“Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.” -C. S. Lewis
Hi! I'm Kier, I like books.
I venture into various genres as the mood fits.
Review Policy: I will accept both indie and traditionally published books in physical or audiobook form, I generally do not accept ebooks.
As a teen, one summer, I read the whole medical handbook, I found in my grandmas bookshelve. I read about remitting relapsing MS, and had a lot of similariteis, went from an active, outdoorsy kid who scraped knees, climbed trees and was reading lots of books, too. Need not say, my eyes started to develop, what I was calling sore eye muscles. And there were tingling limbs, and tiring larger muscles. Being in and out of brain scans in my 20 ies, but never was anything found. Had a sequestered disc, which was repaired in surgery from which I woke up with double vision, and I got so heat intolerant, that I postpone even important appointments because I am just not functioning and coping well enough. But still no definitive diagnosis, or search for lesions maybe only in the spine. Had head MRI as a control after a brain hemorrhage, but they did not incidentally find anything else wrong. Numb feet dont phase my neurologist, and nerve induction studies come out abnormal, but apparently not bad enough to do other treatment than elevating the dosage of Pregabalin. So symptoms.persist and I even get the contorting cramps in the most peculiar spots in feet, fingers, face… even inner ear sometimes spasms. Hope, you had your MRI in the meantime, just discovered your video today and slowly will explore your channel.
I loved your review and thoughts. I also liked the complexities in River East River West. Lescure did a great job with the writing and fleshing out these unlikable characters. As the story unfolds I did begin to care about them even if I did not like them, especially Sloan and Lu Fang and the despicable Daniel. The author took the immigration story and flipped it to show both sides of the coin. Such a solid novel with many aspects to ponder. It really makes one think about race, ethnicity, culture, immigration, coming of age, addiction and family dynamics. Lots of feels in this story. Alva's character made my heart heavy.
This is such an amazing project!!! I’m so behind on posting my favorites 😭 I can’t remember if I sent you some fantasy recs already but either way I’ll send some more your way! ❤️
Why has this dismissive culture when there are obvious serious issues seemingly increased in the last 5-10 years? It's government driven for money reasons. Women are constantly told the route of their symptoms are anxiety and / or depression. You just feel like the medical profession is taking a deep dive south.
I love this ! <3 I can 100% understand your thoughts on How Not To Drown in a Glass of Water. It is mostly dialogue. Ill need to check out The God of Good Looks and Someday Maybe !
You are just the sweetest Kier. Thank you for your kind words. 😘❤️ So pleased you loved Someday Maybe. Onyi Nwabineli’s new one is also good but quite different in its subject matter although it does discuss some relevant and interesting topics. Great to hear about the other books you read too and the booktubers that inspired them ☺️
Headshot and Orbital sound so interesting, I'm excited to try them! I'm like fourth on hold for James at my library, might take a while lol Tommy Orange and Hisham Matar are on my tbr too like you :)
Ahhh the anticipation is always so hard. There seems to be a heavier US slant this year (which I don't know how I feel about) but I am lucky that my library has the greatest number I've seen. Orbital is going to be one of my first reads
Ooooh yeah I totally forgot that How to be Both was ordered differently depending on the copy! I also have a copy on my shelf to be read! I'd never heard of Jesmyn Ward until this list, but I'm intrigued now! The Labatut book was very interesting, but it didn't stick with me. I also hated The Fraud and worried because I do own White Teeth and On Beauty... I found this list so weird, and adding fiction and NF together is a bizarre choice. I applaud you putting up ALL the covers of the books in this video though haha For me Homegoing was a big miss from the list! And didn't realise that The Kite Runner was published in the 21st century! Definitely missing! A History of Burning is totally on my TBR!
It took me soooo long to edit this. Putting all the covers was a task so thanks for noticing😊 Yes, it's so weird when you are sure you'll love an author and then you finally read one if their novels and it disapppoints you.
Stoneyard is the only one ive read so far, and to me it has Study for Obedience vibes (though there is a bit more overt plot in Stoneyard). Im excited to read a few more from the list - i got Orbital so will give that a go first (it's short but omg the writing in the paperback is tiny)
My best book so far was a new author to me - The Bodyguard by Katherine Center. I Have since read several of her other books and really enjoyed them also. The other new to me author I loved is Abby Jimenez. I read all of the books in her Part of Your World trilogy.
Great to hear your thoughts on these! Transcendent Kingdom should definitely be as well known as Homegoing. I'm glad The Hunger Games holds up - I've been wanting to reread it too. Yes, Klara - brilliant!
I think knowing the twist before I read it really made it harder to get through as it's such a slow unfolding of the mystery I already knew. I wonder if I would have felt different if I was going in fresh because I love Klara and The Sun.
In my mind reading doesn't just pretain to the action of scanning the page with your eyes but ingesting a story. Listening aloud has always been a popular way of learning stories, from the oral traditions of the Greek, to the Victorian era most people gathered together and read communally. And when we learn to read as kids we hear parents or others read to us, I don't think someone gets more or less from a story whether they take in the information with their eyes or ears. Especially me, I have pretty severe dyslexia so I couldn't read at all until age 10 and I fell in love with stories through listening to books read aloud. Even now, I'm a very slow physical reader and learn and remember auditory things really easily so it makes sense to utilize audiobooks.
How similar is it to Lincoln in The Bardo? I got it missed up with Liberation Day that was his newest release that was not well loved. I really didn't get along with Lincoln but if Tenth of December was quite different I might give him another try.
I have to say quickly, if you're intimidated by Pachinko's size, don't be, it reads really quickly as soon as you're into it. In 2020 I read it over 2 days because it felt addictive and I couldn't put it down!
@@KierTheScrivener Have fun with it! It really doesn't read as long, you got through Demon Copperhead and that one felt even longer than it was and reads as long. For me this one really didn't
100% agree with your thoughts about including Tove Ditlevsen just because she was translated into English in the 21st century - i was genuinely shocked by that, maybe i shouldn't have been tho... Runaway sounded interesting, been wondering where the best place to start with Alice Munro is, think that'd be a good one? Lincoln in the Bardo was a big miss for me too - i was so confused because i'm like graveyard setting? check. experimental writing with funny characters? check. historical fiction blended with ghosts and buddhism? check. how could this go wrong, and yet... super intrigued by your thoughts on Outline, always meant to pick it up but now more so =) thanks for doing all that video editing, end result is first-class!!
Runaway was where I started. It's really great. I finished and immediately went on to more of her writing. It won the Giller Prize in Canada (our Booker/Pulitzer) and is generally her best known book. Right? I was expecting to love Lincoln in the Bardo too. I hope you like Outline more than me, it was several years ago I read it and I liked the ideas of it. I have a more indepth review on my goodreads. Thanks, it started over an hour and I felt happy that I whittled it down to under half an hour.
Watching this before seeing your update, and it's a great TBR! Sophie Irwin and Vanessa Riley are both on my TBR! I just finished The Austen Girls by Lucy Worsley as my pick for this month and I enjoyed it! It's great to hear you speaking well of Booth, I feel like at the time people weren't saying great things about it, but I bought it from a charity shop last month! I've never watched the 2020 Persuasion adaptation...or any Persuasion adaptation for that matter. It's my favourite Austen, and I need to get on that haha I do love an adaptation! Yes Katie's book just came out today, meant to go to the launch in London but couldn't manage! I might get the audiobook as the audio for her first novel was lovely!!
I hope you like Booth. I don't really understand why it isn't loved. I think part of it is Booker syndrome of a good book not being what someone wanted or expected so getting lambasted. I don't think all my picks are going to materialize but it's been so fun! Evelina (my contemporary to Jane Austen) has been my favourite part so far
i have the same problem with that "21st-century woman time-travelled to the past" version of feminism when it comes to modern greek myth retellings... espesh coz women of diff times and places can be so inspiring if written convincingly! sometimes i can forgive it if the mc's anachronistic awakening isn't the whole point of the book, but sometimes, alas, it is...
one of my fav puns was a photo that went round of a sign outside a sports shop reading "now is the discount of our winter tents". i saw Richard III once and the whole thing was set inside a mental asylum, which adds a whole new layer of problematicness lol
Glad you're feeling better. Ah you read sing if you can't dance! I am glad you liked it as well, and found it to be very relatable 😇 Interesting to hear part of your world was your least favourite of the series. I have that one and yours truly. Practice makes perfect is one I want to try. I liked book lovers but I actually didn't like the sister relationship as much as people seem too. I was mostly here for the publishing world representation as someone who works in publishing. I need to read the encyclopedia of faeries, it's one I have waiting for me on my shelf. I LOVE if we were villains and I'm glad you finally got around to it and really loved it too.
Thanks for your review, especially your comments on this perhaps being more about the humans around Klara and their world, and the way they negotiate it - rather than Klara herself, Klara being our window on their world. That's really interesting, I think. Fairly sure it's set in America. The American English really stands out. (But I think it would work to set it in almost any advanced and dystopian modern economy.) Thanks again 🙏
I am really sorry. Many of these are accessible through Project Gutenberg or LibroFM for free. I hope those could be good resources if you'd like to read some classics
I started Jane Austen July with Love and Marriage in the Age of Jane Austen. It is academic but very accessible. I am really enjoying it. Have fun with your TBR!
