I'm tired of going into a book store and every book either being female gooner material or LGBT/woman/PoC liberal preaching. I simply do not relate to/care about these topics.

I've read a good backlog of classics, and the more contemporary authors I like are McCarthy, Houellebecq, DFW and Chuck Palahniuk to a lesser extent. Id like to be able to talk about current books with people and engage with contemporary literature but I prefer hard boiled characters, reactionary themes, and a level of pessimism that I'm just not finding in anything I pick up.

Any recommendations? I'd prefer books in English but I can also read french comfortably as long as the text isn't too idiomatic.

>>24512390 (OP)
Doktor Faustus, Thomas Mann
hes a genius musician who gets sick in the brain and talks to the devil. real devil, figment of imagination? devil says it doesnt matter
it's a male art producing character, zeitgeist diagnosing, pretty similar to what you like

>>24513114
i meant more current authors, but this seems good too :)

>>24512390 (OP)
stop reading dudebro slop and read real literature

>>24513164
the throwback special by chris bachelder

>>24512390 (OP)
sounds like you'd enjoy Celene, but the french i have heard is idiomatic

>>24512390 (OP)
The Heart of Darkness

>>24512390 (OP)
>hard boiled characters, reactionary themes, and a level of pessimism that I'm just not finding in anything I pick up
Check out Nelson Algren's "The Man With The Golden Arm" and John Ehle's "The Land Breakers." Hemingway of course might be up your alley as well. America used to write tons of masculine novels; a shame that stuff is now wildly out of style.

>>24513114
Mann is literally a PDF file apologist.
Also hard mode: no boomer shit.

>>24512390 (OP)
Me? I've found a home in the old pulp novels. Really enjoyable. not contemporary like you want, but worth reading if you are not already.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91gT68xeDMM

>>24513114
what is the difference between this book and faust?

>>24512390 (OP)
Someone should honestly make an app that supports autistic levels of tag refinement. The problem you discuss is a huge one for all straight men in all forms of media these days.

Granted, it used to be a problem for everyone who wasn't a straight man, but now that "everyone is invited <3!" review sites in general are just completely useless. IMDB, Steam, Amazon reviews, Goodreads, whatever, they have all been overrun by identity groups with completely different taste profiles, making the scores worthless.

The best solution at the moment is to Jailbreak a model like Claude Opus or Deepseek, for this you will need to consult the coomer sages on /g/.
If you don't JB and ask AI for recs, its just going to hit you with DEI slop (and I mean that in a justified sense, not just a chuddy oversensitive one. If you ask for 5 magical realism recommendations its going to recommend you 4 written by American white women vs actually good latino authors who are just as "diverse", for example.)

>>24512390 (OP)
Oh you poor straight-bros! I naturally gravitate to stories with lots of males. And since I do like you fellas I’ll throw out a couple authors for you :

Callan Wink
Peter Heller

I’m read some of their work and they’ve been published recently and to the best of my knowledge their male characters are white and like women. Enjoy!