"Science!" [Points at screen] was a highlight for me. Meet the Georgians sounds great. I'm just reading a couple of books about the Georgians/18th century Britain (and going backwards towards the Civil War). I like Held and I might re-read it. O, I'd really like to read 'Eve'.
I still can’t get my head around My Friends wasn’t shortlisted. It was my favourite of the books I read. I might try Held now if you liked it. ( You May already know this? The incident in My Friends at the Libyan embassy was a real thing)
The trade-off for Jane Austen trying her hand at a more mature novel such as “Mansfield Park” is that her characters are more true-to-life and therefore on the dull side. In our own lives, we’re far more likely to meet people who resemble the four Bertram siblings-Tom, Edmund, Maria, and Julia-than we are a group like the Bennet family with their five sisters, each one so brilliantly described and so lively on the page, and so unlike the dishwater Bertrams. At the same time, the more adult tone of “Mansfield Park” entailed the creation of adversaries, Henry and Mary Crawford, who come across--to me, at least-as far more menacing to Fanny Price than Mr. Willoughby or Mr. Wickham ever were to the Dashwood or Bennet sisters. For the first time that I can recall in the novels we’ve discussed this year, Jane Austen applies the word “evil” to her heroine’s enemies, in this case, the Crawford siblings. I also noticed that the word “evil” occurs far more frequently as the novel heads to its conclusion. I’ll reserve my other comments on “Mansfield Park” until your dedicated video on the novel. I’m in the home stretch of “Eve” and have found it a highly informative and entertaining science book. A couple of quotes that struck me were on the subject of reading. “Reading is simply not something the human species has done much of, anywhere, ever,” writes author Cat Bohannon. Elsewhere she notes that, “Men make up only 20 percent of the people who buy and read novels. The numbers improve for history and other nonfiction, but overall book publishers throughout the Americas and western Europe are selling books to women.” So, we guys here in Booktuber Land are really a minority of a minority. I also liked how Bohannon paused a moment to discuss how reading itself is “a deeply strange activity.” Mere marks on a page have the ability to conjure up sights, sounds, smells, and emotions in our brains, to the point that we can be reduced to laughter or tears by something that doesn’t even exist in the physical world, that’s only a product of our own imagination. I wish she had said a little more on this subject, but maybe there’s not much more to say. I also found it intriguing that we share certain genes with songbirds that may have something to do with language development. Maybe that’s why, when the local blue jays start squawking around my front door in a certain way, I know it’s time to refill the water bowls placed in a couple shady locations outside on my front lawn. Cat Bohannon also described something that I had never thought of before-the moment when a young girl or a young woman realizes that boys or men are looking at her. As the father of two daughters, I was certainly aware of the moment when you take your girls out in public, and see that they have become the objects of appraising glances from the opposite sex. But I’m embarrassed to confess that I never put myself in my daughters’ place and thought of how they might see this as a watershed moment in their lives. Which reminds me of an Instagram post I came across a few months ago where some guys were moaning and griping about how women have taken over and ruined everything, and that men no longer had a place in the modern world. I replied by stating that men with daughters will automatically understand that it is still very much a man’s world, and that they will have concerns for their daughters throughout their life that they will never have for their sons. I received a lot of Likes for that. I’ve given my views on “Held” on previous videos, yours and Kiran’s, and I’ll only add that Anne Michaels’ novel put me in mind of Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2014 book, “Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever’s Search for the Truth About Everything”. As for Clarice Lispector, I decided that the next book of hers that I’d read would be whatever was on the shelves of my local independent bookstore, which turned out to be, “The Apple in the Dark”. But I’ve got too many other books on the go to start it right now. In your place, I wouldn’t have any hesitation in setting aside “Lies and Sorcery” indefinitely. It’s not as if you’d be destroying every copy of the book in existence, and you could always pick it up or start over again entirely at some point in the future. Or maybe never. Life is too short to waste any of it on dull books.
I read Mansfield Park in July and I agree it's not my least favorite either. It's still Austen like you said so it's amazing, but when you compare it to her other books even the writing is not as good. The amount of times 'she cried' is used as a tag is way higher than usual, and I couldn't connect to Edward as a romantic interest.
i'm so excited to read eve!!
Meet The Georgians sounds good. Brain on Fire is a good woman dealing with her brain book.
I need to get to Monstrilio-that’s good to know it’s not as horror-based as it seems.
"Science!" [Points at screen] was a highlight for me. Meet the Georgians sounds great. I'm just reading a couple of books about the Georgians/18th century Britain (and going backwards towards the Civil War). I like Held and I might re-read it. O, I'd really like to read 'Eve'.
Your prediction for winner
My Prediction - "Creation Lake"
I still can’t get my head around My Friends wasn’t shortlisted. It was my favourite of the books I read. I might try Held now if you liked it. ( You May already know this? The incident in My Friends at the Libyan embassy was a real thing)
The trade-off for Jane Austen trying her hand at a more mature novel such as “Mansfield Park” is that her characters are more true-to-life and therefore on the dull side. In our own lives, we’re far more likely to meet people who resemble the four Bertram siblings-Tom, Edmund, Maria, and Julia-than we are a group like the Bennet family with their five sisters, each one so brilliantly described and so lively on the page, and so unlike the dishwater Bertrams.
At the same time, the more adult tone of “Mansfield Park” entailed the creation of adversaries, Henry and Mary Crawford, who come across--to me, at least-as far more menacing to Fanny Price than Mr. Willoughby or Mr. Wickham ever were to the Dashwood or Bennet sisters. For the first time that I can recall in the novels we’ve discussed this year, Jane Austen applies the word “evil” to her heroine’s enemies, in this case, the Crawford siblings. I also noticed that the word “evil” occurs far more frequently as the novel heads to its conclusion. I’ll reserve my other comments on “Mansfield Park” until your dedicated video on the novel.
I’m in the home stretch of “Eve” and have found it a highly informative and entertaining science book. A couple of quotes that struck me were on the subject of reading. “Reading is simply not something the human species has done much of, anywhere, ever,” writes author Cat Bohannon. Elsewhere she notes that, “Men make up only 20 percent of the people who buy and read novels. The numbers improve for history and other nonfiction, but overall book publishers throughout the Americas and western Europe are selling books to women.” So, we guys here in Booktuber Land are really a minority of a minority.
I also liked how Bohannon paused a moment to discuss how reading itself is “a deeply strange activity.” Mere marks on a page have the ability to conjure up sights, sounds, smells, and emotions in our brains, to the point that we can be reduced to laughter or tears by something that doesn’t even exist in the physical world, that’s only a product of our own imagination. I wish she had said a little more on this subject, but maybe there’s not much more to say.
I also found it intriguing that we share certain genes with songbirds that may have something to do with language development. Maybe that’s why, when the local blue jays start squawking around my front door in a certain way, I know it’s time to refill the water bowls placed in a couple shady locations outside on my front lawn.
Cat Bohannon also described something that I had never thought of before-the moment when a young girl or a young woman realizes that boys or men are looking at her. As the father of two daughters, I was certainly aware of the moment when you take your girls out in public, and see that they have become the objects of appraising glances from the opposite sex. But I’m embarrassed to confess that I never put myself in my daughters’ place and thought of how they might see this as a watershed moment in their lives.
Which reminds me of an Instagram post I came across a few months ago where some guys were moaning and griping about how women have taken over and ruined everything, and that men no longer had a place in the modern world. I replied by stating that men with daughters will automatically understand that it is still very much a man’s world, and that they will have concerns for their daughters throughout their life that they will never have for their sons. I received a lot of Likes for that.
I’ve given my views on “Held” on previous videos, yours and Kiran’s, and I’ll only add that Anne Michaels’ novel put me in mind of Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2014 book, “Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever’s Search for the Truth About Everything”.
As for Clarice Lispector, I decided that the next book of hers that I’d read would be whatever was on the shelves of my local independent bookstore, which turned out to be, “The Apple in the Dark”. But I’ve got too many other books on the go to start it right now.
In your place, I wouldn’t have any hesitation in setting aside “Lies and Sorcery” indefinitely. It’s not as if you’d be destroying every copy of the book in existence, and you could always pick it up or start over again entirely at some point in the future. Or maybe never. Life is too short to waste any of it on dull books.
I read Mansfield Park in July and I agree it's not my least favorite either. It's still Austen like you said so it's amazing, but when you compare it to her other books even the writing is not as good. The amount of times 'she cried' is used as a tag is way higher than usual, and I couldn't connect to Edward as a romantic interest.