Hi Leaf, I can't thank you enough for acquainting me with Alice Feeney! A pleasure to listen to, 5 out of 5 stars! You must be a wonderful mensch! I have no problem envisioning how Rock, Paper, Scissors could hornswoggle its way to the top of anybody's reading list. I was completely chuffed at how Alice tied up all the loose ends and masterfully incorporated every actor in the story. I'm re-reading C.S. Lewis’ Miracles with Anne and crew over on In Search of Wonder and Lewis tells a story at the end of chapter 13 about how one of his writing buddy's (he won't say which one but any reader would guess it to be one of his Inklings, wouldn't you have loved to sit in on that den of biblioklepts!) wrote a play about a man who had a pathological horror of trees and a mania for cutting them down. But naturally other things came in as well; there was some kind of love story mixed up with it. And the trees killed the man in the end. When his friend had finished the play he sent it to an older man to criticize. It came back with the comment, ‘Not bad. But I'd cut out those bits of padding about the trees.’ LOL! I was sure as soon as I started R.P.S. that Feeney was going to write herself into the same quagmire with Adam's prosopagnosia. What a horrible affliction that would be! What with my own struggles with dyslexia I'm always fascinated by tales of other people overcoming hurdles in their own path, a bit of schadenfreude on my part? I hope not! Prosopagnosia would be bad but which of us (over the age of 19!) doesn't have some similar experience of being completely overlooked or unrecognized?!? I recently enjoyed David Sedaris’ A Carnival of Snackery, a mostly funny but always entertaining collection of his own diary entries from 2003 to 2020. In one entry he describes a hilarious encounter he had when he and his husband were on vacation in Japan. They were two rich white American guys not accustomed to disrespect and they discovered to their utter chagrin that to the Japanese we all looked alike and they couldn't judge our ages within three decades! When I was a 22 year old rookie in my department I got my up-comingness in the O.D. (officers’ dining room) when three older cops sat down with me and a young black inmate cook walked by in his kitchen whites to go to work. One of them said to the other two “those n*****s all look alike to me” I don't believe he realized I was a mulatto brother myself (I'm very light skinned) so I didn't take it as a personal affront, and my daddy raised me to have more sense than to go shooting off my mouth, but I looked at the three of them all wearing heavy green winter ‘refrigerawear’ coats and big bushy hunting season beards and thought to myself “they look as alike a three peas 🫛 in a pod!” Prosopagnosia! I guess my monachopsis with Alice and her ilk stems from their staying power. If you spend countless hours parsing the intricacies of The Brothers Karamazov, Moby Dick or War and Peace you can be assured that even hundreds of years from now you'll still be in good company, still like your friend said ‘relevant’. Quite some years ago when my white grandmother passed away my Mom gave me her reading log which she'd kept in the most amazing, precise long hand since the 1930's…talk about cool! In it she journaled her trips through hundreds of novels but as I look through it today I'm able to recognize only a very few. Most everything she read were books which failed to stand the test of time and couldn't be had today outside of an exhausting search through dozens of antique dives…a project which I intend to do someday, but not an easy one. Still like I said before, it always pays to keep an open mind and listen to good advice from wise friends. And like your friend said a little ‘relevance’ is probably not a bad thing either. I'm stymied to find the exact quote but I'm sure it was C.S. Lewis who once wrote that it doesn't make sense to reject a perfectly good loaf of freshly baked bread just because it isn't a bottle of fine wine. Again in Screwtape he writes how the devil, in his attempts to get us off from John Bunyan's Progress Road, always wants to steer us away from what we really like, what actually brings us a little wholesome pleasure, to what this old world says we should like instead. “You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favor of the ‘best’ people, the ‘right’ food, and the ‘important’ books…Your affectionate Uncle, Screwtape. “ Many Thanks.
@dougirvin2413 😆🤣 you have a great sense of humor and I'm so glad you enjoyed Rock Paper Scissors. I have a weakness for English writers. My goal for next year is to read more translated work (European and Asian). Wow, the military- sounds like you have lived a very adventurous life! Mulatto, as in bi-racial? That breaks my heart to know you've experienced racism in the military. My sister is in the navy and hasn't experienced it to that extent but does say it is an issue. What branch did you serve? I'm sorry if you shared that detail previously.
Hi Leaf, not military, I'm a retired prison guard up here in Michigan where it is currently 39 degrees. God bless Michigan in the winter! And may He keep that little sister of yours, and bless her for her service too! One does not expect particularly good treatment in prison, it's calculated to be miserable, obviously. But at least I never worried about getting torpedoed PTL! Big respect to our service men and women!
Hi Leaf, I got serious about my books a quarter century ago. 29 was a tough age for me, underwent a regular metanoia (one more vocabulary word from Alice! Didn't you just love her 'word of the year'?!?) They say a person's '9' years are always their worst, it was sure true for me. I'd known about literature in general and books on tape in particular before that, I come from a reading family both the black and white sides (my Mom and Dad met working in a bookstore in the 60's) but I didn't really take it up till 1998. Still, guess it's been a minute now, where does the time go?!? Have you read for your entire life or were you a late bloomer?
I haven't read any of these or heard of any of them before! But it is really nice to hear about new to me books which is one the reasons why I love booktube! And also, your shirt is very much in theme with the autumn vibes of this video and I love that coordination 🍂 I do read books with steamy scenes but I understand if that isn't your thing! And the book needing another edit is not a good thing either :/
Olivia thank you for watching and dropping in the comments! I swear, you're so kind! You have helped me reach for books out of my comfort zone (I really enjoyed Annihilation, thanks for suggesting it!) What's funny is that I typically reach for adventure and mysteries, but I had really needed some fluffy reads this Fall. Since the video I picked up Rebecca for the first time and devoured it. I finished it a couple days ago and absolutely loved it! I feel a bit apprehensive sharing my thoughts on it, because I'm afraid I'll ramble- I have so many thoughts about Rebecca. Do you mind sharing how you prep to share your thoughts on a novel or are you just naturally a good speaker? I don't want to bore anyone.
@ ah I’m so glad you loved annihilation and Rebecca they are both such wonderful books! I’m afraid I’m quite unhelpful here :( I don’t script my videos or do any prep and my videos are filmed off the cuff 😅 I do spend a lot of time thinking about a book after I’ve finished it though!
Hi Leaf, didn't Daphne du Maurier hit it out of the park with Rebecca! I was a little disappointed with Jamaica Inn, no so much a 'bad' book it's just that Rebecca was a tough act to follow. That new Louise Erdrich, The Sentence was pretty good too, it had some Rebecca vibes. Enjoy!
Oh no, that makes me so sad because I absolutely love Rebecca! Yes yes, it was so beautifully written. I didn't expect the suspense - oh it was delicious! Thank you for letting me know too not expect the same delivery in her other novels but I will definitely give them a read in the future. I'm discovering that I'm a mood reader, and I haven't even started the last two books I mentioned. I finished I Who Have Never Known Men and started The Davenports: More Than This. I enjoy so many genres. I know you enjoy the classics, but have you enjoyed any contemporary pieces lately? Besides James 😆
Hi Leaf, for sure classics are my thing but I think it's important to keep an open mind, else we wouldn't read anything but Gilgamesh…’that darn Homer, what an upstart! Let Virgil marinate a few more centuries, and this Dante kid, fan fiction…you must be joking!’ That said some of the other booktubers I follow are somewhat more catholic in their tastes so at their recommendations I recently read: Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini…WOW! Loved this story! 5 out of 5 stars! I guess you'd have to class it as ‘Historical fiction’ (naturally not my genre) but from what I gleaned last summer from Abraham Lincoln:A Life by Michael Burlingame and What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe, I'd say her history is spot on! Jennifer Chiaverini is not a black woman but of course Mary Keckly was and she lends her a very convincing voice. She's as fair to Mary Todd Lincoln as any biographer could be. Mary Lincoln is not remembered by anybody to be a particularly sympathetic character, I should know I was married to her for 30 years LOL!😂 Hanging Mary by Susan Higginbotham…4 out of 5 stars. Another Civil War history fiction. Poor Mary earned herself the dubious distinction of being the first woman the government ever executed (yeahhhhh?????) She ran a little boarding house in D.C. and her grown son was a spy and smuggler for the South. He got mixed up with John Wilks Booth and she knew more about their shenanigans then was good for her, more guilt by association then anything. I quipped over on Anne's channel (In Search of Wonder) how I'm a retired prison guard and if I had a dollar for every convict I met who was “just in the car” with some other perp, I wouldn't need my pension! One Summer in Savannah by Tehar Shelton Harris…this was a pick from Lex reads channel. Way out of my comfort zone but I found lots to like about it, another solid 4 out 5 even for a dude! Diamond is working on Lolita over on Jaded reads where I think we talked before, and if you can handle Nabokov's plot line (I get it, r**e stories ain't for everybody, but T.S.H. spares us any description of the actual crime, not like Trump's trials! More Bhett Kavanaugh than Humbert Humbert.)She takes the whole thing in some unexpected directions, a good read. 👍 The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante…Awwwww! Alana was gushing about this series (The Neapolitan series) over on her channel and being as I'd just watched her break down The Brothers Karamazov I figured she must know what she's talking about…right?!? I thought it might have some Mario Puzo vibes, think of The God Father after Michael escapes to the old country or The Sicilian maybe, similar time and place…not so! I concluded that if God gave you a Y chromosome you have no business reading Elena Ferrante! 1 out of 5 DUDE stars!😂 Gilead by Marilynne Robinson…This came from Anne's TRB but I guess I'm the only one who loved it. M.R. has several other books in series, sounds more like they are companions, and I intend to read them all. I watched a good author interview with her on YT, she's very cool and alluded to exactly the same argument against capital punishment that sold me on Sister Helen Prejean from Dead Man Walking quite some years ago, Exodus 21:24 (JUST) an eye for an eye. I'm an old mulatto dude and was in the ministry for quite some time myself (a long time ago and in a galaxy far far away mind you) so I could really relate to a lot of John Ames stories. Other readers belly ached that Gilead meandered, lacked a plot and just generally moved too slowly…well come on the old guy was a preacher not Jack Reacher what do ya want! 😂 4 out of 5 KJV stars! Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie…this was another Lex pick, also way outside of my wheelhouse, but I'm glad I read it. After November 5th I cringe when I think of all the good, hard working, well meaning people we plan to deport. I worked with quite a few Nigerians over the years, every last one was a good officer and I'm hard pressed to recall a single Nigerian convict in any of the cell blocks I used to jail. Another 4 out of 5 stars. The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coats…lives up to all the hype and then some! A great read! 5 out of 5 stars! Although actually I thought the last of the 4 parts which was the Palestine trip that generated all the hype was the weakest of a very strong suit. I was fascinated by his stories of having ADHD in the 70's (the same time I was discovering the joys of dyslexia, and they are legion I can assure you!) Or how about his trip to Senegal 🇸🇳, ever read Alex Haley's Roots? And that trip to S. Caroline to try to help save that English teacher's job from a hostile school board…high class, the real deal, huge respect, plus he can really write…bonus! The Road by Cormac McCarthy…OMG! This has got to be the darkest dystopian future story ever written! C.McC does not attempt to soften the blow with so much as the slightest levity (Kurt Vonnegut and his Galapagos) or supernatural intervention (The Stand, Stephen King.) It's one redeeming quality might be how he attempts to show how thin the line is between ‘the good guys’ and ‘the bad guys.’ Still he failed miserably to re-imagine Steinbeck's Ma Joad, no matter how poor they were she always managed to somehow help her fellow travelers, truly one of the greatest heroines in all of western literature. I actually had to ask one of the ladies on Anne's channel (unbelievably that's where I got this 3 star dandy from!) if she and I had read the same book, she said she loved it! Only thing I could figure was that she'd mistaken the title and read Jack Kerouac instead (not that I'm a big fan of his either, you can keep William S. Burroughs too and God save me from Allen Ginsberg's Howl! Not a big Beats boy OK!) Or maybe she thought Anne meant we should read the second chapter of the Wind in the Willows, you could be excused for confusing the names…On the Road. I just picked up your Rock, Paper, Scissors…so far I'm loving it, will let you know for sure in a few days…Many Thanks!
😮 My TBR will be updated soon 🫶 there are so many I've never heard of! You are so kind! They all sound intriguing 🤩 I am gently entering the historical fiction genre . So, thank you for these recs. In the 2010's, I told my coworker that I was having a hard time finding anything other than classics that I enjoyed. I remember her saying, "but it's so important to stay relevant." I agree with her totally, but I am always looking for good storytelling in the writing. Ive really missed out on the enjoyment of historical fiction earlier in life smh It's really to bad that I've haven't had friends that enjoy secular reading as much as I do and the employees at BAM never recommended books that I truly enjoyed. I just love BookTube! I'm so glad we found each other here. You're so well read and have great recs! Oh and please let me know what you think of Rock Paper Scissors when you finish. Alice Feeney can go dark (which I don't like) but this is one of her books that isn't too off-putting. I promised a writer that I'd review her YA Scifi Fantasy soon on my channel, but hopefully I can share some more lit fic and classics before the year ends. There just aren't enough hours in the day.
@@dougirvin2413 I do have Roots on my shelf but haven't read it yet. There is so much to unpack in your comment for a reply. Please know that I'm not intentionally not answering certain questions. I have to read it a few times to catch everything.
Hi Leaf, I can't thank you enough for acquainting me with Alice Feeney! A pleasure to listen to, 5 out of 5 stars! You must be a wonderful mensch! I have no problem envisioning how Rock, Paper, Scissors could hornswoggle its way to the top of anybody's reading list. I was completely chuffed at how Alice tied up all the loose ends and masterfully incorporated every actor in the story. I'm re-reading C.S. Lewis’ Miracles with Anne and crew over on In Search of Wonder and Lewis tells a story at the end of chapter 13 about how one of his writing buddy's (he won't say which one but any reader would guess it to be one of his Inklings, wouldn't you have loved to sit in on that den of biblioklepts!) wrote a play about a man who had a pathological horror of trees and a mania for cutting them down. But naturally other things came in as well; there was some kind of love story mixed up with it. And the trees killed the man in the end. When his friend had finished the play he sent it to an older man to criticize. It came back with the comment, ‘Not bad. But I'd cut out those bits of padding about the trees.’ LOL! I was sure as soon as I started R.P.S. that Feeney was going to write herself into the same quagmire with Adam's prosopagnosia. What a horrible affliction that would be! What with my own struggles with dyslexia I'm always fascinated by tales of other people overcoming hurdles in their own path, a bit of schadenfreude on my part? I hope not! Prosopagnosia would be bad but which of us (over the age of 19!) doesn't have some similar experience of being completely overlooked or unrecognized?!? I recently enjoyed David Sedaris’ A Carnival of Snackery, a mostly funny but always entertaining collection of his own diary entries from 2003 to 2020. In one entry he describes a hilarious encounter he had when he and his husband were on vacation in Japan. They were two rich white American guys not accustomed to disrespect and they discovered to their utter chagrin that to the Japanese we all looked alike and they couldn't judge our ages within three decades!
When I was a 22 year old rookie in my department I got my up-comingness in the O.D. (officers’ dining room) when three older cops sat down with me and a young black inmate cook walked by in his kitchen whites to go to work. One of them said to the other two “those n*****s all look alike to me” I don't believe he realized I was a mulatto brother myself (I'm very light skinned) so I didn't take it as a personal affront, and my daddy raised me to have more sense than to go shooting off my mouth, but I looked at the three of them all wearing heavy green winter ‘refrigerawear’ coats and big bushy hunting season beards and thought to myself “they look as alike a three peas 🫛 in a pod!” Prosopagnosia!
I guess my monachopsis with Alice and her ilk stems from their staying power. If you spend countless hours parsing the intricacies of The Brothers Karamazov, Moby Dick or War and Peace you can be assured that even hundreds of years from now you'll still be in good company, still like your friend said ‘relevant’. Quite some years ago when my white grandmother passed away my Mom gave me her reading log which she'd kept in the most amazing, precise long hand since the 1930's…talk about cool! In it she journaled her trips through hundreds of novels but as I look through it today I'm able to recognize only a very few. Most everything she read were books which failed to stand the test of time and couldn't be had today outside of an exhausting search through dozens of antique dives…a project which I intend to do someday, but not an easy one.
Still like I said before, it always pays to keep an open mind and listen to good advice from wise friends. And like your friend said a little ‘relevance’ is probably not a bad thing either. I'm stymied to find the exact quote but I'm sure it was C.S. Lewis who once wrote that it doesn't make sense to reject a perfectly good loaf of freshly baked bread just because it isn't a bottle of fine wine. Again in Screwtape he writes how the devil, in his attempts to get us off from John Bunyan's Progress Road, always wants to steer us away from what we really like, what actually brings us a little wholesome pleasure, to what this old world says we should like instead. “You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favor of the ‘best’ people, the ‘right’ food, and the ‘important’ books…Your affectionate Uncle, Screwtape. “
Many Thanks.
@dougirvin2413 😆🤣 you have a great sense of humor and I'm so glad you enjoyed Rock Paper Scissors. I have a weakness for English writers. My goal for next year is to read more translated work (European and Asian). Wow, the military- sounds like you have lived a very adventurous life! Mulatto, as in bi-racial? That breaks my heart to know you've experienced racism in the military. My sister is in the navy and hasn't experienced it to that extent but does say it is an issue. What branch did you serve? I'm sorry if you shared that detail previously.
@dougirvin2413 these are such good quotes. You are so well read!
Hi Leaf, not military, I'm a retired prison guard up here in Michigan where it is currently 39 degrees. God bless Michigan in the winter! And may He keep that little sister of yours, and bless her for her service too! One does not expect particularly good treatment in prison, it's calculated to be miserable, obviously. But at least I never worried about getting torpedoed PTL! Big respect to our service men and women!
Hi Leaf, I got serious about my books a quarter century ago. 29 was a tough age for me, underwent a regular metanoia (one more vocabulary word from Alice! Didn't you just love her 'word of the year'?!?) They say a person's '9' years are always their worst, it was sure true for me. I'd known about literature in general and books on tape in particular before that, I come from a reading family both the black and white sides (my Mom and Dad met working in a bookstore in the 60's) but I didn't really take it up till 1998. Still, guess it's been a minute now, where does the time go?!? Have you read for your entire life or were you a late bloomer?
I haven't read any of these or heard of any of them before! But it is really nice to hear about new to me books which is one the reasons why I love booktube! And also, your shirt is very much in theme with the autumn vibes of this video and I love that coordination 🍂 I do read books with steamy scenes but I understand if that isn't your thing! And the book needing another edit is not a good thing either :/
Olivia thank you for watching and dropping in the comments! I swear, you're so kind! You have helped me reach for books out of my comfort zone (I really enjoyed Annihilation, thanks for suggesting it!) What's funny is that I typically reach for adventure and mysteries, but I had really needed some fluffy reads this Fall. Since the video I picked up Rebecca for the first time and devoured it. I finished it a couple days ago and absolutely loved it! I feel a bit apprehensive sharing my thoughts on it, because I'm afraid I'll ramble- I have so many thoughts about Rebecca. Do you mind sharing how you prep to share your thoughts on a novel or are you just naturally a good speaker? I don't want to bore anyone.
@ ah I’m so glad you loved annihilation and Rebecca they are both such wonderful books! I’m afraid I’m quite unhelpful here :( I don’t script my videos or do any prep and my videos are filmed off the cuff 😅 I do spend a lot of time thinking about a book after I’ve finished it though!
I knew you were a natural speaker 😆 But thats still great advice- sit in my thoughts before sharing. Thanks! @OliviasCatastrophe @OliviasCatastrophe
Hi Leaf, didn't Daphne du Maurier hit it out of the park with Rebecca! I was a little disappointed with Jamaica Inn, no so much a 'bad' book it's just that Rebecca was a tough act to follow. That new Louise Erdrich, The Sentence was pretty good too, it had some Rebecca vibes. Enjoy!
Oh no, that makes me so sad because I absolutely love Rebecca! Yes yes, it was so beautifully written. I didn't expect the suspense - oh it was delicious! Thank you for letting me know too not expect the same delivery in her other novels but I will definitely give them a read in the future.
I'm discovering that I'm a mood reader, and I haven't even started the last two books I mentioned. I finished I Who Have Never Known Men and started The Davenports: More Than This. I enjoy so many genres. I know you enjoy the classics, but have you enjoyed any contemporary pieces lately? Besides James 😆
Hi Leaf, for sure classics are my thing but I think it's important to keep an open mind, else we wouldn't read anything but Gilgamesh…’that darn Homer, what an upstart! Let Virgil marinate a few more centuries, and this Dante kid, fan fiction…you must be joking!’
That said some of the other booktubers I follow are somewhat more catholic in their tastes so at their recommendations I recently read:
Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini…WOW! Loved this story! 5 out of 5 stars! I guess you'd have to class it as ‘Historical fiction’ (naturally not my genre) but from what I gleaned last summer from Abraham Lincoln:A Life by Michael Burlingame and What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe, I'd say her history is spot on! Jennifer Chiaverini is not a black woman but of course Mary Keckly was and she lends her a very convincing voice. She's as fair to Mary Todd Lincoln as any biographer could be. Mary Lincoln is not remembered by anybody to be a particularly sympathetic character, I should know I was married to her for 30 years LOL!😂
Hanging Mary by Susan Higginbotham…4 out of 5 stars. Another Civil War history fiction. Poor Mary earned herself the dubious distinction of being the first woman the government ever executed (yeahhhhh?????) She ran a little boarding house in D.C. and her grown son was a spy and smuggler for the South. He got mixed up with John Wilks Booth and she knew more about their shenanigans then was good for her, more guilt by association then anything. I quipped over on Anne's channel (In Search of Wonder) how I'm a retired prison guard and if I had a dollar for every convict I met who was “just in the car” with some other perp, I wouldn't need my pension!
One Summer in Savannah by Tehar Shelton Harris…this was a pick from Lex reads channel. Way out of my comfort zone but I found lots to like about it, another solid 4 out 5 even for a dude! Diamond is working on Lolita over on Jaded reads where I think we talked before, and if you can handle Nabokov's plot line (I get it, r**e stories ain't for everybody, but T.S.H. spares us any description of the actual crime, not like Trump's trials! More Bhett Kavanaugh than Humbert Humbert.)She takes the whole thing in some unexpected directions, a good read. 👍
The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante…Awwwww! Alana was gushing about this series (The Neapolitan series) over on her channel and being as I'd just watched her break down The Brothers Karamazov I figured she must know what she's talking about…right?!? I thought it might have some Mario Puzo vibes, think of The God Father after Michael escapes to the old country or The Sicilian maybe, similar time and place…not so! I concluded that if God gave you a Y chromosome you have no business reading Elena Ferrante! 1 out of 5 DUDE stars!😂
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson…This came from Anne's TRB but I guess I'm the only one who loved it. M.R. has several other books in series, sounds more like they are companions, and I intend to read them all. I watched a good author interview with her on YT, she's very cool and alluded to exactly the same argument against capital punishment that sold me on Sister Helen Prejean from Dead Man Walking quite some years ago, Exodus 21:24 (JUST) an eye for an eye. I'm an old mulatto dude and was in the ministry for quite some time myself (a long time ago and in a galaxy far far away mind you) so I could really relate to a lot of John Ames stories. Other readers belly ached that Gilead meandered, lacked a plot and just generally moved too slowly…well come on the old guy was a preacher not Jack Reacher what do ya want! 😂
4 out of 5 KJV stars!
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie…this was another Lex pick, also way outside of my wheelhouse, but I'm glad I read it. After November 5th I cringe when I think of all the good, hard working, well meaning people we plan to deport. I worked with quite a few Nigerians over the years, every last one was a good officer and I'm hard pressed to recall a single Nigerian convict in any of the cell blocks I used to jail. Another 4 out of 5 stars.
The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coats…lives up to all the hype and then some! A great read! 5 out of 5 stars! Although actually I thought the last of the 4 parts which was the Palestine trip that generated all the hype was the weakest of a very strong suit. I was fascinated by his stories of having ADHD in the 70's (the same time I was discovering the joys of dyslexia, and they are legion I can assure you!) Or how about his trip to Senegal 🇸🇳, ever read Alex Haley's Roots? And that trip to S. Caroline to try to help save that English teacher's job from a hostile school board…high class, the real deal, huge respect, plus he can really write…bonus!
The Road by Cormac McCarthy…OMG! This has got to be the darkest dystopian future story ever written! C.McC does not attempt to soften the blow with so much as the slightest levity (Kurt Vonnegut and his Galapagos) or supernatural intervention (The Stand, Stephen King.) It's one redeeming quality might be how he attempts to show how thin the line is between ‘the good guys’ and ‘the bad guys.’ Still he failed miserably to re-imagine Steinbeck's Ma Joad, no matter how poor they were she always managed to somehow help her fellow travelers, truly one of the greatest heroines in all of western literature. I actually had to ask one of the ladies on Anne's channel (unbelievably that's where I got this 3 star dandy from!) if she and I had read the same book, she said she loved it! Only thing I could figure was that she'd mistaken the title and read Jack Kerouac instead (not that I'm a big fan of his either, you can keep William S. Burroughs too and God save me from Allen Ginsberg's Howl! Not a big Beats boy OK!) Or maybe she thought Anne meant we should read the second chapter of the Wind in the Willows, you could be excused for confusing the names…On the Road.
I just picked up your Rock, Paper, Scissors…so far I'm loving it, will let you know for sure in a few days…Many Thanks!
😮 My TBR will be updated soon 🫶 there are so many I've never heard of! You are so kind! They all sound intriguing 🤩 I am gently entering the historical fiction genre . So, thank you for these recs.
In the 2010's, I told my coworker that I was having a hard time finding anything other than classics that I enjoyed. I remember her saying, "but it's so important to stay relevant." I agree with her totally, but I am always looking for good storytelling in the writing. Ive really missed out on the enjoyment of historical fiction earlier in life smh It's really to bad that I've haven't had friends that enjoy secular reading as much as I do and the employees at BAM never recommended books that I truly enjoyed. I just love BookTube! I'm so glad we found each other here. You're so well read and have great recs! Oh and please let me know what you think of Rock Paper Scissors when you finish. Alice Feeney can go dark (which I don't like) but this is one of her books that isn't too off-putting.
I promised a writer that I'd review her YA Scifi Fantasy soon on my channel, but hopefully I can share some more lit fic and classics before the year ends. There just aren't enough hours in the day.
@@dougirvin2413 I do have Roots on my shelf but haven't read it yet. There is so much to unpack in your comment for a reply. Please know that I'm not intentionally not answering certain questions. I have to read it a few times to catch everything.