Hello, I'm Roisin! Mostly I'm reading historical fiction, literary fiction and classics and sharing reading vlogs and recommendations videos with the occasional video essay about literature thrown in.
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I listened to the audio of Enlightenment. I was disappointed in the way it ended. I kept reading hoping it was going to have a pay off but it didn’t happen.
I thought Only Here, Only Now was incredible, and I say that as someone who in the 1990s was a teenage girl with undiagnosed ADHD living on the east coast of Scotland, who moved to Glasgow when I left home at 18, and a part of Glasgow near to where Cora lived. I actually said before I started I thought it would be a one star or a five star, and within the first chapter I thought it would be five stars, some of the things Cora thinks and says felt stunningly accurate, I would remember similar experiences as a teenager. I also like to see a character deliberately written as neurodivergent but with no diagnosis. When I first read about it I thought she would have a diagnosis which I wouldn’t have believed because it wasn’t possible in NHS Scotland at that time. But the way he wrote it let people who wouldn’t realise understand her a bit more, and told people like me, who would realise, that I was meant to. I’ve read so many books where I’m like, are they supposed to have ADHD, did the writer write it deliberately without understanding it’s ADHD, or is just bad writing?
Well here I am. 45 male, diagnosed psoriatic arthritis. This all started from some high stress at work and has only gotten worse with time. I have been prescribed biologic but have to go through many hoops until I get it. It’s 20k per dose so the insurance would rather have me not use it!
a lot of interesting books that have slipped under my radar! Husbands sounds like a wild ride! need to pick it up! hope you have a good rest of your reading year! ✨💪
1. Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad 2. No sequels 3. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore ( published today) 4. Too many 5. Time Shelter . It went over my head. 6. Fayne by AnnMarie MacDonald 7. Rebecca K Reilly ( Greta & Valdin) 8. No crushes 9. The main character in Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Haworth 10. Brotherless Night by VV Ganeshananthan Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano 10. No happy books ☘️👋🍀💐📚☕️📕📖
@@RoisinsReading it was written beautifully but I didn’t understand it. I might have to reread it. I listened to it on audio. Maybe I need the text. I felt really dumb after reading it as I couldn’t get the hype about it.
If you want a funny book recommendation, Spirit Level by Richy Craven was hilarious. It’s about two friends in Dublin who get in an accident, one doesn’t survive. The other can see his ghost, but only when he’s been drinking.
I love this video! Added so many books to my tbr. It also made me really think about what things I myself like in books, past the genre, theme or mood. I also really like the vibe you give as a person and the way your face lights up when you talk about these books. I hope you will do more videos about books you love :).
Mister Bennett is in his study busy planning and administering the estate. Mrs. Bennett is managing her latest attack of flutters about her daughters' love lives. And Jane Austen is wise enough to declare who is the sensible one in that partnership.
The irony, of course, is that the intensity of Mrs. Bennet's desire to have her daughters married erupts in such rude social behavior that she is off putting to the very families and young men she hopes to connect them with. In his letter to Elizabeth, Darcy says that even though her social connections are objectionable, even more so is the lack of propriety that everyone in her family except she and Jane displays.
When people say it's a book about friendship and not trauma, can anyone gove examples of when friendship is presented? Because all i read was sex, how disturbing sex was, how sex hurt Jude emotionally and physically, how Willem and he Spoiler * towards the end had a sexual relationship? I couldn't find anything else! The only non sexual relationship was the one with his doctor and the touching one with his adoptive parents.
When I saw the title, I thought “I should listen to a point of view different from mine”. A few minutes in, I was glad I did because it’s clearly true that it’s a Romantic novel, if not quite a “romance” novel in the current sense. I just finished reading the book this afternoon and have little to add other than to say it is the template for almost every soap opera / telenovela I have ever seen.
We finally had sunshine on Wednesday and I got out into the garden to plant and sort pots. Really lifted my spirits. Hope this weekend will be nice enough to read outside. 🍀👋☘️📖📚📕☕️💐
ghosts + perspective shifts : all szabó (whom i know you’ve mentioned wanting to explore), but esp katalin street lit retelling : second place by rachel cusk my first ideas for body horror were the seas and our wives under the sea! but you’ve already got them apparently :) michael hobbes core (LOL) : speaking of patrick radden keefe, have you read say nothing? recs that don’t strictly fall into yr categories but have an uncomfortable/uncanny vibe that i think might scratch the body horror/ghosts/politics itch: white on white by ayşegül savaş, the listeners by jordan tannahill, asylum road by olivia sudjic, the employees by olga ravn, the southern reach trilogy by jeff vandermeer (have you read those?)
Thank you, I have read and loved Katalin Street, should have mentioned it in ghosts! I haven’t read Say Nothing yet, I know I need to since my mum is from Derry and grew up in the 70s, so I was raised with stories of the troubles. I didn’t know Second Place was a lit retelling I haven’t read any Vandermeer, but I am intrigued, thank you for all the recs
If you have not read the famished road by Ben okri yet, I would suggest trying that out. It is ghostly and political and very well written. I could imagine that you would also enjoy the eight life by nino haratischvili. It is a family saga in the same way that the old drift is a family saga. It spans about 80 years with lots of characters that get involved with the politics of the place in a more epic way.
One thing I find about the idea that fiction makes us more empathic: sentimental fiction makes a lot of people LESS empathic. Here’s a common experience when you’re disabled: someone produces a book, a picture, a meme, something that serves the inspiration-p*rn niche. Non-disabled people publicly and loudly ‘empathise’, talking about how moving and uplifting and wonderful it is… And if you, a disabled person, say anything that punctures their moment by pointing out it’s unrealistic or kind of patronising or invades a disabled person’s privacy? You know, something that calls for active empathy? BOY do they lash out at you. They were supposed to be caring about disabled people, right? But when a disabled person from reality tips up, the reaction is hostile and contemptuous. A lot of this stuff - and I certainly include A LITTLE LIFE - isn’t about becoming more empathic towards the actual people who actually live with this stuff. The sentimental will attack a real disabled person for criticising a fictional one. No: it’s about having a little weep and admiring your own tears as proof of your sensitivity. And that, being an entirely selfish pleasure, easily turns mean. Selfish pleasures aren’t all bad. Yanigahara puts a lot of baked goods in her fiction too; eating or thinking about eating a cookie is a selfish pleasure and it’s quite harmless. But nobody expects to be morally admired for eating a cookie - and that’s the level inspo-p*rn operates on. Ask for real empathy and people feel like you stole their cookie, and act about as compassionate as you’d expect. Some fiction may encourage empathy, sure. But sentimental fiction is just nastiness with a sugar coating.
Thank you for this comment, really well said and I appreciate it. I’ve actually been working on a video about reading and empathy after reading A Sentimental Education by Hannah McGregor
Sounds good! Marianne Noble’s The Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimental Literature is good too; it talks about how a perfect victim of this form is the girl child who doesn’t protest except by presenting a ‘suffering body’, which acts as a reproach. Jude is very like that, I think, or at least related. He’s entirely defined by his childhood, and while diegetically male he’s possessed of lots of traditionally ‘feminine’ traits: meek, self-doubting, devoid of anger, sexually passive and always the done-to rather than the doer. (He even bakes.) And being the suffering body of an unsaved child is basically his whole role.
Allow me to make a couple of important and respectful corrections: - Mérida is not the capital of the Yucatán peninsula. It is capital only of the Yucatán State. There are other 2 States in this peninsula: Campeche and Quintana Roo. Also parts of Tabasco and Chiapas States as well. Additionally parts of Guatemala and the whole Belize are parts of the Yucatán Peninsula which has no capital city for itself as a peninsula at all. - Chichén Itzá is not the world's largest Mayan archeological site. It is only the most visited one. There are plenty of larger Mayan archeological sites in México, Guatemala and Belize, most of them still not fully excavated so far.
Some great books on this list 🤩 If you enjoyed The Discomfort of Evening I'd really recommend Oldladyvoice by Elisa Victoria. It has a child narrator and is definitely very odd and uncomfortable in the way it talks about sex. Was one of my favourite books from a couple of years ago and it's got a beautiful cover which always helps!
I have one that has both ghosts and it's a retelling, My Plane Jane by Cynthia Hand. Now I know it's a YA, so not typically something I'd like, but it's so meta and clever and I love where the story goes! A Jane Eyre retelling with Charlotte Bronte as a main character. Now for two recs you didn't ask for, about sexual politics amongst other things, and both canadian, The Red Word by Sarah Henstra, and Surfacing by Margaret Atwood. Surfacing especially fits so many topics in a little book, everything from gentrification to patriarchy to environmentalism, and so impressive for being written in the 1970s!
A couple of recommendations for you... Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton- retelling ( plus you loved The Luminaries) Not a River by Selma Almada...its a novella ( which is not normally my thing) about toxic masculinity and male friendship. Im recommending it for one of your categories, but I cant really say which as it would be a spoiler 😂 And another two, that im not sure fit into your categories but i think you might like: The Woodwife by Terri Windling- magical realism ish / folklore/ supernatural Home by Marilyn Robinson- just absolutely beautiful writing and in depth character studies.
Have you read Jesmyn Ward’s latest? I’m reading it now, and it’s so powerful. Liz Nugent writes lots of books with unlikable characters, they’re so fun. Also loved Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. Beautyland is a great “cozy tragedy” book! I really enjoyed it. Also The Book of Secrets by Elizabeth Arnold (which is a book about books, really engaging but heartbreaking.) And Goodbye Vitamin, the perfect mix of funny and heartbreaking.
Ghost story - Pedro Paramo Retelling - Wide Sargasso Sea Philosophical body horror + changing perspectives - The Obscene Bird of Night Gentle tragedy + a compelling character + talking about politics - An Artist of the Floating world
Ghosts? Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad Differing perspectives? Deluge by Stefan Markley ( my best book of 2023) Literary retellings? Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton ( Macbeth) Philosophical / uncomfortable? Henry Henry should come with a trigger warning. Politics? Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan Likeable Unlikeable ? Service by Sarah Gilmartin Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Haworth Stone Yard Devotional by Charolette Wood Sad Whimsy? Falling Animals How To Build A Boat by Elaine Feeney Historical epic? Fayne by AnnMarie MacDonald The Winter Solider by Daniel Mason March by Geraldine Brooks Nonfiction? Strong Female Character by Fern Brady ☘️👋🍀📕📚☕️📖
I’ve read Ordinary Human Failings and didn’t love it, the characters don’t really talk politics to each other as I remember. And there aren’t any actual ghosts in Enter Ghost, just an actor playing one. But I’ll look into the others as I haven’t read them
I have a few recommendations for you. In non-fiction On Being Unreasonable by Kirsty Segman, it’s about how society’s expectation of reasonable can often be sexist, racist, ableist etc. Strong Female Characters by Fern Brady, it’s about Fern being diagnosed as autistic, but she does broaden it out to the wider autistic community. When the Dust Settles by Lucy Easthope, she’s a disaster expert, it’s a memoir but it also covers the parts of disasters that don’t make it into most books. For fiction, King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett, I’m not sure if this counts as a literature retelling, technically it is a retelling of MacBeth, but it is a political drama like Wolf Hall, it goes from MacBeth aged 7 to his death, but there’s not a lot of family drama. The Sunken Road by Ciarán McMenamin has a dual timeline part of it is set during World War One, the other during the Irish civil war. The Bookseller of Inverness by S. G. MacLean is set six years after Culloden, the main plot is a murder mystery, but mostly it’s about the aftermath of war.
I’d never heard of it before, but I picked up Summer Light and Then Comes the Night from my library because of this video. I’m about 30 pages from the end and I have enjoyed it so so much. Thank you for such a great recommendation!
I am beginning to think I may have it. Arthritic pain, small patch of psoriasis and I have also had uveitis in the past. I have also noticed myself feeling quite tired recently, but I am aged 67 and it could be my age. Waiting to see my GP, but I could travel around the world faster 😂
I’m reading my first Zadie Smith now (White Teeth). 😁 You must read Toni Morrison! I would start with The Bluest Eye, the audiobook is read by Toni Morrison herself and it is amazing. Unfortunately I didn’t love the first In the series by Elena Ferrante, so I didn’t continue on. Would love to hear your thoughts once/if you read them to see if I don’t give it another go.
The works of the great poet, Homer, are filled with words that not only survive in Albanian but continue to be used. From Homer, you can get not only words but also phrases that possess all the signs of a typical Albanian expression. If someone were to interpret Homer from the Albanian language perspective, much light would be shed on the works of that famous poet. Between Homeric and Albanian sentences, there is a striking resemblance in expression, phraseology, and sentence structure. A study of this nature would help interpret Homer, since the Albanian language is older than that of Greece (Science Magazine 2023), much can be learned about the influence of this [Albanian] on Homeric and later Greek. Title: Unconquerable Albania Author : Christ Anton Lepon Publisher: Chicago, Albanian Liberation Committee, 1944 Zeus was a Pelasgian, not a Helen. After Illyad the language of Gods was Gheg - North Albanian Dialect. (Herodotus)
Hello! I'm subscribed to your channel and I like your content. I'm an author, from Lagos Nigeria and I would love for you to review my book. How do I reach you?
Hello, thank you so much for your comment. If I hear about your book and it sounds interesting I will read it, but I only read books because I think they sound good, I don’t accept unsolicited books
I would love to read Elana Ferrante books alongside you, as they've been sitting on my tbr shelves for so long...can't understand what I am 'saving them' for 😊
Authors I’ve read one book from ( but want to read more) Alice Elliot Dark ( Fellowship Point) Geraldine Brooks ( March) James McBride ( The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store) Three I’ve never read? Kurt Vonnegut ( he’s my best friends favourite writer) ( guess what… my brain has gone blank!)
