I read Hozier's favorite books and got pit tickets to his show!

[@CheyeW13]

This is a good breakdown of the books and why hozier likely likes/recommends them, but I feel you missed a spot with 1984. hozier writes love songs but he also writes about political oppression (both including and separate from love). he has a focus on language as a lyricist, but also as an irish person, whose native/local language the english very intentionally tried to wipe out.

[@artnunymiss2530]

Can you imagine being made to read 1984 in high school in 1981? LOL! And then living through what came after? Lord have mercy I'm psychically exhausted.

[@bethmw28]

I can identify with you and your friend losing it at the concert - I've seen Hozier 5 times now and cried at every single one 😅 (cherry wine and unknown are my guaranteed sobs, but Abstract really got me on this latest one for some reason!). P.s. you both looked absolutely beautiful in your show outfits! 💖

[@violentvisage]

i’ve never clicked on a video so quickly, so stoked on this one!! books and hozier my two fave things 🥹

[@brizzyybooks]

love this Katie!! I love Hozier’s newer things but my absolute favorite song of his and will forever be Like Real People Do 💕

[@artnunymiss2530]

Oh, Charlotte is so nice! Super excited for you and I'm sure you will have the best time

[@Hillary429]

I love the new album and the music video for de selby part II.. can’t wait to watch this

[@crafts_n_books]

I loved your discussion of 1984! When I read it a few years ago (as an audiobook during work) I definitely didn’t get much out of it and really loved revisiting some of those ideas with your thoughts! A three year delayed virtual buddy read vibes lol I feel like I need to give it another read when I can give it more of my attention Obsessed with the Hozier concert footage!!! I couldn’t get tickets and am living through other peoples concert content I hope you had the best time!

[@lekofo]

Loved loved loved the looks you both picked up for the show 🖤 As for the music and books, "Resistance" by Muse was inspired by 1984. I always loved this song for no reason; but now, after have read 1984, it gives me the major shiver😟

[@kayceratops7719]

I read Dante’s Inferno when Unreal Unearth debuted. It was my first time ever reading it. I also grew up Catholic, I went to a Catholic school all growing up and my Mom’s whole side of the family is Catholic. I myself was with the religion for the first 14 years of my life. I found Inferno so fascinating because Hell has always been a horrifying image in my brain. Therefore to see someone’s interpretation of it was compelling to read. Of course since the story from the Middle Ages it is a time in which laws of the church were strict beyond comprehension, reading some parts were unsettling for a multitude of reasons. Dante’s perspective of his life is portrayed in the story. His own lover in Heaven watching over him, politics in Florence at the time,his favorite poet as his guide, and people he had met throughout his life. Personally Dante’s Inferno was an enticing read.

[@Ms.SpookyNerd]

Great vlog 📚🎃👻🍄☕🥧🍂🍁🕯️☠️🪦

[@nisei.reader]

I loved this!

[@artnunymiss2530]

James Joyce is talking about how oppressive it is to be Irish, which I'm glad you can't relate to! But Catholicism and its adherence, in our context, equal resistance to colonialism and standing up for one's ethnic community and personal family, all at the same time. And there's an extreme pressure and guilt to do that. You can't imagine the intense pressure to conform, how stifling it was to live under the boot heel, to survive the artificially imposed famine. It's hard for us over here to recognize how radical his songs are in their context, how bold he is. The Irish are extremely inhibited and have been notoriously forced to use allegory and talking around things. My Irish relatives constantly gasped at the things I said freely, which were normal for me as an American. There's a reason he's so popular despite being not fun to read. I mean, when I visited there in the 1980s they confiscated my birth control pills at the border because Catholicism, made me stop them in the middle of the month.

[@ElinWinblad]

Where can one read more about the artificial famine. I’ve heard about it but anyone I bring it up to says it was still due to potatoe issue.

[@artnunymiss2530]

@@ElinWinblad There were enough potatoes to feed everyone-if you don’t mind living on potatoes. But the people were all sharecroppers on their ancestral land, forced to pay exorbitant taxes to the English. The English had some massive gambling debts. And they forced the Irish to pay with their last potato and starve. There was no blight except the English. The thing to study if you really want to understand, is how Oliver Cromwell ethnically cleansed Northern Ireland. “Kill every man, woman, child, dog, and goat.”

[@MilenaReads]

When I read 1984 I had such conflicting feelings about it. I was fascinated by it, but also really annoyed somehow. The misogynie definitely didn’t help.

[@victoriazeccola]

I actually read The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man for my Irish Lit class in college. Even with the context of the class I found this to not be a book that resonated with me. But I think that has more to do with James Joyce's voice as an author over the content of the book. Irish history is very interesting! I'll have to dig deep and see if I can remember the other books we read. The only one I remember off the top of my head is Murphy by Samuel Beckett. We did read a good one about the revolution, too... I'll have to find it.

[@KatieReadsKoziesAndMore]

I was raised during the Cold War. I remember we used to have air raid drills in my elementary school. (We had to get under our desks and wrap our arms around our head.) It turns out kids were so freaked out by fearing bombs that psychiatrists developed this drill to give elementary school kids a sense of self preservation and control by hiding under our desks. Fast forward to high school and we read 1984. Honestly, I spent most of my youth thinking these things could happen to us. I finally got past that mindset and 9/11 happened. Consider yourself lucky that you weren’t forced to read this book (plus Animal Farm and William Goulding’s Lord of the Flies) in high school. All the fighting in DC now is making me recall lines from these books. I only read them once…that is how much they still affect me.

[@aliyachamberlain9786]

What is your favorite hozier song?

[@katiemariereads]

This is so tough I think right now it's got to be work song or jackie and wilson but I feel like it changes all the time for me!

[@aliyachamberlain9786]

@@katiemariereads Jackie and Wilson is an amazing song! Definitely in my top five. Though Cherry Wine and Like Real People Do are my favorite, I honestly can't find any other songs similar so if you have any recommendations please send them my way!

[@aliyachamberlain9786]

The closest I have ever gotten was 'For the dancing and the dreaming' from how to train your dragon 2 lol