Hi everyone, it's Lauren and these are the things
I am planning to read from January
through to March. I do not do
monthly TBR lists as some people do because
I am very bad at sticking to plans, even if
they are plans made myself, but I do like
to have a bit of structured reading and
so what happened was I have the first
week of January off of work and I got
loads of books out from under my bed where
they all live and I was thinking Right, I'm
going to get through some stuff while I'm
off this week, I'm gonna read loads and I just kept
pulling books out and then looking back
at the pile
this is like 20 books. So obviously I'm
not going to get those read this week
It's Friday now! So yeah I've not read them
that's what happened. But they are out
from under the bed now which helps them in
their quest to be read because it means
that they are visible to me and I'm much
more likely to read them so this is my
pile now. The first things I definitely
want to read, which I've actually started
already are The Waves and Orlando by
Virginia Woolf. So I am going to see
the Woolf Works ballet which is being put on by
the Royal Ballet in a couple weeks and it
is a set of three different dances,
each one based on a different book
it's Mrs Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves.
I've read Mrs Dalloway, haven't read these two, so I want to
try and read them before I go and see
the ballet. It's based on her writing
it's not kind of like a ballet of the
plot of any of these books but I just thought it would be
interesting to have a little bit of
knowledge about what she was writing
about so these are my first priority
I don't know what I'll finish both of
them in time. The next that is definitely on my
list is Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue,
this is a set of short stories
which was a present for me from Jean for
Christmas and this isalso the pick for the
Feminst Orchestra book club for
January, so since she bought for me and
since that's the pick of her book club
I feel like I had better read it!
I've wanted to read it for a while, she
recommended it to me ages ago and and I
really enjoyed Emma Donoghue's writing she's
the author of Room and The Wonder among
other things. Then what I thought I would do early this year is try to get
through all of my newest books because I
have a lot of kind of brand new books or
ARCs that were sent me which I just haven't
read and I want to read new stuff and I
want to be able to recommend to you, so
I just got all of my newest book out
So the first two that I have were very kindly sent me from
Granta and they are Whatever Happened to
Interracial Love and First Love. This
first one, Kathleen Colins was a writer
and activist in the sixties and
seventies in the US this is a book of
short stories which she wrote during that
time but were never published in her lifetime
she very sadly died aged only 46 in
1988 and it has now been resurfaced and
published and First Love is about a
woman and her husband it's about her
loking back on her marriage and everything
that happened in her marriage and also
looking at other people she loved in her
life, her father and other lovers she's had I
presume
It's a very slim little novella
so i think it's going to be quite a
ponderous novel which I think sounds very
interesting and I haven't read much Gwendoline
Riley so I'm looking forward to being
introduced to new writing. The next one is
My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal and I've had this
book for ages and I just haven't read it and I've
heard so many good things about it a lot
of my friends have read it and absolutely
loved it. All that I know really is
that it's about two brothers and one of
them is white and one of them isn't and it's
about the issues that I guess arise in
the family because of that and and it
sounds like it's a heartbreaking read
but I've heard so many good things
about it so I can't really let that one
slide. Another one I've had for ages and
I've also heard so many good things about
is A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia
Berlin this is a book of short stories
I think genuinely, the reason I haven't read this
is because it's just printed so large
this is a proof copy from like a year and a
half ago and the actual printed book is
smaller and more compact than this but I think
that's why I just thought that's a really
big book and I've not heard of Lucia Berlin
But I wanted to read it and I've heard last
year everybody was kind of raving about
it who read it, I've heard so many good
things and so yeah it's just about time
I actually read it but like I said, it's
out from under the bed now so it's
actually in with a chance of getting read
A few more recent releases we have
The Good Immigrant which is collated by
Nikesh Shukla. This is a group of essays
and stories from 21 BAME authors in the UK
and it's talking about what it's like to
be an immigrant or to be different or to
be othered by society and so very timely
and yeah, really really looking forward
to this. In a similar-ish vein I also
have Mama Can't Raise No Man by Robyn
Travis and this is the story of a young
black guy in the UK
in Hackney I think. It's about him being
thrown in prison in his twenties and
looking back on his past and learning what
it's like to be a young black man, to be
a father, to be a husband and to be a son
and it's written in letters or texts
or phone calls and it just looks
really interesting and that was published
last year as well and there's also Swing Time by
Zadie Smith which has been quite well
received I believe from what I've heard
people really enjoyed it
I haven't made my mind up on Zadie Smith
yet, whether I like her writing, I tend to kind
of love it or just think it was ok and
this is about two friends who were
friends up until the age of about 20 and
then they weren't friends aanymore
and one of them pursued dance the other one
didn't I think so
I'm really looking forward to giving her
another try and finally I have a bit of
a rogue one...Rogue One! Hahaha and that's
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, which again
I bought like so long ago and has just
been lost in the piles of books under
the bed but I really wanted to shake up
my reading a little bit and read a bit
more fantasy and scifi this year and
this is the story of a starship and it's
told from the ship's point of view tand
you're following her, but apart from that
I'm like going into this completely
blind, but it's just one of those ones, I
mean you all understand this, you watch Booktube
you get it, like you just love books,
you hear so many things about so many books and you
think wow I'm gonna read that right away but
you know, reading books takes time
I just have so many that I'm so excited
about and yet haven't read yet! So that's
my kind of haphazard TBR list for
January to March and I'm sure I'll read
lots of other things as well but these are
what I grabbed from when I last looked under
my bed and this is what I'm gonna have as a
constant reminder probably, I'll probably put them
in a pile here so every time I wake up I
can see them and go oh yes, that's what I
need to read next
I think I go through a mad rush, I'm a
bit like a kid in a candy shop after
I've read really long book and you all know
that I was reading Lord of the Rings throughout
December which obviouslt is one long
continuous book, so now that I'm free to
choose whatever and read stuff quite quickly I'm
like ooh, do I want this one? Do I want this one?
there's just too many and I'm probably gonna you know
get a bit sick and have a headache later
So let me know if you have read any of these
because obviously I love getting book
recommendations and I will see you when
in my next video
Bye!