Ten's a lot? >.> I've already read more than 50 books this year, though, tbf. Admittedly, some of those were from the library and some are from the shounen jump app... Hold on, my book tracker app does purchases. Last year I bought about 110 books but I read 164 (again with some library and some manga volumes from Shounen Jump). So I'm slowly chipping away at the 150 or so bought but not read books I collected over the near decade I was reading less than 10 books a year
@@khalilurtrahman I spent time reading them and money purchasing them so I don't know why I wouldn't count them. Yeah, they're a quicker read but each of the Stormlight Archive and Wheel of Time books I read last year all each only count as one book, too. I'm also counting digital and audiobooks. Edit: deleted the second paragraph because I let assumed bad intentions color the tone. Number of books read and bought are on topic. When I'm properly bragging about how much I've read (which I'm merely doing _improperly_ here) I list cumulative days spent reading since that's more accurate for how much was read. But that's not what I was trying to do in the previous comment so each manga volume counts as a single book
My psychology professor mentioned that the words "idiot" "retard" and the rest were actually the technical terms back in the day. They just kept getting adopted by the regular populace and used in derogatory ways... so they kept changing the term. So the author might not have meant it in a negative way
I will never understand why people dis 'older' books for reflecting the 'norms' (and abnormalities) of their time. This, to me, is a great plus of older literature, even when I strongly disagree with those earlier perspectives. Yes, there are isolated incidences when a book documents viewpoints so abhorrent to me that I find it not worth the effort to finish. But that's as apt to happen with 'new' titles as 'old'.
Yes! Plus it's not really good if modern authors create books set in "older" times and yet still have the modern rules apply. This actually dillutes the problems and issues of an era. Applying modern standards can lead to new and interesting interpretations, but we can't bash the books over it
My favorite meme was the second hand embarrassment one. When I sense an embarrassing moment coming I'll literally snap the book shut and take 5 mins to prepare myself! Yeah, it's bad.
The classics argument is important imo. We need to find the classics that are utterly reprehensible and shunt them to the nether. But it's important to keep unacceptable things, coz it's a reminder. Case in point huckleberry Finn. Theres this argument that it uses the N-word a lot, and comes off as overtly racist. But is it? Considering its time it's surprisingly forward. This was a only a decade after emancipation. And it's a story about a boy who was taught that helping a black person would send you to hell, learning to befriend and help said black person. So by 1880s standards this was borderline blasphemous
As a black person that read Huckleberry Finn; I agree with this take. I think it's important to look at racism in context. At the time, the N-word was "just" a word and that's the way the culture had evolved. I think someone in that time period using the word in a certain way is way more defensible than, say, someone using that word today. We can only understand what is wrong if we're taught it's wrong after all. So someone who's been raised in a culture where the word is borderline benign vs someone raised today who damn well knows the issues with the word should be regarded very differently for using the word. Mark Twain was really rather forward thinking for his time
This reminds me on a case we have here in Germany , not quite the same, because Huckleberry Finn was much earlier, but... The swedish author Astrid Lindgren is very popular here and in "Pippi Langstrumpf" (not sure about the english translation) there was this one character, Pippi's father, that was called the N-word king. They changed the translation to "Südseekönig", so something like South Seas King. And I 100 percent agree that the original is very problematic, but I'm kinda on the fence about the translation change. Like, on the one hand it doesn't change anything story wise and it's less problematic and can be easier used to read to children without having to worry tooo much. But on the other hand I'm like shouldn't we leave the classics as they are, reflecting the time and speech of the time they were written in, and just adress it if there's something problematic in them, discuss and talk about it instead of simply erasing it?
I think the bigger issue with Huck Finn is that it's a White Savior narrative. High school lit classes can be heavy in books by White authors, and (for me at least as a White person) this really limited my understanding of racism. I bought the idea that White people could over come racism just by transcending the norms of their time, like Huck does. It wasn't until college when I started reading and watching content by BIPOC folks that I got a deeper understanding of the social, psychological, and economic underpinnings of racism. I really hope more BIPOC authors are included in literature classes. So that more children can see people like themselves represented fairly, AND that everyone see people different from them represented fairly.
I actually made a deal with myself: that I wasn't allowed to buy new books til I read all the unread ones on my shelves. I understand this isn't for everyone but for me it's doing wonders for my motivation to read overall 😂 because I really, really, really wanna buy new books ngl
@@zhanminwang2921 yeah concentrating on a few books at a time is really helpful! I used to read like five books at once but for me that just made it harder to finish any of them.
I did something similar, but since I don't have will strong enough to completely stop buying (and since History of Middle-earth is on that unread pile and I know it'll take me years to finish it since it's more scholarly to me), I'm letting myself buy 1 book for every 3 I've read. It still accomplishes something, as I've already made bigger dent in my pre-2022 unread pile than I did last year with pre-2021, I'm less impulsive in what I'm buying, and I get to reward myself.
I usually go back and read maps halfway through the book. When I first get there all these names are meaningless and I have no idea why I'm supposed to care about one location or the other. Halfway through I can go back and think "okay now I recognize this, oh that's where that was, and there's a suspicious patch over here with lots of detail that I haven't read about yet"
Glad to know the adoption seems to have gone well and things are going great with your family and daughter. I think it’s really amazing and admirable you did that. Best of luck with everything as it goes on and keep doing all you do.
5:00 - When it comes to books being "a product of their times"...Yes, you do kind of have to acknowledge that. But I also like to give props to authors who were BETTER than their times in at least one aspect. For example, the way that Ursula Le Guin in the 1970s-90s created multiple alternate human societies that treat same-gender relationships as totally normal. Or the way Shakespeare, while not entirely avoiding the prejudices of his times, could still write female and black and Jewish characters who feel like PEOPLE, and who often speak of the frustrations that the rules that are imposed on them or the discrimination they are subjected to make them feel.
Re: maps I usually dont study it too much when I first start the book since I dont have too much context. But I definitely love to flip back to it constantly throughout the story to track where we are and where we've been. This was big for me as a child since I read a lot of lord of the rings and redwall, both having fantastic maps.
Same! I find it very hard to concentrate on a map when I have zero context to the countries, cities, etc. But I definitely flip back while I'm reading to see where characters are traveling and at the end of a book or series I'll go back and study the maps.
"I tried real hard to be beautiful, but actually I'm an amateur poet and no-one's having a good time here." 🤣🤣🤣 Hilarious, accurate and acutely painful simultaneously.
All I'm waiting for is the publishing company that has the guts to blurb: Heroic space pirates who ride dinosaurs to defeat the evil psychic volcano dolphins. And I will throw my money at the store clerk.
If you’re into fantasy stories with maps, read Ascendence of a Bookworm. It’s got a detailed fantasy map, but of one part of one city. Think about what that implies.
dangit, i was just gonna say that. i just finished up to volume 18, i believe, or part 4 vol 5. i have to say, the earlier books are harder to finish and have a few of my least favorite anime-isms, but the later books are all very fun!
@@helenFX it's got tons of stuff that should be huge no's, like an almost day by day schedule of the character where a single line of narration could suffice, and I could nitpick the worldbuilding for days but I just it's just so comfy!
This, along with Grimgar of Fantasy and Ashes (and Mushoku Tensei to a much lesser extent), is one of the Top isekai stories of this modern take on the genre. Great worldbuilding, strong character work and there the character-focused plot is surprisingly well paced. I suspect that Merphy will love it if she ever decides to watch or read the LN.
Omg I LOVE those light novels! That was premium worldbulding! Sure there were huge nos in between the writing just to make sure the story doesn't forget the MC's overarching plot but the pay off is just so satisfying!
Honestly, I don't think I've ever looked at a fantasy map. I don't even have any images in my head when I read, much less a map of where everyone's hanging out.
I found this absolutely bizarre! Very interesting. I can't even be in a pitch black room without seeing things that are actually not there. The gpu portion of my brain works overtime lol
And then there's me, who is physically unable to read a book without a Map. There's no Map in your book? Fine, I'll spent the next half an hour to find the most beautiful and most detailed Map of this World I can find and use that instead. I could draw you maps of Middle-earth, Roshar and Randland with surprising accuracy half asleep in the middle of the night.
Honestly I relate to this. I had a hard time imagining what was actually happening in any given story so I just interpreted the events, characters, and environments the way I wanted to even if it didn't make sense until I see an actual picture of these things then I could piece together the setting, what everything looked like, and what the characters were actually doing. It really is surreal to see theatrical interpretations based on books I've read cuz I'm always like "wow did that part even happen" or "I remember this part happening but this part I'm seeing is alot different then how I remember it". Sorry I edited this old comment because my initial post wasn't very cohesive and it only vaguely got across what I was trying to say. Also the comments below me were saying they suffer from aphasia and not only did I not know that was a thing I don't believe I have it. Sorry if i gave anyone that impression I just think I had poor reading comprehension and a bad imagination.
@@TellingNotYou I must have that too, or at least a little bit. I don’t really picture anything while I’m reading, I just figured I have a bad imagination! 😊
“Idiot” was actually a medical term at one point, not an insult. It goes to show how language evolves, not really even out of necessity but political correctness. So many terms change, replaced by euphemisms. And we forever run away from words. Today’s inoffensive language is tomorrow’s hate speech.
Some words were always meant to be hateful, but yeah, there are plenty of words that were once neutral that have become hateful. The problem is the people who are continuously twisting inoffensive language into offensive language, obviously. Blame *them*, not the people who are "running away" from language because they're being attacked by it. Words are being turned into weapons, and "political correctness" is the responsible parental figure pulling that weapon out of a child bully's hand. So yes, it's necessary. But it's also not the only option. Sometimes (to continue the metaphor) the bully's target manages to pull the weapon away from the bully, and we get reclaimed words, like "queer". I'm a big fan of reclaimed words. But sometimes there's no salvaging a word and the only place for it is the trash when it's only purpose is to make people feel like trash.
@@Newfiecat I get your point, but I respectfully disagree. Which is fine. One day we’ll be all out of words to say, and everyone will be a bigot for not keeping up, not knowing when the official death of a term comes. Especially the old, who don’t read social conscious papers, or obsess over social media and hang around the young hip do gooders. Don’t worry, I’m not going to fight this inevitability, though many changes will make me groan and eye roll. But I’m not going to follow every change. Some ideas are just dumb, and are clearly instituted to make people feel better, while not having to do any real work.
ATLA - thank you and curse you for giving us tales of Ba Sing Se. When the dinosaur one came up, I thought we were getting a nod at 'P is for Pterodactyl: The worst alphabet book"
There's a hilarious children's book called 'P is for Pterodactyl' and the whole premise of it is that it's a really bad alphabet primer! My kids loved it!
15:22 I’ve seen this meme a couple of times before, and as a reader who recently discovered I have aphantasia(the inability or limited ability to picture things in your head) I feel like I’m missing out on so much 😕
Happy to see SpyxFamily on the calendar. It's different from most other things you cover on the channel, in that its more of an action/comedy sitcom than an overarching story. The humor really works for me though and the characters are great, so I hope you like it!
Me, while watching this video: I don’t have a book buying problem. I’m too cheap for that. Also me, not even 6 hours later: *buys 27 books at the library book sale because “it was only 8 dollars!”*
I saw the Uncle Iroh meme and immediately thought of you :D Also, the elevator story is sooo cute. So happy for you and happy the adoption went well :)
17:20 I feel targeted now. I'm more of a character person than a world person, so I skip the map the first time I see it, but I love to study them when the world itself becomes a character in my head. If the author didn't manage that, it's not worth the time to study a world map of a lifeless world.
Sole exception for the "Books without a synopsis" : Brandon Sanderson's books ! I bought 4 of them without a title nor a synopsis and I KNOW I will LOVE them.
I'm so happy to see that Avatar videos are coming back, one of my favorite shows, I'm a little confused about worst books of the year because is not over yet but is your channel so is fine.
I got really excited when you mentioned Dwaf Metal because I definitely know that song and it's a banger. "I am a dwaf and i'm digging a hole" The lyrics are golden and the song is so catchy!! hahahah
I absolutely adore the fact that you and your daughter bonded over something like that!!!!! That is so cuuutee-I wish that I'd had parents who would've just had fun and did things like that with me as a kid, instead of just looking at me like I was embarrassing and should stop. ^-^ 💜💜
Why don't people just tailor their viewing to their preferences instead of trying to get people to tailor their content? They're just making things hard for themselves and irritating for others.
Disliking maps is blasphemy! Honestly that's how I got interested in stories to begin with, as a child I looked at maps and wondered what secrets they held. Fantasy geography is to this day one of my favourite things.
"Tsundoku" (Japanese: 積ん読) is acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them.[1][2][3][4] It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf.
7:37 This reminds me of Lucien's Library from Neil Gaiman's Sandman. A library full of books that were never published and stories that were never told.
I LOVE maps in books. love knowing the layout the land. Also I haven't read any manga yet, but your enthusiasm and the enthusiasm of other book tubers has put it on my TBR. Loved the book mems. so relatable.
I love maps so much that it frustrates me to no end when a book in a fictional country doesn't have a map! Then I gotta draw my own darned map for it in order to keep all the towns and landmarks straight!
Read Oliver Twist and I wanted a map. Found a book with a blow-up map of London, copied it off, and put the different pages together. That was a really intensive study! Still have the map, though!!!
my only two experienced with fantasy maps on books are in "13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear" (a kids book), and Mysterious Island. I most definitily constantly flipped the books to the maps to follow our heroes and see where they are. In fact, I'm actually lucky that the edition of Mysterious Island that I read even had a map of the island, since, as I learned, a lot of them don't do that...
I’m excited for more Avatar videos! I just rewatched it with my fiancée so my obsession has been reignited. I really liked the Kyoshi novels and I preordered the upcoming Yangchen novel.
the pushing door at 22:30 is super cute i just imagine that 1 scene from chunibyo maybe some1 can make a meme about it or show it to her, great video as always
1) I've been creating a fantasy world and am glad people appreciate maps 2) I distinctly remember my English teachers lecturing us about "said". They would take off points if you used "said" in a writing assignment.
I don't mind characters reflecting their times, being offensive is just an interesting caparison point, but I do find that certain context-dependent writing styles (like the Victorian predisposition for being desert-dry and having main characters that are there to illustrate a perfect societal ideal, or the pre-modern propesity for omniscient narrators) to be teeth grinding at times.
I'm unsure if the Goblin approves of your book piles on the floor... Thank the Thirteenth he already reviewed... aaah roasted your beautiful background shelf 🥰
My goodness some of these memes really hit my book lover feels- 📚💕 I can definetely relate to the Lemony Snicket meme. N I wanted the library over the prince- re Beauty and the beast.
This is the first video of yours that has ever been recommended to me, and I loved it! Subscribed after hearing the wholesome and wonderful story about how you bonded with your daughter! ❤️ (My boyfriend was adopted at 3 days old, and his family is so genuinely amazing and I am so thankful they adopted him from Arizona and brought him to Tennessee where we could meet each other!) Blessings to you and your daughter! ❤️
For me after finishing a book especially if it’s a series and if I’ve enjoyed it so much then I need some time to just process the book and be with my thoughts with it for a whine b4 going to a different book. If I don’t have other stuff going on in life it’s usually abt a week or shorter
I wish every book came with a map. My imagination is pretty good but I still need the map, I’d even like seeing something like Google maps routes for the main character lol
ohh yeah I love maps, but I usually only stare at it for longer after being already partway into the story, looking for all the places we've already been and where the characters are currently traveling towards!
good thing you said "what was your favorite minus the last one", because obviously. then, the one about reading books and buying books and re arranging books. yesterday i got back from my mom's and i got to rearrange one of her bookshelves. it was awesome. lol
That last meme really got me good 😂 That story about your daughter was adorable. 😍 I hope you try light novels too someday. Ascendance of a Bookworm is so addictive.
I must admit the times I actually checked a map in a book can probably be counted on a hand, or maybe two hands. It just doesn't add much for me usually because I don't really remember it when reading anyway.
I don’t get how some people will complain so hard when a video they clicked on isn’t tailored to their tastes like, I don’t like manga either, but you know what I do when someone I follow posts about manga? I ignore it, because I’m a normal person who understands that not everything is tailored to me.
The one about vague book blurbs really got me 🤣 because I just went through it with Project Hail Mary 🤔 Which (avoiding spoilers) is actually kind of apt for this book...
23:03 I was reading along without skipping ahead to the end of the post and was taking a drink - like the last dregs of it, head tipped fully back - when I choked laughing at that ending xD That anecdote with your daughter and the elevator doors is so so sweet 🥺💕
As a history student I'm so used to seeing old stuff through the lenses of that specific time, that I hardly ever get that modern day judgment perspective. (and as a former psychology student I know, that idiocy was a medical term in the old times). My not history related reading friends don't talk about that with me anymore 😢🤣
I can relate to the thing about second-hand embarrassment from characters. I am finding that a lot in the Ranger's Apprentice series and I am loving it. It is the first series I've picked up in a while. My brain is constantly in a state of 'Will, don't do that.' or 'Halt, stop that. You can't just keep knocking lords into their own moats.' (While being 'DO IT'). So glad your adoption process has gone well.
I have come to accept that I am a cliché lover EXCEPT for one cliché, which I truly truly hate: Her: Oh look at the beautiful view(Insert something beautiful) Him: Oh yes, it is truly beautiful. Author: He said, but he wasn't looking at the view, he was looking at heeeeeeer.(Soft whisper) I have read and seen this in everything, I hate it, I always fake gag when I find this jewel of a scene. And it's quite often.
Coming from makeup RUclips where over purchasing is also common - you could try a book no buy for a month to give you time to get through your unread pile. The joy of reading is separate from the joy of picking out a new book.
I laughed when you considered buying 5-10 books a month as not being a lot, but then I remembered that was the very reason I gave myself a temporary book-buying ban xD It is a sad life, really, without buying books.
As to the older books reminds me of a joke my husband blurred out off the top of his head when he heard the term Latinx. " What are they calling me now, oh no I'll have to annotate all my books". I nearly passed out laughing.
Couldn’t agree more. Who in there right mind flips by a map in a story without fimiurizing themselves with it, the author wanted me to know this information so I probably should.
Merphy: I don't excessively buy books
Also Merphy: I only buy 5 to 10 books a month
Me
Also Murphy: *uploads 5-10 book reviews every month*
Ten's a lot? >.>
I've already read more than 50 books this year, though, tbf. Admittedly, some of those were from the library and some are from the shounen jump app... Hold on, my book tracker app does purchases. Last year I bought about 110 books but I read 164 (again with some library and some manga volumes from Shounen Jump). So I'm slowly chipping away at the 150 or so bought but not read books I collected over the near decade I was reading less than 10 books a year
@@chestersnap I didn't know we were supposed to count manga volumes
@@khalilurtrahman I spent time reading them and money purchasing them so I don't know why I wouldn't count them. Yeah, they're a quicker read but each of the Stormlight Archive and Wheel of Time books I read last year all each only count as one book, too. I'm also counting digital and audiobooks.
Edit: deleted the second paragraph because I let assumed bad intentions color the tone. Number of books read and bought are on topic. When I'm properly bragging about how much I've read (which I'm merely doing _improperly_ here) I list cumulative days spent reading since that's more accurate for how much was read. But that's not what I was trying to do in the previous comment so each manga volume counts as a single book
My psychology professor mentioned that the words "idiot" "retard" and the rest were actually the technical terms back in the day. They just kept getting adopted by the regular populace and used in derogatory ways... so they kept changing the term. So the author might not have meant it in a negative way
Euphemistic treadmill
Come for the book memes, stay for the adorable adoption stories.
Hearing you talk about how you bonded with your daughter and that whole elevator thing actually made me tear up in a happy way ❤️
I will never understand why people dis 'older' books for reflecting the 'norms' (and abnormalities) of their time. This, to me, is a great plus of older literature, even when I strongly disagree with those earlier perspectives. Yes, there are isolated incidences when a book documents viewpoints so abhorrent to me that I find it not worth the effort to finish. But that's as apt to happen with 'new' titles as 'old'.
You’re right literature is not created in a bubble. It’s a reflection of what is happening in society and the authors values.
Yes! Plus it's not really good if modern authors create books set in "older" times and yet still have the modern rules apply. This actually dillutes the problems and issues of an era.
Applying modern standards can lead to new and interesting interpretations, but we can't bash the books over it
Can you imagine if someone from an older era read a very modern book, depicting the way life is now? I'm sure they could criticize a lot.
Well said.
This is the _BEST_ comment thread.
Thank you, all!👏👏 💜
Just found my new favorite quote of the day. "She was silent, like the p in pterodactyl, but it said everything."
My favorite meme was the second hand embarrassment one. When I sense an embarrassing moment coming I'll literally snap the book shut and take 5 mins to prepare myself! Yeah, it's bad.
Kaladin asking for his boon
@@pippaschroeder9660 Yup, that was a hard one😂
The classics argument is important imo. We need to find the classics that are utterly reprehensible and shunt them to the nether. But it's important to keep unacceptable things, coz it's a reminder.
Case in point huckleberry Finn. Theres this argument that it uses the N-word a lot, and comes off as overtly racist. But is it? Considering its time it's surprisingly forward. This was a only a decade after emancipation. And it's a story about a boy who was taught that helping a black person would send you to hell, learning to befriend and help said black person.
So by 1880s standards this was borderline blasphemous
As a black person that read Huckleberry Finn; I agree with this take. I think it's important to look at racism in context. At the time, the N-word was "just" a word and that's the way the culture had evolved. I think someone in that time period using the word in a certain way is way more defensible than, say, someone using that word today. We can only understand what is wrong if we're taught it's wrong after all. So someone who's been raised in a culture where the word is borderline benign vs someone raised today who damn well knows the issues with the word should be regarded very differently for using the word. Mark Twain was really rather forward thinking for his time
I remember watching the huckleberry Finn anime when I was a kid. Didn’t know the book existed until a couple years later lol
@@Cardboard449 please tell me you're telling the truth, coz Id watch a Huck fin anime
This reminds me on a case we have here in Germany , not quite the same, because Huckleberry Finn was much earlier, but... The swedish author Astrid Lindgren is very popular here and in "Pippi Langstrumpf" (not sure about the english translation) there was this one character, Pippi's father, that was called the N-word king. They changed the translation to "Südseekönig", so something like South Seas King. And I 100 percent agree that the original is very problematic, but I'm kinda on the fence about the translation change. Like, on the one hand it doesn't change anything story wise and it's less problematic and can be easier used to read to children without having to worry tooo much. But on the other hand I'm like shouldn't we leave the classics as they are, reflecting the time and speech of the time they were written in, and just adress it if there's something problematic in them, discuss and talk about it instead of simply erasing it?
I think the bigger issue with Huck Finn is that it's a White Savior narrative. High school lit classes can be heavy in books by White authors, and (for me at least as a White person) this really limited my understanding of racism. I bought the idea that White people could over come racism just by transcending the norms of their time, like Huck does. It wasn't until college when I started reading and watching content by BIPOC folks that I got a deeper understanding of the social, psychological, and economic underpinnings of racism.
I really hope more BIPOC authors are included in literature classes. So that more children can see people like themselves represented fairly, AND that everyone see people different from them represented fairly.
in books with maps, I tend to skip the map at first, and then reference it whenever a placename comes up, just so I don't spoil myself inadvertently
I actually made a deal with myself: that I wasn't allowed to buy new books til I read all the unread ones on my shelves. I understand this isn't for everyone but for me it's doing wonders for my motivation to read overall 😂 because I really, really, really wanna buy new books ngl
Wow! Good luck!
@@marilise1987 thank you 😅! My tbr is not as big as many others, so I think I might manage 😁
i do this too! only reading one (at most 2) books at any given point of time, not starting a new book before finishing the old ones
@@zhanminwang2921 yeah concentrating on a few books at a time is really helpful! I used to read like five books at once but for me that just made it harder to finish any of them.
I did something similar, but since I don't have will strong enough to completely stop buying (and since History of Middle-earth is on that unread pile and I know it'll take me years to finish it since it's more scholarly to me), I'm letting myself buy 1 book for every 3 I've read. It still accomplishes something, as I've already made bigger dent in my pre-2022 unread pile than I did last year with pre-2021, I'm less impulsive in what I'm buying, and I get to reward myself.
I usually go back and read maps halfway through the book. When I first get there all these names are meaningless and I have no idea why I'm supposed to care about one location or the other. Halfway through I can go back and think "okay now I recognize this, oh that's where that was, and there's a suspicious patch over here with lots of detail that I haven't read about yet"
Glad to know the adoption seems to have gone well and things are going great with your family and daughter. I think it’s really amazing and admirable you did that. Best of luck with everything as it goes on and keep doing all you do.
Now whenever I hear/read the word Undulating, I imagine Merph shaking her fists in the air going "DANIEL!"
5:00 - When it comes to books being "a product of their times"...Yes, you do kind of have to acknowledge that. But I also like to give props to authors who were BETTER than their times in at least one aspect. For example, the way that Ursula Le Guin in the 1970s-90s created multiple alternate human societies that treat same-gender relationships as totally normal. Or the way Shakespeare, while not entirely avoiding the prejudices of his times, could still write female and black and Jewish characters who feel like PEOPLE, and who often speak of the frustrations that the rules that are imposed on them or the discrimination they are subjected to make them feel.
I'm excited for the Hard vs Soft Magic System and The Percy Jackson videos!
Wasn’t having a good morning until you said, “I would like to defend myself. But it would be a lie.” 😂😂😂 Laughter is the best medicine
Re: maps
I usually dont study it too much when I first start the book since I dont have too much context. But I definitely love to flip back to it constantly throughout the story to track where we are and where we've been. This was big for me as a child since I read a lot of lord of the rings and redwall, both having fantastic maps.
Same here! I skip the map at first, and then constantly flip back to it!
Same! I find it very hard to concentrate on a map when I have zero context to the countries, cities, etc. But I definitely flip back while I'm reading to see where characters are traveling and at the end of a book or series I'll go back and study the maps.
Same. That's what I do too.
"I tried real hard to be beautiful, but actually I'm an amateur poet and no-one's having a good time here." 🤣🤣🤣
Hilarious, accurate and acutely painful simultaneously.
All I'm waiting for is the publishing company that has the guts to blurb:
Heroic space pirates who ride dinosaurs to defeat the evil psychic volcano dolphins.
And I will throw my money at the store clerk.
That does sound fun, I would pick that one up too 😆.
I actually laughed out loud at the "someone's getting banned today" in reference to the undulating meme. 😅
"How do they do it? Are they wizards?" Probably. It's beyond my abilities at least xD
If you’re into fantasy stories with maps, read Ascendence of a Bookworm. It’s got a detailed fantasy map, but of one part of one city. Think about what that implies.
dangit, i was just gonna say that. i just finished up to volume 18, i believe, or part 4 vol 5. i have to say, the earlier books are harder to finish and have a few of my least favorite anime-isms, but the later books are all very fun!
The latest volume just release a day or so ago and I suddenly found myself looking at 4am on the clock. AT MY AGE lol. Bookworm is just the best
@@helenFX it's got tons of stuff that should be huge no's, like an almost day by day schedule of the character where a single line of narration could suffice, and I could nitpick the worldbuilding for days but I just it's just so comfy!
This, along with Grimgar of Fantasy and Ashes (and Mushoku Tensei to a much lesser extent), is one of the Top isekai stories of this modern take on the genre. Great worldbuilding, strong character work and there the character-focused plot is surprisingly well paced. I suspect that Merphy will love it if she ever decides to watch or read the LN.
Omg I LOVE those light novels! That was premium worldbulding! Sure there were huge nos in between the writing just to make sure the story doesn't forget the MC's overarching plot but the pay off is just so satisfying!
7:37: As someone who try to write her own story, I love that too.
Honestly, I don't think I've ever looked at a fantasy map. I don't even have any images in my head when I read, much less a map of where everyone's hanging out.
I found this absolutely bizarre! Very interesting. I can't even be in a pitch black room without seeing things that are actually not there. The gpu portion of my brain works overtime lol
And then there's me, who is physically unable to read a book without a Map. There's no Map in your book? Fine, I'll spent the next half an hour to find the most beautiful and most detailed Map of this World I can find and use that instead.
I could draw you maps of Middle-earth, Roshar and Randland with surprising accuracy half asleep in the middle of the night.
Honestly I relate to this. I had a hard time imagining what was actually happening in any given story so I just interpreted the events, characters, and environments the way I wanted to even if it didn't make sense until I see an actual picture of these things then I could piece together the setting, what everything looked like, and what the characters were actually doing. It really is surreal to see theatrical interpretations based on books I've read cuz I'm always like "wow did that part even happen" or "I remember this part happening but this part I'm seeing is alot different then how I remember it". Sorry I edited this old comment because my initial post wasn't very cohesive and it only vaguely got across what I was trying to say. Also the comments below me were saying they suffer from aphasia and not only did I not know that was a thing I don't believe I have it. Sorry if i gave anyone that impression I just think I had poor reading comprehension and a bad imagination.
I do glance at maps but It isn't helpful because I also don't have images in my head this I recently learned is called Aphantasia.
@@TellingNotYou I must have that too, or at least a little bit. I don’t really picture anything while I’m reading, I just figured I have a bad imagination! 😊
I love your "screaming (affectionate)" specification.
“Idiot” was actually a medical term at one point, not an insult. It goes to show how language evolves, not really even out of necessity but political correctness. So many terms change, replaced by euphemisms. And we forever run away from words.
Today’s inoffensive language is tomorrow’s hate speech.
Some words were always meant to be hateful, but yeah, there are plenty of words that were once neutral that have become hateful. The problem is the people who are continuously twisting inoffensive language into offensive language, obviously. Blame *them*, not the people who are "running away" from language because they're being attacked by it. Words are being turned into weapons, and "political correctness" is the responsible parental figure pulling that weapon out of a child bully's hand. So yes, it's necessary. But it's also not the only option. Sometimes (to continue the metaphor) the bully's target manages to pull the weapon away from the bully, and we get reclaimed words, like "queer". I'm a big fan of reclaimed words. But sometimes there's no salvaging a word and the only place for it is the trash when it's only purpose is to make people feel like trash.
@@Newfiecat I get your point, but I respectfully disagree. Which is fine. One day we’ll be all out of words to say, and everyone will be a bigot for not keeping up, not knowing when the official death of a term comes. Especially the old, who don’t read social conscious papers, or obsess over social media and hang around the young hip do gooders.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to fight this inevitability, though many changes will make me groan and eye roll. But I’m not going to follow every change. Some ideas are just dumb, and are clearly instituted to make people feel better, while not having to do any real work.
Haha. So true.
"Someone is getting ban today"😂😂😂😂 I fall down laugh/crying 😂😂😂. Epic troll 😹
The dinosaur one was my favourite too . . . If only for your reaction, you were so excited, it was amazing
ATLA - thank you and curse you for giving us tales of Ba Sing Se.
When the dinosaur one came up, I thought we were getting a nod at 'P is for Pterodactyl: The worst alphabet book"
There's a hilarious children's book called 'P is for Pterodactyl' and the whole premise of it is that it's a really bad alphabet primer! My kids loved it!
15:22 I’ve seen this meme a couple of times before, and as a reader who recently discovered I have aphantasia(the inability or limited ability to picture things in your head) I feel like I’m missing out on so much 😕
Happy to see SpyxFamily on the calendar. It's different from most other things you cover on the channel, in that its more of an action/comedy sitcom than an overarching story. The humor really works for me though and the characters are great, so I hope you like it!
Me, while watching this video: I don’t have a book buying problem. I’m too cheap for that.
Also me, not even 6 hours later: *buys 27 books at the library book sale because “it was only 8 dollars!”*
I saw the Uncle Iroh meme and immediately thought of you :D
Also, the elevator story is sooo cute. So happy for you and happy the adoption went well :)
17:20 I feel targeted now. I'm more of a character person than a world person, so I skip the map the first time I see it, but I love to study them when the world itself becomes a character in my head. If the author didn't manage that, it's not worth the time to study a world map of a lifeless world.
Sole exception for the "Books without a synopsis" : Brandon Sanderson's books ! I bought 4 of them without a title nor a synopsis and I KNOW I will LOVE them.
I just heard _I hate it!_ and asked myself what did Daniel do?
this is a very understandable leap
I'm so happy to see that Avatar videos are coming back, one of my favorite shows, I'm a little confused about worst books of the year because is not over yet but is your channel so is fine.
there wasn't enough room to write the full title, but basically it's for the halfway point, what are the best and worst books halfway through the year
@@merphynapier42 I should guess that 😅 but I'm so excited for your channel, God bless you.
I got really excited when you mentioned Dwaf Metal because I definitely know that song and it's a banger. "I am a dwaf and i'm digging a hole" The lyrics are golden and the song is so catchy!! hahahah
I absolutely adore the fact that you and your daughter bonded over something like that!!!!! That is so cuuutee-I wish that I'd had parents who would've just had fun and did things like that with me as a kid, instead of just looking at me like I was embarrassing and should stop. ^-^ 💜💜
When she showed the unread shelves upstairs I saw Monster and gasped as loud as I’ve ever gasped. CANT. WAIT.
Why don't people just tailor their viewing to their preferences instead of trying to get people to tailor their content? They're just making things hard for themselves and irritating for others.
I open a book, see a map, 'turns the page'. This kind of monster does that😂
Disliking maps is blasphemy! Honestly that's how I got interested in stories to begin with, as a child I looked at maps and wondered what secrets they held. Fantasy geography is to this day one of my favourite things.
When I was younger, I would draw fantasy treasure maps. That was fun.
Wait Merphy has never seen Star Wars? That is almost impressive how has she not fallen to the peer-pressure being in sci-fi fantasy circles
"Tsundoku" (Japanese: 積ん読) is acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them.[1][2][3][4] It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf.
Your channel is the reason I took the step to finally read manga. I prefer books but I'm enjoying manga.
7:37 This reminds me of Lucien's Library from Neil Gaiman's Sandman. A library full of books that were never published and stories that were never told.
13:03 🤣 i laugh way too hard on this, im sorry you have to suffer merph
16:07 luhffy is my fav straw hat tbh
I LOVE maps in books. love knowing the layout the land. Also I haven't read any manga yet, but your enthusiasm and the enthusiasm of other book tubers has put it on my TBR. Loved the book mems. so relatable.
I love maps so much that it frustrates me to no end when a book in a fictional country doesn't have a map! Then I gotta draw my own darned map for it in order to keep all the towns and landmarks straight!
Read Oliver Twist and I wanted a map. Found a book with a blow-up map of London, copied it off, and put the different pages together. That was a really intensive study! Still have the map, though!!!
my only two experienced with fantasy maps on books are in "13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear" (a kids book), and Mysterious Island.
I most definitily constantly flipped the books to the maps to follow our heroes and see where they are.
In fact, I'm actually lucky that the edition of Mysterious Island that I read even had a map of the island, since, as I learned, a lot of them don't do that...
16:54 as someone who's re-reading TWOK I feel so attacked right now
I’m excited for more Avatar videos! I just rewatched it with my fiancée so my obsession has been reignited. I really liked the Kyoshi novels and I preordered the upcoming Yangchen novel.
the pushing door at 22:30 is super cute i just imagine that 1 scene from chunibyo maybe some1 can make a meme about it or show it to her, great video as always
1) I've been creating a fantasy world and am glad people appreciate maps
2) I distinctly remember my English teachers lecturing us about "said". They would take off points if you used "said" in a writing assignment.
I'm so excited about the Little Women videos^^ I love these books so much, it is a wonderful series.✌️💖
21:27 - *Me struggling to not burst from how wholesome this was*
I don't mind characters reflecting their times, being offensive is just an interesting caparison point, but I do find that certain context-dependent writing styles (like the Victorian predisposition for being desert-dry and having main characters that are there to illustrate a perfect societal ideal, or the pre-modern propesity for omniscient narrators) to be teeth grinding at times.
I'm unsure if the Goblin approves of your book piles on the floor... Thank the Thirteenth he already reviewed... aaah roasted your beautiful background shelf 🥰
I love that one about the writer and the reader and their favorite book. I’m a writer, I needed that.
My goodness some of these memes really hit my book lover feels- 📚💕 I can definetely relate to the Lemony Snicket meme. N I wanted the library over the prince- re Beauty and the beast.
My heart exploded at the incredibly relatable memes showcased in this video. Booktube is awesome.
8:36
As I read this ‘leaves from the vine’ started playing in my head… *sniff* it’s beautiful
This is the first video of yours that has ever been recommended to me, and I loved it! Subscribed after hearing the wholesome and wonderful story about how you bonded with your daughter! ❤️ (My boyfriend was adopted at 3 days old, and his family is so genuinely amazing and I am so thankful they adopted him from Arizona and brought him to Tennessee where we could meet each other!) Blessings to you and your daughter! ❤️
For me after finishing a book especially if it’s a series and if I’ve enjoyed it so much then I need some time to just process the book and be with my thoughts with it for a whine b4 going to a different book. If I don’t have other stuff going on in life it’s usually abt a week or shorter
I wish every book came with a map. My imagination is pretty good but I still need the map, I’d even like seeing something like Google maps routes for the main character lol
Yup, even with a good imagination I find it can get easy to confuse where countries, towns and landmarks are without a map.
ohh yeah I love maps, but I usually only stare at it for longer after being already partway into the story, looking for all the places we've already been and where the characters are currently traveling towards!
This brightened my day.
good thing you said "what was your favorite minus the last one", because obviously.
then, the one about reading books and buying books and re arranging books. yesterday i got back from my mom's and i got to rearrange one of her bookshelves. it was awesome. lol
That last meme really got me good 😂 That story about your daughter was adorable. 😍 I hope you try light novels too someday. Ascendance of a Bookworm is so addictive.
I mostly get my books from the library rather than buying them, but I, too, have an unread book pile.
This is the light hearted, fun content that I desperately needed right now ❤️
I must admit the times I actually checked a map in a book can probably be counted on a hand, or maybe two hands. It just doesn't add much for me usually because I don't really remember it when reading anyway.
I don’t get how some people will complain so hard when a video they clicked on isn’t tailored to their tastes like, I don’t like manga either, but you know what I do when someone I follow posts about manga? I ignore it, because I’m a normal person who understands that not everything is tailored to me.
23:45 hahahahahaahahah for real. Review 101: "BEAUTIFUL AND IMMERSIVE STORYTELLING"
you seem so happy on this video, I'm really glad everything is going well ❤
The one about vague book blurbs really got me 🤣 because I just went through it with Project Hail Mary
🤔 Which (avoiding spoilers) is actually kind of apt for this book...
23:03 I was reading along without skipping ahead to the end of the post and was taking a drink - like the last dregs of it, head tipped fully back - when I choked laughing at that ending xD
That anecdote with your daughter and the elevator doors is so so sweet 🥺💕
Well yeah who doesn’t use the map to work out where the characters are going, that’s what it’s for
And yes I know there are people who don’t and I … respect their existence
OMG the last meme: the most annoying thing that can happen!!
Yay Spy Family is on the schedule for next month.
I don't even read books but I really love Merphy when she is like this
No idea why are you here but glad to know you're having fun
@@michok009 the One Piece videos brought me here
Not the elves😭😭lmbooo and also Bostonians deserve being the new dwarf accents??😂😂 I can learn to love it
23:14
The way I get through my day is believing that there is a special place in purgatory for people who write these.
As a history student I'm so used to seeing old stuff through the lenses of that specific time, that I hardly ever get that modern day judgment perspective. (and as a former psychology student I know, that idiocy was a medical term in the old times). My not history related reading friends don't talk about that with me anymore 😢🤣
On the topic of too much left to resolve I get excited, "Yahh there's going to a sequel."
Man, the whole month of May is looking amazing with all the videos you've got planned.
This video was so nice. I spent the last four hours fighting a computer and some nice memes to relax was so fun. I am refreshed :)
I can relate to the thing about second-hand embarrassment from characters. I am finding that a lot in the Ranger's Apprentice series and I am loving it. It is the first series I've picked up in a while. My brain is constantly in a state of 'Will, don't do that.' or 'Halt, stop that. You can't just keep knocking lords into their own moats.' (While being 'DO IT'). So glad your adoption process has gone well.
"Delayed" is not the same things as being "late" thoo. Precision of language is EVERYTHING!!!! 😘😋🤭🤣🤣🤣
😂😂😂this was such a good video. Had a smile while watching it. The last one broke me too 😂. That is definitely how some books are described these days
I have come to accept that I am a cliché lover EXCEPT for one cliché, which I truly truly hate:
Her: Oh look at the beautiful view(Insert something beautiful)
Him: Oh yes, it is truly beautiful.
Author: He said, but he wasn't looking at the view, he was looking at heeeeeeer.(Soft whisper)
I have read and seen this in everything, I hate it, I always fake gag when I find this jewel of a scene. And it's quite often.
Coming from makeup RUclips where over purchasing is also common - you could try a book no buy for a month to give you time to get through your unread pile. The joy of reading is separate from the joy of picking out a new book.
Merphy you aren’t alone in being attacked by some of these memes 😂
I laughed when you considered buying 5-10 books a month as not being a lot, but then I remembered that was the very reason I gave myself a temporary book-buying ban xD It is a sad life, really, without buying books.
I tend to flip past the map, but I always go back to it, getting to know the map as the the characters go places.
Same
I now have the very happy headcanon that Merph will one day watch Star Wars for the first time with her daughter and it'll be extra special.
"someone's getting banned today" just made me crack uo
As to the older books reminds me of a joke my husband blurred out off the top of his head when he heard the term Latinx. " What are they calling me now, oh no I'll have to annotate all my books". I nearly passed out laughing.
Couldn’t agree more. Who in there right mind flips by a map in a story without fimiurizing themselves with it, the author wanted me to know this information so I probably should.