I fully support the Marlotte Cholloy switcheroo 😂 Some nice selections there which are on my never-ending list. I’m off to Italy in a couple of weeks so it’s a good opportunity for some women in translation… considering taking some Ferrante and Ginzburg with me!
Haha, now I've said it I will have to do it. :D Reading The Neapolitan Quartet in Italy is just perfection... I've never read it or being to Italy, but I'm still pretty confident I'm correct. What an amazing sounding trip, I'm very jealous.
Scott, I think you would really enjoy Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s books: The Waiting; and Grass. There are some great suggestions from other people in your comments, but nobody has mentioned the gorgeous multi-voiced Osebol by Marit Kapla.
Thank you, I've been able to find a copy of The Waiting on Libby, so I'll have a read of it (probably after the Booker), also thank you for recommending a graphic novel, I've been wanting to read more of them.
After the pending Booker mania, I'm going to focus on books in translation. Most recently I enjoyed There's no such thing as an easy job by Kikuko Tsumura, Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi and Drive your plow over the bones of the dead by Olga Tokarczuk.
I also enjoyed Diary of a Void, it wasn't perfect, but it was a good read; I'm still not sure what I think of Drive you Plow and it's been 2 or 3 years. I love the cover of the Tsumura novel, I've been wanting to read that one for a while, but it keeps slipping through the gaps, I might have to make it one of my post booker WIT reads. :)
I really need to get to The Door... And I didn't realise The Fruit if the Drunken Tree was translated, I've read it, so obviously it's Columbian and it makes sense it's translated, but it never completed.
I am adding Earthlings to my list right away! Convenience Store Woman wasn't my favorite but was just so different it was worth picking up. I am happy to try out another one!
Earthlings makes Convenience Store Woman look normal, it's really out there. I hope you get along with it, it's fantastic, but all the weird... It's a good risk to take and it's short, so if you don't like it, it's over quickly.
There are so many translated books that I love: "The Housekeeper and the Professor" by Yoko Ogawa, "Cursed Bunny" by Bora Chung, "The Peacock" by Isobel Bogdan, "Fowl Eulogies" by Lucie Rico, "Daughter of Fortune" by Isabelle Allende...There are too many, lol! I have a BIG stack for Women in Translation month :) I've read a few that you mentioned but not "Tender is the Flesh" or "Woman at Point Zero"...Adding those to my TBR now :) Thank you for the recommendations!
Tender is the flesh seems so divisive. I haven't picked it up but I'm intrigued by it. Nawal El Saadawi is also on my tbr! Completely agree with Earthlings and The Vegetarian - both are such great reads.
I think you'll love Tender, it's a bit speculative and I know you enjoy that... I think you'll also love Nawal El Saadawi, but for completely different reasons.
Tender is the Flesh has become one of my all time favorite books! Thank you so much for introducing me to it! I just got Earthlings the other day at a great discount! Looking forward to reading it! (I've heard about it being super triggery, do you think I could handle it?)
@@GunpowderFictionPlot Yeah, you did for sure. Booktube is an echo chamber. I just mentioned you because of it again. I figure there is no need to tag you on my videos anymore, he's probably getting annoyed by it. LOL
I finally got to Kim Jiyoung last month and yeah--I have never felt more seen in a book. I absolutely loved it. I also love Tender is the Flesh and The Vegetarian. Still need to get to Earthlings.
Woman at Point Zero is an incredible book ⭐️ I’ve been a little out of the flow of reading for a while and this video rekindled my desire to pick up thoughtful reads. I thoroughly enjoy hearing your reviews. Feeling inspired to pick up Earthlings
I'm reading fresh water for flowers for WIT month and am starting agustina bazterrica's short story collection today as well. Tender is the flesh is the best recommendation ever. I have earthlings waiting for me on my shelf and I am going to get to it eventually! Same goes for kim jiyoung as well. Cannot ever really recommend the vegetarian but I am glad there is an audience out there for it... somewhere... that is not me 🙈
Great video! Love the different selections! The Vegetarian is definitely my fave woman in translation book thus far. I’m hoping to read Tender is the Flesh, but I want to read it in Spanish. One book that I enjoyed in its original Spanish, but it has been translated quite a bit is Like Water for Chocolate.
Water for Chocolate is a fantastic book, it's so impressive that you can read it in Spanish or English. I would be interested to know how different Tender is the Flesh is, I know the title is something like Beautiful Corpses which is very different.
@@GunpowderFictionPlot For some reason this response just popped up in my notifications. RUclips doing weird RUclips things. In Spanish, it's called Exquisite Corpse or Exquisite Body. In Portuguese, it is titled Delicious Corpse. I like Tender Is The Flesh a bit better, but I suppose the others are a little more to the point.
Scott that intro made me laugh so hard I had to watch it twice to actually hear what you were saying! 😂😂 Love your channel, even if it turns into a tribute channel! 🤣 And I'm stealing your next video idea! 😅
I'm been saving books for WIT since the end of last year, and then went and read other WIT book throughout the year, amazing ones but not the ones I bought, ones I've loaned. Great for libraries, bad for the room in my house. However, this method did give me my favourite book of the year so far, Kim Jiyoung, born 1982. The vegetarian is on my list for WIT
I recently read Four Minutes by Nataliya Deleva which is translated from the Bulgarian. It's in my top 10 favorite books of the year so far. I also recently read and liked The Pastor by Hanne Orstavik.
Hahaha you have Charlotte pegged so well 😂 Thanks for opening with the purpose for this month and grounding the rest of your discussion in it. What?!!! OMG now I need to go on a deep dive of Nestle and Coke. I haven’t heard of this before. WTF!!! Are you vegetarian or vegan? These books sound intense and guaranteed to stick with you! 1982 or Women at Point Zero seem the most like my jam. Thanks so much for the recs!
Haha. Charlotte is great. 🙂 Yeah, it's weird how nobody talks about these things. Trying to only consume things that meet a real basic level of ethics is very hard in this world. I've been a vegan for 2 years, a vegetarian for the other 38. 🌱 Yeah, picking the books that stayed with me really filtered out anything with a bit of frivolity in it, which is definitely required for balance.
Earthlings and Kim Jiyoung are some of my favourite books! I also love Elena Ferrante's books, and Vista Chinesa by Tatiana Salem Levy, translated by Alison Entrekin
I am so excited for August! Violetta by Isabel Allende is probably my favourite female translated book but I don't know if you've heard of Jawbone by Monica Ojeda, it's horror and feels like it would be right up your alley. It was a little too dark in places for me but I also loved it.
Omg, there are so many I love. But I just finished S.:A Book About the Balkans by Slavenka Drakulic. It's one of the most devastating novels I've ever read. But such an important book.
I didn't realise S. was written by a woman. It's a novel I've wanted to get to for a while, a devastating but important books sounds like my kind of thing.
Great list of recommendations. I think my faves are quite typical ones like Convenience Store Women, Miss Ice Sandwich & Persepolis. A couple you might not be as familiar with that I liked are Marilyn & Me by Ji-min Lee & a poetry collection I read a few years back The Sun Of Hereafter • Ebb of The Senses by Ana Blandiana 📚❤️
If you liked Kim Jiyoung, I'd recommend Girl by Camille Laurens which is translated from the French! It's lit fic that traces a main character moving through different stages in her life (childhood, womanhood, motherhood) and has a lot of similar commentary.
Yeah, they're shocking companies, I had a similar reaction when I found out. There's a lot of terrible things happening in big companies if you look for it, but nobody talks about it for some reason.
Oh wow, those are really edgy recommendations, lol. The most edgy thing I'm thinking of reading for WIT is Baba Yaga laid an egg 😀 Hard to pick a favourite WIT - possibly The Enlightenment of The Greengage Tree by Azar Shokoofeh, it's the sort of magical realism that I like. Three Apples that fell from the sky by Narine Abgaryan has the feel of a fable, another thing that pulls my heart strings while reading. The Housekeeper and The Professor is another all time favourite. I did think The Vegetarian was good when I read it and I can see why it's a favourite of yours. Horror isn't a big draw for me, if I was more ambitious with my reading, I'd probably try to lean into it more but not going there right at the moment 😀 I always enjoy your content even when it's not my thing.... that's probaby as edgy as I'm going to get, lol
Neat! *The Earthlings* in particular sounds like a rather good autism narrative, but my world view seems to be canted such that it's an event for me when books *don't* sound like an autism narrative.
Murata and if she is writing about autism is debated by readers, I definitely get that impression and think it is an autistic book, but it is not stated and there are explanations that work too..
Here on booktube, we beg, borrow and steal. OH NO! I just hauled Tender is the Flesh. I feel I may hate it. I've heard Earthling is VEEEERY weird. Hm. Hm. Hm. I really enjoyed Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. Just maybe we overlap on translated fiction. Just maybe.
I love it when we find the exceptions. One day we will have a list of books that everybody must love, because we do. Earthlings is really weird. I imagine that's what doing acid is like. I am curious to hear how you find Tender... But, I don't think you'll like it for a specific reason, there is some cruelty towards children in it. I know that's not something you like to read about.
I fully support the Marlotte Cholloy switcheroo 😂
Some nice selections there which are on my never-ending list. I’m off to Italy in a couple of weeks so it’s a good opportunity for some women in translation… considering taking some Ferrante and Ginzburg with me!
Haha, now I've said it I will have to do it. :D
Reading The Neapolitan Quartet in Italy is just perfection... I've never read it or being to Italy, but I'm still pretty confident I'm correct. What an amazing sounding trip, I'm very jealous.
Yay for Tender is the Flesh!! Such a great book!!
I’m going to have to read Woman at Point Zero!!
I think you have to read Woman at Point Zero, it is a Gemma book, it's full of horrible things.
Scott, I think you would really enjoy Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s books: The Waiting; and Grass. There are some great suggestions from other people in your comments, but nobody has mentioned the gorgeous multi-voiced Osebol by Marit Kapla.
The Waiting is wonderful.
Thank you, I've been able to find a copy of The Waiting on Libby, so I'll have a read of it (probably after the Booker), also thank you for recommending a graphic novel, I've been wanting to read more of them.
Some bangers. I ought to get to The Vegetarian finally this month. Maybe the event will give me the push I need.
I hope you love it
After the pending Booker mania, I'm going to focus on books in translation. Most recently I enjoyed There's no such thing as an easy job by Kikuko Tsumura, Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi and Drive your plow over the bones of the dead by Olga Tokarczuk.
I love Tsumura’s and Tokarczuk’s novels too. 👯♂️
I also enjoyed Diary of a Void, it wasn't perfect, but it was a good read; I'm still not sure what I think of Drive you Plow and it's been 2 or 3 years. I love the cover of the Tsumura novel, I've been wanting to read that one for a while, but it keeps slipping through the gaps, I might have to make it one of my post booker WIT reads. :)
My best #wit books I’ve read since 2016?
The Door by Magda Szagbo
Elena Knows by Claudia Pinero
Cantoras
The Fruit of the Drunken Tree
I really need to get to The Door... And I didn't realise The Fruit if the Drunken Tree was translated, I've read it, so obviously it's Columbian and it makes sense it's translated, but it never completed.
I second Elena Knows and Cantoras 👯♂️
I am adding Earthlings to my list right away! Convenience Store Woman wasn't my favorite but was just so different it was worth picking up. I am happy to try out another one!
Earthlings makes Convenience Store Woman look normal, it's really out there. I hope you get along with it, it's fantastic, but all the weird... It's a good risk to take and it's short, so if you don't like it, it's over quickly.
There are so many translated books that I love: "The Housekeeper and the Professor" by Yoko Ogawa, "Cursed Bunny" by Bora Chung, "The Peacock" by Isobel Bogdan, "Fowl Eulogies" by Lucie Rico, "Daughter of Fortune" by Isabelle Allende...There are too many, lol! I have a BIG stack for Women in Translation month :) I've read a few that you mentioned but not "Tender is the Flesh" or "Woman at Point Zero"...Adding those to my TBR now :)
Thank you for the recommendations!
So many books I've not read yet, thank you for your recommendations. Hope you enjoy Tender and Woman at Point Zero.
Tender is the flesh seems so divisive. I haven't picked it up but I'm intrigued by it. Nawal El Saadawi is also on my tbr! Completely agree with Earthlings and The Vegetarian - both are such great reads.
I think you'll love Tender, it's a bit speculative and I know you enjoy that... I think you'll also love Nawal El Saadawi, but for completely different reasons.
Tender is the Flesh has become one of my all time favorite books! Thank you so much for introducing me to it! I just got Earthlings the other day at a great discount! Looking forward to reading it! (I've heard about it being super triggery, do you think I could handle it?)
Yay! I was just thinking: I need to read Tender Is The Flesh. Kim Jiyong was one I almost added to my list - it was great. Thanks for the shout out!
Yes, you do need to read Tender is the Flesh, didn't I see that on a TBR or a Haul or something you did recently?
@@GunpowderFictionPlot Yeah, you did for sure. Booktube is an echo chamber. I just mentioned you because of it again. I figure there is no need to tag you on my videos anymore, he's probably getting annoyed by it. LOL
@@stalkingkafka haha, not at all, it's kind of good because I sometimes miss new videos.
I finally got to Kim Jiyoung last month and yeah--I have never felt more seen in a book. I absolutely loved it. I also love Tender is the Flesh and The Vegetarian. Still need to get to Earthlings.
Woman at Point Zero is an incredible book ⭐️ I’ve been a little out of the flow of reading for a while and this video rekindled my desire to pick up thoughtful reads. I thoroughly enjoy hearing your reviews. Feeling inspired to pick up Earthlings
Thank you so much, I'm so happy to encourage you back to read, that's amazing. :)
Happy reading, hope you love Earthlings.
I'm reading fresh water for flowers for WIT month and am starting agustina bazterrica's short story collection today as well. Tender is the flesh is the best recommendation ever. I have earthlings waiting for me on my shelf and I am going to get to it eventually! Same goes for kim jiyoung as well. Cannot ever really recommend the vegetarian but I am glad there is an audience out there for it... somewhere... that is not me 🙈
Great video! Love the different selections! The Vegetarian is definitely my fave woman in translation book thus far. I’m hoping to read Tender is the Flesh, but I want to read it in Spanish. One book that I enjoyed in its original Spanish, but it has been translated quite a bit is Like Water for Chocolate.
Water for Chocolate is a fantastic book, it's so impressive that you can read it in Spanish or English. I would be interested to know how different Tender is the Flesh is, I know the title is something like Beautiful Corpses which is very different.
@@GunpowderFictionPlot For some reason this response just popped up in my notifications. RUclips doing weird RUclips things. In Spanish, it's called Exquisite Corpse or Exquisite Body. In Portuguese, it is titled Delicious Corpse. I like Tender Is The Flesh a bit better, but I suppose the others are a little more to the point.
An excellent list per usual.
I am hoping to read a few books for WIT. August is going to be a crazy month for me so we shall see.
Good luck getting to a few books in your crazy month.
Oooh Woman At Point Zero sounds right up my alley! I'm reading Eartlings right now and it's just about to get weird I think!
I hope you love Earthlings, but it's the sort of book that just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
Scott that intro made me laugh so hard I had to watch it twice to actually hear what you were saying! 😂😂 Love your channel, even if it turns into a tribute channel! 🤣 And I'm stealing your next video idea! 😅
Yeah that intro was so, so good. I loved the rooster sound effect.
I'm so glad you liked the sillies... And I think I owe you a few ideas. ;)
@@GunpowderFictionPlot I think I tagged you in my latest insta stories haha
I'm been saving books for WIT since the end of last year, and then went and read other WIT book throughout the year, amazing ones but not the ones I bought, ones I've loaned. Great for libraries, bad for the room in my house. However, this method did give me my favourite book of the year so far, Kim Jiyoung, born 1982.
The vegetarian is on my list for WIT
I hope you love The Vegetarian and so good to read that you loved Kin Jiyoung.
I recently read Four Minutes by Nataliya Deleva which is translated from the Bulgarian. It's in my top 10 favorite books of the year so far. I also recently read and liked The Pastor by Hanne Orstavik.
I love this, I've not heard of either of those books, thank you for putting them on my radar. :)
@@GunpowderFictionPlot One more recommendation. It Would Be Night In Caracas by Karina Sainz Borgo, a Venezuelan author.
Hahaha you have Charlotte pegged so well 😂
Thanks for opening with the purpose for this month and grounding the rest of your discussion in it.
What?!!! OMG now I need to go on a deep dive of Nestle and Coke. I haven’t heard of this before. WTF!!!
Are you vegetarian or vegan?
These books sound intense and guaranteed to stick with you! 1982 or Women at Point Zero seem the most like my jam. Thanks so much for the recs!
Haha. Charlotte is great. 🙂
Yeah, it's weird how nobody talks about these things. Trying to only consume things that meet a real basic level of ethics is very hard in this world.
I've been a vegan for 2 years, a vegetarian for the other 38. 🌱
Yeah, picking the books that stayed with me really filtered out anything with a bit of frivolity in it, which is definitely required for balance.
Earthlings and Kim Jiyoung are some of my favourite books!
I also love Elena Ferrante's books, and Vista Chinesa by Tatiana Salem Levy, translated by Alison Entrekin
I've been wanting to read Vista Chinesa ever since Eric Karl Anderson reviewed it, need to find a copy. I must try some more Ferrante too.
My all time favorite, Love by Hanne Ørstavik.
I've not heard of this one before!
I am so excited for August! Violetta by Isabel Allende is probably my favourite female translated book but I don't know if you've heard of Jawbone by Monica Ojeda, it's horror and feels like it would be right up your alley. It was a little too dark in places for me but I also loved it.
Omg, there are so many I love. But I just finished S.:A Book About the Balkans by Slavenka Drakulic. It's one of the most devastating novels I've ever read. But such an important book.
I didn't realise S. was written by a woman. It's a novel I've wanted to get to for a while, a devastating but important books sounds like my kind of thing.
Great list of recommendations. I think my faves are quite typical ones like Convenience Store Women, Miss Ice Sandwich & Persepolis. A couple you might not be as familiar with that I liked are Marilyn & Me by Ji-min Lee & a poetry collection I read a few years back The Sun Of Hereafter • Ebb of The Senses by Ana Blandiana 📚❤️
If you liked Kim Jiyoung, I'd recommend Girl by Camille Laurens which is translated from the French! It's lit fic that traces a main character moving through different stages in her life (childhood, womanhood, motherhood) and has a lot of similar commentary.
Thank you for the recommendation, Girl sounds fantastic. 🙂
Great choices. :)
Not fiction, but great book, imo: Black Box by Shiori Itō. 👍
I've not heard of that one, thank you for putting it on my radar, that sounds very Japan's Channel Miller.
Omg I had no idea about the Coca Cola and nestle atrocities… thank you for this list! 😊
Yeah, they're shocking companies, I had a similar reaction when I found out. There's a lot of terrible things happening in big companies if you look for it, but nobody talks about it for some reason.
Saadawi is my favorite of the lot
Excellent choice. :)
Marlotte Challoy😂😂
😁
Wow, what a list. If I was braver I would read some these. I recently read Boulder which was fantastic. No cannibalism, sorry.
Oh wow, those are really edgy recommendations, lol. The most edgy thing I'm thinking of reading for WIT is Baba Yaga laid an egg 😀
Hard to pick a favourite WIT - possibly The Enlightenment of The Greengage Tree by Azar Shokoofeh, it's the sort of magical realism that I like. Three Apples that fell from the sky by Narine Abgaryan has the feel of a fable, another thing that pulls my heart strings while reading. The Housekeeper and The Professor is another all time favourite.
I did think The Vegetarian was good when I read it and I can see why it's a favourite of yours. Horror isn't a big draw for me, if I was more ambitious with my reading, I'd probably try to lean into it more but not going there right at the moment 😀
I always enjoy your content even when it's not my thing.... that's probaby as edgy as I'm going to get, lol
Neat!
*The Earthlings* in particular sounds like a rather good autism narrative, but my world view seems to be canted such that it's an event for me when books *don't* sound like an autism narrative.
Murata and if she is writing about autism is debated by readers, I definitely get that impression and think it is an autistic book, but it is not stated and there are explanations that work too..
Here on booktube, we beg, borrow and steal.
OH NO! I just hauled Tender is the Flesh. I feel I may hate it.
I've heard Earthling is VEEEERY weird.
Hm. Hm. Hm. I really enjoyed Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. Just maybe we overlap on translated fiction. Just maybe.
I love it when we find the exceptions. One day we will have a list of books that everybody must love, because we do.
Earthlings is really weird. I imagine that's what doing acid is like.
I am curious to hear how you find Tender... But, I don't think you'll like it for a specific reason, there is some cruelty towards children in it. I know that's not something you like to read about.
The 🐓 😂 📖🪱💚
;)
I prefer human acts over vegetarian
I feel like all these books are vegan propaganda ...😁😁
Very interesting list
Hahaha. :D
That’s - your’s- the description of Tender Is the Flesh that added it my TBR , ty 📖🪱💚
Good luck with it enjoy. :(