@@ThatsSoPoe Hi Shannon! I'm very much recovered by now, haha. Thanks! I thought it's eerie that that 60s book feels so relevant, maybe even a bit prescient. You are familiar with May 13, and I think a portion of that book seems to foreshadow that real life event.

@@ariannefowler455 I hope you will enjoy Kiss of the Spider Woman if you get to it later. I'm also enjoying In the Beginning - for some reason, I'm expecting something sombre, considering the time and place setting, but Ratushinskaya got such a sense of humor!

@@Gagging4Lit Thank you!! So did u get the book?

@@SluggishReader Yes I did :D

@@100onBooks Thank you Nyambura! Honestly, sometimes I feel like I'm too critical on Malaysian books I read (maybe I haven't read a lot of Malaysian lit)... And there's a bit of self-censorship on my part too, like with Blessed Mouse in this vid. I'm curious, what holds you back from being frank when talking about Kenyan lit? I hope you will enjoy Nine Continents! And yay for The Hearing Trumpet!! 🥰🥰

@@SluggishReader Re: Kenyan books. There's *so little* being published in English (the main language I read in, my Kiswahili reading fell off after I left high school) that I don't want to be the person who "pulls a Kenyan down" 😭😭😭 so I'll hold off on speaking on it or pad my review. This is complicated by the fact that so many of those books are published outside the country (continent, even) and it's often *painfully obvious* we (Kenyans in Kenya who have only lived in Kenya ie. not "Afropolitans") are not the intended audience. As my friend Don Handa says, we're a "collateral audience" BUT I want my sisters (it's often women!) to succeed and I don't want to be one of the 3 African voices speaking about a book and being a hater. Rambling answer (sorry!) but I'd like to hear about what informs your self-censorship. [Unrelated: Your sister knows you so well!!!]

@@book-ramble Hi Mark! Thank you so much for stopping by!! 😁😁

@@PageTurnersWithKatja Front desk jobs are scary! I respect those who can do it full time. I look forward to our upcoming buddy read! (Though that will be months in the future.. maybe we can have something else before that too 🤔)

@@scallydandlingaboutthebooks I encountered a 1-star book recently (which I will talk about in an upcoming video) but I thought the streak has indeed been rewarding! I feel like Season of Migration to the North deserves a re-read. There's something that feels close to home with the scene when the narrator discovers Mustafa's secret room. I'm considering re-reads for 2025 but I don't know yet. Things are very uncertain and I'm not even sure where I will be in 2025. 😂

@@SluggishReader life is full of adventures ✨️

@@Gagging4Lit I kinda paused with The Whole Story (mainly because it is a short story collection, and I'm usually kinda flaky with short story collections lol).. but I will get to it hopefully sometime close to Christmas (I don't know why but Ali Smith's books usually have a bit of Christmassy vibes).. I'm totally unfamiliar with Wicked's story and I just read the play's synopsis earlier this month on Wikipedia. I thought it was intriguing 😂 I heard the new movie is good, but I have not seen it, though I have been enjoying the memes lol (the memes being Floptok-adjacent doesn't help). I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Orbital. I'm broke now so no Booker spree for me like I had years ago (not that it was much of a spree). Maybe one day if I'm rich I can try buying the whole longlist of the year.

@@Gagging4Lit go for it!!!

@@sarah-roadworthy I think I could see some aspects of the book that might discourage some readers. I'm curious, do you remember why you DNF it?

@@SluggishReader I just wasn't engaging with the story. I found I wasn't very interested when Mustafah started to tell his tell. It could be the case of wrong time/wrong book.

@@ReadBecca hi Becca! I think most of my wardrobe is brightly colored 🤣 Colors are great!! I find it difficult to find Nothomb's books here. I only learned recently that she's very prolific and there are still books of hers not translated yet.

@@ThatsSoPoe Some parts of Hurricane Season are quite graphic and violent, so a bit of heads-up there! I thought the rawness makes the writing beautiful, but I can see how it might not be for everyone.

@@PageTurnersWithKatja I'm excited that you will be reading it soon! I hope you'll like it. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Nine Continents, Katja! I have not had the time to make a video as I've been super busy this week, but hopefully I could do it some time.

@@davidnovakreadspoetry Hi David.. I guess I felt a bit more motivated than usual lately. Having the luck of reading a string of good books definitely helped! Curious, what made you give up war novels after Unknown Soldiers?

@ I was finding too much similarity among them - not that I’ve read a million.

@@davidnovakreadspoetry Hey David! Ooh that is delightful - do enlighten me in case I missed it...! I thought it sounds a bit like Biographie de la femme which is what it sorta is. Recently.. Perhaps it was the Fernando Melchor book Hurricane Season which I talked about in the recent reads video with Chun Sue. Actually, the next catch-up recent read will also have a book - Tayeb Salih's - Season of Migration to the North - that sorta connects sex and violence, this time in postcolonialism context, although sex plays smaller part. (but interesting and slightly spoilery, so I didn't mention it too much when recording)

@ Ooh I just don’t know - I know I’ve been hearing about _Season of Migration_ all over the place - I’ve even put it on my list (not that that means anything) so that might be the answer. 🙂

@@davidnovakreadspoetry I will upload the video with _Season of Migration_ probably this evening (Malaysian time). 😉

@@PageTurnersWithKatja Have you read other Yoko Ogawa and if yes, what did you think about them? Do you have any favorite?

@SluggishReader very different from one another I think, The Housekkeper and The Professor is such a cosy found family book. The short story collection The Diving Pool is kind of surreal, and I have The Memory Police and Mina's Matchbox on my owned TBR list.

@PageTurnersWithKatja The Housekeeper + the Professor has quite a presence in pastel instagram, I'm not surprised to hear that it's a cosy book. I'm intrigued to hear that her books are quite different from one another so I look forward to trying The Housekeeper + the Professor next (just bought it!)

@@PageTurnersWithKatja Hahah Katja I'm glad to hear that! 😆

@@NurChaos Thank you!! 😁 I hope you'll be able to find it.

Hi David! I didn't really google her much when I was reading so I didn't notice her online presence. But I just did after reading your comment, and I think I agree with you.

Oh yes Marilyn, I think you'll have an interesting point of view on that book since I believe you have more knowledge on Japanese culture and sensibilities than I do!

Hi Marilyn! Encountering a series of good books does so much wonder to my reading as a whole - it is so motivating and feels so wonderful indeed!

@@ThatsSoPoe Hi Shannon - thank you! I'm planning to upload more in the coming days. I think this 5/4-star reading streak is probably one of the best ones I had so far.

Hi Marilyn! Please send her my gratitude!! ❤ I cut my hair because I experienced heavy hair loss two months ago... I miss my hair too, haha. Hope you are doing well!

@@sarah-roadworthy I thought Cecily's motivation in collaborating with the Japanese is very interesting because it stems from her racism - her thinking herself better due to her being part white. Sadly it isn't further explored in the book, focusing instead on her bad romance. Not sure if you have read it - I would suggest The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng for a good portrayal of the Japanese occupation period. It even has a romance subplot but it works well with the rest of the book.

@@SluggishReader I LOVED the Garden of Evening Mists and intend to read any book Eng publishes as a result. I agree the rascism/colorism piece was interesting, but it felt so obvious and in your face. I thought Pramoedya Ananta Toer's series starting with This Earth of Mankind does a much better job of illustrating the complexities and racial hierarchy in Indonesia.

@@sarah-roadworthy I have wanted to read This Earth of Mankind for a very long time now, but it is such a well-regarded modern classic that every time I see it is listed on a used book website, someone snatched it before I could click "checkout" 😂 Your endorsement of the series further cements my interest towards the books. By the way, have you read Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan? I thought that is a great historical fiction set in colonial Indonesia, although it is heavy with magical realism. I enjoyed Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain which is also set during the Japanese occupation of Malaya. It also has a very homoerotic relationship story which I thought was... fascinating. I have not read The House of Doors but definitely am quite interested.

@@SluggishReader I'm listening to Gift of Rain right now based on this exchange. I forgot I had yet to read it. I had not heard of Beauty is a Wound, but will look into it. I met an Indonesian woman at work and mentioned I had read Toer's series. She got weepy! She was so touched that someone outside of her country had read such a beloved book.

@sarah-roadworthy That is a lovely story Sarah 🧡 I hope you're enjoying The Gift of Rain!

@@ThatsSoPoe For living authors I don't mind devouring their body of work a bit faster since they are likely to produce more work in the future (more likely than dead authors, at least). I find myself really taking my time with Ursula K Le Guin which I've been enjoying a lot... Then again she has written *plenty* so I think I might not need to be _that_ slow 😬🤭😆 I wonder (or, worry about) what my inclination towards drama says about me.

@@BookishAdventuresInWellbeing Thank you!! 😁💙

@@heathergregg9975 Thank you for organising this and sharing the list! 😁🥰

@@Gagging4Lit I didn't expect so much 70s American cultural studies content in The Virgin Suicides because I thought it was just gonna be something gossipy 😆 But I liked it for that. Some parts of the lectures do feel like lectures being dropped whole onto the page, but there are attempts to interweave them organically with the story. Btw, I hope to start The Whole Story soon 😘🤩

@@alldbooks9165 That book is lovely isn't it? 🥰 Do you think you will feel differently about it today?

@@lindysmagpiereads 🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽 I just got a short story collection by Ali Smith recently! Normally something like The Storm We Made would be a DNF for me, but since it was borrowed from a friend, I decided to finish it 🤭

@@SluggishReader Well, by finishing a book that irritated you, we viewers had the pleasure of watching your full critique. Is the Ali Smith collection The First Person? Or Public Library? Enjoy!

@@lindysmagpiereads I got The Whole Story. Have you read that one?

@@SluggishReader oooh, it’s been so long that I wasn’t sure, but yes. I read it before I started keeping my reading journal online. I looked at a description and recognized the stories described, but my memories are vague. Definitely need to reread it.

Trying her nonfiction is definitely my plan! Actually, that was what I felt when I read LA Woman... there was strong lack of coherence that one would probably find when one recounts something from real life. Fiction or novels I find tend to play by that "novelistic" rule but LA Woman was just messy and did not have that novelistic character to it.

@@bilbobryan I find that my focus is better in cold spaces. The hot weather here does not help me at all in terms of focus and productivity 😆 anyway, I finished Artful in a cold MRT bus today!

@@SluggishReader I can't read on a bus. Too shaky. On MRT, OK 😅

@@bilbobryan Usually I can't too. But the MRT bus ride was smooth and the book was unputdownable lol

@@PageTurnersWithKatja Thanks Katja! I hope you'll get to read Your Name Shall Be Tanga one day!

@@sarah-roadworthy a buddy read sounds good - I have never read any Drndić but flipping through the pages of Trieste the text looks... interesting, to say the least 😂 I'll let you know about the buddy read next year if I could get my hands on my Trieste! (My copy is now on the other side of Malaysia 😂)

@@SluggishReader No rush, Freddie. Any time. If after reading Leica and you decide Drndic is not for you, we can look for something else.

@@jarrodsio Thanks for your comments! I especially love the novel's epigraph - the Malay proverb about eating chili - because it is so apt to how books like this can be perceived. I agree with you - lack of empathy becomes more visible today and so does the polarization in Malaysia. I'm glad the book ends with that uncomfortable note (and not some faux-positivity) because the issue is still way too ingrained in real life society.

@@SluggishReader u r right. the epigraph was prescient 😁

@@ThatsSoPoe I feel a bit bad about the deception 🤣🤣 I don't do pub crawls - I do mall crawls!

@@alldbooks9165 Thank you Doris! I got a habit of associating memories with odors 😁

@@lindysmagpiereads I think Ali Smith is brilliant in the sense that her writing is able to capture my interest even when I don't understand much of the references. I felt that way about How to be both too but it's one of my all-time favorite books 🧡 I hope you'll (and everyone) be able to try the Dewi Anggraeni book. I picked it up from a used book shop without much expectation. I think the fact that I just visited Indonesia for the first time some weeks prior helped with the reading experience. 😁

@@constancecampbell4610 Thank you for the film recommendation! 🥰

@@JessBookgirlTV Thanks Jessica!

@@davidnovakreadspoetry I find that here malls are fairly beloved. After all, a mall is a gigantic air-conditioned space in the middle of a heat island. In the US, malls to me feel more practical, a pragmatic conglomerate of shops. Thanks David, it's reassuring to know I'm more interesting than expected. 🤣🤣 I've been considering the idea of including cooking clips into the videos, so .. some time in the future perhaps?

Yay - I think that was also why I was interested in Lolly Willowes. Apparently it's kinda... magical? Very interested now. There was a period this year in which I watched Lifetime movies almost every weeknight, so I feel like I'm quite attuned to the Lifetime aesthetics 🤣

Hi Katja! I would love to read the Xiaolu Guo book with you! Perhaps I can send you a message over on Instagram for that? I'm kinda planning to read Aurora Leigh for Victober (or some time around it) perhaps we can read that together also if you are interested. Can't say I'm good at reading poetry but one gotta start somewhere I guess (though starting with *nineteenth century* poetry is probably... a decision 😝)

IG is good. I'll think about Aurora. I just looked at a sample of the writing, and it's not as "scary" as I thought... but it's still more work than regular prose 😅

For some reason I accidentally disabled the comment (instead of disabling comment moderation). It was so silly 😂 Anyway, my "ulterior" motive in making this video is to see if anyone wants to do any buddy reading! 😂

Thank you Bryan!! Yeah, I have a bit of time to post more frequently now. Kino's bargain bin is so unpredictable.. but you don't see RM3 books in mint condition often! And yeah, let's do Treacle Walker!

@@myreadinglife8816 Thank you Heidi! 🧡🧡

I guess I'm not surprised since the kitchen holds some significance in Purge. Many of the variant covers feature kitchens. As for The Leopard, I don't think I'm influential enough to affect anyone's thoughts, heheh.. I have not progressed much in that book, but so far I'm kinda liking it. It's a bit of a struggle navigating the foreign geographical setting, but that happens to me with every book taking place somewhere I'm not familiar anyway. Xinran apparently wrote a lot of nonfiction too, and I'm thinking of trying those out. And I finished Hell of a Book and I talked about it in my most recent reads video... So I guess you can share you thoughts now haha (I'm intrigued... since I saw your *gasp* Goodreads rating lol)

@@SluggishReader I have opened up the atlas for many books. When characters travel from one city to another, I need to know what that looks like on a map! I'm way behind on my BT viewing. I'm sensing differing opinions on Hell of a Book....

@@BeyondBooks-wt5il Thank you Reney! I hope to include more of such footage in my videos.