Sexual Personae

What Hacker News says

1. Barrin92Dec 2021
   I had to laugh a little bit when I looked at the philosophy section and it seems like with few exceptions it's books from the 2000s including such gems as

   >Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny!

   I'm not overly conservative or classically leaning when it comes to education but I think people who really want to expand their minds would benefit from trying some of the classics first.

   Mill, On Liberty. Accessible and incredibly important book for people who live in liberal democracies and want to understand where a lot of their own ideas come from. Plato's Republic. Not as accessible, but very important. Girard has become popular again and has some very unique ideas, so people will probably get a lot out of it. Same for Chesterton.

   Kafka's Metamorphosis deserves to be in the Lit section. Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series is a must read for science fiction fans, the sci-fi section has some genuinely horrible recommendations in it. Also given that it's supposed to be a mind-expanding list, throw in Blindsight by Peter Watts. The fantasy section needs Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast. (and throw Harry Potter out)

   Sexual Personae by Paglia deserves to be named in the Gender/sexuality section.

   And an off-beat recommendation. Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud is a truly smart book on comics, in the form of a graphic novel.

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2. yesenadamMar 2019
   For one thing, I haven't read almost all of them! I haven't read so much 20th-21st C stuff as the all-time classics, ancient and modern. I did start reading Sexual Personae a couple of years ago and really loved it, must get back to that. I discovered Joan Didion last year, but didn't read much before being distracted, must get back to her. Thanks for the reminders.

   Could you (or jonjacky or someone else) mention some particular essays, from those writers or others, you would rate most highly? Thanks. Then you might help get people reading them. (The ones in my list I consider, not just good, but incredibly good, endlessly re-readable.)

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3. yyyymmddhhmmssFeb 2019
   Conveniently, I can just tack onto this list two more books and there we will have the 4 most important books on my life so far.

   Sexual Personae By Camille Paglia

   Capital: Volume I By Karl Marx

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4. swamy_gFeb 2019
   Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae.

   The first chapter especially blew my socks off. I never have been able to see nature and man's relation to it in the same way after that.

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5. identity_zeroFeb 2019
   Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia

   I'm only a quarter of the way through but it's already giving me vast amounts of insight into the roots of western civilization. It's also equipping me with mental models to analyze modernity and determine where we are in the history of civilization. It looks like we're in the decadent period.

   My Struggle series by Karl Ove Knasgaard

   An auto-biographical novel that's over 3600 pages for the entire series. It's really just the most accurate literary experience of modern man. I'm finding it quite useful to analyze my own conscious experience through life.

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6. gPphXJan 2016
   by author:

   Beano (comic, ’50s)

   Private Eye (satirical magazine, ’60s – ’80s)

   Raw (comic, ’80s)

   Viz (comic, early ’80s)

   Paris Review, The - Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews edited by Malcolm Cowley

   Ackroyd, Peter - Hawksmoor

   Alighieri, Dante - Inferno

   Amis, Martin - Money

   Baldwin, James - Fire Next Time, The

   Barnes, Julian - Flaubert’s Parrot

   Bellow, Saul - Herzog

   Braine, John - Room At The Top

   Broyard, Anatole - Kafka Was The Rage

   Bulgakov, Mikhail - Master And Margarita, The

   Bulwer-Lytton, Edward - Zanoni

   Burgess, Anthony - A Clockwork Orange

   Burgess, Anthony - Earthly Powers

   Cage, John - Silence: Lectures And Writing

   Camus, Albert - Stranger, The

   Capote, Truman - In Cold Blood

   Carter, Angela - Nights At The Circus

   Chabon, Michael - Wonder Boys

   Chatwin, Bruce - Songlines, The

   Cohn, Nik - Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock

   Cork, Richard - David Bomberg

   Crane, Hart - Bridge, The

   Danto, Arthur C. - Beyond The Brillo Box

   DeLillo, Don - White Noise

   Diaz, Junot - Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, The

   Döblin, Alfred - Berlin Alexanderplatz

   Dos Passos, John - 42nd Parallel, The

   Edwards, Frank - Strange People

   Elliot, T.S. - Waste Land, The

   Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying

   Figes, Orlando - A People’s Tragedy

   Fitzgerald, F. Scott - Great Gatsby, The

   Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary

   Friedrich, Otto - Before The Deluge

   Gillete, Charlie - Sound Of The City: The Rise Of Rock And Roll, The

   Ginzburg, Eugenia - Journey Into The Whirlwind

   Guralnick, Peter - Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm And Blues And The Southern Dream Of Freedom

   Hall, James A. - Halls Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art

   Harding, Douglass - On Having No Head

   Hirshey, Gerri - Nowhere To Run The Story Of Soul Music

   Hitchens, Christopher - Trial Of Henry Kissinger, The

   Homer - Iliad

   Isherwood, Christopher - Mr. Norris Changes Trains

   Jacoby, Susan - Age Of American Unreason, The

   Jaynes, Julian - Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind, The

   Kerouac, Jack - On The Road

   Kidd, David - All The Emperor’s Horses

   Koestler, Arthur - Darkness At Noon

   Laing, R. D. - Divided Self, The

   Di Lampedusa, Giusseppe - Leopard, The

   Larson, Nella - Passing

   Lautréamont, Comte de - Maldodor

   Lawrence, D.H. - Lady Chatterly’s Lover

   Lebowitz, Fran - Metropolitan Life

   Lévi, Eliphas - Transcendental Magic, Its Doctine and Ritual

   Lewis, Wyndham - Blast

   Marcus, Greil - Mystery Train

   McEwan, Ian - In Between The Sheets

   Milligan, Spike - Puckoon

   Mishima, Yukio - Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, The

   Mitford, Jessica - American Way Of Death, The

   Nabokov, Vladimir - Lolita

   Norman, Howard - Bird Artist, The

   Norris, Frank - McTeague

   O’Hara, Frank - Selected Poems

   Orwell, George - 1984

   Orwell, George - Inside The Whale And Other Essays

   Packard, Vance - Hidden Persuaders, The

   Pagels, Elaine - Gnostic Gospels, The

   Paglia, Camille - Sexual Personae: Art And Decadence From Nefertiti To Emily Dickinson

   Petry, Ann - Street, The

   di Pirajno, Alberto Denti - A Grave For A Dolphin

   Priestley, J.B. - English Journey

   Rechy, John - City Of Night

   Sadecky, Peter - Octobriana And The Russian Underground

   Saunders, Ed - Tales Of Beatnik Glory

   Savage, Jon - Teenage

   Selby, Hubert Jr. - Last Exit To Brooklyn

   Spark, Muriel - Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, The

   Steiner, George - In Bluebeard’s Castle

   Stoppard, Tom - Coast Of Utopia, The

   Sylvester, David - Interviews With Francis Bacon

   Thomson, Rupert - Insult, The

   Thurman, Wallace - Infants Of The Spring

   Toole, John Kennedy - A Confederacy Of Dunces

   Waterhouse, Keith - Billy Liar

   Waters, Sarah - Fingersmith

   Waugh, Evelyn - Vile Bodies

   Weschler, Lawrence - Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonders

   West, Nathanael - Day Of The Locust, The

   White, Charles - Life And Times Of Little Richard, The

   Wilson, Colin - Outsider, The

   Wolf, Christa - Quest For Christa T, The

   Wright, Richard - Black Boy

   Yokoo, Tadanori - Tadanori Yokoo

   Zinn, Howard - A People’s History Of The United States

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