Hi everyone, it's Lauren and this is my To Be Read list of books from
July to September. Now if we have learned anything by now
it's that I do not deal well with people telling me what to read, even if that
person is myself, but I do like to have a general plan of what I'm going to read
next so I normally give myself a three-month stint with some target books
and then we see at the end of it whether I read them or not!
To be honest my last TBR video, I had so many books in it which I haven't read
still! I'm feeling quite guilty about that but realistically
who cares? It's like a target that I gave myself which I didn't fulfill and no one
got hurt did they?
But because of that I'm going to keep this TBR quite light and quite
targeted so hopefully I will actually complete it by the end of
September. The first thing I know that i'm definitely going to read is Moby Dick by
Herman Melville and that is because that's going to be my next Page to
Screen project thing that I do. If you don't know, Page to Screen is a
project that I run where I read a classic book and then watch all of the
different TV or film adaptations of it, all of the ones that I can find anyway
and then do a video comparing them and comparing the adaptations and the
casting decisions and that sort of thing
The next one that is going to be up in a couple of weeks' time is actually Emma by
Jane Austen
but then the next episode on my schedule is going to be Moby Dick
so I'm really looking forward to reading this because I've never read it before, I've
heard so many good things and I've actually never watched any adaptation of
it, I don't know the story other than there's a whale
so I think this is going to be really fun one. And an author that I haven't read
in a while but whom I really really love is Ali Smith so I have a couple of Ali
Smith books but i really want to read soon
the first of which is Public Library which is a collection of short stories
by Ali Smith and also tales from her friends and other authors about
libraries and why they're important to people. I went to the event for this book
and when she launched it which was which was near me, and she actually signed it for
me and but then I didn't read it!
So really want to read this and then also for Christmas
Jen Campbell got me a book of her short stories which is Free Love and Other
Stories and although I've read most of her novels I think, iIhaven't read any
of her short story collections
so these are something that I've been wanting to read the ages and I think
that's gonna be really enjoyable. Next on the list is Vinegar Girl by Ane Tyler
this is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series where various authors are
reimagining classic Shakespeare plays. This is an adaptation of The Taming of
the Shrew. Anne tyler has written so many novels, I have only read one of them
which is a Spool of Blue Thread which was nominated for the Man Booker Prize
last year and the Baileys Prize I think and I really really enjoyed that one so
I've been wanting to read more of her work anyway and I love the idea for this
Shakespeare project and so putting her together with The Taming of the Shrew
I think what will be really great so I'm looking forward to that and then
switching it around from authors whose previous work
I have enjoyed and want to read more of, I've got a couple of authors whose books
I didn't enjoy it that much but i want to give them another go
and the first one is Kazuo Ishiguro and I read Never Let Me Go years
ago and just hated it I do not like that book at all
I think it's really bad. I know a lot of people love it
but when that happens I always think, 'Is it the author or is it just me? Do I
need to give them another shot?' and The Remains of the Day is so many people's
favorite book
it's the story of a butler from an old English country house a kind of Downton
Abbey-esque place I think and I think it's about his past, he's old and he's
looking back on his life
I think. That's all I know about it but I really want to give Ishiguro
another shot and then the other author who I'm having another stab at is Robin
Hobb and I bought The Dragon Keeper ages ago on the recommendation of Jean from
Jean's Bookish Thoughts but when I bought it I had loads of people say to me 'Oh, you
need to start the series right from the beginning because otherwise if you start
this trilogy
you're going to ruin all the previous trilogies' so I thought okay,
read the Assassin's Apprentice...? I can't remember. Anyway the first one, and
it was alright but I didn't love it
I didn't think the world building was that good and it was ok it was a nice
read
and then after that I have some people tell me 'The first couple of
trilogies aren't that good you need to like stick with it and it
gets better later in the series'
Now, all I don't subscribe to that. If I have to read five books before something
gets good then no, that that's not good that's not fair for me as a reader
I don't think, but because each of the trilogies, although they spoil each other
I think and they do link up, they can be read stand-alone
I'm just going to start with this one and see what I think of it and I don't
really care if the assassins trilogies ruined for me because I I didn't love
that book and I didn't care about what happened next
so perhaps I think this is the fourth trilogy so maybe this will spoil like
the third one or something but that's the risk i'm going to take and I fancy
reading about dragons and reading something fantasy-esque
So considering we've got three months to get through that's six books
that's two books a month so I think that's doable I don't feel like that's
going to be too stringent a TBR that i'm going to rally against let's see
and hopefully this is going to work for me a little bit better in the future!
I would love to hear from you if you've read any of these books before and if
there is any that you really recommend that I read first
if you're new you can subscribe for more videos by clicking the red subscribe
button just underneath this video on the left hand side and i will see you next
time, bye!