The Mid Year Book Tag! | My best and worst bits of 2024 (so far)

Let’s go through the undulations of my reading year!
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[@baldANDfat]

you are the only booktuber I trust for books suggestions.

[@JoeSpivey02]

I'm your bookish north star! That is such a pregnant (and kind) comment. Thank you so much!

[@HannahsBooks]

Jane Eyre is my very favorite! So glad to see you list it here. And thank you very much for your careful Arendt read. (I too had a hard time reading it in short bits, and I never felt like I had anything worth saying-but I do hope to discuss it on my channel eventually. I would not have picked it up this year if it were not for you.)

[@pretentioussystem9367]

17:43 Oh ok. Dark topics will never be a crowd pleaser. Many thanks for giving "Eichmann in Jerusalem" some extended airtime and introducing it to younger readers. It is defiantly good to know even though all the controversy around it and her. (Anyone with a state propaganda against them will have troubles to be understood properly.) I just wonder now why J. Peterbrat keeps on harping about Shires' work when Arendt's writing is more to the point why N-Germany was absolutely despicable. I am looking forward to your Orwell biography review :) After completing this biography I am very tempted to get the almost 90 hours Orwell Collection to listen to some of his works again and to check out a few for the first time. Cheers!

[@courtenaywrites]

Though I hate categorising my reading this way, my favourite book of the year so far is one I'm currently reading: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas. My 'worst' is Dead Animals by Phoebe Stuckes.

[@DressyCrooner]

The Count of Monte Cristo is a rollicking good read.

[@courtenaywrites]

@@DressyCrooner I’m having the BEST time! It’s my new favourite book!

[@JoeSpivey02]

I keep hearing good things about Monte Cristo!

[@courtenaywrites]

@@JoeSpivey02 For good reason! I reckon you’d find it a romp!

[@tiredgirlreads]

Laughed so much at your parrot introduction hahahaha thank you for your observat bus rides - I hope to hear more stories in the future I like how with Bronte you mention the victorian rhapsody. Can't wait for your unequivocally unbiased perspective on the Boris Johnson book coming out 🫡 and I'm glad that Agatha Christie made your list! Now I'm dreadfully curious, was War and Peace worse than Normal People?!!

[@JoeSpivey02]

Nooooo way! In both its scope and its execution, Normal People falls far short of the mark!

[@Lu.G.]

Luckily, I was not in the middle of drinking my water when you likened yourself to Felix Carbury! 😆 You've had quite the year, so far and I appreciate hearing your thoughts on some of my favorites (Wolf Hall, Jane Eyre and Evil Under the Sun). 🤓

[@DressyCrooner]

Jane Eyre - only read it once, enjoyed it but prefer the other Bronte sisters. War and Peace - loved it until the last third, when Tolstoy amputated Natasha's character and made her into a housewife. Hitch-22 - a classic, loved it though Hitchens' name-dropping becomes insufferable the more you read it. Crime and Punishment - always thought-provoking. Raskolnikov is still one of the protagonists in fiction I most identify with. Wolf Hall - great but I need to re-read it. Still never read any Trollope. Six books I read this year would be: Dickens' Dombey and Son (which I loved - later Dickens is a delight), Hardy's Jude the Obscure (which I liked but found too on-the-nose in its social commentary), his The Woodlanders and Return of the Native (both of which I enjoyed), The Brothers Karamazov (a re-read) and Middlemarch (also a re-read). My personal new favourite character is Edith Granger from Dombey and Son. A rare example of a strong female character in Dickens, who resists the corrupt society around her and the vile men that seek to ensnare her.

[@JoeSpivey02]

With that level of pithy, organised criticism of your year's reading, you'll have most lacklustre book critics running for the hills!

[@vesch5083]

I'm watching this after the England v CH match and I was excited for past you to watch the game. It was not quite as exciting a game as Spain v Germany which had me jumping and yelling, but it was also a nerve tingling game as well

[@JoeSpivey02]

It certainly was nerve-tingling! Especially if you have a national dog in the fight. Have you ever seen a more assured quintet of penalty takers?

[@captainnolan5062]

If you didn't enjoy War and Peace, it is likely you read the Maude translation. I just found your channel and tried to suggest the Briggs or Dunnigan translation but I am apparently too late. This is a good video on how to read one of the greatest books ever written: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lWGphZmKh62jrq8

[@Manfred-nj8vz]

23:53. 'Crime and Punishment'. Oh dear. I hope that you'll read this book objectively as you did with 'War and Peace'. After having read Dostoevsky's novels multiple times in different periods of my life, I've come to the conclusion that he is one of the most overestimated writers of all times. For me he's not just overestimated, he is even a... bad writer; not even mediocre. It's obvious that my opinion belongs into a very, very tiny minority that happens to read D. critically. At the moment I don't want to say anything more, except for this: It's up to you when you are going to read it: before or after you've read the novel. I'm talking about Nabokov's thoughts on Dostoevsky (maybe you know them already? The book is called 'Lectures on Russian Literature'). Although I don't agree with every critical opinion Nabokov expressed for many writers (most of them are included in his other book: 'Strong Opinions'), I totally agree with everything he had to say about D. and C&P in particular. Another time I could express you my thoughts about the other "masterpiece" by D. 'The Brothers Karamazov' - one of the worst novels ever written, according to my opinion of course. So, in case you don't "like" C&P keep in mind that a) you don't have to and b) you're not alone - nowadays, fortunately, there are some critical opinions about D. on YT. They are not the majority of course, but still they do exist.

[@JamesCarter1998]

It’s refreshing to see someone with this take; I read C&P a few years ago, and thought it was just fine - definitely an interesting concept, but Dostoyevsky just struck me as being super pretentious, preachy, and just so heavy-handed with the philosophical and religious elements. I know that Dostoyevsky is revered by so many “serious” literary critics and academics, but I personally just didn’t find the book particularly insightful or profound if I’m being honest…I do plan on reading The Brothers Karamazov at some point - so who knows, maybe I’ll have better luck with that and finally be able to understand why so many people rave about this man 🙏🤷🏼‍♂️

[@Manfred-nj8vz]

@@JamesCarter1998 More refreshing and even hopeful is for someone to realise that he's not alone as far as his unconventional, to say the least, opinion on such a "literary giant" concerns. You are absolute right about all the (pseudo)philosophical as well as the other aspects of Dostoevsky you've mentioned. For me, not even his literary language has absolute nothing to offer. In case you are interested I would suggest two Booktube videos which take a quite critical distance from this book in particular: a) 'Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky BOOK REVIEW Part 2 of 2' by 'Better than Food' and b) 'Ich rede eine Stunde lang schlecht über SCHULD & SÜHNE von DOSTOJEWSKI!' by 'andrea_wintermaedchen'. The second video is extremely well done and helpful. She talks exactly about what you've said: 'the definitely interesting concept'; but she criticizes 'the extremely bad realisation'. However, the language of the video is German, but maybe you can watch it, more or less, with the automatic translation. Or you are a German speaker so you won't have any problem watching the video.