1.) I know I'm a bit late but I think you'd really like Constellations, I highly recommend the audiobook. 2.) Your hair looks great. 3.) Love Peter Rabbit chilling in the background.
I recently did a big book purge and reorganization so I could put all the unread books next to each other and there are 60-70 unread on my shelves. Sooo resolution for 2021 is to buy no new books but we all know that won't happen. At least it's not drugs! 😂
Wide Sargasso Sea is spectacular. So beautifully written, so confronting of Jane Eyre and for a modern classic it is very contemporary in its examination of female rage and exploitation of POC... My Year of Rest and Relaxation you will fly through. So wickedly fun in that the protagonist is a terrific antiheroine... Wodehouse is British canon. Def worth a read of one... And Wolf Hall took me a bit to get into but I adored it! Possibly liked the second one better for seeing Anne Boleyn through to her end
“Angels in America” is astoundingly good; it’s so dense and beautiful and tragic. The HBO miniseries adaptation is a wonderful companion to the play too. :) I think someone else described “Tess” perfectly- frustrating, devastating and beautiful. It’s a slow read, but it’s an incredible book. Someone described Ann Patchett to me as being about “terrible rich white people...but that you actually want to read”. I haven’t read Bel Canto yet, but “The Dutch House” was incredible! I’m reading “We Are the Weather” now; I’m finding it to be a compelling read, but a difficult one. I had to take a break from it for a while. A Thousand Splendid Suns and North & South are both “easy” reads in that they’re beautifully written and full of plot, and both are memorable. You have a lot of beautiful books on your TBR shelf!!
Tess of the D'Urbervilles is amazing, feminist lit, which also explores class, and Hardy's descriptions are poetic and just lovely. When you read this book, you'll ask yourself why you haven't read any Hardy before. You could start the Jeeves books with The Codes, it's possibly the best of them all, it's absolutely hilarious and it's a great book for when you're tired and want something a bit easier on the brain.
I haven’t updated Goodreads with the ebooks and audible books I’ve gotten this fall, but it’s def full without it - 1,079 physical, ebooks, and audiobooks owned and unread
i have over 400 non read books mainly on my kindle. I think the 99p books and the fact that kindle stores so many is such an enabler of my buying habits. I browse and think it's only 99p so i buy it. If i had over 400 physical books i would say i had a problem but because they are hidden in the small size of a kindle it doesnt seem like a problem.
My choice to prioritize is Wide Sargasso Sea!! It’s such an unappreciated book and I love hearing people talk about it! For kindle books I would prioritize a thousand splendid suns.
A small TBR might be great normally but it seems having a few more books on hand during a global pandemic is no bad thing! This year I challenged myself to get my physical TBR down from 30-40 books to 5 books to see if I liked a really small TBR in practice, not just in theory. Also most of my books come from the library anyway. Imposed a book buying ban for the year to help with this. Fast forward through the pandemic, library shut for 6 months. I hit a 3 book TBR in August, even with much use of the Little Free Library box near me, library only re-opened this month. I've since indulged in some panic buying to get TBR back up to around 20 to cope with any future library closures!
I've read Where The Crawdads Sing and recommend it without reservation. It is worth mentioning that the life of the author, Delia Owen, is very interesting as well. Also, her husband may, or may or not, have killed a poacher(?) in Africa. They are worth doing a little research on, a bit of googling. Very interesting real life story.
Read Where the Crawdads Sing earlier this year during lockdown and it's the best book I've read for years, if not my all-time favourite! Made me wanna ditch my life now to become a biologist...
Beware if you start A Thousand Splendid Suns it's very compelling, you don't want to have to go to work the next day, I couldn't put it down and read into the wee hours. Read Crawdads and Brooklyn early on and see how they grab you. They are also quick reads and you can decide to unhaul or not, depending how they grab you. Bel Canto, I read over a decade ago and still stays with me, I've kept it on my top favourites shelf, I've really got to see the film now. Wide Sargasso Sea, could read that and Jane Eyre for Victober, perhaps read Jane Eyre first, if you haven't already. The Robber Bride, I think is the only one physically on my TBR shelf that I share with you. Books like The Starless Sea and Wolf Hall, very different books but I think you need to be in the right frame of mind to get something out of those. I've read and enjoyed both but both were a bit of an effort and both took longer than I expected. Burnt Sugar; I paused a little while ago and returned to the library, just wasn't in the mood, I might go back to it at some stage. My Year of Rest and Relaxation; I had out from the library but didn't get to it, one day I'll go back. Gingerbread; I tried on audiobook, started well but just lost a bit of interest, might be better on the page, in the right frame of mind. I have a huge TBR Mountain. Hundreds on my physical TBR, hundreds at the library, over a thousand on goodreads, lol. On goodreads, Discomfort of Evening is sort of high up the TBR pile.
I have also been wanting to read A Thousand Splendid Suns for years, ever since I read and loved The Kite Runner, don't know why I haven't yet! I think you would love Where The Crawdads Sing. I'm moving house in a week and looking forward to unboxing all my books and counting read and unread! My guess is over 100 🙈 Ps. I agree, hair is stunning xx
I loved the girl with the Louding voice! I listened to an audio version of it through BBC sounds and it was a wonderful experience! I'm shocked you fit all the books in one box! I feel like it's a more manageable amount to have than I do! But then again when I moved I put them in lots of smaller boxes haha! I really need to read more of what I own first!
I have all my unread books next to each other, and like you, it's eighty-something. I really want to get it down to about twenty. I've read The Everyday Dancer and really enjoyed it. It's not that long and a really easy read. I also really love Angels of America. I read it for uni and would never have picked it up otherwise, but really truly enjoyed it! Wish I could see it performed.
I loved My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I read it a few months ago and I still think about it all the time! I also really enjoyed Eleanor, Once Upon a River, and A Thousand Splendid Suns... So many lovely books on your TBR ❤️ I counted how many unread books I own when I moved earlier this year and the number was terrifying 😂
I read and really liked Where the Crawdads Sing and A Thousand Splendid Suns, but I LOVED Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?. I found it more accessible than most of Winterson's fiction, at the same time you get some insight into when and why she wrote some of her work. And that's wrapped in her life story with the strange mother and her quest to find her birth mother... I cried at the end!
I am really intrigued by some of the non-fiction books on your TBR. Brooklyn is lovely. Wolf Hall is very slow. I found it interesting but I felt like there was some info dumping/parts that were not necessary. I can’t believe how you’ve managed to keep your TBR so small. I used to buy a few books a year and just re-read books I loved. In the last five years I’ve become a book buying monster. I think I have about 200 books in physical form that I just haven’t got round to (some were gifts I’ve been given in the last seven years though!) I really want a library room when I have my own house so I’m not great at letting go of books. May need to say goodbye to some books as I have about 500 books either on my shelves or in the loft!
I'm a book hoarder. I have probably 300 ebooks on my Kindle and 2 dozens on my shelf. I highly recommend reading Wide Sargasso Sea. And The Importance of Being Earnest. It's a riot.
I've been trying to reduce my tbr for yeeears, I'm at 20 now finally!! Hoping to get it down to 5 or something by the end of the year but we shall see... I really liked North and South, I think it's a good read for this time of year as well
You should def read Rewilding by Isabella Tree! It's so wonderfully written but also sooo informative. My dad borrowed it after I'd read it and he was raving about it too. I also reckon that Ann Patchett is a writer that you'll like - I'd recommend The Dutch House, great read.
I think you can read Wooster in any order really. The Code of the Woosters is an EXCELLENT Wodehouse. This was a fun video! It made me realise I don't even want to think of counting all the unread books on my shelves. :(
Tess of the d'Urbervilles is one of my favourite books of all time, so I have to vote for that one! I also read Once Upon a River last month and it was fantastic. The Starless Sea is strange but very beautifully written. A lot of people hate it but I thought it was quite lovely, if confusing! My TBR currently sits at about 29 I think? I've been working on reducing it. I want to get it down below 10 eventually 😊
81 is not too bad. I have read Bel Canto (not what I normally read but surprisingly engaging) and Once upon a Time in the East (great book. Very interesting and shocking. Really enjoyed it) from that list of books.
You are so delightful, Lauren. Which makes it much easier to forgive you for being a CHILD in the 90s! 😂 I am one of the people with hundreds of physical books in my TBR. I’m going to be doing an unhaul very soon of the ones I know I’m never going to read. Got to be easily 50+ of those.
Many interesting books! You inspired me to count me own TBR pile and it seems like I have 70 unread books on my shelves. I'm wondering if I'll ever reduce it completely. Maybe not, however the truth is that I enjoy have plenty of titles to choose from. At least, we won't get out of books to read:)
Wolf Hall is my absolute favourite series but I know its a bit marmite. I love the writing and the skill, its so beautifully done and absorbing, but some people struggle to get into it or to connect with it, but I can't stop talking about it to everyone I know. If I hadb't read the Mirror and The Light, I might say The Girl With The Louding Voice was my favourite book I've read so far this year, and it's definitely more, I don't know if accessible is the right word but I think would appeal to more people. Adunni is one of the best characters I've read and it's such a simply structured but powerful stories. Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor is one of my favourite non fictions I've read this year, it's so clearly laid out and well expressed, and also talks about the nuances. I listened to the audibook as well and Tharoor has such a good voice for audio, so warm. I absolutely love North & South, it's so understated but gorgeous, I love reading a classic that explores working class life and the labour movement, and also it's got such perfect slow burn tiny touches romance. I have some of these on my physical TBR as well, including Feral by George Monbiot and The Romanov's by Simon Seabag Montifore. I do the same thing, buying books with good intentions and then they linger.
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson - I can highly recommend that. It packs more of a punch if you're familiar with her earlier work (particularly Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit) and her life, her mother etc.
I had that exact copy of Angels in America, I studied it in my second year of university! It's a beautiful play, definitely give it a go (gives an excuse to watch the HBO adaptation too!). I've also had The Robber Bride on my TBR shelf for ages but I swear I'll read it this year! I still have time! :') Also, thank you for showing that you made a box of TBR books earlier - I did this yesterday when packing up my books for our move, and it's going to be massively helpful!
I have 28 physical books, my digital side is crazy! But when I don’t know what to read I try and pick the book by date added from goodreads. I’m finally finished with 2015 and am now trying to get through 16 hopefully this year. Note that this is just of the books I own not the overall Want to read section 😅
I've read many of these and there were no bad ones amongst them!! You've got some real treats there too. A thousand splendid suns is one of my all time faves. Envious of the size of your tbr, mine is in the hundreds 🤔 Are you going to keep your tbr separate from the books you've read as you unpack?
Oooh read Angels in America!!! Feral and Wilding are also both great but Wilding is more readable - Feral is quite slow. I have 17 physical books on my tbr and 20 on ebook - the free classics/NetGalley ARCs get me every time!
I definitely recommend a thousand splendid suns, i think i have liked each of his books more than the one before. Oh and definitely throne of glass too! I have added some of your list to my tbr too:) this seems a very respectable tbr pile to me, much better than mine!!
According to the google doc I have to keep track of my reading, I have 149 books on my TBR, but the real number is even worse, because when I created the document, my books were all over the place and I keep meaning to update it properly to include everything, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Oh, and of course, there are the books from the "I feel sad, I must buy books" Kindle sprees of March-April this year. Never got around to putting them on the list either, and I dread to think how many of them there are. 😅 My vote goes to Where the Crawdads sing. I loved that, though the ending was a bit meh, in my opinion. I also liked The Three Musketeers, but I have a love/hate relationship with 19th century French authors. The good bits are great, but the boring bits are very boring 🤣 Also read Mansfield Park, Villette, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Brooklyn and The Importance of Being Earnest, but those were more middle of the road books for me. Hated Throne of Glass. Edited to add: I also loathed The Alchemist, and gave Paulo Coelho another chance with The Winner Stands Alone, but didn't like that either, so I think I'm going to pass on Veronika Decides to Die, even though I originally was very interested in reading it.
I have read the George Monbiot book - Feral. I enjoy his newspaper columns and he writes with passion and clarity. I didn't really enjoy this though. I think I was expecting a full explanation of rewilding and why we should do it, that's there to an extent but there is also a lot of "Bear Grylls" like stuff. It felt a bit macho which surprised me.
I really love TBR videos and this one was lovely as well :) If you read one book on your kindle soon-ish, make it The Bone Clocks, as it is a magnificant read! I wouldn't bother with Paulo Coelho though, I also read one book by him and did not like his writing style and themes at all (and they seem to be quite reoccuring thorughout all of his books). For my personal reading habits, I used to have a tbr quite like yours (so around a hundred books I guess) but devoted the last like four years to really getting that number down and am now on 4 books. Really want to become that one-out-one-in person, as it works much better for mood reading and incorporating current affairs / what's happening in the world into your (non-fiction) reading :) It does help though that I don't have an e-reader/audible, so I only have to keep track of my physical tbr pile. I think your number is also quite respectable, not too high that it becomes unrealistic to get to each of them! And you do read much faster than I do, I think, so it will probably take you even less time to reduce that number (if you even want that... it's of course also perfectly fine for your tbr to stay in that range). have a good one x
I just finished Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie! It was really good, and that's coming from someone who's generally not too keen on history. She was fascinating!
Well my shame is even greater - they would propably fill five boxes like that and at least 200 on kindle. Of course tastes differ but for me Wodehouse and Maugham are fabulous.
I guess you got rid of the Pocket Penguins? I remember what a struggle you had picking them up, so fair enough! I have 43 unread books, but I'm not excited about a lot of them, so they may never get read.
Absolutely adored Once Upon A River and The Robber Bride. Can't recommend them highly enough. One I would NOT recommend is The Starless Sea...ugh! Got nearly halfway through before I dnf'd it.
Same. DNFed it after getting to a half and reading many reviews voicing the same concerns. Which is a shame, because the premise was so, so good! But the plot ended up going nowhere, the writing was so meh and fragmented. The only thing I liked about this book were the small side stories. It’s a shame the book didn’t stick to only that.
This was good fun! You definitely don't have to read the Woosters in order. There is kind of an overarching plot, but it's just Bertie getting engaged and unengaged to every woman in this friend group
I've been so bad with buying loads of books during lockdown (because what else are you gonna do right?), and especially also kindle versions that randomly go to 0.99 I just buy on sight (*hangs head in shame*) and I counted them all recently and have over 300 unread....
My 2 favourites from your pile are Tess and the Robber Bride. I also though Bel Canto was a good read. I've read a few others, but they were so-so. One that I loathed was Meatless Days. I had to read it twice for university. So pretentious. Absolutely despised it, as most readers do. It's one that seems to get all 1 or 5 star reviews, but mostly 1 star. I want those hours back.
Xialolu Guo is wonderful, I've read everything by her that's avaibale in English. Her memoir is really interesting, would definitely recommend. The only other book on your TBR list I've read is Where the Crawdads Sing and while I did finish it, I strongly disliked it and the ending made me quite angry! But what do I know?! Edit: I lied! I hadn't got to your kindle books yet! I've read The Bone Clocks and enjoyed it, and The Three Musketeers and LOVED it! Goodreads tells me I have 262 books on my TBR. That includes Kindle and Audible books, but it's still quite bad! I'm getting there. Slowly. I haven't bought a physical book in months though so I'm not adding to it at least.
I shudder to think about making a video of all the books I have that I haven't read...do you have more books read than TBR in your house? That's what my sister does, and it puzzles me! 😂
But how many books would you read in a year though!? I look at my TBR and go, "well that's a years worth of books" or, that would take me x number of months to read, so that's fine!
I would really recommend wilding by Isabella tree. Read it recently and really uplifting and inspiring story amidst all the doom and gloom around climate change / environmentalism. Really well written too and readable with lots of interesting anecdotes/ facts and scientific information 👍🏻
As a professional ballerina, I never understand why people are interested/jealous of dancers 😂 I drank the kool aid long ago and I feel lucky but it's a pretty hard living
I've only read two of these, one being My Year of Rest and Relaxation which I enjoyed. I also read Where the Crawdads Sing and didn't care for it at all. It has an implausible plot about a child who raises herself alone from the age of six, totally uneducated and neglected. She should have had arrested development at the least. Instead, she becomes a marine biologist! Ridiculous and unrealistic.
I just loked at my Goodreads TBR and I have 199 books on it. But I know there are more because I have so physical at home that aren't on my Gr TBR. Send help.
I’m coming currently listening to Burnt Sugar on Audible. Brooklyn 🦋 Once Upon a River 🦋 Where the Crawdads Sing 🦋 The Girl With the Louding Voice was book 📚 of the week bbc radio4. Some good books there for non fiction November. Janette Winterson 🤩 Mansfield Park 🦋 North & South 🦋 Try getting some of your non fiction & fiction on audio. It will really help you get books read. I’m not sure what my TBR count is? Rough estimate? 65? ☕️🤩😷🌈👋📚☘️📖
I read Once Upon a River earlier this year and absolutely adored it. Wide Sargasso Sea has been on my TBR for the last year and after watching this video ruclips.net/video/RBY5IMGKBEM/видео.html it has become a priority (spoilers for those who haven't read Jane Eyre yet).
I read Once Upon A River and really liked it! Wide Sargasso Sea and Tess are great too. However, Swimming Lessons reaaaally wasn't for me, the father/husband figure is so problematic and makes my skin crawl, hard pass (he's the mother's professor when they meet, she has to drop out because of the scandal of them being together, and (spoiler?) he just keeps her in his lake house - although she always wanted to live in the city - where she's incredibly lonely, and he gives her the task to bear him 6 children (and she never wanted children either!!!), all the while he's off galivanting through the city or being a recluse and writing gross novels and snapping at everyone)
You want me to trash your TBR? I like Jane Eyre a lot, but *Villette*... Forget it. Strangely paged, boring very problematic relationship (more than in Jane Eyre). And *Bel Canto*... it is booooorring. Interesting premise, but nothing happened and you ar left thinking 'what was that all about'. *Where the Crawdads Sing* was nice, but in hindsight not very memorable. I've read 2 books by Paolo Coelho (the Alchemist and one of which id don't remember the name) and they were basically the same. Skip the Coelho book. I'd put the Elizabeth Gaskell books at the top of the list.
The box said SMALL. So technically, Lauren has small TBR.
ABSOLUTELY!
Totally unrelated, but your hair looks SO GOOD.
Haha thank you, it desperately needs a cut, this is pre-lockdown length! 😳
I was just gonna say the same. Absolutely lovely! Love the volume and waviness and everything
1.) I know I'm a bit late but I think you'd really like Constellations, I highly recommend the audiobook. 2.) Your hair looks great. 3.) Love Peter Rabbit chilling in the background.
I recently did a big book purge and reorganization so I could put all the unread books next to each other and there are 60-70 unread on my shelves. Sooo resolution for 2021 is to buy no new books but we all know that won't happen. At least it's not drugs! 😂
I also hated the Alchemist! You’re the first person I’ve ever heard say that. We’re as rare as unicorns.
Heather Peet nope, I really thought it was bilge too, what is all the fuss about, just don’t get it...
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell is awesome. One of my favourite books of all time. The bbc mini series with Richard Armitage is amazing too. 😁
Mine too!! We watched that on a loop at uni 😅
Wide Sargasso Sea is spectacular. So beautifully written, so confronting of Jane Eyre and for a modern classic it is very contemporary in its examination of female rage and exploitation of POC... My Year of Rest and Relaxation you will fly through. So wickedly fun in that the protagonist is a terrific antiheroine... Wodehouse is British canon. Def worth a read of one... And Wolf Hall took me a bit to get into but I adored it! Possibly liked the second one better for seeing Anne Boleyn through to her end
“Angels in America” is astoundingly good; it’s so dense and beautiful and tragic. The HBO miniseries adaptation is a wonderful companion to the play too. :)
I think someone else described “Tess” perfectly- frustrating, devastating and beautiful. It’s a slow read, but it’s an incredible book.
Someone described Ann Patchett to me as being about “terrible rich white people...but that you actually want to read”. I haven’t read Bel Canto yet, but “The Dutch House” was incredible!
I’m reading “We Are the Weather” now; I’m finding it to be a compelling read, but a difficult one. I had to take a break from it for a while.
A Thousand Splendid Suns and North & South are both “easy” reads in that they’re beautifully written and full of plot, and both are memorable.
You have a lot of beautiful books on your TBR shelf!!
Tess of the D'Urbervilles is amazing, feminist lit, which also explores class, and Hardy's descriptions are poetic and just lovely. When you read this book, you'll ask yourself why you haven't read any Hardy before.
You could start the Jeeves books with The Codes, it's possibly the best of them all, it's absolutely hilarious and it's a great book for when you're tired and want something a bit easier on the brain.
I loved Deborah Bull’s book about being a professional dancer
I haven’t updated Goodreads with the ebooks and audible books I’ve gotten this fall, but it’s def full without it - 1,079 physical, ebooks, and audiobooks owned and unread
Finally! Yes, I hated The Alchemist as well. I really don't get the hype😒
The Robber Bride is my favorite Atwood, fun and suspenseful.
my favourite too
i have over 400 non read books mainly on my kindle. I think the 99p books and the fact that kindle stores so many is such an enabler of my buying habits. I browse and think it's only 99p so i buy it. If i had over 400 physical books i would say i had a problem but because they are hidden in the small size of a kindle it doesnt seem like a problem.
My choice to prioritize is Wide Sargasso Sea!! It’s such an unappreciated book and I love hearing people talk about it!
For kindle books I would prioritize a thousand splendid suns.
A small TBR might be great normally but it seems having a few more books on hand during a global pandemic is no bad thing!
This year I challenged myself to get my physical TBR down from 30-40 books to 5 books to see if I liked a really small TBR in practice, not just in theory. Also most of my books come from the library anyway. Imposed a book buying ban for the year to help with this.
Fast forward through the pandemic, library shut for 6 months. I hit a 3 book TBR in August, even with much use of the Little Free Library box near me, library only re-opened this month. I've since indulged in some panic buying to get TBR back up to around 20 to cope with any future library closures!
I've read Where The Crawdads Sing and recommend it without reservation. It is worth mentioning that the life of the author, Delia Owen, is very interesting as well. Also, her husband may, or may or not, have killed a poacher(?) in Africa. They are worth doing a little research on, a bit of googling. Very interesting real life story.
Scabby Queen sounds intriguing! I enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing.
Read Where the Crawdads Sing earlier this year during lockdown and it's the best book I've read for years, if not my all-time favourite! Made me wanna ditch my life now to become a biologist...
Beware if you start A Thousand Splendid Suns it's very compelling, you don't want to have to go to work the next day, I couldn't put it down and read into the wee hours.
Read Crawdads and Brooklyn early on and see how they grab you. They are also quick reads and you can decide to unhaul or not, depending how they grab you.
Bel Canto, I read over a decade ago and still stays with me, I've kept it on my top favourites shelf, I've really got to see the film now.
Wide Sargasso Sea, could read that and Jane Eyre for Victober, perhaps read Jane Eyre first, if you haven't already.
The Robber Bride, I think is the only one physically on my TBR shelf that I share with you.
Books like The Starless Sea and Wolf Hall, very different books but I think you need to be in the right frame of mind to get something out of those. I've read and enjoyed both but both were a bit of an effort and both took longer than I expected.
Burnt Sugar; I paused a little while ago and returned to the library, just wasn't in the mood, I might go back to it at some stage.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation; I had out from the library but didn't get to it, one day I'll go back.
Gingerbread; I tried on audiobook, started well but just lost a bit of interest, might be better on the page, in the right frame of mind.
I have a huge TBR Mountain. Hundreds on my physical TBR, hundreds at the library, over a thousand on goodreads, lol.
On goodreads, Discomfort of Evening is sort of high up the TBR pile.
I have also been wanting to read A Thousand Splendid Suns for years, ever since I read and loved The Kite Runner, don't know why I haven't yet! I think you would love Where The Crawdads Sing. I'm moving house in a week and looking forward to unboxing all my books and counting read and unread! My guess is over 100 🙈 Ps. I agree, hair is stunning xx
I loved the girl with the Louding voice! I listened to an audio version of it through BBC sounds and it was a wonderful experience!
I'm shocked you fit all the books in one box! I feel like it's a more manageable amount to have than I do! But then again when I moved I put them in lots of smaller boxes haha! I really need to read more of what I own first!
I have all my unread books next to each other, and like you, it's eighty-something. I really want to get it down to about twenty. I've read The Everyday Dancer and really enjoyed it. It's not that long and a really easy read. I also really love Angels of America. I read it for uni and would never have picked it up otherwise, but really truly enjoyed it! Wish I could see it performed.
I loved My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I read it a few months ago and I still think about it all the time! I also really enjoyed Eleanor, Once Upon a River, and A Thousand Splendid Suns... So many lovely books on your TBR ❤️ I counted how many unread books I own when I moved earlier this year and the number was terrifying 😂
Bel canto and year of rest and relaxation are great lockdown picks. I loved crawdads x
I read and really liked Where the Crawdads Sing and A Thousand Splendid Suns, but I LOVED Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?. I found it more accessible than most of Winterson's fiction, at the same time you get some insight into when and why she wrote some of her work. And that's wrapped in her life story with the strange mother and her quest to find her birth mother... I cried at the end!
I am really intrigued by some of the non-fiction books on your TBR.
Brooklyn is lovely.
Wolf Hall is very slow. I found it interesting but I felt like there was some info dumping/parts that were not necessary.
I can’t believe how you’ve managed to keep your TBR so small. I used to buy a few books a year and just re-read books I loved. In the last five years I’ve become a book buying monster. I think I have about 200 books in physical form that I just haven’t got round to (some were gifts I’ve been given in the last seven years though!) I really want a library room when I have my own house so I’m not great at letting go of books. May need to say goodbye to some books as I have about 500 books either on my shelves or in the loft!
Haha, I’ve had to do many, many slim downs as we worked on packing up before the move! But now we have space for some proper shelves...oooh baby! Xx
@@LaurenWade Makes sense! I can imagine it will be exciting to start working out where to put books and then buy more if you want to. Xx
Quite a few of the books towards the bottom of the box are on my TBR, too. I really need to get to them...
I’d definitely suggest Angels in America!
I'm a book hoarder. I have probably 300 ebooks on my Kindle and 2 dozens on my shelf.
I highly recommend reading Wide Sargasso Sea. And The Importance of Being Earnest. It's a riot.
Thinking Fast and Slow is genuinely mind expanding in the best possible way.
I’ve had that on my bookshelf for over a year, still not read it (!)
I've been trying to reduce my tbr for yeeears, I'm at 20 now finally!! Hoping to get it down to 5 or something by the end of the year but we shall see... I really liked North and South, I think it's a good read for this time of year as well
You should def read Rewilding by Isabella Tree! It's so wonderfully written but also sooo informative. My dad borrowed it after I'd read it and he was raving about it too. I also reckon that Ann Patchett is a writer that you'll like - I'd recommend The Dutch House, great read.
I think you can read Wooster in any order really. The Code of the Woosters is an EXCELLENT Wodehouse. This was a fun video! It made me realise I don't even want to think of counting all the unread books on my shelves. :(
Just read where the crawfords sing is amazing. ❤️😍
I think this channel holds merit. The algorithm suggests I check it out.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles is one of my favourite books of all time, so I have to vote for that one! I also read Once Upon a River last month and it was fantastic.
The Starless Sea is strange but very beautifully written. A lot of people hate it but I thought it was quite lovely, if confusing!
My TBR currently sits at about 29 I think? I've been working on reducing it. I want to get it down below 10 eventually 😊
81 is not too bad. I have read Bel Canto (not what I normally read but surprisingly engaging) and Once upon a Time in the East (great book. Very interesting and shocking. Really enjoyed it) from that list of books.
You should definitely start reading A thousand splendid sun by Khaled Hosseini. That book is life changing!
I think I must be the only one who didnt rate this..
You are so delightful, Lauren. Which makes it much easier to forgive you for being a CHILD in the 90s! 😂
I am one of the people with hundreds of physical books in my TBR. I’m going to be doing an unhaul very soon of the ones I know I’m never going to read. Got to be easily 50+ of those.
You have to read ”Where the crawdards sing”! 🥰🥰🥰
I really loved Where the Crawdads Sing; look forward to hearing what you think when you read it :)
Many interesting books! You inspired me to count me own TBR pile and it seems like I have 70 unread books on my shelves. I'm wondering if I'll ever reduce it completely. Maybe not, however the truth is that I enjoy have plenty of titles to choose from. At least, we won't get out of books to read:)
Wolf Hall is my absolute favourite series but I know its a bit marmite. I love the writing and the skill, its so beautifully done and absorbing, but some people struggle to get into it or to connect with it, but I can't stop talking about it to everyone I know.
If I hadb't read the Mirror and The Light, I might say The Girl With The Louding Voice was my favourite book I've read so far this year, and it's definitely more, I don't know if accessible is the right word but I think would appeal to more people. Adunni is one of the best characters I've read and it's such a simply structured but powerful stories.
Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor is one of my favourite non fictions I've read this year, it's so clearly laid out and well expressed, and also talks about the nuances. I listened to the audibook as well and Tharoor has such a good voice for audio, so warm.
I absolutely love North & South, it's so understated but gorgeous, I love reading a classic that explores working class life and the labour movement, and also it's got such perfect slow burn tiny touches romance.
I have some of these on my physical TBR as well, including Feral by George Monbiot and The Romanov's by Simon Seabag Montifore. I do the same thing, buying books with good intentions and then they linger.
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson - I can highly recommend that. It packs more of a punch if you're familiar with her earlier work (particularly Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit) and her life, her mother etc.
Can I just say when you were talking about XX all I could think of was ‘oh yes.... like Jurassic Park’ 😂😂
I own 31 unread books. I have a sticky shelf on Goodreads called "Physical tbr"
I had that exact copy of Angels in America, I studied it in my second year of university! It's a beautiful play, definitely give it a go (gives an excuse to watch the HBO adaptation too!). I've also had The Robber Bride on my TBR shelf for ages but I swear I'll read it this year! I still have time! :')
Also, thank you for showing that you made a box of TBR books earlier - I did this yesterday when packing up my books for our move, and it's going to be massively helpful!
Your hair looks gorgeous! Also, if it makes you feel better, my TBR consisted of about 8 boxes when we moved in June :D xx
you're glowing in this video ❤️
every time I start to feel guilty about my unread books, I think about Umberto Ecos 'antilibrary' 😊
I have 28 physical books, my digital side is crazy! But when I don’t know what to read I try and pick the book by date added from goodreads. I’m finally finished with 2015 and am now trying to get through 16 hopefully this year. Note that this is just of the books I own not the overall Want to read section 😅
I've read many of these and there were no bad ones amongst them!! You've got some real treats there too. A thousand splendid suns is one of my all time faves.
Envious of the size of your tbr, mine is in the hundreds 🤔
Are you going to keep your tbr separate from the books you've read as you unpack?
Oooh read Angels in America!!! Feral and Wilding are also both great but Wilding is more readable - Feral is quite slow.
I have 17 physical books on my tbr and 20 on ebook - the free classics/NetGalley ARCs get me every time!
I definitely recommend a thousand splendid suns, i think i have liked each of his books more than the one before. Oh and definitely throne of glass too! I have added some of your list to my tbr too:) this seems a very respectable tbr pile to me, much better than mine!!
i was checking something on kindle the other day and had so many books i had forgotten i had bought!
i have two full shelves, so i think youre ok! I read Tess, good but very sad, and have the Miyazawa one on my TBR list (havent bought it yet)
A Thousand Splendid Suns is amazing - start there!
According to the google doc I have to keep track of my reading, I have 149 books on my TBR, but the real number is even worse, because when I created the document, my books were all over the place and I keep meaning to update it properly to include everything, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Oh, and of course, there are the books from the "I feel sad, I must buy books" Kindle sprees of March-April this year. Never got around to putting them on the list either, and I dread to think how many of them there are. 😅
My vote goes to Where the Crawdads sing. I loved that, though the ending was a bit meh, in my opinion. I also liked The Three Musketeers, but I have a love/hate relationship with 19th century French authors. The good bits are great, but the boring bits are very boring 🤣 Also read Mansfield Park, Villette, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Brooklyn and The Importance of Being Earnest, but those were more middle of the road books for me. Hated Throne of Glass.
Edited to add: I also loathed The Alchemist, and gave Paulo Coelho another chance with The Winner Stands Alone, but didn't like that either, so I think I'm going to pass on Veronika Decides to Die, even though I originally was very interested in reading it.
Tess is heartbreaking and infuriating. You should read it immediately.
I feel a little better about my TBR now 😂
I love Margaret Atwood's writing. Read The Robber Bride!! It is great.
The Robber Bride and Brooklyn are two excellent books
I have read the George Monbiot book - Feral. I enjoy his newspaper columns and he writes with passion and clarity. I didn't really enjoy this though. I think I was expecting a full explanation of rewilding and why we should do it, that's there to an extent but there is also a lot of "Bear Grylls" like stuff. It felt a bit macho which surprised me.
I thought The Robber Bride was amazing when I read it, I love My Year of Rest and Relaxation as well!
I really love TBR videos and this one was lovely as well :) If you read one book on your kindle soon-ish, make it The Bone Clocks, as it is a magnificant read! I wouldn't bother with Paulo Coelho though, I also read one book by him and did not like his writing style and themes at all (and they seem to be quite reoccuring thorughout all of his books). For my personal reading habits, I used to have a tbr quite like yours (so around a hundred books I guess) but devoted the last like four years to really getting that number down and am now on 4 books. Really want to become that one-out-one-in person, as it works much better for mood reading and incorporating current affairs / what's happening in the world into your (non-fiction) reading :) It does help though that I don't have an e-reader/audible, so I only have to keep track of my physical tbr pile. I think your number is also quite respectable, not too high that it becomes unrealistic to get to each of them! And you do read much faster than I do, I think, so it will probably take you even less time to reduce that number (if you even want that... it's of course also perfectly fine for your tbr to stay in that range). have a good one x
I just finished Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie! It was really good, and that's coming from someone who's generally not too keen on history. She was fascinating!
Well my shame is even greater - they would propably fill five boxes like that and at least 200 on kindle.
Of course tastes differ but for me Wodehouse and Maugham are fabulous.
I guess you got rid of the Pocket Penguins? I remember what a struggle you had picking them up, so fair enough!
I have 43 unread books, but I'm not excited about a lot of them, so they may never get read.
Absolutely adored Once Upon A River and The Robber Bride. Can't recommend them highly enough. One I would NOT recommend is The Starless Sea...ugh! Got nearly halfway through before I dnf'd it.
Same. DNFed it after getting to a half and reading many reviews voicing the same concerns. Which is a shame, because the premise was so, so good! But the plot ended up going nowhere, the writing was so meh and fragmented. The only thing I liked about this book were the small side stories. It’s a shame the book didn’t stick to only that.
Unrelated to the video, but your hair looks amazing!
This was good fun! You definitely don't have to read the Woosters in order. There is kind of an overarching plot, but it's just Bertie getting engaged and unengaged to every woman in this friend group
I honestly only read My year of rest and relaxation and I really enjoyed it :D
I daren't count my unread books. There are hundreds 😬 & it's shameful. Your number is totally manageable. Impressive.
I've been so bad with buying loads of books during lockdown (because what else are you gonna do right?), and especially also kindle versions that randomly go to 0.99 I just buy on sight (*hangs head in shame*) and I counted them all recently and have over 300 unread....
Pretty sure 90% of my bookshelf is unread so I am terrified to do this 🙊🙊
My 2 favourites from your pile are Tess and the Robber Bride. I also though Bel Canto was a good read. I've read a few others, but they were so-so. One that I loathed was Meatless Days. I had to read it twice for university. So pretentious. Absolutely despised it, as most readers do. It's one that seems to get all 1 or 5 star reviews, but mostly 1 star. I want those hours back.
Xialolu Guo is wonderful, I've read everything by her that's avaibale in English. Her memoir is really interesting, would definitely recommend. The only other book on your TBR list I've read is Where the Crawdads Sing and while I did finish it, I strongly disliked it and the ending made me quite angry! But what do I know?!
Edit: I lied! I hadn't got to your kindle books yet! I've read The Bone Clocks and enjoyed it, and The Three Musketeers and LOVED it!
Goodreads tells me I have 262 books on my TBR. That includes Kindle and Audible books, but it's still quite bad! I'm getting there. Slowly. I haven't bought a physical book in months though so I'm not adding to it at least.
I say, get Evie Dunmore's book out of the way. A fun and fast read 😊
I have a spreadsheet... and it haunts me. 😂
I shudder to think about making a video of all the books I have that I haven't read...do you have more books read than TBR in your house? That's what my sister does, and it puzzles me! 😂
I gave up on gingerbread. Ugh
But how many books would you read in a year though!? I look at my TBR and go, "well that's a years worth of books" or, that would take me x number of months to read, so that's fine!
I would really recommend wilding by Isabella tree. Read it recently and really uplifting and inspiring story amidst all the doom and gloom around climate change / environmentalism. Really well written too and readable with lots of interesting anecdotes/ facts and scientific information 👍🏻
As a professional ballerina, I never understand why people are interested/jealous of dancers 😂 I drank the kool aid long ago and I feel lucky but it's a pretty hard living
I don’t know how many books I have on my kindle or in my Scribd TBR. But I just checked my iBooks library. 712.
Someone help me.
I have TBR on Google Sheet, it’s 600+. Help me too.
It’s ok!! You are among friends! 🤗
Yikes 😂
I've only read two of these, one being My Year of Rest and Relaxation which I enjoyed. I also read Where the Crawdads Sing and didn't care for it at all. It has an implausible plot about a child who raises herself alone from the age of six, totally uneducated and neglected. She should have had arrested development at the least. Instead, she becomes a marine biologist! Ridiculous and unrealistic.
I just loked at my Goodreads TBR and I have 199 books on it. But I know there are more because I have so physical at home that aren't on my Gr TBR. Send help.
I’m coming currently listening to Burnt Sugar on Audible.
Brooklyn 🦋
Once Upon a River 🦋
Where the Crawdads Sing 🦋
The Girl With the Louding Voice was book 📚 of the week bbc radio4.
Some good books there for non fiction November.
Janette Winterson 🤩
Mansfield Park 🦋
North & South 🦋
Try getting some of your non fiction & fiction on audio. It will really help you get books read.
I’m not sure what my TBR count is? Rough estimate? 65?
☕️🤩😷🌈👋📚☘️📖
Well, the box says "small". It is not that bad then 😁
I read Once Upon a River earlier this year and absolutely adored it. Wide Sargasso Sea has been on my TBR for the last year and after watching this video ruclips.net/video/RBY5IMGKBEM/видео.html it has become a priority (spoilers for those who haven't read Jane Eyre yet).
A small box TBR ah ha right the box provided by TARDIS
Jesus, I've only read ONE of all of these books, Mansfield Park, and that one is my least favourite Austen... :/
Haha don’t worry, I’ve not read any of them 😉
I read Once Upon A River and really liked it! Wide Sargasso Sea and Tess are great too.
However, Swimming Lessons reaaaally wasn't for me, the father/husband figure is so problematic and makes my skin crawl, hard pass (he's the mother's professor when they meet, she has to drop out because of the scandal of them being together, and (spoiler?) he just keeps her in his lake house - although she always wanted to live in the city - where she's incredibly lonely, and he gives her the task to bear him 6 children (and she never wanted children either!!!), all the while he's off galivanting through the city or being a recluse and writing gross novels and snapping at everyone)
Oooh, thanks for the heads up! Sounds like a plot that will infuriate me 😅
Wow, that sounds like a hard pass. Thanks for the information.
I have 200...... 🙈😅😅
You want me to trash your TBR? I like Jane Eyre a lot, but *Villette*... Forget it. Strangely paged, boring very problematic relationship (more than in Jane Eyre). And *Bel Canto*... it is booooorring. Interesting premise, but nothing happened and you ar left thinking 'what was that all about'. *Where the Crawdads Sing* was nice, but in hindsight not very memorable. I've read 2 books by Paolo Coelho (the Alchemist and one of which id don't remember the name) and they were basically the same. Skip the Coelho book. I'd put the Elizabeth Gaskell books at the top of the list.