Hoi!
We're doing something I haven't done in a long time on my channel,
which is a little book hall.
It's summer themed purely because it's been sunny outside for the last few days,
that is the atmosphere we're going for.
But I think some of these books would make for some really good summer reading in particular.
But before I show you books have one other thing that I bought today,
I went to the vintage market in town and I picked up an absolute
gem.
This is the first time I'm taking it out of the bag since I bought it.
I walked past the stall.
I took a photo of it.
Then I kept walking,
and five minutes later,
I just turned around and went to get it.
This is the top.
This is the bottom with this is the front.
This is the bottom.
So this is in fact,
I guess it's a cookie jar,
and I was saying it could be like a tea bag jar.
You can't let something like this stay at the market like you simply
cannot.
And it was only £5 so I am extremely happy.
I have no idea whether how old is it?
Says made in England,
Cottage ware
Kensington.
Anyway,
I don't know anything about vintage stuff,
but what I do know is that I love this one.
Just carefully put that over here.
So cute.
I have in fact
not sort of these books have kind of just plot them on the table.
I do some really good stuff in here,
I'm just going to talk about them as I see them.
This book is called Scattered All Over the Earth by
Yoko Tawada
which has absolutely stunning cover illustration by Harriet Lee Marion
I already owned this book,
The Last Children of Tokyo by the same author with a very similar cover,
which is about like a catastrophe happening in Japan,
where basically the old people are staying alive.
But the young people are dying,
so kind of like an apocalyptic novel.
And so I saw this on the table at my local book shop,
and I immediately recognised that cover,
so I picked it up.
And this is actually the latest book in translation by this author.
It came out this year,
but it was written in 2018.
I read the first two lines of the pitch,
and I knew that it was for me.
Japan has vanished,
and Hiruko thinks she might be the last Japanese person left travelling across Europe
with a group of new found friends,
a linguist,
a student moving between genders,
a Greenlander hiding his nationality and his brokenhearted lover,
she pursues a mysterious man named Susanoo,
who may be her last chance to once again hear the sounds of her native
tongue.
It says It's a love song to language and liminology. 66 00:02:36.070 --> 00:02:39.520 It sounds absolutely fantastic.
Cover has,
I'm guessing this is Europe,
Big Ben,
and then it has Japan reflected in the water.
So I think that's really beautifully done as well.
Next up,
something that's become like a bigger and bigger passion of mine as the years have gone by.
This is called Walking the Invisible by Michael Stewart,
with maps by Christopher Goddard, following in the Brontes footsteps.
I am slowly gathering nonfiction books about the Brontës,
mostly kind of like biographies,
but I visited Haworth, I think that's how you pronounce it.
I practised it when I was visiting,
which is where they lived and wrote some of their novels.
I did a hike to some of their favourite places anyway.
I have just become a little obsessed.
I'm just very curious to see,
like,
what is in here?
Also,
I did not think I was going to be a person who was into nature writing.
Maybe it's because I'm now my thirties.
Or maybe it's because it's related to a topic I'm very interested in.
Either way,
I'm overjoyed with this book.
I think we're going to some more disturbing books now.
I bought this with Waterstones points,
so I mean,
technically free.
Technically, I
you know,
paid for by spending lots of money.
They're very short.
I've seen this across Tiktoks.
Maybe the first time I heard about it,
I also saw it on Leo's channel,
where she talked about it in detail.
Anyway,
this is about a 17 year old girl who's going on like a camp in nature with
her dad, to a camp
led by an archaeologist who is interested in Iron Age sacrifice.
Now you might see where this is going.
There's just certain books that you find and you go:
Did someone write this specifically for me? In the execution that is maybe not always
the case,
like maybe the pitch is perfect for you.
And then the book ends up not being it.
But I am highly intrigued by this.
And then this.
I got from an unhaul from my good friend Pip,
who actually has recently started up her YouTube channel,
her booktube channel again.
So please do go check her out.
She's absolutely wonderful and a book designer anyway.
She unhauled this
and I went to visit her,
and she's like,
pick anything you like.
I don't want any of these anymore,
and this was one of them.
And then I think someone told me that this is quite hard to get at the moment.
Anyway,
I'm happy I've got my copy
Things have gotten worse since we last spoke by Eric LaRocca.
I mean,
I think the main pitch is just disturbing.
There's a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an Internet chat room in the
early 2000s.
I'm not usually a huge fan of different kinds of media within books.
Well,
I'm definitely going to give this a go
then,
going from one apparently dark and gross book to the next: Lapvona
I haven't read any of Ottessa Moshfegh's books
I actually started reading My Year of rest and relaxation on a trip.
Haven't continued with it yet,
but what I read,
I did enjoy. Pre ordered a copy.
Uh,
and it came signed.
I did not know it's going to be signed,
and I rarely get books signed,
So this is quite exciting. Set in the Middle Ages.
I am I am so intrigued.
The reviews have been very interesting.
I'm not actually gonna read most of them.
I just want to go into this.
And so if I enjoy it also,
I feel like,
very rare to see a pitch that is this long like,
Why is it taking up this much space?
I don't want to know that much about it before starting it.
At some point,
I'd love to make a video about the trend of contemporary literary authors.
Uh,
suddenly writing books set in historic settings.
The next one is a bit unusual for me and I feel like this.
I got sucked in by the hype and by the cover,
so we'll see if I enjoy it.
It is a Vladimir by Julia May Jonas.
It's like 'this meets this, meets this' all things I have not read or seen.
It's about a beloved English teacher as she faces a slew of #metoo
accusations against her professor husband, from a former student.
I know there's always like quite a few books going around about sort of abusive
student teacher relationships and things like that.
I haven't read any of them,
I believe,
Um,
so this this might be the first. This was also sent to me by the publisher for review.
Then I joined a sci fi book club that is part of Housemans, the
bookshop in London near King's Cross,
which I absolutely love and basically picked up quite a few interesting books because of it.
These are to where I think I was on holiday or was busy with something else,
and I actually didn't get around to reading them before the book club.
But I have them.
We've got Sisters of the Vast Black and In the Watchful City.
They both have that really pleasing,
like it's called matt lam.
I can't remember.
I used to know all the names for the finishes,
but it's like the rubbery one.
Okay,
Sisters of the Vast Black is nuns in space.
They received a distress call from a newly formed colony discovered that the bodies and souls in their
care are in danger.
It's very short.
It's like 140 pages. In the Watchful City.
This is one of those where you start reading the summary
You're like,
OK...
"There is a human tasked with surveying and protecting or a Citizens
via complex living network called the gleaming."
I'm actually not going to go further into reading that summary.
I'm just going to read it.
One of the quotes says that it's cyberpunk.
I've always absolutely loved sci-fi movies,
and I've read some sci-fi YA and a few sci-fi classics.
But it's one of the genre's that I'm kind of fully throwing myself into.
And I think with this book club it's really nice because someone picks three different options,
describes them kind of cryptically,
and then the book club decides which one they want to read,
and so you get a really nice selection of stuff.
So we've got Portrait of a Thief by quite young author,
actually,
and it has an artist,
So a senior at Harvard finds himself as the leader of a heist to steal back five
priceless Chinese sculptures that were looted from Beijing centuries
ago.
So I've kind of been like listening to and reading things about the looting of art and
museums.
And so I think it's quite interesting to have a fiction book on this topic as well.
Three more.
This is also from Pips unhaul.
The Silent Companions,
by Laura Purcell and wrote a book called Bone China by this author.
That was very much kind of pacey Gothic historical,
so I'm kind of expecting this to be the same.
This is compared to Turn of the Screw, Rebecca and the Woman in Black,
so that's all I really need to know.
Then I got to be a plus one for the Women's Prize for Fiction party
a few weeks ago,
and when they were giving a goody bags on the way out,
I said,
Can I please have one that has The Sentence in it?
And they did have those left,
so I finally got my copy of The Sentence.
I did a whole video talking about which books from the Booker International and the
Women's Prize shortlist slash long list.
I was most interested in reading,
which I will link up there.
But this was one of them that I hadn't bought yet.
I kind of picked up and put down in bookshops quite a few times.
I forgot.
I also got a free audiobooks and the goody bag.
This is a ghost story about a bookshop being haunted by its most annoying customer.
I've heard mixed things from friends,
so we shall see.
Finally,
a review copy of Idol by Louise O'Neill.
I've read so many of Louise O'Neill's books,
and I actually haven't read,
I think the one before this was kind of like a thriller set around a murder.
I have that.
I have not read that yet,
but I really want to.
This is about an influencer.
It's about an influencer telling a story of something that happened when she was a child with a friend and
the friend.
I think those public or comes back to her and says that is not how I remember it.
And I actually get a lot of outreach about books about like the Internet or influencers or things like
that.
And very often I don't read them because I feel like very often
they present such a like outside few of what sort of influencers and
online creators are like,
and it's rare that it feels like the author has,
like a certain level of understanding.
But I feel like Louis O'Neill has perhaps,
a lot of experiences that are similar to what certain creators go through
online.
And I think she handles difficult subjects very well and very interesting and thoughtful way.
And that is the haul of lots of books,
plus a gorgeous cookie jar.
I'm not gonna leave on there because it will fall over.
These are definitely books that I've kind of gathered over the last few months,
maybe since,
like February.
But I just went through my shelves and kind of looked up what I was most excited about and what I could
remember as sort of like new editions.
So hopefully there was something in there as well that could spark your interest.
I would love to know what the most recent book is that you have bought or gotten out of the
library or maybe just started reading,
and I want to do a quick shout out to my TikTok which I started a few months ago,
and I'm very much enjoying it. I'm booksandquills on there as well,
if you want to check it out.
And currently in the middle of filming a reading vlog,
which I need to finish the second book so I can put that online.
But I'm quite excited about that.
That will have some fun sort of day to day what I'm doing with my life bits in it as well.
And I also just put out a video where I set up a Reading Notion and get
my reading documentation organised.
If that's something you're interested in.
Thanks for watching.
And I'll see you soon.
Doei!