Hi everyone it's Lauren and this is my August Wrap Up, so the book reviews for
books that I've read in the second half of August. If you'd like to see my
reviews for the first half of August I will leave a link up in the corner here
and in the description box below and as always all of the books that I
mentioned in this video are going to be linked in the description box as well if
you would like to check them out further So the first book that I want to talk
about in this video is The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Now I loved this
book, I really hoped I would love it because I'd heard so many good things
about it and it didn't disappoint at all. This is about a group of students and
told from the perspective of an outsider Richard who is a young guy from
California who has gone to an East Coast University and he falls in with this
group with very privileged very posh very eccentric students who are all
studying ancient Greek and basically the plot will be only plot really - the book
is that as a group of students is about six of them they plot and kill one of
their members, Bunny and you know this right from the beginning he talks about
all 'when we killed Bunny' so it's not a surprise but it is a lead-up to that
point where you know that they are going to kill him and you don't really know
why or how they got to that stage and then the second half of the book is like
the aftermath of this event and it's so bizarre because although that's a lot of
plot really killing someone is quite a big deal that's really the only thing
that happens and that's so odd because it's such a long story but Donna Tartt's
prose is just so wonderful it's so easy it's so good to read and you just you're
just swept up and you're really understanding these characters everyone
felt really fully realized and although you're reading about you know Richards
day and that day he went to see Henry and they did something it doesn't seem
like very much is happening and yeah I couldn't take a sentence out of that
book like it felt like everything really was important even though it felt like I
would say day to day life because it's not day to day all of the people are
quite extraordinary and are quite eccentric but it just becomes this
normal routine and that's what you're reading I struggle to explain it because
when people explained it to me before I read it I'd
heard that it was about students studying Greek and that they killed
someone and that's all I knew and really that's all I want to say to you as well
unfortunately because the thing for me that made this book so memorable and so
wonderful was the writing and was the journey and I can't really explain that
to you without you reading it yourself and also I don't want to give away what
goes on in the book I think part of the joy of it is discovering that sadly the
next book that I have to talk to you about today I really didn't like at all
and I've got to that point with this book where I read it about three weeks
ago now so you know when you read a book you think I do you really like it but
the more I think about it I've now got to that stage where I hate it so I need
to really calm myself down and make sure I don't just do a half-an-hour rant
about this book but the reason I'm so annoyed with it is because I'm just
disappointed or not angry I'm just as appointed and that is good as you bye
Paul Flynn this is a nonfiction book it says from prejudice to pride 30 years of
gay Britain and that's exactly what it is it's an examination of representation
and social understanding I suppose social feeling about gay people in
Britain from about 1984 1985 to the present day so we're looking at Paul
Flynn's adolescence to adulthood really so it is from his perspective and it's
semi autobiographical but it's also looking at how far we've come from where
Britain was with the AIDS crisis up until the point where gay marriage was
legalized sets briefly the art that we have in this book and it talks about
some really interesting things so there's a chapter in here on reality TV
which I found really interesting so he talks about pop idol and Will Young
winning the first series of Pop Idol in the UK he talks about Brian Dowling
winning the second series of Big Brother and how from his perspective which is
interesting because I remember these things I was a child at the time and the
fact that it's not just reality TV allowing different types of people from
different backgrounds to express and show themselves on television in ways
that they want to be represented and in ways they're not necessarily being
represented by the powers that be in other shows it's also that
by gay people winning reality TV competitions where the rest of the UK
was voting for them to win it's actually a very different kind of acceptance what
I think really let this book down is that it wasn't clear on what it was
trying to achieve or who its audience we're I don't think so Paul Flynn does
frame this semi-autobiographical II we kind of look at his childhood and his
relationship with pop music he used to work attitude it's a gay magazine and so
it talks about that but I feel like the chapters where he did try and say wider
things and look at wider causes that didn't necessarily directly affect him
it still ended up just being things that he cared about he interviews a lot of
different people in this book he interviews will young Kylie Minogue
David Furnish we talk about him going to David Furnish and Elton John's wedding
and as a whole chapter with David Furnish talking about how he met Elton
John which is interesting I am interested in that I don't know if
that's interesting in terms of a book on representation of gay people in the
media the clubbing scene and the gay scene in Manchester is heavily featured
in this burg where Paul is from it also talks about the gay scene in London but
to the point where he's describing where pubs are like oh I used to go to this
pub on the corner of this street off it opposite that shop and it's so detailed
in terms of where these clubs are to the point where I know Soho and I know what
he's talking about in London but I don't know where these places are in
Manchester and I don't think that you need to know that I'm not really that
interested in which club Antony cotton used to go to in Manchester I'm more
interested in Antony cotton showing the first ever gay person on Coronation
Street that's more interest I don't care where he went clubbing I also found that
when he was talking about reality TV which is something I knew about and I'd
lived through I was really engaged in the chapters because I understood it
when he talked about music in the 80s which I wasn't around for I felt like it
was almost incomprehensible I couldn't really understand while he was getting
out I think if you're not from the UK this book is completely closed to you I
don't understand how you could could read it at all because it's not really
explaining anything about UK culture to someone who isn't already inside it it's
even a lion in this book when he's talking about his editor at the magazine
he used to work out before he worked at attitude and he said that her and said
to him something like we're loving all these different
features that you're doing Paul but there doesn't really seem to be kind of
a through line between them it just seems to be random things that you're
interested in and I was thinking yes that's what this book is just things
Paul Flynn happens to find interesting it's not stepped back enough to look at
culture as a whole I just feel so disappointed in it because I was so
interested in a lot of the points he was making I almost wish that someone else
had just taken this product on and written a book about it because I just
think this is such a specific perspective that you had to be a man who
was born in Manchester in like the 70s and is that age and lived through these
exact things to appreciate any of this anything in this book at all when really
it could have been a book for everybody and I just think it's such a missed
opportunity so I'm gonna stop talking about that now oh my god let's go on to
some brighter things so the two other books I read in August I really really
loved the first one is Margaret the first by Danielle Dutton now this is a
fictionalized biography of Margaret Cavendish who was the Duchess of
Newcastle in the 17th century her family were Royalists in the English Civil War
so she had to flee to Paris and Antwerp for a portion of her life and that's
where she met and married her husband and she published a lot of things she
published letters she published plays and she also wrote at the blazing world
which is held it as being really the first ever science fiction novel and
this book is so interesting because it melds obvious factual pieces like bits
out of samuel pizzas diary and comments from other people things that would have
been in newspapers at the time and it kind of is very obvious the way it
pieces together the facts and then it also embellishes them incredibly and
imaginatively and it's so kind of beautiful and sumptuous the writing and
it's very magical in I think a way that is very deserving of Margaret Cavendish
herself she was such an eccentric character and it was at a time when
really science wasn't as set as it is now the idea of science and philosophy
were really merged and there's lots of quotes in this book where margaret is
thinking about how the world might be structured and she says things like
could maybe be structured in the way that
spiders webs are and perhaps it's all linked together
or perhaps air and itself is a living organism and it's all of these things
which are so it's such an interesting thing to read because you're transported
back to a time when there weren't any set rules in terms of science and how
the world worked and people really could be so imaginative and creative in their
scientific thinking which is what Margaret did now that I've read this one
I really am interested in finding out more about her writing but I would
really recommend this it's really really interesting and the final book that I
read in the month of August was when breath becomes air by Paul Callan itthey
now I've seen this everywhere I've seen this in book shops I've seen it all over
booktube and I'm sure you have too and Paul Kennedy was a neurosurgeon
neuroscientist who was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and wrote this book
in the last couple of years of his life and its really a rumination on what
death is and how his experience from going from doctor to patient and how
that changed his understanding of life and death and it's so beautifully
written and it's very very interesting and very philosophical and it's
ruminations on what death is and he was always interested as a student into
understanding death and how that interacts with life and so when he was
diagnosed with this cancer it put a whole new perspective on it and he was
experiencing it himself I must say that when I heard good reviews of this book I
am a very very naturally cynical person and when people have said oh you must
read this book it's amazing how little part of me did think that people were
just saying it was amazing because obviously Paul Kenneth E died so there
was a little bit of reluctance there for me to pick this book up because I
thought perhaps it's only going to affect me emotionally but because I know
that it's true I mean is it going to be that bit of a book in and of itself and
I can safely say after reading it but he's a it is a fantastic book and it's
written so well it's such a shame that Paul Canon if he couldn't have lived
longer because I'm sure he would have realized his dream of writing a lot
later in his life because if the prose is absolutely excellent but it's this
the way that it weaves in philosophical themes as
so if you are a little bit like me and you're perhaps thinking do I really want
to be reading something about someone dying of lung cancer like is that
something I want to be put putting myself through I would say it's
completely worth it and I'm so pleased that I read it so bitter the passionate
one this week I've got three books I absolutely loved and one like absolutely
hate it I would so love to speak to you in the comments about all of these books
I would especially like to talk to anyone else who has read this one
because I what I just want to talk about it more I want to know if if maybe I'm
being unfair to the book do you ever get that when you really hate a book it's
like you want to talk to more people about it so just to corroborate your
opinion Rabb's or to tell you that you miss something
or whatever it just makes a little bit more interesting anyway I hope that
you've been reading lots of interesting stuff in August as well do tell me about
those and I will see you in my next video bye