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I agree, it felt really flat to me. Not bad or awfully written, just meh. I saw what she was trying to do but it felt too heavy handed. I would love to hear what you would recommend for good cosmic horror novels!

Excellent review Marianne!

I am sold, thanks for the review! I found the part about the feeling of futility very meaningful, especially when I compare it to what is currently happening in the world and my feeling of helplessness. That's why I love the therapeutic effect of stories, because we get a closed arc and a completion that we seldom get in real life. It helps to stay sane-ish... I found your channel very recently and am really happy about that! Looking forward to all the future goodness coming our way ❤

I've only read the first, but it was amazing 🔥

Excellent review! It has definitely moved up my TBR.

I haven’t yet read Engine Summer (though I have it on my shelves). I did write a chapter of my MA thesis on Crowley’s most celebrated novel, Little, Big, which is the most gorgeously-written book I’ve ever read. It certainly touches on a couple of similar themes as what you found in ES, though from very different angles. The Translator, his 2002 novel, is also wonderful, though too rarely read.

Stop giving me other books to read, death will find me before i ever see the end of my TBR list on the horizon...

Glad you did a video on this, Marianne! The language is excellent. Some of my favorite prose tbh. I can't write elaborate descriptions like that, at least I don't try to lol. The soul of fantasy is shown through this book, and I don't think there are many fantasy series that equal it (perhaps the Books of Babel? Lol).

You explained and described everything so much better than I ever could! Fuschia still is sticking with me. I love her character and her arc so much.

Oh wow, I was so obsessed with this series as a kid! You've definitely inspired me to go dig them up for a reread; thank you so much!

What a great list wow!

The Gormenghast trilogy is on my radar for so loooong ! You motivates me to finally give it a try ☺️ your edition is so pretty btw 😮 🌸

I just came here to see how long it would take you to mention Babel 😂

You should be a producer with these ideas! Diana Wynne Jones plays with tropes so much, I think switching up animation and live action could work. And we should just have Robert Eggers direct everything.

I liked the excerpts you shared. I think there's a lot to learn as a writer from his style, insofar as postmodern books go. I may have to pick it up sometime; I'm still on that search for an author who shares a similar style to me, lol.

Excellent review! The storytelling theme does sound like it could lean meta. I’ve heard of John Crowley before, but I couldn’t tell you of a single book, so great job bringing attention to this one. Sounds like a worthwhile post-apocalyptic read!

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Never heard of any of these! Thanks so much for the unique recs!

This makes me so happy that you got to meet him and with the entire experience! 💜

Hi Marianne, that is so fun that you got to attend the event and see Josiah! I always feel awkward going up to talk to a speaker after a talk and I imagine I would feel very strange talking to a favorite author in person. I don't know what to say. It has been a long time since I've had those opportunities and know that I'm older I might feel different. In 2015 I read The Man Who Heard the Land by Diane Glancy and I sent her a fan letter. She was so nice to respond by sending me a letter and three of her books!

this is so cool! i’ve only gotten to meet one author before (brandon sanderson about 7 years ago for the Oathbringer release), and i was so nervous and excited i could barely breathe, so i totally relate to your story! and that’s awesome that you were able to give him your fan art; it’s beautiful and i’m sure he loved it. i wish there were more author events like this, i feel like they are so few and far between. i missed a chance to meet Jay Kristoff earlier this year that i’m still kicking myself for; since he’s from Australia who knows how long it’ll be til he’s back in the states, and he was only like an hour from me, and i only heard about it the NEXT DAY after it happened i’m still not over it. anyways, great video!

Wonderful video! 😄 I'm glad you got to meet him. I dunno if I really have a modern author I'd want to meet, lol. I'm a bit too antisocial to go to meet-ups like that; plus I'd probably be too negative for the occasion, haha. But I'm really glad you enjoyed it - and don't worry about your anxieties, I'm sure you did awesome!

I loved hearing you talk about these recommendations! I might have to check out Mockingbird and Miranda and Caliban. I love The Tempest and will point to another obscure retelling by Tad Williams called Caliban’s Hour. It’s a novella told from Caliban’s perspective. Great video!

Great recommendations, just what I need is more books for my TBR list...

Mockingbird has intrigued me! =) great premise for a video, when you said no one's heard of them i was like "game on" but yeah, i hadn't heard of any. X] also being framed here between all caps Caesar and Uzumaki is just cool.

They sound like great books! Mockingbird particularly interests me. I have approached my own humanity through the whims of my reading. I say "whims" because that boils down literature to the impression of emotions as well the intellect. I'm rather biased in my simplicity and I don't usually venture out into uncharted territories, at least not on principle. I keep my understanding simple and precise, and I sit inside the realm of faith. Perhaps even a blind faith, like the sort you'd see in Quasimodo or Tarzan from Disney (I'm still hung up on them, haha). And it's to my benefit, or, to the righteousness of my soul, that I can give myself to such things which may seem inconceivable to others. I always quote Emerson, but it is the conviction one has to the good that invites me the most: and if it is through literature that one comes to understand this, then so be it! 😅 I dunno where I was going with that, haha. But I enjoyed the video!

Lighting seems fine to me, you look great! These are all unknown to me, I may be picking up the Tempest rework, sounds intriguing! Cool vid :)

Thanks so much for sharing your classics shelves, Marianne. I enjoyed your video very much.

Tarzan is a great movie. The scenes between Tarzan and Kala make me think of me and my mom. That whole "look at me!" hits a little too close to home. 😅 And the scenes with Jane and Tarzan are sweet, and I agree, Jane is a bit of an oddball herself. Phil Collins is... Phil Collins, haha. My favorite Renaissance movie though is still Hunchback. But in ways Quasimodo and Tarzan are similar since neither really understand society. I'd say I'm more like Quasi; my personality is rather soft in spite of myself, lol. Anyways... Great review! It doesn't surprise me you did a review on Tarzan, lol.

I really enjoy book hauls because you can see lots of different titles in one video. I read Piranesi in 2022 and loved it.

Lots of great sounding books. I'm still waiting on the Books of Babel to come in. I'm thinking this next go around of book getting will have some post-modern philosophers like Derrida and Rorty. I've been holding off with post-modern thought because by what I've gathered it's something I won't much agree with. Maybe buy something by Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein. Usually I try to spend no more than 100$ per book buying episode, lol. And because what I'm looking for can be a bit specific, I have to order online (I haven't been to a bookstore, gosh, in at least a year). I saw on your Goodreads that you want to read Gormenghast. Yessss! You will really like it. It's my favorite fantasy book, the writing is the sort you don't read but once in your life, at least for me. 😁 Enjoyed the video very much!

I read Mark Lawrence's book Red Sister a few years ago. I enjoyed it but I haven't read anymore by him.

Fantastic to hear your thoughts on The Library Trilogy here, Marianne! Excellent job of describing the themes, and you nailed it in terms of the characters and their conflicts. I too am sitting and waiting for book three!

That thing we call "knowledge" and how it assumes mankind - or consumes him - is Biblical. Look at Adam and Eve and the fruit and the tree of knoweldge, of good and evil: "do not take of this tree". For surely we will die. This gets into the sorta assemblage of purity and the fragile soul in a placed paradox, what it is to be good but act evilly. These are incidents that follow, from society's structure to the way we live individually (whatever the mores, lol - because they too are a symptom of this knowledge). It is fundamentally a question of God and man, of mental powers. On a more childish note, there was that library episode from Avatar the Last Airbender where the giant owl didn't want the team to use their knowledge for destruction. Lol. I watched that when I was a kid, but I still remember it. Haha.

I want to read Zola.

Cool, i will check out "Im Turm"😊

A good reading list! Though it's definitely not my sort, lol. Which I got about 15 I'm going through. One I'm enjoying a lot is Thoureau's Walden. Whatever instances you experience with solitude, nature, beauty, you will find them in there. Not so much as mere descriptors or empty names we don't understand, but as true ideas, i.e. real honest-to-God edifices. Things that level me to some matter of truth... but of course that's neither here nor there. I'm just one of many perspectives - and despite what philosophers may tell you when they try to allocate truth, individual perspective doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of these things, whereas books may otherwise provide a window... Haha. Enjoyed the video.

On a more general level, yes, the cultural disposition of a community will impact those who are brought up in it. It's a sorta transaction between the status quo and one's character - what therefore meshes into each other. This is what Tocqueville talked about in his work: the "mores" of a people; that deportment which centralizes on the minds inside a community. Mores inhabiting the local government all the way down to the individual himself and so on. This is the sorta regulation we find in communities and how their people associate with each other. Whatever method and so on; it's all to the mores; all to the nicely trimmed or poorly trimmed hedges - that is how I find the minds in good communities and bad communities. Whatever social inclinations we find will serve to such a purpose of intellectual and spiritual activity.... Enjoyed the video!

I'm not jealous, you're jealous 😅 Amazing, this is going to look great when framed on the wall.

Just found your channel it is fantastic!!!

Very cool that you’re a fan of Flannery O’Connor, who was a brilliant storyteller. Knowing how you feel about The Books of Babel, I predict you’ll enjoy The Book That Wouldn’t Burn very much. And, of course, thank you for including The Way of Edan in your reading plans!

Great video, these books are just beautiful. Hopefully The Hexologists series is given the same treatment.

woah, that handwritten postcard 😮 and he has such beautifully handwriting. i have a few dedicated author shelves, mostly by virtue of the author having a lot of books (sanderson, stephen king) and not so much a conscious decision. with one exception, i have 3 shelves of different translations of the first harry potter book (that series meant so much to me as a kid that it’s the ultimate nostalgia for me) and a few years ago i started buying different translations of the first book, mostly for the same reason you stated for getting the German edition of senlin ascends, i love the different cover arts! luckily there’s a ton of different ones for harry potter. i currently have it in 32 different languages. my favorite covers are the traditional chinese 20th anniversary edition, swedish, romanian, thai, and bosnian (the bosnian one especially because it’s so ABSURD but i love it.) i love your Bancroft videos, because not enough people talk about his stuff. and i am with you, i will defend the fall of babel to my dying breath, i love that book, and i love the ending. and i don’t get the criticism, it really doesn’t feel like it could have ended any other way

Interesting how everyone's taste differs, I really like Pan's Labyrinth but even my Disney collection is a bit different. I'm big on Wes Anderson, Baz Luhrmann (more because of Cathrine Martin's production design) and musical's eg Rocky Horror. Probably a bit low brow compared to yours.

Though it wasn’t entirely a win for you, it’s great that you were willing to venture outside your comfort zone. The positives you discuss are some of the reasons I love Bloodsworn, and, like you, I’m a big fan of Norse mythology. All the best, Marianne!

Really good review, this books on my TBR pile but it keeps slipping further and further. Glad I skipped Grim Oaks Malice.

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If youre after something a little darker take a look at Straight Razor Cure by Daniel Polansky. Its part of a series but still a single tale per book.