I must must must must must flipping read all Toni Morrison’s books. The Proust update… I laughed so much and had to watch that interlude several times. Don’t judge Max Porter on that book. He’s normally amazing, that felt like a bit of an arty w@nk.
I'll play along as well 1. Earthlings 2. Fantastic Beast screen plays 3 n 4. Donna Tartt's 4th book 😁 5. Ariadne 6. Milk Fed 7. DH Lawrence 11. The Witch's heart 12. Firekeeper's Daughter 13. The rainbow 😸
i really wanna read just by looking at him!!! such a beautiful cover (well at least the US version, i didn’t know how bad the UK one was 😬) i can’t wait to read the booker list, im ambitious and going for the long list but i’m so excited! it’s my version of christmas as an adult that 1984 cover is dope!
Lol i picked up The Death of Francis Bacon and skimmed through the first pages and thought it was GOD AWFUL and put it back down and never looked back. Lanny has been my fave Porter so far, but i hope his next book is him standing on his own literary feet rather than sponging off other writers/artists.
Thank you, Ben!🌷I’d be very happy to follow your reviews of the Booker shortlist! 😊📚I would like to share my best, funniest, happiest, most surprising book of 2022 so far: The Wrench by … Primo Levi. Yes, the author of the books about his time at Auschwitz. He wrote The Wrench 30 years after Auschwitz. It’s a novel about a simple man’s passion for his job which takes him to the remotest corners of the world. I laughed out loud many times and I was sorry to see it end. I’d have never thought that one day I would read (let alone recommend) a funny book by Levi😳, but there you go. He even got the major Italian literary prize (the Premio Strega) for it, I think in 1978. Books are the best!📚
Can’t wait to see your reaction to Charlus’ fate in the later books of Proust. If you haven’t already, I really recommend “Lost Time: lectures on Proust in a Soviet prison camp’ by Josef czapski. It has some spoilers but well worth reading once you get to the end. 👋
I haven't read Proust yet but I first heard about Robert de Montesquiou in Julian Barnes non-fiction book about 19th c France, Man in a red coat (really loved it). It's so interesting how influencial this guy was, he also was an inspiration for the main character in Joris-Karl Huysmans' À rebours (Against Nature), which inspired Dorian Gray. :D I have that one on my shelf, really want to read it. It's an old Penguin with Montesquiou portrait on the cover actually :)
loved this vid!! made me smile at various occasions :-) that edition of proust looks so pretty!!! the bookstores in my country only have the penguin classics edition. swann's way has been sitting on my shelf for TOOOO long HAHAH so surprised to find sappho & carson being mentioned too! if you enjoyed carson's translation & artistic expression, you should check out her H of H playbook! it's her semi-translation, semi-retelling of Euripides's Herakles. It talks about the obligation of a 'hero', ptsd from war/violence, madness and mistakes. I think you will enjoy it!
Great video, because of you I might try and take up Proust...Thinking about it... you make it sound like it's worth the effort! BTW, do you speak French? Did you read Édouard Louis? I read all his books this year and I think you might find him interesting, at the very least.
@@doomantidote I was under the impression you speak French, probably your wonderful accent every time you say a French name :-))) So if you have time, (I'm sure you get hundreds of recommendations) I would recommend to check "History of violence" (NOT related to the movie) and "The end of Eddy" by this author. And then listen to some of his interviews (he has a lot in English). A young impressing voice in French literature.
I just finished What You Can See From Here after hearing you talk about it and it was wonderful, thanks for the recommendation! Now I'm reading Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson (again, after you made me aware of her) if you haven't read it yet I would enthusiastically encourage you to do so.
Delightful. 😍 I had all but forgotten what I’d heard about the Ryan O’Connell novel and then I previewed the audiobook, which he narrates,and was sold within the first 20 seconds. I’m going to track down either an e-book or print copy to read in combination with it. Stoked!
Thank you! Yes RYAN O'CONNELL not josh o'connor haha I'm.really intrigued by it! And if I can get a copy of that US version I'll like it even more haha
Hahaha your videos always make me smile. Literary version of the alchemist, that’s actually pretty enticing. Alchemist is so flimsy… what would it look like with scaffolding. I’d like to know - maybe, probably. Max Porter is ultimate disappointment! Snap. Sorrow and Bliss really was so funny! Sequel to Less! Did not know! Excited for that.
Thank you! I'm sure there'll be a lot of Morrison fans furious at tue comparison haha but I found it loosely linked... I'm excited for Less is Lost too! Hope it comes somewhere near the charm of the first!
Your Proust undertaking is impressive! I wonder if you would like Grief is the Thing With Feathers? The more I hear about Sorrow and Bliss, the more I want to read it. Top five is high praise. 😊💙
I bought that version of Sappho on your recommendation and I love it too. A few fragments most days. Delicious. I am up to the fourth book in the series of A Dance to the Music of Time. Recommended a long time ago as better than everything you can think of, Waugh, Amis etc, but I found it extremely boring and pompous. I now think that it is boring and pompous and extremely readable and amusing and I am loving it. Obviously in my twenties was too young to appreciate. Now I looked it up in my 1001 books to read etc and found that it is compared to Proust. Really?? Interesting eh? I also recently reread A Room with a View and just loved it even more than ever. Thanks Ben . Your reviews are a joy. x
I'd recommend No Country for Old Men when it comes to Cormac McCarthy, but I'm only saying that because it's the first one of his that I read. This video reminds me that I really need to begin thinking about my answers for this - although I do look forward to Glory by Bulawayo. I still don't think that I am ready to read Proust's In Search of Lost Time yet, but I enjoy hearing your take on things.
I've only read The Road. I'm really annoyed when I was in London last, I saw a couple of his books in a charity shop including blood meridian but I didn't get them 😒 I'll have a go at NCFOM if I come across it! Will look forward to your vid too :D
Best books read so far this year The Colony by Audrey Magee Devotion by Hannah Kent Foster by Claire Keegan Elena Knows What Willow Says I’m currently listening to the audio of Young Mungo I’m finding it upsetting/triggering but trying to get through the difficult parts.
Ooo I'm kind of interested in Young Mu go but I think the only reason I'll read it is if it's longlisted for the booker. Otherwise... I might be too worried to pick it up haha
Really enjoyed this. It’s aways a fun thing watching your videos and your choice of books is always interesting and unpredictable. Those stats at the beginning are cool too. I don’t think goodreads do graphs….do they?
@@doomantidote when I started to change my free time so that I was reading much more - about 4 years ago - it was the only thing I saw that logged reading. Now I know there’s a few things out there. Good to track and look over it sometimes.
They're out of print but they are the old Vintage versions which now have the flowers on the front. I found it difficult to track them down too but asking about on abe books helped!
The flipping middle classes are always a bit humourous aren’t they? I usually read a good chunk of the Booker long list and always the entire shortlist (although I did DNF one last year).
@@doomantidote me too! I have such a bad luck with sequels. Didn't like any I've read last/this year. For example new Marlon James was so disappointing...
1984… you don’t need 899 copies of 1984 (…) 99% of all 1984 covers have eyes (…) and a very kind of on the nose on the eyes I’m stuck in this part of the video on repeat 😂 can’t tell if its so very much funny because I’m not a native English speaker or just because I’m silly 🙃
