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The Hipster Lit Flow Chart
Here on Goodreads, we've got all kinds of readers: Romance, Sci Fi, Armchair Sailors, you name it. This month we decided to focus on an interesting subset of our gigantic and diverse community—The Hipsters. After analyzing the data, and admittedly, taking some editorial liberties, we've determined a few things. The life of the hipster is hard. Between worrying the band you love is about to go big and wondering whether it's finally time to wash your raw denim jeans, you don't have a lot of time to think about what to read next. To make matters worse, now that you've raced through his collected essays, Both Flesh and Not, you've run out of David Foster Wallace books. That's where Goodreads comes in. Behold our hipster lit flow chart! Answer a few simple questions, and we will hook you up with your next favorite book. Life should always be this easy.
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Syahira
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Nov 27, 2012 05:08AM
lol. Have you read Infinite Jest... No.
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I have the feeling as if this was a kind of a wannabe-ish semi-add for the book 'Infinite Jest'! *not impressed*D8
The Hipster Catcher in the Rye is WHO TOWN! It is listed on GOOD READS. http://www.amazon.com/Who-Town-Susan-...
Susan wrote: "The Hipster Catcher in the Rye is WHO TOWN! It is listed on GOOD READS. http://www.amazon.com/Who-Town-Susan-..."...says the author, who mentions GoodReads but links to Amazon.
And PS, I LOVE IJ, wouldn't consider myself a hipster (although I do live in Brooklyn & enjoy pour-over coffee), but take umbrage with it as a must-read to be a hipster, as that impression cheapens the commitment and reward IJ demands.
Suggest everyone read Leaving the Atocha Station, which I really did enjoy (poetic prose, lost in translation in Spain for a summer), and build up to tackling IJ. Or try DFW's other fiction to see if you're interested. Best of luck.
I think Good Reads ROCKS! So here's the Who Town link to GoodReads as Peter reminded me, makes sense to include. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16...For the record I also enjoy pour over coffee. I'm a fiction junkie, probably post hipster.
Yikes, I am way off the hipster map. I'm so "ancient hipster" the only thing I've read on this entire chart is Proust.
Proust is the GOLD standard so well done. Kim, Peter, readers... if you are in NYC, I am reading with a group of wonderful authors tomorrow at Eight Mile Creek, 240 Mulberry in Nolita. Group includes the incredible Nathaniel Kressen (hipster playwright) and Maggie Craig, indie queen of Bushwick.
hipster = people interested in good, experimental and modern literature?
Now make it clickable for me to add all of them to my reading list... please. :)
Infinite Jest2666
Remembrance of Things Past
Embassytown
The Gone-Away World
The Satanic Verses
Fun Home
Some Things That Meant the World to Me
Choke
The Ask
How Should a Person Be?
The Boy Detective Fails
Open City
The Orange Eats Creeps
Zone One
The Devil in Silver
Leaving the Atocha Station
"hipster = people interested in good, experimental and modern literature?"Correction:
hipster = people [pretending to be] interested in good, experimental and modern literature
Haven't read any of them, haven't heard of most of them, had never heard of the hipster title as applied to reading choices prior to seeing this flow chart. I certainly don't fit into this group.
Don't particularly like prescriptions for my reading, though this was amusing! Zone One may have been hipster, but it was forgettable; read Rushdie eons ago, ditto Proust. Open City is on my list, and I make take a look at "Atocha Station". But I'm still averse to being diagnosed as a "hipster", or any other type of reader. :-) Which I suppose makes me the antithesis of a hipster!!
With the sad omission of anything by McSweeney's (hipster prerequisite, surely?), this is totally fantastic.
If hipsters are reading this much, and my novel Who Town is about hipsters, then this is one HAPPY DAY! McSweeney's certainly should be in there. Is Eggers to old to be a hipster?
While I have known a lot of hipsters, I am clearly not a hipster: http://dualshow.com/life-lessons-from...
The only thing that would make this better is a clickable infographic.
Oh god. Such a wannabe. I just put holds on three of these at my library.
This is hilarious! Almost as funny as some of these comments by people asserting that they are not hipsters, which I choose to interpret as performance art.Since every list demands that people complain about what's not on the list, I will add: What, no Chris Ware?
No hipster lit reading list can consider itself complete without including at least one hipster-approved graphic novel. (Not COMICS; never COMICS.)
Thank goodness I've only read one of these books. Whew! I have not been infected by the hipster virus!
I have read about Infinite Jest on "Perks of being a Wallflower". Does that score me hipster points?
Sarah wrote: "Now make it clickable for me to add all of them to my reading list... please. :)"Ooh. I wish!
What if you got halfway through Infinite Jest and got too sad to continue?
I guess poetry readers are a bit too hip for this group. Like, how about Baudelaire instead of Bolano, O'Hara rather than Selby. Alice Notley rather than just about anything here. And Ron Silliman. Yes, give me Ron!
Weird Gravity’s Rainbow isn’t in this, but maybe that doesn’t count as ‘hipster.’
If Gravity's Rainbow isn't hipster, then I don't want to be a hipster. And in sci-fi, what? No Samuel Delany! Pour some more pour-over coffee and go home, hipless.
"Have you finished Infinite Jest?" should be the second question.
A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava
Umm... What does it mean when all those books are on your recommendation shelf? And it's actually the recommendation shelf of the book group you run? And Last Exit To Brooklyn is the current Group Read, because it beat out Zone One?
:O
Great and everything but what is pour over coffee, love Salon London
It's great illustration you made.
It's not just Pynchon that's missing. Where's Tom Robbins, for heaven's sake? And if hipster sprung from beatnik, there should also be Saint Jack (Kerouac)!
I think it's probably hipper to read The Pale King. More lofi, ya know?
Kevin wrote:"hipster = people interested in good, experimental and modern literature?"
Correction: hipster = people [pretending to be] interested in good, experimental and modern literature
****************
Correction of the correction: hipster = a word used by New Yorkers to describe non-New Yorkers who read the books they pretend to read
If you want to be a hipster, then read my 'Daunting' shelf:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/...
from the urban dictionary :hipster 97122 up, 24026 down
Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter. The greatest concentrations of hipsters can be found living in the Williamsburg, Wicker Park, and Mission District neighborhoods of major cosmopolitan centers such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco respectively. Although "hipsterism" is really a state of mind,it is also often intertwined with distinct fashion sensibilities. Hipsters reject the culturally-ignorant attitudes of mainstream consumers, and are often be seen wearing vintage and thrift store inspired fashions, tight-fitting jeans, old-school sneakers, and sometimes thick rimmed glasses. Both hipster men and women sport similar androgynous hair styles that include combinations of messy shag cuts and asymmetric side-swept bangs. Such styles are often associated with the work of creative stylists at urban salons, and are usually too "edgy" for the culturally-sheltered mainstream consumer. The "effortless cool" urban bohemian look of a hipster is exemplified in Urban Outfitters and American Apparel ads which cater towards the hipster demographic. Despite misconceptions based on their aesthetic tastes, hipsters tend to be well educated and often have liberal arts degrees, or degrees in maths and sciences, which also require certain creative analytical thinking abilities.
In my house, at least according to my 19 year old son, hipsters are older people who pretentiously want to appear something-whether or not they actually are is irrelevant it's the desperate wanting to be perceived as something that marks them as hipster.OK, not entirely true. They have to hold important books in their hands-my understanding is the opposite of the above, they may or may not read the book but the impressing of others is what it's all about. Or even better, the not-impressing of those too tragically unhip to even know they should be impressed.
My problem with hipsters that although they work hard to look unconventional and casual, their clothes are beyond my dreams. So naturally, I'm so hip I have to look down on them.
Btw, I've read most of the books on the "daunting" shelf & the rest are on my TBR.
And the flow chart is a riot, except I've read most of the books from every category which I guess just makes me chaos personified.
Or better, not in a category. (Too much to hope for?)
Nesrin wrote: "I have the feeling as if this was a kind of a wannabe-ish semi-add for the book 'Infinite Jest'! *not impressed*D8"
That is some mighty poor sentence construction. And why would someone make a "wannabe-ish semi-add" (what?) for a book that came out over 10 years ago?
Also, I might add the author, David Foster Wallace, is deceased. Two points for ridicule at the very least.
Most of the hipsters I know sniff, "You read _fiction_? How... quaint." And they somehow managed to read _Infinite Jest_ before it came out, even though that would have said unfortunate things about their pre-K teachers' collective abilities to screen the reading habits of their charges in many cases.Which is unfortunate, because the half of these I've read are wonderful books. They're missing out.
Val wrote: "from the urban dictionary :hipster 97122 up, 24026 down
Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive ..."
I love many things about hipster culture, but I find the contempt toward everything that does not conform to their idea of such things both saddening and of the type that indicates self-contempt.
Plus the young woman who thinks pandas should go extinct really creeps me out.
Check out this ultimate Hipster Video on YouTube"Hipster The Get Down"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzYHHl...
Kevin wrote: "I think it's probably hipper to read The Pale King. More lofi, ya know?"Kevin wrote: "I think it's probably hipper to read The Pale King. More lofi, ya know?"
AHHH! Finally, someone mentions The Pale King.I thought it was a mistake to read it before IJ. I started reading it yesterday and am savoring every bit of it. My only regret (again) is that I chose to read this before the quintessential Infinite Jest.. Or, have I done the right thing? Ahh, DFW was such a genius. His prose scintillates!Also, the lack of semicolons RULESSSS!
You need to come to Austin on the East side and you are in Hipster Haven. They are definitely a subculture and most feel like they are on a high horse looking down on others. This is not a stereotype but more an observation. I think it really comes down to your idea of what a hipster means. Karah
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