely get noticed by the unusual subject and this novels are very actual and demonstrative of the literary changes on the face of the internet, Konosuba is great for that because its a deconstruction so it has plenty of space to talk about the evolution of the genre, the first volume should count... but it was adapted as an anime so i guess it doesnt count

And as many novels are still running I guess making a report on a single volume could count as a book

Overlord is also pretty good at worldbuilding but it has also been animated, it would have been a great example of "literature by confronting two game systems"

How about Warlock of the Magus World? its filled with the MC avoiding or deconstructing the elements we often see in xianxia and the first volume is a great example of how not to be killed in that genre, which is a cool title for a report "How to survive the world of super powered murderhobos"

Again, if you include references to the stories that do it wrong for a cheap audience boost you can make a good report

FFF-Class Trashero is about a guy who is forces to live in a world filled with isekai cliches until he hates all of them, the first two or three arcs should be enough, this can be explored as the author making a self insert to murder the cliches he would kill himself if he could, like rage against the genre turned into a great representative of that genre, constructive destruction or something like that

 

Well technically is self existence philosophy, but most of the time it falls under religion for average people.

Just out of curiosity, as an atheist, do u believe in reincarnation?

 

I agree with you. Why can't I use an NU novel? Well something, something not a real novel, something, something [insert stupid argument about why X novel isn't up to par used by a bullsh*t education system]. I'll ask my teacher about Overlord and Dungeon Defense tomorrow. Maybe she'll answer differently than all of the other teachers.

 

Well while we are discussing this,

I cant even bring any of these NU novels to discuss in higher forum. Even if there is one novel you can discuss is probably Coiling Dragon, which brings into view a Chinese perspective on western religion and philosophy. It's interesting how coiling dragon views Christianity as a religion controlled by a God that controls fate and light.

That novel actually is a fictional representation of Buddhist theology imo.

The rest of these novels are too shallow Imo

 

In a spiritual sense like what Buddhists believe? Not really. Something more along my line of thinking would be the theory of quantum reincarnation (though this is still pretty far fetched in my opinion). Then again, I can't concretely say the Buddhist's theory on reincarnation is wrong (or anything for that matter). I guess I'll figure it out when I'm dead.

 

if they want you to report a more serious book tell them you are reporting a dictionary because it doesnt get more serious than that

 

Even with the deepest views, here in 'Murica, the only response I've been given is, "What's this? That thing you kids call a 'fan-fiction'?" Western authors get all the sh*t and eastern writers are regarded as "shallow" because of cultural differences.

 

Tried and failed. 6th grade book report. Teacher wouldn't believe it when I told her there was a deeper meaning behind the entry "Sexual Intercourse".

 

I read a lot of webnovels. Huge numbers. Many of them are fun, but usuallly they are extraordinarily lazily written, and the protagonists don't really do any soul-searching, internal development, or meaningfully struggle against adversity. (Especially harem stuff by male Japanese writers.)

This means they're fun, but there's not much to analyze (and write about).

What's worse is that the settings are fluffy and lazily written, and the internal development of the secondary characters is fluffy and lazily written. Almost all completely fall apart if you look at them through a very meek and unaggressive feminist lens.

This is less true of a great deal of decade and older original English-language sci-fi and fantasy, but still sometimes true.

So if you pick a pulp sci-fi fantasy webnovel or book like that and analyze it, you will have less material to work with, and your instructor won't have any signals that you worked hard.

Something can be a good yarn, a good story, and massively popular, without being good literature. So be careful about that.

On the other hand, some books are considered good literature but completely bore some readers. So be careful about that.


Try something from here:
https://thebooksacross.com/a-guide-to-the-most-prestigious-literary-awards/

 

This is pretty true as wish fulfillment happens to be something many eastern writers like to write about, but there are some pretty good eastern series as well. One such series is Dungeon Defense with some pretty interesting themes such as "pen is mightier than sword". I'd even gander to say that the side characters are more well developed than some western novels.

 

while there are many lazy ones they can be analyzed as metafiction instead of just fiction, their place in the time and societies that make them is way more useful for a "serious" work

 

Adding on to your post.
For example the "novel" Invisible Dragon. It has no deep meaning, but could be portrayed as a parody of bad fanfictions. Its entire merit is that it is very bad and could bee seen as a critique on the current status of fanfictions and a lot of eastern stories. My point is there is always a "deeper" meaning if you look hard enough and bullsh*t your way through.

Edit: I'm dumb. The word I was looking for was satire. Invisible Dragon is satire.

 

Well since it seems that there's not going to be anymore posts to this thread I'd like to thank everyone who recommended me a book. You've saved me a huge amount of time and headache. Seeya round the forums.

 

> while there are many lazy ones they can be analyzed as metafiction instead of just fiction, their place in the time and societies that make them is way more useful for a "serious" work

Sure, but we want the instructor to know the student did hard work by tackling a book with some substance to it.

 

Well, i think that the majority of you that seems to favor more recognition towards eastern web-fictions haven't realized that there is a huge difference between published works and eastern/western web-fictions. Yes i'm sure that Konosuba and Coiling Dragon have themes that are interesting (which they imo do not have), they fundamentally lack the cohesiveness and polish usually found in published and some self-published work.

They never go beyond the initial premise and doesn't fully dive into the themes they introduce early on.
The majority of eastern web fantasy novels are wish fulfillment, and so are the Japanese kind as well. They are almost always self contained in the light-novel and web-fiction community. They never go beyond the tropes and themes circulating there, and that is because they are fundamentally just wish fulfillment stories.

And, the genre and very existence of eastern webfictions are probably entirely unknown to your teachers. To them it probably sounds like some god awful fanfiction on the web, that's probably why they won't let you make a report on them.

 

I'd echo what @Anra7777 said. Since you're on a (mostly) eastern web-fiction site, I'm guessing your preferences are towards eastern fiction. Haruki Murakami is a decent start for a book report. He's a well-established author blending eastern and western concepts into his fictional universe. Interpreting his quirky scenarios is always an interesting challenge.

If you want to go the webnovel route, you can try "Three Days of Happiness" like @Gekkoureader said. It's got an interesting origin story from Japan's 2chan web forums, only has 15+ chapters (barely 200 pages?), eventually got illustrated, published and made into print. The theme of hope through the eyes of a struggling 20+ yr old seems like suitably "serious" material too.

I think most book reports demand that there's at least an ISBN. Hence the difficulty of using purely online webnovels. Link below if your teacher gripes about this.
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4048661698/
The only problem is that the English version is fan translated ... don't think they actually published an english version in print form.

And let's face it, the best part to help with your book report is reading all the reviewers comments for inspiration / *cough* plagiarism =)

 

> but there are some pretty good eastern series as well. One such series is Dungeon Defense

no, not really. The world literally presents the protagonist with pop-up menus in a way that's jarringly stupid:



[1. Annihilate the adventurers like this.]

[2. Be taken by the adventurers like this.]

The words that were lying in the corner of my view shined brightly.

The letters broke apart into little white particles and then formed different lines.

[A cruel and merciless decision!]

[Infamy increased slightly.]

“Not a cruel decision but a wise decision.”

I blurted out in rebuttal.