- Okay, so I have a problem.
I've been packing my case to go back to France
and I don't have enough room
for all of the books that I want to take with me.
I don't think it's my nudist era just yet,
and so I had to make room for all the clothes
which is very annoying and inconvenient.
However, I have a plan and it involves you guys.
I've divided up all of the books
that I want to take with me into categories.
And I am gonna ask you guys over on my Instagram story,
which ones I should take.
My Instagram followers
are going to be controlling what I read.
So I'll take a picture of each of the categories
and then a poll.
And whichever one wins will be the one
that goes in the suitcase.
I don't know whether this is my best
or worst idea yet, but we'll find out.
Listen, I always say reading books
and buying books are two different hobbies.
I've been taking that to the extreme
and this is basically me staging an intervention
with your help to read the books I already own
rather than buying new ones.
Okay, let's start with these educational books.
It's a big goal of mine this year to read
at least one non-fiction educational book each month.
Did I fail that in January?
Yes, but you know what?
January is my 30 day free trial.
So, February is the month we get started with that.
Anyways, my choices here are firstly, "Empire Land."
This is all about how imperialism has shaped modern Britain.
I think it's gonna fill in the gaps
of a lot of the things the education system misses.
And I'm actually Twitter mutuals with the author.
So just gonna pick that name drop up off the floor.
Next we have "The Whole Picture",
which is the colonial story of the arts
in our museums and why we need to talk about it.
Again, really excited to read that one.
And then finally we have "The Transgender Issue"
which is about how a range of social issues
specifically impact trans people.
It's really important to me to be an even better ally
to my friends and followers who are trans.
So I really wanna get around to reading this as well.
The poll is live,
let's see what you guys think I should read first.
Okay, another really important thing to me
in my reading is to make sure I'm reading things
that have been translated and opening myself up
to so much incredible world literature
from all around the globe.
And so I have two choices for this.
Firstly, "The Vegetarian"
this is by Han Kong and it's been translated from Korean.
And then we have "Breasts and Eggs" by Mieko Kawakami,
and this has been translated from Japanese.
And the second poll is live.
Then I have have two short story collections.
Again, something that I don't think I read enough of.
So I have "Black Swans" by Eve Babitz,
and then "Shoko's Smile" by Choi Eun-young.
And then the final poll is gonna be
for a book that I have in hardback.
So I've got "Ariadne" by Jennifer Saint,
"We Are All Birds of Uganda" by Hafsa Zayyan,
Meg Mason's "Sorrow and Bliss."
And finally, Brian Washington's, "Memorial."
Obviously I wanna get around to reading
all of these books eventually.
So I'm happy with whoever wins.
So may the best books win.
I'm very intrigued to see which ones you guys choose for me.
It feels like we're all going books shopping together
except they're just from my bookshelves.
Polls are alive.
I'll see you in Paris. (speaks in foreign language)
(classical music)
(speaks in foreign language)
I've got a bag of chouquettes.
I'm in Paris.
Life is sweet.
I'm staying in Montmartre
which is an area I've never stayed in before.
And it is just completely and utterly beautiful.
And honestly, I'm just so buzzing to be back.
I went home for one week,
one week for Christmas, right?
Ended up being there for two months
because of all of these issues,
the COVID issues, the Brexit issues, (laughs)
nightmare.
But we're back now.
What I do wanna talk about is the poll that I did
because the results are in
and the winner was "Ariadne" with 21,720 votes.
That's insane.
"Memorial" came in second place with 16,600 votes
and then the other two books have 8,000 each.
And so this is the first book that I read for this video.
But before we get into that,
you may have noticed this very snazzy phone case
that I have on my phone,
which actually kind of looks like the cover
of a literary fiction novel that would break my heart.
And I'm here for it.
This is from Casetify,
who very kindly sponsored today's video.
They have such a huge variety
of phone cases on their website.
And these are the four cases that I chose.
I even customized a couple of them
and I'm absolutely obsessed with how they came out,
and I've genuinely never had so many compliments
on anything in my life.
So would highly recommend.
Casetify's new impact and ultra impact cases
are made of 65% recycled and plant-based materials.
And the beautiful packaging is actually 100% recycled.
And the ink is made from soy beans
which is soy cool. (snaps fingers)
Sorry, sorry about that.
The cases also give you drop protection of up to 9.8 feet
which is nearly as tall as me.
So should we do a tester?
Ooh, it hit my leg.
It hit my fricking leg.
Okay, well the phone and the phone case are happy.
My leg and my downstairs neighbors (laughs)
are not.
But that is not all.
And this blew my mind by the way,
the impact and ultra impacts cases feature DEFENSiFY
which is an antimicrobial coating.
That's a big word for Elmo.
And that kills 99% of the bacteria,
as well as preventing it from sticking to the surface.
Like what?
I am genuinely so impressed
by everything this case can do.
I genuinely at this stage would not be surprised
if it can do your weekly shop for you as well.
So if that sounds good to you,
I will link the Casetify website down below.
And if you click my link,
you can actually get 15% off.
So what are you waiting for, my friend?
And massive shout out to Casetify.
Thanks so much for sponsoring this video.
And now the da da daa the first book.
The woman, the myth, the legend.
Quite literally.
Ariadne is a Greek mythological retelling,
which is something that is super popular
in the publishing industry right now.
And she didn't disappoint.
So we basically have the story of Theseus
going into the labyrinth to kill the Minotaur.
Stay with me here.
I hope this told from Ariandne's perspective.
We also have Icarus and Daedalus.
Truly it's an all-star cast
of Greek mythological characters.
It's like the Coachella lineup of Greek mythology.
If you love "Song of a Achilles" or "Circe",
you will love this book.
Is it as poetic and lyrical as Madeline Miller?
No, but it's still fantastic.
And the main thing I definitely want to point out here
is that you don't need to be an expert
or know anything at all really about
Greek mythology to enjoy this.
It's super accessible.
Every character and every event is introduced
with the assumption that you have no prior
knowledge of them from mythology.
We don't tolerate intellectual snobbery on this channel
and this definitely doesn't have any.
So you can really just enjoy this as the immersive
and action-packed and thrilling book that it is.
And it also has a really interesting feminist undertone
which reframes a lot of the narratives from mythology
and points out the misogyny of women
so regularly being scapegoated
or blamed for their male counterparts mistakes.
And this book, I think toes the line very well,
between portraying women as victims in these scenarios
whilst also making them empowered
and headstrong characters with autonomy.
And so it's a book that I'm really pleased to have read.
I've seen some criticism where people say
that Ariadne is a bit of a pushover at the end of the book,
but I think that an important part
of these feminist retellings
is that we understand why she's led to live like that.
How her experiences, specifically of womanhood,
shape the life that she lives.
This author isn't here
to radically rewrite mythology with anachronisms.
We're just viewing the stories from a new lens
and re-centering important characters
who are often kind of dismissed or oversimplified.
This fleshes out the female characters
in the detail and complexity that they deserve.
So I liked it.
And I'd like to order five more mythological retellings,
please, thank you very much.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so the winning short story collection
with 30,000 votes to 24,000 votes was
"Shoko's Smile."
I have just finished reading this book and let me tell you,
Shoko's not the only one who's smiling.
I love this.
This is a microscopic study
of human relationships and human communication
and the things that really occur in real people's lives.
And what I mean by that is that each story
really refrains from becoming sensationalized.
Instead they are extraordinary for their ordinariness.
There's seven, I think, stories in total
and they're all so carefully crafted
that they work really well as stand-alones.
They each generally revolve
around the personal relationships
and intimate conversations that are held
between women in a range of different scenarios.
And there are some lines that are just devastating.
Let me read you one.
Those were the days when I believed my life
would turn out special.
I secretly sneered coward to compromise with reality,
but this silly arrogance of mine
is the reason why I am nothing now.
She's insane for that.
She is insane for that.
That hit deep.
That extracts us from the titular story,
which is "Shoko's Smile."
Yes, I did just say tit. (chuckles)
Moving on.
That story is about two young girls.
One from Japan, one from Korea
who drift in and out of each other's lives.
There's some beautiful letter writing, no spoilers here.
My favorite story was the third one
which discusses the Vietnam War from the perspective
of a Korean family and the Vietnamese family.
Basically years and years after the war,
these two families are having a little reunion
and their kids start piping up.
And the kids kind of innocent, curiosity
sparks a conversation about Korea's complicity in that war
and some uncomfortable truths.
I thought it was fascinating.
It's a viewpoint that I hadn't really been
exposed to before because in the West
we always kind of center America's perspective
of the Vietnam War.
So anyway, I'm really pleased to have read this.
Cheers guys, much appreciated.
Even though I do always find short story collections
much harder to review
because you kind of wanna give in each individual story,
their own rating.
But one thing I do wanna say is that the translator,
which is Sung Ryu,
I think did a brilliant job of capturing the tone here.
It felt really somber.
And I would say that the thread,
that kind of links all these stories together
is that each one features a character
who is confronting often for the first time,
uncomfortable truths from their past,
And they're not really sure what will happen in the future.
So we join them as they're trying to navigate this
very unextraordinary limital space
in between those two things.
And I liked it.
Onto the next one.
(woman singing in foreign language)
For your next choice of books for me to read,
you had a selection of translated literature.
And this is a Korean book that was translated
by Deborah Smith and it's called "The Vegetarian."
And speaking of diets, look at her.
She's a slim thing.
She has got her summer body going on.
It is hot book summer over here.
And I love a novella.
And although it isn't long
and perhaps because it isn't long,
it packs such a huge punch.
Like Anthony Joshua,
better retire because he can't punch like this.
I always say this but never underestimate
the extraordinary talent and ability that
it takes to be able to write something
that is equally concise and complex.
It's a huge skill.
And so I am not surprised that this won
the Man Booker International Prize in 2016.
It is completely unlike anything I've ever read before.
It is a whole feast.
Starts, the main and dessert.
We follow three different perspectives,
but they all center around a woman
who has decided to become vegetarian.
She's been having these horrible and traumatic nightmares
which lead her to giving up meat,
but don't linger too much
on the fact that she's becoming vegetarian.
Like the point really is that it's an allegory.
It's an allegory how one person can make a decision
which is deeply personal to them and very important to them.
And other people may misinterpret that and misconstrue that.
They dismiss her very valid feelings
and ultimately they patronize her.
So, although this is ostensibly on surface level
a book about becoming a vegetarian,
it's really about so much more than that.
It's about how individual agency is perceived
when it goes against the grain
of conventions and norms in society.
And this character who disrupts the narrative
that is expected of her is estranged
and cast aside and marginalized.
So this is a book on one hand about refusing to conform,
and on the other hand about narrow mindedness.
It's short, it's intense.
I don't think it would necessarily be for everyone.
Especially if you find scenes
of physical and emotional abuse
quite distressing and triggering.
A heads up that this is really, really dark
and morbid and bleak and full of despair.
And maybe it says more about me that I enjoyed it. (laughs)
I don't know.
I definitely think this is a book
that I'm going to continue to think about
and talk about for a long time.
It's definitely one of those books
that's gonna keep pulling me back.
Every character just behaves shockingly.
I'm so impressed by this.
I really, really liked it.
So thanks you guys.
Thanks for making me get around to reading it.
And now onto the last book.
(jazz music)
The final book that you guys chose me to read,
again had an overwhelming number of votes.
22,344
to be specific was this one,
this is "The Whole Picture" by Alice Procter.
And what I mostly have to say about this is, wow!
This was so eyeopening,
such an important insight into the curation of museums
and art galleries
and the echoes of colonialism that exist in those spaces.
Alice Procter basically takes you on an alternative tour
through art history,
focusing in on the stories of specific examples
to then kind of expand on that
and extrapolate bigger ideas.
And these examples illuminate her points
in interesting and memorable ways.
She encourages you to think about
the narratives that museums
and galleries and exhibitions are telling you.
And most importantly,
to examine what or who is missing from those collections.
So which people and which groups
are not being accounted for?
How much suffering did those certain groups
go through for that piece of art to reach you?
What context is missing from that piece of content?
And why was it neglected in the first place?
When history is recounted and distilled,
who is the one crafting that story
and who is the one being ignored by it?
What I really like is this serves as the perfect rebuttal
for those people who say that in 2020
we all just got way too woke
and the art world is suffering.
Instead the author suggests that art should be understood
in its original context.
And this isn't new,
people have always been fighting for this.
But unfortunately they have previously been silenced
and so now, while we're in this cultural moment,
we need to pass the megaphone to them,
amplify their stories and make some noise.
This book is densely packed
with insightful and fascinating observations.
I'm actually gonna do a whole Instagram post
highlighting my favorite quotes.
But how about I read you one of them?
I do not believe that guilt is inherited
but responsibility is,
and there is nobody alive today whose existence
has not been shaped by colonialist racist forces.
That is a legacy we all live with
and we should all deal with the consequences.
If you have benefited, then soaking yourself
in remorse and guilt does not help anyone.
What you can do though
is ask constantly how you have felt those benefits
at whose expenses were they gained.
The questions are finally being asked,
who has the right to hold objects
and to tell their stories?
It's really modern and up-to-date,
it covers the Black Lives Matter protests.
It covers the Rhodes Must Fall Movement.
I feel that everyone should read this.
And so I'm reluctant to criticize it.
But what I would say is that the author
is really, really good, but not exceptional.
If that makes sense.
Sometimes it does lose the momentum a little bit.
I think some things are over explained,
some things under explained.
The introduction I thought was brilliant.
And then it sort of wanes a little bit
and then the ending just gets better and better and better.
But on the whole, it is pretty readable
and a great entry point into this discussion.
So what I've learned is that you guys have excellent taste.
But then again, I knew that already,
'cause you are subscribed.
So a win for everyone involved, truly.
If you want to make sure that you're involved next time
I do one of these videos,
make sure you are subscribed to the channel
and also follow me over on Instagram
where I post daily updates
and frequently ask for help on these videos.
A mahoosive shout out to Casetify for sponsoring this video.
Don't forget you can get 15% off
by using my link down below.
Until next time, all the best, stay in touch.
Have a wonderful day and I'll catch you very soon.
Bye.