I'm curious if you guys plan to read The Silmarillion at some point? especially cause it has quite a bit about Sauron and imo it made his character more interesting

You’re incredibly beautiful & elegant. Also your hair is amazing almost Elven vibes. Very interesting discussion it gave me a new look on my favourite story. Thank you

Yayy! LotR (especially fellowship) is my fav book of all time so I‘m so glad you two liked it🥹

I have to say I prefer the _Lord of the Rings_ to all the endless superhero movies, and also _Game of Thrones_ . In superhero movies, the world is menaced by villains, we humans are helpless, and the only thing we can do is find someone with super powers to be a vigilante. The underlying message of all superhero movies is _"ordinary people don't matter"_ . While in the LotR the goal is to destroy power. The most humble creatures, the Hobbits, are the ones who can save the world, because they desire power the least. I think this is a message the world needs to hear.

Having to wait for half of the Two Towers to get back to Frodo's story is tremendously effective in building the tension. Tolkien made a great choice there.

I loved the Fellowship best too. I didn't like the battles either. I also liked the Fellowship movie best, partly because it didn't have much CGI, most of the special effects were practical.

Hi! I got here after seeing your response (which I enjoyed a lot) to The Lord of the Rings. I also have a lot of love for Russian literature - mainly Dostoevsky, Bulgakov and Gogol. Another really interesting one is Andrey Platonov. I've actually read and generally enjoyed Anna Karenina, but didn't like The Death of Ivan Ilyich and couldn't get through some other book I've had (didn't try War and Peace though). My main issue with Tolstoy is his preaching. Both he and Dostoevsky deal with God's existence and its meaning in a rather thorough way, but while you feel free to think what you will after reading Dostoevsky - Tolstoy seems to really try and drive you to his point. It's annoying in itself, but also hurts the story in my opinion, making it predictable. I'm from Israel and can't read Russian, and have been reading the books translated into Hebrew, but you might be surprised to hear that Hebrew is quite suitable from a historical standpoint for Russian. Hebrew is a recently (~150 years ago) revived language, and those who took the effort to revive it were mostly also Russian speakers. So they translated early on some of the great Russian classics (and had to make the Hebrew fit). So I feel fortunate in that aspect. Actually after putting Dostoevsky as my favorite author, I got to read books by the Hebrew author that translated him - He translated "Crime and Punishment" into something that translates back as "The Sin and Its Punishment", which sounds great and iconic in Hebrew and they kept it for all the newer translations - and now I like him even better than Dostoevsky. His name's Yoseph Haim Brenner and his book "Breakdown and Bereavement" has been translated into English, although I never got to read the translation. I think he can be considered as part of the Russian literature's tradition and would love it if you'll manage to get around to him as well one day...

This series is one big masterpiece! I love LOTR so much

New to your channel. Just checked and your bookmarks are already sold out. How often do you do Etsy restocks?

I have the edition that you're holding up is that the exact copy

hey dear Carolyn and Emma, I enjoyed your musings and answering questions a lot, and I so love that you actually went and read the books after the movies. I had read the books countless times, before the movies came out, and I was very concerned, that the movies could 'damage' my precious middle earth dream world... thanks to Peter, Fran and Philippa (who wrote and developed the movie script together) it didn't happen... some characters even improved, like Pippin & Merry and Aragorn & Arwen, but of course the movies also cut many story lines short or even left them out... Tom Bombadil and Goldberry are without a doubt the greatest loss, but understandable choice for the film makers at the same time... I loved, loved, loved when you mentioned how you often re-read the same page over again, as it was written so beautifully (especially in book 1)... I often couldn't get over a few lines, and just had to stop, and re-read it again and again, until I've tasted it to the bottom of it, and was ready to move on. I often thought, when reading the books the way Tolkien wrote and described places (e.g. Bree with its history and surroundings), that the story even became less important... I loved and still love the characters and places so much... 💖

Rereading can be so key! It's wild how you can not care about a book the first time, and then fall in love the second.

Looking forward to hearing what you think of Jonathan Strange. I LOVED Piranesi and am hoping her other works are just a good.

Makes me so happy to see two new Bombadil lovers. There is hope in the world.

At the weekends, stay out of riot-ridden central London. During the week, stay in the square mile, only use the Black London Cabs or other official transport. The Museums and Galleries are amazing. God bless.

Frodo and Bilbo go to Valinor (where Sauron, the wizards and Galadriel and Glorfindel came from) and eventually die, but it's a beautiful place which will bring them peace.

To me other fantasy stories can be great stories and narratives but Lord of the Rings is pure poetry.

You may also be happy to know that there is another unpublished chapter for LOTR that takes place in the Shire with Sam telling a story to his children. It's found in 'The History of Middle Earth'.

I think if you read the Silmarillion next, many of the questions you posed in this video will be clarified.

Thank you Carolyn, for the wonderful descriptions of these books, BUT WITHOUT ANY SPOILERS! It's such a huge thing not to spoil the whole plot (or the ending) of your favourite or hated books, on the booktube! And for that I thank you 💚 P.S.: (I wonder how some booktubers blabber about books giving the whole plot! How are we the viewers gonna pick that up after they told everything about it including the ending!!! 😤😤. I digress, sorry but it makes me mad)

Excited to see Hugo back! This is the first time I've bought from you and it was nice to see one of my favorites.

Eastbound by maylis de kerangal. Translated from the French. The suspense was so thick you could cut it with a knifr.

Carolyn, I don’t know what I am doing wrong 😭 I am up to part 6 of the Maude version of Anna Karenina and I find Anna and Vronsky sooo unbearably superficial and affluent and I have no idea if that’s normal!!! For me it’s a 5/5 read and I am absolutely adoring the characters, the plot and the writing, but I am on team Karenin the whole way and I feel really bad because I think I am meant to empathise with Anna and Vronsky but the whole time I find myself rolling my eyes at them and annotating why I think they are silly, ironically uneducated even though a big theme is education and how it gets you both ahead and behind, and making poor decisions. At this point I think I have confirmation bias 😅 but I am in love with Levin and Kitty, the farmers and the painter Mikhaylov and all the little underdogs in the book!

I'd love a book about Reading more Banned and Challenged books. I thought of that when you mentioned Speak. Speak got me through a very similar experience because it made me realize that I wasn't alone

Best annotating vlog I've seen, Carolyn. Including the rationale for different approaches was the coup de grace.

Do you think you’ll have a chance to visit Brontë Parsonage? How exciting that would be… 🥹🫀

This is my first read of the book and I feel like the way Anna describes Karenin doesn’t align with what he is saying or doing, but this could be just my perspective because I actually don’t really like Vronsky 😅😅

East of Eden is amazing - a slow burn but great pay off! Jamaica Inn is my mom's favorite and a great September pick. You haaave to read Howl's Moving Castle it's different than the movie but just as great :) I've been reading old Mary Stewart books for my autumn vibe (Touch Not the Cat and Rose Cottage).

I would love for you to review a classic titled the sheltering sky by Paul Bowles. One of my favorites, and I think you would like it.

I was astonished to lean how few English people read and know their own great English literature!

It is life changing, these vanguards of fantasy, like Tolkien, Eddison and Dunsany, change the reader forever once they are read. One cannot just read one of their books and stay the same.

I absolutely love this! Your video was incredibly helpful and inspiring, and your annotation is gorgeous! By the way, you have a sparkle about you when you talk about annotation - I can see the joy radiate from you. ☺ Thank you for sharing this, and please know that you have inspired a whole lot of people! Your joy has sparked joy in others 💖

Right now, I would like to go back and see what happened to the dinosaurs. If it happened over time I would like to be dropped at a good time to witness and understand why they died out. <3

I love these books, my favourite characters were Aragorn, Legolas, Samwise, Eowyn, Faromir, there are so many wonderful characters. I can't choose my fave seriously.

Understanding the background is important when approaching an historical fiction novel. It is certain that Tolstoy expected his reader to be familiar with the Napoleonic wars. My last reads were Tolstoy's _Hadji Murad_ and Graham Greene's _The Quiet American,_ and I needed to do a little research prior to getting into them.

I adore Enid Blyton, I loved her books growing up and often reread them. I hope you'll enjoy many of her other books.

Did you know that Tolstoy was one of the first animal rights activists. He was a big party of shaping the vegan Philosophy and was strictly against the exploration of sentient beings.

Red Badge of Courage-- when I read it, I was totally lost. I feel like knowing some background would have helped me so much!

WE LOVE BOOK TRUST EXERCISE 🎉

Hi Carolyn! I love the black fern bookmark you designed! I am currently reading The Great Gatsby, Sipsworth and Salems Lot ( for the second time). I would have loved to have attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn.

I often see that stack of Ishiguro books in your videos, and I would love to hear your full ranking of them if/when you've read them all.

I loved listening to this video. You feel about your favorite books the way I do. Beautiful work!

I'm approaching 60 and am so glad that young women like you have the same reactions to LOTR that I had after my first read through. Most cultural expressions become obsolete, but not the classics. It is young people who separate and rescue gems from garbage and pass them on to the next generation. In Tolkien’s lands where wonders gleam, A new generation starts to dream. Elven light and dwarven lore, They walk the paths their elders swore. From Hobbiton to darkened skies, The magic grips, it never dies. Through every age, the stories bloom, As young hearts find their way through gloom. The old may know, but young still find, The hidden gems he left behind. A world of myth, alive, aglow- Where new and old together grow.

I agree it’s nice to know some background on books in case they end up disturbing you. One of the books I read that I wish I had more knowledge on before I read it was Native Son by Richard Wright. Very powerful book but highly disturbing too.

it's antithesis, not anti-thesis

the fact that nobody talks about the book called Manifestation Hacks by Olivia Cooper speaks volumes about how people are stuck in a trance.

Tolkien’s writing style is to write every scene from the perspective of the least knowledgeable character. Also, I strongly believe you would both love reading The Silmarillion. It is the history of the world and the Elves before the Lord of the Rings. It’s full of great stories beautifully written. My favorite Tolkien book!

Hey Carolyn, which translator’s edition of “The Little Prince” is best for english readers?

I would put Paradise Lost, The Iliad, and most of Shakespeare in this category. Knowing their plots gives the modern reader some milestones to know where they are and some structure to hang on to while they get used to the language. And, for the Iliad, just knowing some of the geography and basic facts of the Trojan War can be terribly clarifying. (I don't feel the same about The Odyssey because it is so episodic and meandering, anyway.)