Best Books of 2023 so far...

Here's a list of the 10 best books that I've read so far this year!
WHERE TO FIND ME:
Website: www.joshuaclarke-kelsall.com/
Twitter: / clarkekelsall
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[@noctesatticae]

We have very similar taste in books! I recommend The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic series if you enjoyed Alan Moore (just don't watch the terrible film). I agree that you can't read Homer quickly, there's something almost meditative about the fighting and the formal speeches in the Iliad. The ending always left me rather in despair, and as such I preferred the Odyssey for many years. Anyway, great video, I like your measured style and clarity of analysis. I'm off to watch some of your others.

[@perriephillips1549]

🌸Yes, I would love for you to cover more of the Greek classics. It seems you are covering a broader array of literature lately and I'm all for it.
I became familiar with Dewey and his ideas on art and aesthetics from a great book by Will Durant called "The Story of Philosophy" .
I hope your Summer is going well !😉🏝

[@JoshuaJClarkeKelsall]

I'll definitely do something on the Greeks sometime. I read Alcestis by Euripides last night actually, it was great! You should definitely pick up Art as Experience sometime.
Summer is good, thank you! :)

[@TH3F4LC0Nx]

Sounds like good reading! :) I actually have Medea on my shelf to read; interesting to hear your take on it. And Julius Caesar is definitely in the upper echelon of Shakespeare for me. The "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech is one of the greatest speeches ever written, never mind that it's fictional. The "Then fall, Caesar." line hits so deep. 😭

[@jetmircuka3655]

I think it would be interesting to talk about Greek tragedies and to focus more on the themes of the plays and their meaning. It would be really interesting to talk more about the Greek fatalism , that is so present in all the Greek tragedies , and how humans struggle to change their destiny but they can't. I really suggest to watch Irene Papas' film "Antigone" in modern Greek with English subtitles. She was so beautiful and talented 🥰❤
I also suggest a video on Dante Alighieri' s Divine Comedy (a masterpiece) and on Italian literature that influenced so much the English one. We can think about Chaucer and Keats , for example, both influenced by Giovanni Boccaccio' s Decameron. Byron too wrote "The lament of Tasso" and so many plays of Shakespeare are set in Italy.
The last books I read are : Pico della Mirandola' s " The dignity of man" (which tells us something completely opposite to the Greek fatalism), Hesiod' s Theogony and Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz. This last one really touched me, even if I'm not Christian , and gave me the opportunity to understand the power of Christianity and how this religion succeeded in spite of all the persecutions. Reading this book was like living during the Christian persecutions' period in Rome and understand how these people won against a great power like Rome and the emperor. 700 pages but you will read it in few days.
🌻Wish you all a nice day 🌻

[@rasheedlewis1]

I love watching Alan Moore interviews because the man can speak. I’ve only gone through 3 out of 5 his Promethea comics, which I’d recommend if you’re interested in his batshit philosophy, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. I’ll try to pick up “After Hell” at some point since it’s been popping up on my Goodreads feed recently.
I do wince every time I hear “pragmatism” and “art” in the same sentence, but your description of Dewey’s idea lets me brace myself less. I’m currently reading Jacques Maritain’s “Art and Scholasticism” if you’re interested in Thomistic aesthetics.
Yeah, a video on the Greek tragedies would be cool. I read some a while ago at one go, so I can’t remember much about them, except for Aristophanes’ Clouds, which was actually pretty funny.
I got blocked by someone on Goodreads over the Iliad, so I’ll end the comment here lol

[@JoshuaJClarkeKelsall]

Thanks for your thoughts! Dewey's pragmatism isn't what it seems haha, he doesn't mean that art should be politically or socially useful in order to be good, and he's definitely not a moralist. I'll take a look at your recommendation sometime.
Haha, blocking someone over their opinions on a fiction! Some people are strange creatures! :P

[@MrSoBitchy]

Loved how you described Antigone as a succession to Oedipus' "events" like those events weren't the most tragic thing ever hahahaah