On tonight's program ladies and gentlemen, we have something that's gonna make you sick
Hello there and welcome back to my youtube channel, my name is Jack Edwards and last week
I had the privilege of getting to tell you that I've written a book. This is the uni-verse which comes out in August
It's available to pre-order now if you're interested and when I spoke about this book, one of the things I said
Was that writing this book has changed my life and it really got me thinking about the books
I've read in my life and the other books that have sort of changed my life in a more abstract
Way I suppose and as an English literature student and one of the things I get asked a lot is what should I read?
What would you recommend? What are the different things that you think I should have read before doing a degree?
And there are no straightforward answers to that question
But what I thought I could do today is share some books that have changed my perspective on the world and books have shaped
The person I am and the and the things that I read and the things I enjoy so with some difficulty
I've narrowed those books down to 10 books
Which I am going to share with you today and just talk a little bit about why they made me who I am today
I think so without further ado numero uno and that could only go to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's a Study in Scarlet
This is the book that made me realize I wanted to be an author
I felt like as a kid who was really into education and academia
This book made me feel like those things one lane in the sense that Sherlock Holmes as a character
represented to me that whole idea of deducing things and using
intelligence to be a detective and an investigator and understand something and go from having a complete mystery and
Slowly breaking it down to make sense of it
I used to really love things like Harry Potter and Pokemon and superheroes at Teen Titans that kind of thing and all of those
Characters have some sort of power like superhuman power whereas to me Sherlock
Even though he is a character who is you know?
Extraordinary there was something about him as a character that made him more accessible and like attainable in the sense
That intelligence could be used for good
I mean I was gutted on my 11th birthday when I didn't get my Hogwarts acceptance letter and after that point
I just had to I just had to come to terms with the fact that I wasn't a wizard where Sherlock became like a hero
To me and like I said before there was something about how those books were written and the way that the story lines were
Structured that just made me fall in love with literature and fiction and made me want to be that person who could one day
Write book as good as that also in my interview to be head boy at my school
I have thought about who my hero was and I spoke about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
which I felt was a bit of a rogue choice because most people chose like Stephen Hawking or like Olympians and I was like
I just love Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle and I actually got the role and one of the things that the head teacher said to me afterwards that I was so true
To myself and I spoke about someone who inspired me specifically and that was kind of what shone through to that
And so yeah that holds a very special place in my heart
I guess number two is to the might house by Virginia Woolf
This is the book that made me discover modernism and modernist thoughts
This is a book that I read in the second year of my English degree and although I enjoyed it the first time I read
It I think I struggled with it a bit and I loved
Studying it it split into three kind of sections and the middle section is called time passes, and it's very abstract
There is no dialogue or characters, really?
It's just a house an empty house and time passing like a war happens in the mean time
no spoilers
But some characters die and is one of those things where the more times I read it the more I just find it incredible it
was also the first of Virginia Woolf's books that I read and unlocked her literary over to me and I read this at a time
At last year where I was really struggling with
My degree and balancing everything and I didn't know if I could necessarily carry on with it reading
This book just reminded me why I chose this degree and why I was here in the first place
And I will forever be grateful for that and off the back of that
discovering a modernist writing and reading notes more modernist writing made me realize that I wanted to do a
Master's in just that and so that's been my main sort of focus and research over the past year and a half
So number three is Brighton rock by Graham Greene
I grew up around Brighton and Brighton was where I used to go as a kid
my grandparents would take us to the arcades or to the Sea Life Center and
They save up all their pennies and we'd go to them slot arcade machines. It was just so much fun
Brighton is also where when clubbing for the first time where I used to go on nights out
Like I went on my A level results day night out there
So when I read this book knowing that it was set in Brighton was always a winner to me
I read it last summer when I was working in China
And I've been away from home for like two months and I was feeling a bit homesick and this just made me feel so much
better like being able to recognize the streets and where the movement was happening
I just I loved it
but the way they sort of changed my life I suppose is
That when I was reading it all I could think about was how much I wanted this to be on a screen and although it
was made into a film at one point
I feel like a modern adaptation with this book as a TV show kind of like peaky blinders
I think would be
amazing and the whole time I was reading it all I thought was I would love to be able to write a screenplay for this
Now as pretentious and ridiculous as that sounds I'm not saying that I am the perfect person to write screenplay for this book for me
it was the point in my
three-year degree where I first started thinking about what I'm going to do with the degree that I've got after I graduate and I would
absolutely love to go into screenwriting
So regardless of whether I am ever given the opportunity of writing a screenplay for this book it is something I would love to do
Number four is George Orwell's Animal Farm. George Orwell has been this list somewhere, right?
It was actually very hard to make a decision between 1984 and Animal Farm. I felt like Animal Farm
I enjoyed more when I read it this book incorporates history, incorporates politics
It incorporates literature and you may, if you know me well know that those were my three a-levels
Those are my three interests and this book just merged all of them perfectly and through doing this
I discovered a whole library of dystopias and political fiction, which I enjoyed so much
I think it just made me realize that you can use fiction to talk about politics and to address world issues in a creative way.
Speaking of which the next one in my list is The Handmaid's Tale one of my favorite books of all time
I studied this book for my a-levels and it's just a memory. I attach to that time in my life again
this book merges politics and history and literature and makes this perfect fusion of a
Novel I don't think I've read any other book as many times as I've read this one
it opened my eyes to a lot of oppression in the world and every example of
Abuse in this book is taken from real-life examples
Yes, this book just really shaped the way that I understand the world and feminism and human rights
I love it
The next book on my list is the first non-fiction one and that is taking up space by Chelsea and Ori
This is a book about being a black girl in higher education in the top
universities in the UK and as a university student as someone who talks about
University and higher education and is trying to make it more accessible. This was just vital reading it is incredibly
articulated they just say things so well and all so as a literature student as a
University student as someone who just loves books
It made me realize how white and eurocentric all of the reading I had done prior to this had been and as a result
I emailed my department and asked if I could change some of my modules for my final year at uni and read some more diverse
literature
It made me realize that I've never had a black lecturer in my whole time at
University and reading this just made me realize how damaging that could be for you if you didn't recognize
Anyone who taught your course or you didn't recognize yourself in any of the books that you were reading?
It just definitely made me check my privilege and I would recommend this to anyone shortly after reading taking up space
I read americanah by
Adichie. The line of will always stick with me from this book is "I didn't know that I was black until I arrived in
America" it's a book about identity about nationality about race about gender the experience of diaspora
One of the motifs in this book is black hair. It just changed my perspective on things that I've never even
Considered and I cannot recommend this enough
I spoke of it then about how I
Changed modules and one of the modules I changed onto was a module on South Asian literature
Now this is The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
this is the most recent addition to this list of books that changed my life and books that changed my perception on the world and
This is about
Subaltern life and subalternity in India. This is a truly beautiful book
It is so rich with symbolism and history and cultural heritage. It's led me to do a lot of research on India the caste system
Hinduism India's geopolitical history and it's really made me think about what
history
We are taught and what history we deem worthy of knowing and how language a nationality in class
Impacts the way that we receive news
I think it's so vital that we challenge our worldviews and this is a book that definitely did that me number nine on this list
Steps quite a bit further back in time and that is Ovid's metamorphoses
This book sparked my obsession with Greek and Roman mythology
That is such a rich tapestry of mythology. And this book is was the first kind of stepping stone into
Understanding that I guess it made me so hungry to learn more about mythology. I would say a less intimidating
stepping stone or entrance into Greek and Roman mythology is
Steven fries and mythos which kind of puts it into more colloquial everyday language
I guess and that since reading this I have just become a massive nerd for mythology. I listen to podcasts about it
I read books about it and watch videos about it. You know, I just I really love mythology
So that's why that ones on here and the final book
I want to talk about big number 10 is not on my bookshelf anywhere
They just I don't know what I did with it. But number 10 on the list is Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies
This is a book about the Bright Young Things
Generation it led me to research Marinette II and the theories of speed and dynamism and this idea that because we've discovered
motorcars and Technology we have invented
Speed and so therefore we are the ultimate
superior generation and vile bodies kind of turns out its head and it talks about the destructive nature of speed and the
fast-paced lifestyle and especially
at the moment where this discussion about the media and
celebrities and influencers is
so pertinent and apt and the way that the media and the people who engage with there are so quick to
Cancel people when they do things wrong and what that can lead to and how detrimental it can be to the individual
It's crazy to me that vile bodies is set nearly 100 years ago, and we still have the same issues
So to me as someone who is a youtuber and works in like the influencer industry this landscape the the book where the presents
Is so recognizable to me and yet the book. I wish I had written is vile bodies because I think it's just
Incredible it's so fragmentary and dialogue heavy and funny and cinematic. It's very chaotic, which I relate to on a personal level
Yeah, it's an awesome book
So those are the 10 of books that changed my perception of the world that we live in
I hope that you enjoyed hearing them and he might have given you some inspiration or some
Recommendations and to go out and read as I said at the beginning of this video my book
The universe is coming out in August
I will leave the pre-order links down below if you did want to get your hands on it and if you can't pre-order it at
the moment, please add it to your wish list on Amazon because that really really helps me out
I'm so proud of this book, and I can't wait for some of you to have it
I would love it if in the comments section down below you could tell me which books have changed your life and the way that
You see the world. I went. Yeah, I need your recommendations. for now, thank you so so much for watching this video
Give it a like if you liked it if you liked subscribe for more from me, and I will see you next time. Bye!
In case I don't see ya good afternoon good evening and good night