books I can't get out of my head
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- Опубліковано 8 лип 2024
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Have you read any of these books? Did you love them? (and, before you ask, YES I am still planning on reading Kim Stanley Robinson this Summer!!! Maybe I will even love Red Mars as much as these fine books)
✨TIMESTAMPS✨
0:00 - intro
1:16 - Gentleman in Moscow
2:48 - Lessons in Chemistry
4:10 - Braiding Sweetgrass
6:04 - A Tale for the Time Being
7:53 - The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating
8:50 - Happy Hour
10:20 - try shortform!
that first quote from Gentleman in Moscow reminded me of Proverbs 14:30 "A contented heart gives life to the flesh, but envy rots the bones."
I became partially paralysed in my hands and feet due to autoimmune condition and had to relearn to walk and write etc about 3 years ago. The sound of wild snail eating hit me very personally due to this. My favourite quotes, relate to my experience being paralysed:
* As the months drifted by, it was hard to remember why the endless details of the healthy life and a good job had seemed so critical. It was so odd to see my friends overwhelmed by their busy lives, when they could do all the things I could not, without a second thought.
* The random way my friends moved around the room asonished me; it was as if they didn't know what to do with their energy. They were so _careless_ with it.
Yes, such great quotes to pull. So many striking insights in this book! I'm interested in our relationship to the nonhuman world/nature, so the wonder at snail intelligence fascinated me.
Braiding Sweetgrass is one of the best books I've read in a very long time. There's another fascinating book by the same author, Gathering Moss, which is in a way a cross between a textbook about mosses and a collection of personal essays. Sounds strange (maybe) but I can't recommend it enough!
A Gentleman in Moscow ended up becoming my friends group's Marmite: some adore it, some (including myself) can't stand it. As someone who was born and raised in Moscow before moving abroad I just couldn't suspend my disbelief enough, and the overall Wes Anderson-ification of that period of Russia's history really rubbed me the wrong way.
A tale for the time being is one of my favorite fiction books of all time. I love seeing it come up on people’s lists
It is so goooood. And surprisingly relaxing and comforting. It makes me feel like everything is going to be okay, you know?
Braiding sweetgrass has been on my TBR for a while. I’ll move it up my list for sure
I’m so glad you read A Tale for the Time Being! Definitely one of my all-time favorites. This novel was up for the 2013 Booker Prize and lost to Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries; I wanted to see what sort of novel “beat out” ATTB, so I’m now reading Catton and enjoying her work, too.
Ooh, that's good to know, I'll have to add it to the list! I can't believe ATTB is one of your all-time favourites! I feel like we have similar taste - what are some of your other favourites that I might not have read??
@@morganeua we definitely might! I would say keep an eye out for A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan-it is absolutely brilliant. The sequel, Candy House, is nearly as good, too. I won’t dump too many recommendations on you, but The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen also blew me away.
@@morganeua oof, I’m sorry, I’ve also got to say The Idiot by Elif Batuman!
@@ceasec Perfect! I'm trying to get better about documenting books I'm recommended and who recommended them, so I'm writing these down!
Great video! Thanks.
Morgan, I think I could really get in to Braiding Sweetgrass. That quote was very thought provoking. Right now, I'm sifting through "Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters". It's reshaping how I think about myself and others that I converse with.
This is an interesting video!! I've had quite a few books like this for me, that are unforgettable and had a huge impact on me-even if some of them are meh for me now, I still appreciate them because of the emotions attached to them.
thank you for sharing, I added all of them to my read list. Hopefully I get a chance to read them soon :>
I feel so honored you're taking the recommendations! 😀
I've had this feeling of unforgettable books with only a few of my readings, lately (and i read a lot, around 50 to 150 books a year, depending on my free time and academic duties), but the house of the leaves and a tale for the time being are definitely on that ever growing list! (as well as the elegance of the hedgehog that never fails to comfort me at each re-reading, i loved it when i was an angsty teen, and i still love it but for totally different characters and reasons, and i always end up recommending it to everyone 😂)
I started House of Leaves last year and it was immediately impactful. But more than I could commit to at the time. I'll have to get back to it
... Moscow. A lovely read.
Lessons... Pushed up the TBR.
Sweet grass... excellent. But see also new PhD thesis-to-book due soon from Dr. Lyla June Johnston... should be a great one.
... Being, yes the holiday read. Maybe...
So until next time and perhaps the next steps in depth of Obsidian, and similar. Adding the 'super' tag for Unicorns with emojis.
So glad you like Gentleman in Moscow, too. I was blown away by the writing style. The MC's voice comes across so clearly and it's so unique!
I love to follow you on Goodreads❤
Ah, I don't have a Goodreads right now! I just keep track of reading in my own system!
I recently bought Daring Greatly but haven't read it yet. I want to add all your recommendations to my list now
Books that stuck with me include some very common choices but what can ya do! They are:
Hood feminism
100 years of solitude
Wind sand and stars
The little prince
Letters from a stoic
Shoe dog
Wild swans
The Great Gatsby
A farewell to arms
100 years of solitude is probably the book that I've wanted to read the most for the longest time and I still haven't done it. But I at least have it on my shelf now!
very random, do you happen to use anki or can someone point out which videos she talks about how to remember books efficiently? I read books and can take notes, but it's hard to internalized if I'm not using anki. It's very time consuming and I wish I have an alternative
Actually, my most popular video on this channel talks about how I take notes for my PhD, but I use the same system for other books I read too. It's called the "zettelkasten" system. It's a method of taking notes and then organizing them by building connections between notes. And since forming connections is how our brain works anyways, I find that system of organization helps me remember what I've read better. Because I always have to ask how the text I'm reading connects to other things I know!
Hey, I really liked you video and your recommendations, and I was just wondering if you have a Goodreads account where we could see all your reviews?
I used to! I've tried to become more of a digital minimalist, though, and got rid of most of my social media. Now I just track books in Obsidian. Sorry!! Sometimes I review books on my Medium account too, which is also @morganeua
Or if you need any specific recommendations, I could make a dedicated video 😊
how many books in your collection ??
Lol, that is a great question. I have no idea. Too many? 😝
Thank you for sharing.
Re: Braiding Sweetgrass, I don't think we should think of plants as people... the idea that a tree is a "who", means that the plants we eat are also "persons"... we would then come to accept that it is ok to eat them anyway... so i don't see the logic of moral responsibility in calling them "her" or "him". There is this odd "double think" going on the world that it is ok to say one thing, yet do it anyway.
You can call corn and potatoes "him and her", but it won't make the fact that we eat them any different.
So, yes, we do need to care.. but not be personifying plants... but understanding that they have an important role in nature.
Yes, I tend to agree with your perspective here! In particular, when growing up we're told "Treat others the way you want to be treated." But I think that's a BAD idea because we are not other people (or plants)! We should treat others (including plants) the way THEY want to be treated. In general, I think personifying/anthropomorphizing the nonhuman can end badly. However, if personifying plants helps you care about nature, I guess that's a start!
@@morganeua heheh, well, that is an interesting thought... when you include plants in the "way they want to be treated" list... I wonder if you are being facetious or going for some deeper philosophy of consciousness... My big worry isn't plants tho... it is that we can't really recognize consciousness in non-humans anyway... so when we finally do see it in other forms of life / AI... we won't recognize it.
Some animals are obligate carnivores and they HAVE to eat “who”s. Life is a beautiful but creepy network where we all have to eat each other at some point. And that doesn’t necessarily imply any disrespect.
But honestly I think calling a plant he or she is not the same as using those pronouns for ourselves or other animals. It’s like… halfway between calling your mom or your dog a “she” and calling your car a “she”. Not an object, but not an animal either. It’s also a bit like calling God a “he” or the earth a “she”- the pronoun in question is really a human concept but we end up using it for what is almost more like a force of nature or a dispersed consciousness than an individual animal-type being.
^In cases like that, there is no such thing as accuracy so I think it’s better to judge the usefulness of the words by how they affect your behavior which always varies between people and cultures. If calling the earth or plants by personal pronouns makes you more protective of the environment, more aware of the organisms around you, more aware of yourself as part of the biotic community, and a better steward; then it’s good for you. If it makes you feel guilty for eating plants which you need to do to survive and you spiral into paranoia, then it’s bad for you.
The plant has no idea what a personal pronoun is so there is no objective truth on this question from the plant’s perspective, which means the decision is entirely up to you and what’s best for you (or rather your community/culture, since you’re going to be using these pronouns while communicating with other humans).
@@marcfruchtman9473 Ah yes, such a valid worry these days! (And what I mean is, plants thrive when treated one way, and don't when treated another - she talks about this in Braiding Sweetgrass, that harvesting some plants can actually help them grow, even though that seems counterintuitive. So if the goal is to grow plants, then we should "listen" to them and their needs. Using the term "want" is just my own human term for what plants actually do 😝😝)