Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky)

Awesome, of course. Reads like a soap opera, only it is a great work of literature. I don't really know what else to say about it, except that it is an amazing psychological drama about...well, crime and punishment. This book made me feel trapped, sick, and guilty. I think I am becoming Raskolnikov. I think the process began when I started reading the book. That's how effective it was...or rather that's how deranged I am to have so thoroughly identified with the main character. I'm serious about this.

Watt (Samuel Beckett)

I admit, I did not finish this book. It was simply too maddening. Not to say that I thought it was poorly written, or unworthy of reading...there just came a point when I realized I didn't know what was being talked about, and could not go on. Beckett's writing is amusingly tedious. Whole pages of repeated or obsessively pondered ideas may seem redundant until you realize that this pointlessness is sort of the point of the book. Not that I have authority to say that, not having read the whole book, but it seems to be a common theme in Beckett's work. An aside to those who know what I'm talking about: reading Watt is like having a conversation with Lawrence Vincent Valby. I laughed almost uncontrollably at times, and other times got really fucking frustrated.