Suggest Linguistically Profound Books

[Deleted member 58005]

My vocabulary's taken a hit the past year. Every second statement I say either has the word fuck or shit in it and I'm literally incapable of writing sentences that don't look like they've been written by a sixteen year old. It doesn't help that the last time I read an actual novel was more than two years ago. I mostly just peruse manga and the occassional light novel.

Anybody have any books, non-Shakesperean-esque, that would help me somewhat regain/improve again? It can be a novel, web novel, or literally anything. No preferences.

(Also, just realized I posted this in the wrong forum. Save me, Tony.)

 

[J_Chemist]

The Oxford and Webster Dictionaries.

I do not know of any books that would fulfill your request.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

My vocabulary's taken a hit the past year. Every second statement I say either has the word fuck or shit in it and I'm literally incapable of writing sentences that don't look like they've been written by a sixteen year old. It doesn't help that the last time I read an actual novel was more than two years ago. I mostly just peruse manga and the occassional light novel.

Anybody have any books, non-Shakesperean-esque, that would help me somewhat regain/improve again? It can be a novel, web novel, or literally anything. No preferences.

(Also, just realized I posted this in the wrong forum. Save me, Tony.)

Know what? Aside from reading novels, webnovels and other related books, you can enrich your vocabulary just by reading educational articles, reading at news sites and/or some interesting article online. Just be ready with your dictionary if you're unfamiliar with the word.

It's a proven 'technique'; our school journalists are doing it, and their English vocab is good.

 

[LuoirM]

Lolita, Forrest Gump

 

[2wordsperminute]

The Metamorphosis (by Franz Kafka, not the hentai)

 

[Titanoktonon]

The Elements of Style by Strunk and White

 

[Cipiteca396]

Try Searching through the Stubbed tag on Royal Road. You don't even need to bother with the plot, you just want to see how it's written, so not having the full story is fine.

If it was good enough to sell, it should have high quality language, right? /s

You could also try playing a game where you and other participants try to rewrite each other's sentences 'better'. Like Telephone, but nothing like Telephone.

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

Metamorphosis the hentai.

I love going through at least once every 2 years:

The Empress Josephine A Historical Sketch of the Days of Napoleon, by L. Mulhbach. I have an 1867 copy.

The History of Tom Jones: A foundling, by Henry Fielding. Got myself an OG 1749. My first "real" book I got into back in seventh grade.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

"White Fang" by Jack London

 

[Agentt]

sixteen year old

Isn't that literally how old you are?

 

[Deleted member 58005]

Isn't that literally how old you are?

That's the problem

 

[ElijahRyne]

My vocabulary's taken a hit the past year. Every second statement I say either has the word fuck or shit in it and I'm literally incapable of writing sentences that don't look like they've been written by a sixteen year old. It doesn't help that the last time I read an actual novel was more than two years ago. I mostly just peruse manga and the occassional light novel.

Anybody have any books, non-Shakesperean-esque, that would help me somewhat regain/improve again? It can be a novel, web novel, or literally anything. No preferences.

(Also, just realized I posted this in the wrong forum. Save me, Tony.)

Les Miserables and Frankenstein

 

[Dieter]

Moby Dick by Herman Melville, for reasons you probably alr know why. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Charles Dickens's stories, which is a good rec imo cus he plays arnd w words and some of his novels are easier to read, like Christmas Carol, to hard, like A Tale of Two Cities. Aubrey & Maturin Series, if you wanna learn how to sound British during the Napoleonic Wars. Gore Vidal's Burr if you wanna sound like an American fighting for independence. Isak Dinesen's short stories. Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake, which is gothic. That's all I can think up rn.

Translated Novels sound more or less the same once you've read enough of them, and you can group their diction based on their parent language: German (Kafka, Faust's Werther), Russian (Tolstoy, Chekov, &c.), French (Les Misérables, Diderot's Jacques), Italian (Calvino).

Modernists sound quite diff., so you can go there too. I haven't read much of it though, but John Cheever is one of my fav. Love his voice. Post-modernists go off n do their own thing. Some of them try to imitate verisimilitude. But sometimes it feels like they're trying to make up a hard puzzle for you to solve, instead of trying to convey through to you understandably, so I won't recommend you go there (but do).

 

[Loewenmensch]

If you want something that's more of a stepping stone, consider browsing TV Tropes. It's mostly light and colloquial language, with an emphasis on clarity. There's relatively little swearing, and occasionally you'll run across surprisingly sophisticated vocabulary.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel DeFoe

 

[QuercusMalus]

The Count of Monte Cristo- Alexandre Dumas.
The Prince- Machiavelli.

 

[ChaoGarden]

The Metamorphosis (by Franz Kafka, not the hentai)

I'm disappointed by the fact that clarifying that its by Franz is necessary on this platform.

 

[ElijahRyne]

You could also try philosophy books