Thanks for the videos, I enjoy your perspective. Picked up a beautiful hardcover of Madame Bovary for $1 recently, will definitely be reading it this year. Also thinking about picking up some Gene Wolfe books. It’s going to be a fantastic year!
Thank you! I am brimming with excitement for your Outer Dark and other McCarthy reviews! For 2023 my reading goal is to revisit the favorite authors of previous decades of my life Dostoyevsky, Vonnegut, Conrad. And to give another chance to great authors I didn’t connect with. Austen, Tolstoy, Proust.
I’m hoping to read some Proust this year. I’m slowly chipping away at a huge collection of Vonnegut short stories (really good so far). Outer Dark is, no surprise, really fricken dark. 😂 I can see the turn to Blood Meridian in it. It’s kind of surreal reading the Passenger while writing the review for Outer Dark as they are so different in tone. At least so far. Thank you for watching.
So cool to see how your reading year came out! Looks like some really good stuff! You should totally do some content though with the Shakespeare plays! I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on them. And it's cool that 2 of McCarthy's books made the list, although The Orchard Keeper kinda surprised me. But I'm itching to see your review of Outer Dark; that was some cryptic shit in that book, and I feel like I missed *a lot* of it, lol. 😂 Judging by the amount of sticky notes in that book though, I'm willing to bet you picked up on a lot more than I did. Glad you met your reading goal for 2022! 😊
At first when I started reading the Shakespeare plays, I was uncertain about doing some content about them because who the heck am I, right? 🤷🏻♀️ But after I’m done reading it all I think I will do some videos about it. Maybe best to worst countdown and some most underrated. And I tell you, my least favourite play is one of the most hyped ones. That’s going to be an unpopular opinion. 🤣 Outer Dark is some seriously dark material! 😳 There are a lot of sticky notes! LOL! After I’m done writing the review, I’m going to go back and listen to your video again. Outer Dark is crazy.
The Road by McCarthy is one of my favorite books. I plan to read more! I love all of Hesse's works but it's been over 20 yrs since I read him. So, I plan to acquire those for a major re-read. Congrats on meeting your goal in 2022! I read 52, and was happy with that 🙂. Here's to a new year of fab reading!
52 books is awesome! Do you remember your favourite Hesse works? I have glass bead game on my shelf and it intimates me for some reason. Lol! I loved the road. 2023 reading is going to be great!
@@ItsTooLatetoApologize well, it has been a long time since I read Hesse....but I'd say Beneath the Wheel & Demian were personal faves. A much younger self read those so I really need to re-read & find out if I feel the same now!
@@ItsTooLatetoApologize I have read Steppenwolf, Siddhartha and Demian. I like the first two immensely, but I think Steppenwolf is VERY deep, requires a regular re-read, but one I would recommend to a reader like you. Glass-bead Game is on my TBR pile
Hi Stella-finally got round to reading Across the Wire…I guess that was written ten years ago and I don’t know how you feel about it now, but I loved and admire how it/you took on, head on, the big stuff-love and death, embodied and enacted-within such a bold overall conceit. Best bit: "Scars were personal."
Jack, I’m honoured you read my novel. Thank you for that. It’s hard as a creative person to look back at your work rationally. It was the first novel I ever wrote, and at the time I was really proud of it and it was the best I could make it at the time, and I’m still proud of it today but in a different way. The sequel is different, as it would have to be that it was written with a big time lapse in between. I need to make more time to work on it but my work schedule has been aggressive recently. I’m curious about your comment of “…within such a bold overall conceit.” I want to understand the context of this so please let me know what you mean. Do you mean that the characters in the story went about these themes in a bold over all conceit or that the author covered them in such a way? Or perhaps you mean something else entirely? I would genuinely like to know your thoughts as feedback from constructive sources is invaluable. Thank you again. That my novel was able to spend time in your imagination means a lot to me.
@@ItsTooLatetoApologize Stella-first and foremost, I found your story to be altogether gripping and punchy and not stupid (I remain smitten with Mia and her smoking bad-assery!). By 'bold overall conceit,' I mean your fearless creation of an entire alternative world where it’s the women who exploit men for their labor and objectify them for sex-a fearless flip, alright! But bolder still then to complicate that whole fictional apparatus by placing a scorching hot, almost sultry yet androgynous -even masculine-heroine on center stage to fight for the men and turn the upside down inside out. That complexity of setting, character, prose style and action amounts to a brave overall narrative conceit that, though challenging, was brilliantly conceived and executed. And I loved it. ♥️ (Note: still touched by the respective plights of wee Gabriel and Lance…more, please and thank you.)
Seeing as if I tried to do a top ten books I read in 2022 I'd be about 6 or 7 short... I decided to challenge myself to read way more than that this year (I did not have or thought about goals last year though) and your channel is the only one so far I look at for recommendations :) in part because I get the feeling we could have a similar taste since you like two of Donna Tartt's books and I've been in love with the secret history for a while, and also because unlike most of the other booktube channels I've watched you don't have videos on Popular Right Now type books which are mostly YA romance, which I can appreciate but I'm not into. Speaking of challenges, do you know/use StoryGraph? If so, what do you think about it? I found about it last month and it's the reason why I set myself some goals this year. I read about it and the way users can set challenges anyone can follow themselves and I just think it's wonderful and so useful. I find it way better than Goodreads because it has a little bit of a social media aspect to it, where you can show people what you're reading, what's on your reading list and you can follow people with similar tastes. It can all be so motivational to read more.
I have never used or looked into Storygraph. I’ll have to check it out. Thank you for suggesting it. It’s always good to set a challenge for yourself, but don’t let it get in the way of books you want to read. Sometimes one can avoid big books because they take so long and whatnot. But a goal is always good. I find what I like about Goodreads is that i can look back at what I read and go “oh yeah, I forgot I read that this year.” 🤦🏻♀️ I’m not that interested in new trending books for some reason either. I can appreciate other people’s excitement and all but I’m not that interested. There is so much to read and so little time to do it that I like “older” books because they have been vetted a bit and feel more “worth” my time. It’s all subjective though. Read what excites and interests you. 😊
You're a prolific reader, Stella! My reading highlights of 2022 were The Crocodile Bird by Ruth Rendell, A Judgement in Stone, also by Ruth Rendell (one of my favourite authors for her sheer depth of insight into twisted minds), Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (ingenious plot and such a vivid setting).
Awe, thank you! Ooooooooh, some phycological thrillers I see. Have you read Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn? I would call that one a dark phycological murder mystery. It's one of my all time favourites. 2023 is going to be a great reading year!
Some recommendations for you. It's a mixed bag of short stories, full novels, genres. Enoch - Robert Bloch The Great God Pan - Arthur Machen An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - Ambrose Bierce I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison Pickman's Model - HP Lovecraft All of the above are short stories or novellas. You can read these for free online or there are some really good readings of them on RUclips. King Rat - James Clavell Forty Lashes Less One - Elmore Leonard Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry Post Office - Charles Bukowski The Terror - Dan Simmons Candide - Voltaire ( Annotated version) Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - Christopher Moore The Stranger - Albert Camus All The Drowned Sailors - Raymond Lech ( non fiction that reads like a horror story)
Thank you for the recommendations. I have a few of these sitting on my TBR: The Stranger, Candide, and Lonesome Dove. I picked up Lonesome Dove at a thrift shop and it was labeled as book 3. Do I need to read the 2 previous books? I didn't realize it was a series until I got it home.
@@ItsTooLatetoApologize these are character analyses. Iago for Othello, Lear for King Lear, Cleopatra for Antony and Cleopatra. They’re really god, but something more general would be good.
Poetry. I think poetry is best read a handful at a time, chewing on each a bit before moving on. And then you put the collection down to come back to later. My challenge. I don't enjoy Shakespeare at all. The language makes my eyes glaze over. I don't know what the secret is. I just avoid his work now. My reading goal. I just read ... whenever. I guess the only goal I have is to do less of this (spending time on the Internet) and more time doing disconnected things like reading and writing.
Shakespeare is tough. We're all (me too) working on that fictional endurance. It's extra hard because no one thinks it's real. LOL! Sorry, bad pun. 😉After I read The Orchard Keeper I read Shakespeare's Henry the 6th part 1 and it read like plain english. It felt as straight forward as a children's Dick and Jane story. Felt like I'd entered a parallel reading universe. LMFAO! Reading the tough stuff gives you super-reading powers or something, at least temporarily. the next Shakespeare play I read was similarly difficult. (That one play was probably just written easier than the others. 😂)
Thanks for the videos, I enjoy your perspective. Picked up a beautiful hardcover of Madame Bovary for $1 recently, will definitely be reading it this year. Also thinking about picking up some Gene Wolfe books. It’s going to be a fantastic year!
Let me know what you think of Madame Bovary! Here’s to 2023 reading 🍻
Looking forward to your thoughts about The Passenger.
Me too. 🤣 It’s so strange because Outer Dark and the passenger are so different tone wise right now they don’t even feel like the same author.
Thank you!
I am brimming with excitement for your Outer Dark and other McCarthy reviews!
For 2023 my reading goal is to revisit the favorite authors of previous decades of my life Dostoyevsky, Vonnegut, Conrad.
And to give another chance to great authors I didn’t connect with. Austen, Tolstoy, Proust.
I’m hoping to read some Proust this year. I’m slowly chipping away at a huge collection of Vonnegut short stories (really good so far). Outer Dark is, no surprise, really fricken dark. 😂 I can see the turn to Blood Meridian in it. It’s kind of surreal reading the Passenger while writing the review for Outer Dark as they are so different in tone. At least so far. Thank you for watching.
Fantastic reading goals for 2023, John.
So cool to see how your reading year came out! Looks like some really good stuff! You should totally do some content though with the Shakespeare plays! I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on them. And it's cool that 2 of McCarthy's books made the list, although The Orchard Keeper kinda surprised me. But I'm itching to see your review of Outer Dark; that was some cryptic shit in that book, and I feel like I missed *a lot* of it, lol. 😂 Judging by the amount of sticky notes in that book though, I'm willing to bet you picked up on a lot more than I did. Glad you met your reading goal for 2022! 😊
At first when I started reading the Shakespeare plays, I was uncertain about doing some content about them because who the heck am I, right? 🤷🏻♀️ But after I’m done reading it all I think I will do some videos about it. Maybe best to worst countdown and some most underrated. And I tell you, my least favourite play is one of the most hyped ones. That’s going to be an unpopular opinion. 🤣
Outer Dark is some seriously dark material! 😳 There are a lot of sticky notes! LOL! After I’m done writing the review, I’m going to go back and listen to your video again. Outer Dark is crazy.
The Road by McCarthy is one of my favorite books. I plan to read more! I love all of Hesse's works but it's been over 20 yrs since I read him. So, I plan to acquire those for a major re-read. Congrats on meeting your goal in 2022! I read 52, and was happy with that 🙂. Here's to a new year of fab reading!
52 books is awesome! Do you remember your favourite Hesse works? I have glass bead game on my shelf and it intimates me for some reason. Lol! I loved the road. 2023 reading is going to be great!
@@ItsTooLatetoApologize well, it has been a long time since I read Hesse....but I'd say Beneath the Wheel & Demian were personal faves. A much younger self read those so I really need to re-read & find out if I feel the same now!
@@ItsTooLatetoApologize I have read Steppenwolf, Siddhartha and Demian. I like the first two immensely, but I think Steppenwolf is VERY deep, requires a regular re-read, but one I would recommend to a reader like you. Glass-bead Game is on my TBR pile
Hi Stella-finally got round to reading Across the Wire…I guess that was written ten years ago and I don’t know how you feel about it now, but I loved and admire how it/you took on, head on, the big stuff-love and death, embodied and enacted-within such a bold overall conceit. Best bit: "Scars were personal."
Jack, I’m honoured you read my novel. Thank you for that. It’s hard as a creative person to look back at your work rationally. It was the first novel I ever wrote, and at the time I was really proud of it and it was the best I could make it at the time, and I’m still proud of it today but in a different way. The sequel is different, as it would have to be that it was written with a big time lapse in between. I need to make more time to work on it but my work schedule has been aggressive recently. I’m curious about your comment of “…within such a bold overall conceit.” I want to understand the context of this so please let me know what you mean. Do you mean that the characters in the story went about these themes in a bold over all conceit or that the author covered them in such a way? Or perhaps you mean something else entirely? I would genuinely like to know your thoughts as feedback from constructive sources is invaluable. Thank you again. That my novel was able to spend time in your imagination means a lot to me.
@@ItsTooLatetoApologize Stella-first and foremost, I found your story to be altogether gripping and punchy and not stupid (I remain smitten with Mia and her smoking bad-assery!). By 'bold overall conceit,' I mean your fearless creation of an entire alternative world where it’s the women who exploit men for their labor and objectify them for sex-a fearless flip, alright! But bolder still then to complicate that whole fictional apparatus by placing a scorching hot, almost sultry yet androgynous -even masculine-heroine on center stage to fight for the men and turn the upside down inside out. That complexity of setting, character, prose style and action amounts to a brave overall narrative conceit that, though challenging, was brilliantly conceived and executed. And I loved it. ♥️
(Note: still touched by the respective plights of wee Gabriel and Lance…more, please and thank you.)
@@Snick3927 thank you for these very kind words, Jack. That my efforts could be enjoyed in such a way is comforting and encouraging.
Seeing as if I tried to do a top ten books I read in 2022 I'd be about 6 or 7 short... I decided to challenge myself to read way more than that this year (I did not have or thought about goals last year though) and your channel is the only one so far I look at for recommendations :) in part because I get the feeling we could have a similar taste since you like two of Donna Tartt's books and I've been in love with the secret history for a while, and also because unlike most of the other booktube channels I've watched you don't have videos on Popular Right Now type books which are mostly YA romance, which I can appreciate but I'm not into.
Speaking of challenges, do you know/use StoryGraph? If so, what do you think about it? I found about it last month and it's the reason why I set myself some goals this year. I read about it and the way users can set challenges anyone can follow themselves and I just think it's wonderful and so useful. I find it way better than Goodreads because it has a little bit of a social media aspect to it, where you can show people what you're reading, what's on your reading list and you can follow people with similar tastes. It can all be so motivational to read more.
I have never used or looked into Storygraph. I’ll have to check it out. Thank you for suggesting it. It’s always good to set a challenge for yourself, but don’t let it get in the way of books you want to read. Sometimes one can avoid big books because they take so long and whatnot. But a goal is always good. I find what I like about Goodreads is that i can look back at what I read and go “oh yeah, I forgot I read that this year.” 🤦🏻♀️
I’m not that interested in new trending books for some reason either. I can appreciate other people’s excitement and all but I’m not that interested. There is so much to read and so little time to do it that I like “older” books because they have been vetted a bit and feel more “worth” my time. It’s all subjective though. Read what excites and interests you. 😊
Thoughts on “Sugar Street “ “Lessons” they both surprised and blew me away. The first was just astounding to me, your thought?
Sadly, I have not read those books yet.
"STELLA!" ... I'm okay now.
I know. It’s best to get the urge out. 😂
You're a prolific reader, Stella! My reading highlights of 2022 were The Crocodile Bird by Ruth Rendell, A Judgement in Stone, also by Ruth Rendell (one of my favourite authors for her sheer depth of insight into twisted minds), Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (ingenious plot and such a vivid setting).
Awe, thank you! Ooooooooh, some phycological thrillers I see. Have you read Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn? I would call that one a dark phycological murder mystery. It's one of my all time favourites. 2023 is going to be a great reading year!
Look up on RUclips Falling In Love with Poetry by Lisa VanDamme.
I'll give it a try. I need all the help I can get.
I am so pleased to be the reason you got Raymond Carver's book, so good! That book on Jung looks awesome! read The Red Book!
Have you read the readers edition or the one with Jung’s paintings?
Some recommendations for you. It's a mixed bag of short stories, full novels, genres.
Enoch - Robert Bloch
The Great God Pan - Arthur Machen
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - Ambrose Bierce
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison
Pickman's Model - HP Lovecraft
All of the above are short stories or novellas. You can read these for free online or there are some really good readings of them on RUclips.
King Rat - James Clavell
Forty Lashes Less One - Elmore Leonard
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
Post Office - Charles Bukowski
The Terror - Dan Simmons
Candide - Voltaire ( Annotated version)
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - Christopher Moore
The Stranger - Albert Camus
All The Drowned Sailors - Raymond Lech ( non fiction that reads like a horror story)
Thank you for the recommendations. I have a few of these sitting on my TBR: The Stranger, Candide, and Lonesome Dove. I picked up Lonesome Dove at a thrift shop and it was labeled as book 3. Do I need to read the 2 previous books? I didn't realize it was a series until I got it home.
@@ItsTooLatetoApologize no you can read it as a stand alone if you want. It was the first book in the series published.
What a great list, I will look at Tony Tanners book. I’ve been using Bloom as a companion to shakespeare.
How do you like Bloom's companion to Shakespeare?
@@ItsTooLatetoApologize these are character analyses. Iago for Othello, Lear for King Lear, Cleopatra for Antony and Cleopatra. They’re really god, but something more general would be good.
Poetry. I think poetry is best read a handful at a time, chewing on each a bit before moving on. And then you put the collection down to come back to later.
My challenge. I don't enjoy Shakespeare at all. The language makes my eyes glaze over. I don't know what the secret is. I just avoid his work now.
My reading goal. I just read ... whenever. I guess the only goal I have is to do less of this (spending time on the Internet) and more time doing disconnected things like reading and writing.
Shakespeare is tough. We're all (me too) working on that fictional endurance. It's extra hard because no one thinks it's real. LOL! Sorry, bad pun. 😉After I read The Orchard Keeper I read Shakespeare's Henry the 6th part 1 and it read like plain english. It felt as straight forward as a children's Dick and Jane story. Felt like I'd entered a parallel reading universe. LMFAO! Reading the tough stuff gives you super-reading powers or something, at least temporarily. the next Shakespeare play I read was similarly difficult. (That one play was probably just written easier than the others. 😂)
Saramago: Ensayo sobre la Ceguera. Do it.
Gracias por la recomendación del libro.
I second that recommendation!
Reading Moby Dick
Yeah!!! That’s awesome!!
The Gospel according to Jesus Christ is fantastic
It was. I keep thinking about it.
Hooked on ole Shakespeare, eh?
I am. I don’t love all of it. My least favourite play is an unpopular opinion. But it’s been and interesting reading challenge.
@@ItsTooLatetoApologize Glad to hear that