A Conversation with Chris Via of Leaf by Leaf 

Big thanks to Ridge for sending me this wallet and supporting the channel! Here’s the site if you want to check them out! > ridge.com/BETTERTHANFOOD

"To experience the joys of people while actively avoiding them." That is brilliant.

Imagine they had a weekly podcast 👌🤯

The crème de la crème of booktube together in one video

The crossover event I've been waiting for my whole life!!!

I'm heartened by your admissions of reading speed. When I'm really breezing through a book, I can read 20 pages an hour. Most books read closer to 10-12, and very dense texts will slow me down to 5-6 pages an hour. Knowing that you both read as slowly as I do makes me feel less alone. Cheers!

Great conversation. I would listen to you doing a regular podcast together.

One of the most ambitious crossover between booktubers ever. Great advice and insight guys!

Like eavesdropping on two well articulated minds. What a joy!

“To experience the joys of people while actively avoiding them.” Nailed it!!!

Only halfway through the video, but I feel compelled to thank you both for fostering my interest in literature. Cliff, I discovered your channel in high school, and the books I read at your suggestion helped influenced my decision to study English in college. Chris, I discovered your channel in college, and your insights pushed me further down the rabbit hole of literary studies. I graduated with my BA in English earlier this year, and now you guys have finally collaborated, combining two major pillars of my literary life. Much appreciation to you both for the great influence you’ve had on my development as a reader.

Leaf by Leaf is the best in the game

War and Peace is a real page-turner, honest, guys.

When conversations become events. Thank you for doing this!

Chris has the most beautiful bookshelves I wish I had one of those in my house.

It is so wonderful to see two of my favorite book reviewers on youtube together. I hope you do more of these chats.

Well, finding Cliff's channel was a godsend. And then I leart from Cliff about Chris's Leaf By Leaf channel. Thank you both for putting out such wonderful materiel in you channels. I am very grateful.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.― Heraclitus

Wasn’t this just grand 🙌

I love the metaphor that re-reading a book is like having multiple relationships with a person throughout time because you change.

This happened. This happened. Sometimes, sometimes, the beautiful convergence can happen.

Two of my most favorite BookTubers! Excellent idea, Cliff 🤓📚😎

My new favourite video

If you two don't create a podcast that would be a crime against the public good!

This is like when I teamed up with Hulk Hogan. Unbelievable collaboration

This was so good that I watched it 3 times, back to back, while driving my truck....Best two book review channels on youtube....Looking forward to your future collaborations!

Hey, its been a year, time for a reunion! Love you both.

You two are my absolute favorite "booktubers" (hate that term but it is what it is haha). I look forward to your future collaborations!

I'm one of those guys who loves everything you do for years and says nothing. Was blind but now I see.. Thankyou both. What you do is so important.

Oh my god, I'm so excited! Two of my favourite reviewer together.

Listening to this conversation brought back my brain from the horrible barely conscious brain haze state that I had been living in for many days. Truly thanks. Right now I remember myself.

I have been waiting for this collaboration my entire life.

to hear these two intelligent human beings agree fervently that you're not going to understand the fullness of whatever lengthy tome you've just read, that absolutely makes me breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Watched this interview and promptly went to a library book sale and got a beautiful Webster’s dictionary and a copy of The Sound and the Fury, among other books. Thanks for this! I learned a lot!

Thank you both for this!

This is one of my favorite videos, I've rewatched it a few times already. Great conversation

This video is what RU-vid needs 🙏

My two favorite channels just joined forces, thanks for this! Do a part 2!

Just a brilliant conversation! Thanks guys

Love both of these dudes. Could listen to them talk for hours. You guys need to read War and Peace! And check out Clarissa too...

The crossover we needed! 💞 Absolutely brilliant! Love you both! Wish this was a regular thing.

This was an incredible episode! Both of you are truly learned Gentlemen and I'm looking forward to your future collaborations!

Brilliant conversation guys

Such an insightful conversation! Thank you both ♥️🙏

Thanks guys. What a wonderful and interesting conversation.

Soooo great fellas...awesome that you did this.

this was so so nourishing to hear

I love both channels, great interview!

How can two people dislike this video?

A very fruitful conversation, thanks for sharing it.

Fantastic conversation! Thanks a lot 😁

Learnt something new. Thank you guys for the conversation.

Great conversation! Thank you .

Great conversation - looking forward to more. And thanks for the intro to Sherdstube

I've been waiting for this

I’ve been watching Better Than Food for a couple of years, and discovered Leaf by Leaf a few months ago. Seeing my two favorite RU-vid book reviewers collaborate made my day.

Fantastic conversation! Thank you to both of you gentlemen

What an absolutely amazing video; you guys are absolutely brilliant to listen to talking to one another; no hubris, yet profound discussion. Feel like I'm sitting at a cafe in Paris in the 1920s or something listening to great writers shooting the shit with one another unafraid to be totally authentic and without the need to cover everything they say with irony or some other cheap trick

My dudes!

I really struggle with my phone sometimes - it’s so difficult to put a cap on how much we let ourselves be stimulated by it. I know this may not be for everyone, but I now lock my phone into a timed digital lock box for hours at a time - there’s no override function, and the timer just pauses if you take out the batteries and resumes once they’re back in. My brain might itch for the distraction but there’s simply nothing I can to do to access what I want - bliss!

Cliff, if I may, when you write your own novel (one day, down the road a bit) it will be profoundly amazing. Who am I? Not a youngster at all. Nam vet. Worked many blue collar type jobs over the years to buy time to write. So, my conclusion? For a young dude of 32, man, you are inordinately sharp, yet devoid of pretense. You're real, you're brainy, you're a lover of good writing. Exactly why people like me appreciate your channel. Even though am fairly well read, you make me aware of books I may have overlooked in the past and perhaps ought to give a concerted try. Thank you and Chris Via for the hard work that you both put into your podcasts. You guys make this crazy world (that we all struggle to survive & live in) a better place. Thank you kindly, gentlemen.

Love you Cliff. You’ve introduced me to some of the best books I’ve ever read in my entire life. Take care man ❤️

Better Than Food guy. You got me to read Gravity's Rainbow. I did finish it but had to buy a companion to understand the more technical parts and I don't speak German. Now I understand it a little more and realize what Pynchon was trying to do. Quite the book!

Thanks so much for this great video guys. I really enjoy your passion for what you love, and your openness and honesty. You both rock!

This is definitely the good side of booktube. Hope more collabs with Chris will happen in the future. Great stuff!

Wow, can’t believe I’m just now watching this. Great interview! Very insightful, Chris just got a new subscriber

In relation to funny books, Beckett's Murphy made me laugh like hell. Gonna have to re-read that one.

What a crossover... What a Video.... Thanks!

thankful for this

I enjoyed every bit of this interview/crossover. This reminded me of a film called My Dinner with Andre. Especially when you converse on why today's literature, films, or music suck so much, maybe because we all turned into walking robots, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, consuming garbage (a generation of plastics with junk values and junk food). Great episode. A big fan of both of you guys. Take Care. 😔

what a delightful surprise!

Im so happy I’m even leaving a comment today! Thank you!

Great chemistry. Awesome conversation!

I'm grateful that I made the time to watch this. Great stuff! 👍

We need another one of these guys, and soon.

Genius conversations. Enjoyable!

I really enjoyed this interview. It was very inspiring. I am going to buy myself a dictionary. I used to love dictionaries too but no longer own one. I never find enough time to read but I find so deeply fulfilling when I do. A mix of pleasure and contentment and curiosity all at the same time. ❤

Very meaningful. I’m 57. I like your comments on the changing times. It is over. Mass consumption habits dictate changes in writing, production. Thanks for saying there isn’t much coming from your generation. .. I’m loving these channels. Great conversation.

Great interview with the two best book channels on the RU-vids.

Enjoyed very much😊

I contend that writers like Coover, Hawkes or Gaddis couldn't find a publisher today, as the system has changed so much since they were published in the sixties.

No one is more well read than Chris!

This was a great episode! Please read Tolstoy's fiction and Montaigne!

This was such a good interview. Thanks, Cliff, here's to monogamous first 50 pages

Great video!!

So glad 'Leaving the Atocha Station' got a shoutout. Its my favourite book and feel its so underrated in literary conversations. Without sounding pretentious, that book completley opened my mind to what prose can do.

Oh, God! This is better than food.

This is a really good conversation. Enjoyable. I hope that guys like this, Cliff in particular, find their way into a career of literary criticism. I’d buy his serious critical work, and I imagine he’d make a great lecturer.

I bit of a pedantic point but Nietzsche's concept of Eternal Return was actually to reinforce the notion of "you can't live multiple lives". The Eternal Return was not like reincarnation where you would get the opportunity to redo life again, but rather your life would repeat in the exact same way as it had for all of eternity. No ability to change your decisions or for you to even understand that things were repeating. The point was to see whether or not that would make the person who discovered this Eternal Return would affirm their life or despair over it. It actually is more similar to the concept of "you only have one life" than "what if you could do things over again" Regardless, really enjoyed the conversation and it was nice to discover a new book channel. Thanks for the great videos Cliff

damn, this was a great conversation! (: so cool hearing the back and fourths of these two gentelmen

This was refreshing. Cliff, just wanted to put on your radar the latest release from Fernando Flores, called 'Tears of the Trifflepig'. An absolute monster, comical, terrifying, and my favorite book of last year. It seems like you don't repeat authors often, yet since you had introduced me to him, I thought you should know, his latest is totally brilliant. No one has seemingly reviewed it yet.

The most hilarious part of this video was two 30 something chaps bemoaning old age! My god! You guys have no idea!

It was actually very relieving to hear that I have to read big books several times. I used to read them once and I thought I was a bad reader for not understanding everything at once.

More of these!

What a treat 😁🤓🤓

Something so cool listening to buddies talk about books.

Great talk. Clifford, you should read and make a video on Lonesome Dove.

Amazing conversation - two intellectual literary heavyweights. More collabs needed!

This was fantastic .

I found "story of the eye" via "the past is a grotesque animal" by Of Montreal. Also read it on the computer and could stop till I finished it.