Це відео не доступне.
Перепрошуємо.
Small Things Like These 📚 Booker Prize Review
Вставка
- Опубліковано 28 лип 2022
- I wasn't planning on getting to Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan so soon in my 2022 Booker Prize Reading Journey, but when the library holds come in, you've gotta read the books! I know so many people have loved this little novel, sitting at just 116 pages (the shortest book ever longlisted for the Booker Prize). If you love this book, let me know your reasons why! I would love to discuss.
Booker Prize Playlist:
• Booker 2022
📖✨
Voting is important: www.usa.gov/re...
For Inquiries: matthewsciarappabooks@gmail.com
IG: / matthewsciarappa
TW: / mssciarappa
Foster by Claire Keegan has been made into an Irish language film called The Quiet Girl and tipped for Oscar nomination.
In June 1985 my sister became a single parent and in 1987 I did. We both had to contend with the stigma in a Catholic town. I managed to keep my son despite a church charity pressure to have him adopted. I knew so many young women who were not so lucky.
It’s a very personal book for me.
A lot of people have recommended Foster to me, so I suppose I should get it it sooner than later 🥰 thank you for sharing your personal connection to Keegan’s work 💕
The Quiet Girl is a magnificent movie.
If you don't slow down you'll have read ALL the longlisted books by the end of next week. Respect! 🙌📚
Lovely, smart review, thoughts and points. Great observations about the omens and how we justify our privilege. Personally I did find it haunting/left me thinking about the positions we inhabit within our own communities. The ways we can be ensnared in limited points of view and blind to the suffering of others - sometimes without realising it but sometimes consciously turning away or not allowing ourselves to think too much about it. The way this was encapsulated in his dilemma really struck me and how his uncertainty was tempered by his own past. I enjoyed how the exploration of his personal history is weaved into the story. But maybe I was more sensitive to all these points and the ending because I did read it in the lead up to Christmas last year and it's a story so equipped to hit hardest when we're feeling in a more sentimental mood.
I normally wouldn’t move so quickly through these books, but I have to follow my library holds as they come in! 😅
And I definitely think had I read this book outside the context of a literary prize I may have enjoyed it more on an emotional level. I’m already a pretty unsentimental reader (stubbornly so) to begin with, but I find when reading for a literary prize, my brain clicks into an over-analytical mode and I struggle to actually enjoy anything I read. I’m too busy trying to fake smart things to say to actually dive in 🥲
I was deeply moved by this book. The length seemed right to me. Furlong made his humanitarian decision very quickly, in spite of the upset it would cause, so brave and kind. Qualities that I really admire. Thank you for your excellent review.
I loved this book so much but I could have stayed with Furlong for 200 more pages easily. Such a lovely character, so quite and persevering.
Agreed-would love to have spent more time in this world.
I read A Forester’s Daughter first, which really put me in that sweet Irish writing mood. I screamed expletives upon finishing it was so good. That flavor of Claire Keegan. Then I read Small Things Like These during the holidays, and it just felt perfect, like a reminder to check your privilege but not in the way we all hear these days, to not prioritize what presents you’re planning to give loved ones and instead look what’s maybe right under your nose happening perhaps in your own community. I appreciated all the things that was left unsaid and for you to deal with it in your own mind. Then I read Foster and now I am a Claire Keegan evangelist 😅 I highly encourage you to revisit her at another time when in the mood!
Greetings from a Portuguese UA-camr. Loving your review, Matt :)
I loved the boo, primarily for the writing. Really enjoyed your review.
The writing was very strong 🥰 thank you!!
I read that book in January and loved it. Really nice review, Matthew!
Thank you so much! 🥰
How are you reading all these books so fast? You're going to hurt yourself!
I adored this book. I really admired Keegan’s ability to tell such a deep story in such a spare, yet lyrical, way. I was very moved by it and it has definitely stayed with me since reading it several months ago. I would love for it to win, but I'm not even sure it will be short-listed.
Haha this one was itty-bitty!! 😅❤
I'm enjoying how much everyone loves this book 🥰 I'll be very curious to see if it is shortlisted or not!
Here to cheer you on Matthew!! Greatly enjoy your reviews. Agree with you on this book and am surprised it is on the list.
Thank you so much!! ❤️❤️❤️
Loved your comments. You paid attention to the small things in the book that make it a great book. Thank you.
Good things come in small packages ❤❤❤
I read this at the beginning of the year and appreciated it then as a lovely meditation on adulthood naïveté (we all have areas of innocent blindness), complicity and what is required when confronted with wrongness. In reconsidering it on this list I think it was chosen for the deft way that it considers how we all decide what we will allow to disrupt our lives in order to be good, do right, and sleep at night. I understand and share your desire for more space to explore the things raised in this novella (the husband and wife relationship, how the father sees women through his daughters, and even the ramifications of his actions) but ultimately, I was fine with having the issues raised and unresolved. For the ways in which “the small things” reverberate as not small things at all.
Love this take 🥰 Ultimately this book feels highly “giftable,” doesn’t it? Like an easy, quick, charming, but impactful read to share with a friend.
@@MatthewSciarappa totally! It may join Panenka in that regard.
I loved this book one of the best I've read in the twenties. The chapter where Furlong takes the girl to the door is a classic - the way Keegan describes the hypocritical iceberg where on the surface everything is both normal and normally corrupt while underneath there's a huge discussion going on elsewhere on how to deal with what's gone on is so well-drawn. I also enjoyed the Christmas darkness of the book. Light seems to come from the Christmas lights and streetlights mainly - in one sense very Christmassy on the other hand a proper Christian book in the loosest sense with Furlong's act in the final chapter.
I really loved this book, and although I read it last December, my fondness for it has definitely not faded ;). The simplicity of the story telling, the brief moment we get to experience of that terrible part of Irish history, the abrupt disruption of the tenderness and peace in Bill Furlong's life made for a very impactful read. I loved it :).
I’m so glad you loved this book! Perhaps I should have read this around Christmas time myself. Hard to enjoy anything in the sweltering summer heat 🥲
I adored this book but I can see what you are saying in relation to the prize and the qualities it will need to stand up against its competitors so 💁🏼♀️ My heart loves it but my head says I don’t think it will get shortlisted 📚❤️ Loved hearing your thoughts as always xx
Thank you so very much ❤️ I’m glad this book has people to love it!! It is very deserving of that love
I sadly didn't get along with this as much as I thought I would. I can appreciate the sentiment and the fact that this story would be extremely personal and meaningful to a lot of people, but I couldn't help but to keep wanting more from it. And while I can appreciate the time setting, and the difficulty in coming forward and doing something about it, I found it hard to believe that he was the only person who would, and how it seemed like the whole town knew except for him.
I agree that it felt unrealistic that the main character was the only one who took action against the laundry. But to me, that heightened the book’s sense of fable-which I think is a worthwhile choice when considering so few pages. But I agree that that same quality made it therefore harder to connect. It’s hard to balance that feeling of moral/political fiction against human realism. Symbolism can really get in the way of empathy.
This is historical fiction and that is why there was one person that did the right thing. I imagine historically there are unfortunately no or very few such examples. We all like to think we would do the right thing but how often are we in a position to change someone's life for the better and choose not to? We don't need encouragement to point fingers. I think Keegan hopes we might simply look in the mirror.
@@ioanna. sure, but also it’s good for a book to stand logically or realistically outside of its genre-we can’t simply rely on genre to excuse what may not have worked textually.
@@MatthewSciarappa true!:-)
Oh wow, your review was amazing. I think i learned more from this review than the book A lot of people loved and praised this book highly but i thought it was just an okay read. I actually felt more emotion when Furlong thought of who his father may be than the premise of the book itself
Thank you so much! And thank you for watching!
it left a much stronger impression on me especially for such a short book, great review though :-)
I have found myself growing stubbornly unsentimental as a reader, which I think inhibits me falling in love with a book like this one 😅 so it’s very nice to hear from people who really connected with it! 🥰 thank you for watching!!
I read this in one sitting at Christmas & still think about it often. I think I called it devastatingly beautiful which may be hyperbole 😂 I don't think it'll be shortlisted but I'm happy that being in the long list will give the author more readers. Her short story collection - Walk the Blue Fields - is also worth a read
I’d be curious to see if it makes the short list for sure ☺️
Do you have any predictions as to which of the books on the longlist you are going to love?
I don't to be honest 😅 I hope to love all of them! But I tend not to read descriptions or blurbs before going into these, so unless I have outside context (like I did for a book like BOOTH), I have no guesses or opinions.
About this book i liked the feeling it left me with, of wanting to fight against the hypocrisy of my own privilege. There is always something contemporary in good writing no matter the setting it is in.
I also gave it 3 stars and it definitely hasn't stuck with me. Are you planning on reading the whole Booker long list?
I'm going to read as many as I can 🥰
Sounds like a book for me, thanks for the review.
I hope you enjoy it!
I loved this book, and l read it awhile ago but it has stayed with me as more people read it and review, there are many interesting interpretations, especially on the ending was it such a happy ending or not, did it really happen ? Was the ending a self delusion , its so hard to stand up and do the right thing , and do we really .
This is not my own theory but the more l think about it , maybe its more the wished for ending not the actual reality.
Great review and keep up the challenge
👏👏👏👏👏💖👍🥳🤸♀️
Thank you so much! And it’s funny, I never for a second considered the ending anything other than optimistic-especially when the text repeats how much trouble/suffering the main character will endure for taking action in the way he did. Like, that nod of awareness and resignation to it made me think of it as purely a hopeful change.
Best thing I've read in ages...
we're going to start expecting one a day!!!!!!!!!!
There will be a definite delay as I wait for the books not published in the US to arrive in the mail 😅
@@MatthewSciarappa 😁
I really like Keegan's writing and Foster is my favourite book by her. It is also very short. I agree, I don't think this one is going to win.
I might have to pick up another book by her! And yeah, this one I feel like will be too divisive to land in the shortlist.
Is there any audio of this book?