Mid Year Cool Down Tag
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- Original Creator: • Mid Year Calm Down | 2...
Questions:
1. Thankfulness: What 2024 has given me thus far
2. Relaxation: The most relaxing book
3. Hydration: A book that I needed
4. Nourishment: A book that energized me
5. Familiarity: An author I've returned to
6. Healthy risk: Outside of my comfort zone read/new-to-me author
7. Reflection: Changes in my reading taste
8. Detox: A book/habit I am leaving behind
9. Positivity: Anticipated book(s)/events
10. Looking ahead: Personal plans/goals
"Because my memory simply does not exist." That is all too relatable.
unrelated but your hair looks S T U N N I N G!!!
Hi, Merphy! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this tag! Your answers were so thoughtful. I’ve wanted to read The Witchwood Knot ever since I adored Small Miracles. I absolutely *loved* The Tainted Cup!! So many books you have mentioned are in my TBR radar! Service Model, for one! Smaller TBRs! I support this! 🤗❤️
For invasive plant-life, The Tangled Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S. Buckell might be up your alley. It is a collection of 4 short stories set in a fantasy world where the land has been overrun by ever-growing brambles.
PERFECT! Thank you!
On the manga side for invasive plants meets a tinge of body horror I would also float Wild Strawberry and maybe even Hell’s Paradise as recommendations if you wanted any sort of series on that side of the house as well! Apologies for bringing manga to a book oriented video but those just came to mind
The Tangled Lands was good, but super grim. Fair warning.
love that you've done a couple recent tags, Merphy! The BellTube Nightclub tag awaits you anytime you need a filler video! Brian is hilarious. And modest!! So, very, very modest!
I recommend The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart. It has plant life and sky pirates. Super immersive writing and beautiful Chris Riddell illustrations.
Tags and spoiler talks are def my fav videos.
Bio-punk sounds so interesting and I'm going to read Annihilation soon especially because of you Merphy
Yes! When life has been far to REAL, in the worst sense of that word, I too find refreshment in The Hitchhikers Guide!
a rec for invasive plant life: the day of the triffids - John wyndham, highly recommend!
I love the books that are "I didn't know I needed this, but I want more."
Ohmygosh, the wedding sounds so cute 🥹🥹
Heyyy I loved The Tainted Cup which was actually sent to me from Leandra... small world! I would recommend What Moves The Dead for spooky fungi.
You talked about The Lies of Locke Lamora 100s of times before I finally picked it up (and I’m so glad I did). So keep talking about VanderMeer!
Hitchhikers is that amazing fun relative that shows up and things just seem more enjoyable cause they’re there.
Hey Merphy, amazing video as always. I hope you that the rest of 2024 is calm like you want.
1) Thankfulness: A list of 10 books I need to buy after watching your videos for this year once I have the money 😅
2) Relaxation: A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking
10) Looking ahead: Finish making my own Homebrew DnD book (lol someday)
Alien Clay has that feeling like Annihilation and The Tainted Cup - and I loved it so much! I need more books with biopunk!!
Have you read The Day of the Triffids. That's a classic invasive plant story
Always love your videos! I wasn't super into Sanderson, but you convinced me to read the Skyward series and I'm DEVOURING these books! I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, but the Skyward series has been a blast to binge through. I'm currently reading the Skyward Flight collection and I'm blown away by how different this series is from the Final Empire trilogy. On another note, would you consider doing a bookshelf tour in the near future? I know you've done a few in the past, but your shelves look so cozy (I also rely on you for recommendations☺.)
I am reasonably vision impaired, so audiobooks are my lifeline. Stephen Fry reading Hitchhikers is marvelous!
Love your book content creator collaborations and crossovers! WOW that wedding is awesome! Great tag Merphy
For the plant life books, I’ve got a couple of suggestions by NZ authors:
- The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach. Set in a place that has outlawed metals and switched to biologicals (eg bullets that are grubs that eat through the person shot). Houses are mushrooms - living. People have biological enhancements. It’s not 100% what you described as looking for but has enough of the flavour of it that I think you would like it.
- The Disestablishment of Paradise by Phillip Man. I haven’t actually read this yet. It’s been on my shelves patiently waiting its turn for a couple of years, and will be picked up soon. But it definitely fits the invasive plant life request.
Second the dawnhounds rec!! the subtle plant life worldbuilding was very cool, also repped a New Zealander spec fic author!
An invasive(-ish) plant life story you might enjoy is a novella titled _The Jungle_ by David Drake, which is probably easiest to find collected with another novella in _Seas of Venus._ The "invasive" plant life isn't necessarily the *point* of the story, which describes the survival journey of the crew of a small naval vessel marooned in *extremely* hostile territory, but the environment plays a huge part in the story.
If you like that one (or can't find it), Drake also wrote a full-length novel titled _Redliners_ set in a sort-of similar environment.
thank you so much!!!
For planty-books, you might like The Terraformers. I can see how it might be something you enjoy. And I LOVED The Expanse books. Please go back to them!
I loved The Witchwood Knot. Funny story I was reading the book and said to myself this reminds me of a book series I read months ago, finished the book then noticed the author's name, of course it was familiar the HALF A SOUL SERIES! I'm so glad books rarely trigger me, it's not that I haven't had triggering events in my life but books just don't trigger me thankfully. I would miss out on so many great books.
I really enjoyed The Tainted Cup as well. Robert Jackson Bennett has been a reliable author for me in the past (The Founders Trilogy). I'm excited to continue with the series.
Do not feel bad for DNF!
I have recommended these a couple of times already but I will keep doing it!
Jasper Fforde's *Thursday Next* series. Starts with the Jane Eyre Affair. It's is playful like Hitchhiker's Guife but is less spacey and is such a book lover's
sci-fi!
Second recommendation is David Brin's Kiln People. He is my favorite sci-fi writer. And Kiln People is a good book to start with. He is a futurist. He likes to imagine different possible futures. All of them are speculative and "plausible" and very interesting to me.
Finally, this might be a new recommendation from me. Dan Simmon's *Hyperion*. It's part of a series. Your comment about plant life made me think of it. But it only comes up in the last book and isn't really central like what you mean. It just reminded me that this is a great book. This book is 10/10. The series as a whole is not quite as good. I'd say 7 or 8/10. Best reason for reading the rest of the series is closure on Hyperion imo
Can you do an island recs video????
Also a survivalist type recs????💕💕
I'll just do the book related tags
2. Relaxation - Some of the Legion of Super-Heroes Archives I read earlier in the year. Even though I wasn't alive then these old 60's comics were like a warm blanket.
3. Hydration - Of Fire and Blood. Modern, but classic. It was the book I needed when I read it.
4. Nourishment - The Last Kingdom. I've since continued on with a book of the Saxon series every month since January. Really digging this historical fiction.
5. Familiarity - She is the Darkness. After a book or two slump, I returned to the Black Company with one of the best books of the series yet, Glad to come back for more Glenn Cook,
6. Healthy Risk - Casino Royale. The OG James Bond novel. Definitely out of my normal SFF wheelhouse.
7. Reflection - Paradise-1. Sci-Fi Horror. Not something I normally read, but I heard about it, checked it out, and loved it.
8. Detox - Don't really have something for this one,
9. Positivity - Mercy of Gods. Loved the Expanse series, and more importantly I feel like it really stuck the landing, which I feel a lot of series don't, so I am looking forward to their next book,
Now that's a fun idea. Congrats on avoiding VanderMeer for the answers, heh.
Tchaikovsky is great, the guy's more prolific than Sanderson and writes great stuff. Guns of the Dawn in particular's top notch.
I'm reading an ARC of R.J. Barker's Gods Warlords of Wyrdwood, this series has a world heavily influenced by a sketchy ass forest. Tasha Suri's Lotus Kingdoms also has a plant based magic system.
Queen of DNF = Chanel Chapters. She reads a book a day at least and I think in one month she DNF'd 18 books. I like to give a book 100 pages. Though I did DNF Dead Astronauts at 57 pages.
Ooooo, I like that tag a lot… “YOINK!”
Uprooted by Naomi Novak and Lucia of the Night Forest by Tehlor Kay Mejia both feature living antagonistic forests, which seems related to your interest. If you like the invasive nature of plants specifically, Mushroom Blues by Adrian M. Gibson has a few rather intense scenes courtesy of mushroom people. Great video as always. I might need to do this one as well.
I read children of time and the whole series bc of YOU please finish it and make a video abou ittt
Merphy, have you read Semiosis by Sue Burke? Book 3 is coming out and it has weird plant life.
If you are really looking for an invasive Bio-Science Fiction book, Alan Dean Foster had a book called "Mid-World" that was an aggressive biome. I think it could be stand-alone, though it was part of his greater universe.
As far as world building, "Legacy of Heorot" was a book by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (and Steven Barnes, which I did not recall until I looked it up), that dealt with a planet colonization and the challenges around it.
I have not read either of these books in at least fifteen years, though I still have them on my bookshelf.
not sure if it's what you're after but the Day of the Triffids and Rappaccini's Daughter are some classic creepy plant books/stories - i recently got a compilation of plant horror out of the library called Evil Roots, looks like you might find some joy there too ^^
Mexican gothic?
Invasive mushrooms 🍄 😂
For non-fiction I'll be listening on Audible to Castor's Joan of Arc. It was available free there, so that was nice. Also I downloaded JOan Didion's Magical Thinking and also her White Album. For literary fiction, I finished FAulkner's Absalom, Absolom! the other day, and wow! was that a great story. Of course, in today's political climate Faulkner's work is hard to discuss, Nobel Prize notwithstanding. Thx - enjoyed.
For tainted/invasive plant life, you might like The Blighted Stars by Megan E. O’Keefe! Fascinating worldbuilding in general.
thank you!
While I know you're not a huge fan, T. Kingfisher's The Hollow Place is horror with plants. It's also funny, but the plants have stayed with me.
Not a book, but Scavengers reign is a great tv show for invasive plant life!! The world is so cruelly natural
I've heard Zweig's memoir, World of Yesterday, is very good.
For plant-focused books, you could try The Book of Koli by M. R. Carey, or The Overstory by Richard Powers.
I've just pulled both up to look into more, thank you!
1. Thankfulness: I haven't read anything truly terrible this year or had to give any one-star reviews so far. There have been one or two disappointments, but nothing absolutely awful.
2. Relaxation: I'm going to say "Extreme Makeover: Apocalypse Edition" by Dan Wells simply because I read it while lying on the beach last summer (last summer being January; I'm in the southern hemisphere)
3. Hydration: "The Book of Disquiet" by Fernando Pessoa. I have never felt so understood by a book in my life.
4. Nourishment: "Radio Free Albemuth" by Philip K Dick. A reminder of why he's my favourite author and how good he is when he's good, having endured a lot of bad PKD books lately.
5. Familiarity: This year was the first time I've read Albert Camus for about a decade. I think I appreciate him much more than I did back then... he's funnier than I remember him being.
6. Healthy risk: I've done a lot of beta reading and ARC reading this year. I can't name names yet, but I've read and enjoyed things (YA fiction, cosy crime novels) that I wouldn't normally go for.
7. Reflection: I've been reading a lot less "literary" fiction this year. I'm going for what I think I'll actually enjoy, rather than for what has an amazing critical reputation.
8. Detox: Probably the same as above: I'm trying to choose books based on what I'll enjoy rather than so that I can smugly boast "Oh yes, I also endured that awful 9000 page tome that somehow won four Pulitzer Prizes and the National Book Award"
9. Positivity: I'm really close to finishing my TBR list four months ahead of schedule. Which is good as I'm unlikely to have much reading time between August and November. Though I look forward to the feeling of freedom that I can pick something up randomly and read it, rather than adding it to a list.
10. Looking ahead: I don't anticipate reading as much in the second half of the year. I want to slow down and enjoy reading for its own sake, rather than feeling like I'm racing to finish some sort of curriculum that I've set myself.
Could we maybe please get a video for sff book recs with tropical jungly/islandy settings? 👉👈🥺
Is Lions your first Kay? You're in for a treat!
you may try "Dungeon Crawler Carl " if you are looking for something has a same type of humor as "hitchhiker of the galaxy". Aidio book version is medetory way to consume it.
For biopunk, how about the Bloom trilogy by Kenneth Oppel? It's YA, so it might not be to your exact tastes. Also recommending his Silverwing series, just because I love bats.
Ya super busy Merphy hope you finish them all...
Will be finishing Sevice Model tomorrow. My first read of his and I soooooo want to talk about it. Hit me up if want to compare notes.
Hydration: A book that I needed
I didnt know I needed it when I started it but Pet Semetery for sure
Nourishment: A book that energized me
Has got to be The Knight by Will Wight
Detox: A book/habit I am leaving behind
For this one I wish I could say im going to start DNFing books but I think that would just be me lying
😂
HEY!!! I WOULD LIKE TO SUGGEST A BOOK SERIES : Mushoku Tensei Jobless Reincarnation
🧡📚🧡📚🧡📚🧡
For a book about sentient plant life on another planet, read the sci Fi book Semiosis by Sue Burke.
oh I had that on my TBR a long time ago but have totally forgotten about it, thank you for the reminder!
Tchaikovsky has a book that's kind of invasive plant life / nature in general. It's called cage of souls.
You should read Gods of the Wyrdwood by RJ Barker (Tide Child trilogy author) if you like planty stuff
Idk if this is a recommendation or a request but Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel is based on Zweig's Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman. Have you watched it? Would you watch it if you haven't
If you like invasive plant life you need tor read The Ruins by Scott Smith. Ya technically horror but plant itch scratched girl.
I am so curious if you’ve ever read “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I couldn’t find it in your spreadsheet. I recently read it and I am obsessed. I am from Brazil and the Brazilian book tube community loves this book but I haven’t seen it mentioned in the US very often. It’s a historical fiction with a touch of magical realism and the prose, even though it’s translated from Spanish, is superb! It takes place in Barcelona and it has a gothic flare to it.
The book is about a boy who is taken to a mysterious library called the cemetery of forgotten books. He is allowed to take one book from it to keep for obscurity. He is Enamored with the story and tries to find out more about the author who no one seems to have ever heard of. It’s also a book about the love of book. I think there’s a good chance that you would like it and I’d love to get your opinion of it some day.
you know, I DNFed that a loooong time ago but I don't remember why. I think I might have had a bad translation of it? I need to give it another try though because it may be perfect for me as a reader now
@@merphynapierreviews I highly recommend the audiobook too!
Merphy I want you to know that I support your books channel so I like and comment. But I have brainrot and only consume anime content so I'm leaving right after
Never apologize about talking about VanderMeer, he's always worth it.
Its not a book, and I've already recommended it to you, but Scavenger's Reign is a really good animated show about weird alien ecology.
1. Thankfulness: What 2024 has given me thus far: Our VanderMeer buddyread is the first thing that comes to mind, I've really enjoyed getting into his stuff outside of Southern Reach and seeing his range, and doing that with everyone on the server has made it better.
2. Relaxation: The most relaxing book: Maybe the Temeraire series? These books are far from chill but theres just something so relaxing and comforting about them.
3. Hydration: A book that I needed: Too Like the Lightning and Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer. Didn't know I need a series like Terra Ignota until I started it on a whim and now its on the way to becoming my favorite series.
4. Nourishment: A book that energized me: Terra Ignota again, I've never finished a book (or 2 in this instance) and instantly wanted to reread it. Theres so much in these, so many details and I know would pop out on a reread and make the experience that much more enjoyable (and I already loved them the first time through).
5. Familiarity: An author I've returned to: VanderMeer's the easy answer. Abercombie too, having read Age of Madness this year. Also Tchaikovsky though I read half of City of Last Chances last year, and half this year.
6. Healthy risk: Outside of my comfort zone read/new-to-me author: I'm going with Zweig for this too, never would have read either Chess Story of Letter from and Unknown Woman and they're both great.
7. Reflection: Changes in my reading taste: This year is the year that I've really started planning out my TBR, which has let me be a bit more structured with how I read through series. Though someone likes to throw a wrench in it every so often >.>
8. Detox: A book/habit I am leaving behind: Can't really think of anything.
9. Positivity: Anticipated book(s)/events: The Mercy of Gods by James SA Corey and Absolution by VanderMeer. Stormlight 5 is also here but everyones excited for that.
10. Looking ahead: Personal plans/goals: Finish Terra Ignota and maybe start a reread (depends on when someone else is gonna try it). Start and finish Liveship Traders, I recently finished the Farseer Trilogy and loved it and I'm excited to see what else Hobb can do in this world. Reread Dead Astronauts and annotate my copy along the way.
Soooo is The Girl With All the Gifts one of the mixed books or one that's postponed or..? I think it was on your July TBR and I thought that for once I could time my reading of a book to coincide with a fresh review. I'm about 200 pages in and liking it so far.
I believe that might be the one she mentioned as just starting at the beginning of the video. I know that her loan from the library came in and she's started it from the comments on the discord.
I take that back, the comment in Discord is that she has the book and can now start (not already started like I previously said)
Lynn is right, it's the one I'm trying to squeeze in at the end of the vlog!
4:11 State? I thought she was Canadian. Have I been living a lie…
Please watch the anime of Attack on titans first.
You can’t read the manga first then watch the anime after the unlike other manga.
The story heavily relies on mystery and plot twists. Second time won’t be as good if you already know the plot.