I really enjoy your way of talking about books, it's very poetic and romantic and very calming :) I'm definitely taking some of your recommendations, thank you!
Do you have a Goodreads account? I would love to be able to follow the books you're reading. I know it isn't the greatest website but it's the only book specific social media I know of.. love your videos and I love being a part of LL!
Rosianna, I first discovered you through the backburner series and I related to your pain and took solace in it. I've recently found myself in a much darker place and I don't see any chance of it improving soon. But seeing you today, you look so well and there is a spark in your eyes that I hope is true.
Could you explain the phrase "Books are my bag" to me? English isn't my mother tongue and the meaning behind it escapes me; a literal translation doesn't seem to make sense. I have seen it multiple times on RU-vid now and it would be nice to know.
Yes! When you say something "is my bag" it means it's something you love and something you're really enthusiastic about, sort of like saying "that's my kind of thing!" So if someone were to say "I love going to festivals" I could say "yes, that's totally my bag!" So it's a play on that idea with the added feature of involving a physical bag in the campaign :)
I think you'd really love it!!! Or hope you would at least. I thought of you while reading An Uninhabitable Earth because Wallace-Wells mentions Sheila Heti's Motherhood, which I will forever associate with you.
I live in a rural area outside Seattle, so I don’t have any truly local bookshop. But there are a few I regularly drive to, my favorite being Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park. It’s a wonderful mix of new and used books, with lots of spots to sit and read and a wonderful atmosphere. Indies are the best!
It's lovely to hear from you again. I recently visited my favourite not-local local bookshop, Hares & Hyenas, in Melbourne. Its the only queer bookstore in Australia, and has a wide range of queer and just generally interesting books. Love visiting it whenever I am in Melbourne.
I usually never comment on videos, but just wanted to show my appreciation. Love your videos so much, you describe books so well and offer great recommendations. (:
I LOVE my local bookshop!! It’s called Warwick Books (in warwick funnily enough) if you’re ever in the area I 100% recommend stopping by. The girls in there are lovely, have excellent recommendations and have a way of making books feel accessible to everyone, which is how it should be! Thanks for these recommendation, definitely adding one or two to my reading list. Thanks x
My local bookshops aren't very cozy or nice, perhaps because they're all national franchises and are forced to be very cookie-cutter. I've never actually been in a lovely bookshop that you could want to spend all day in - the local bookshops don't much encourage that sort of thing. That's not to say that I didn't spend all day in them. My mum would drop me off at the bookshop and then go get her hair dyed or do a monthly shop and I'd spend hours browsing and typing the names and authors of books into my little flip phone so that I could hunt them down at a library or as e-books. I've been to amazing libraries though - and the small tertiary institute I work at has its own library which I adore.
Loooved hearing about your bookish thoughts again! I’ve been devouring the goldfinch recently before I go watch the film and can’t believe I haven’t read it sooner
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell is a great read on the attention economy and the social internet. I'm underlining so much of the book and want to press it into the hands of everyone. Also the cover is beautiful.
Wow! The age of surveillance capitalism is a 700 pg book! In my phd program, there was a reading group of academics who read it but they had a very different reaction to the book than you did. I'm excited to hear your opinions on it! :) I definitely had an electrifying moment when you brought it up as a book that you loved!
Ooh did they dislike it? And to be fair the final 150 pages are mostly notes/citations. I think it'll be another few weeks until I make the Surveillance Capitalism vid but I'm def excited to talk about it more.
I also really, really liked The Testaments! It's not as shocking, which is what I've been hearing from people and why they've not liked it but it filled in everything I still wanted to read about when I finished Handmaid's Tale and it felt like it was written almost to bolster people just the way that Handmaid's Tale feels like it was written to warn people.
My favorite local-to-me* bookshop is Left Bank Books in St. Louis, Missouri (US). They're celebrating their 50th anniversary this year and I hope they're around for fifty more years and then some. And the only book I've read that you mentioned is Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which is probably due for a reread at this point - it's been long enough that while I remember enjoying it, that's about all I remember.
Loved this video!! I've been getting back into reading recently so I'm glad I have lots and lots of recommendations once I finally get through my own TBR lol. Interesting that you compared The Testaments to Station Eleven in that way; I read Station Eleven for school and I absolutely adored it, especially for the world-building elements that you touched on, so I may look into Margaret Atwood's writing soon. I wish I had more bookstores around--there's only one bookstore within half an hour of my house, a Barnes and Noble. When I go back to school, I'll be near D.C. and I really want to find more bookstores around there.
I loved this video. You talk about books in a way where I want to read each one you recommended. I will for sure be picking up How To Write an Autobiographical Novel though.
Oh how I have missed your book talk and analysis!! All of the best book recommendations I’ve gotten have been from you, thanks for passing these shared knowledge recs along!
You look amazing in this video! But I have to agree with you on An American Marriage, it’s such a beautiful tragic story, needless to say I loved it! I wish we had the books are my bag campaign in America.
I love watching you talk about books and explaining why you appreciate them as well as the underlying themes and the bookshops you bought them in. I have also read the unhabitable earth, which might be the most important book I have read this year, and the Testaments, which I liked too! The last book you discussed, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, sounds facinating; will definanitly will try to pick it up!
Thanks Luke! Yes, I'm eager to reread The Uninhabitable Earth. Wondering whether I can give it to people for Christmas...maybe with a big bag of chocolate so they can counteract the feelings they have as they read...
Bookshop day hype! New video hype! Many years ago I read The Handmaid's Tale far too many times as part of studying it for my A levels so I never went in and checked on the television series. There is a part of me that is pretty interested in seeing how The Testaments expands the world but I don't know if I'm ever going to get round to reading it or if just reading a wiki summary would satisfy my curiosity. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism both interests me and scares me. Just the quotes you've shared on twitter is enough to put me on edge so I think I might leave that one alone! Somewhat disappointingly my local bookshop is a Waterstones, which is not very unique or independent. It used to be an Ottakar's and if I remember right has a big painting of the cover of the Tintin book King Ottokar's Sceptre cover on the wall but as King Ottakar's Sceptre. Did all the Ottakar's have that or is that something just my local one has/had? As to my own reading, we're going to have to give me an F grade for that. Bit of a lack of effort there in recent times. It leans a bit towards being a text book but I would recommend The Oxford History of World Cinema though for anyone interested in checking out different film movements from around the world. It is not completely up to date but covers a huge swathe of cinematic history.
