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Awh thank you for being part of our bookish community! ⭐️

Ahh I know so many people who disliked Jude the Obscure, but I really loved it! However, I’m glad you did enjoy Tess as it’s one of my all time favourite books!

They really are a perfect match!

The humor in Jezebel’s Daughter was sooo refreshing! I loved reading about Fritz 🤣 also the way Jack talked to Fritz was so funny to me!

Thank you! I’ll add that one to my list :)

Hi Mike, surprised no one else put Hawthorne out there, seems an obvious choice! Problem I had with Seven Gables was that I'd read Scarlet Letter first, loved it and expected Gables to be Hester 2.0 and was thus disappointed...kinda my own fault. I complained about it at the time to one of my reading buddies and she cracked me up by quipping "yeah it sucks, ya should have asked me first!" R.I.P. sister Chris... But that was 2 decades ago and since then I've changed my mind. One of the YT readers (John David I think) pointed out that Gables says much the same as Faulkner's Southern gothics..." The past is never dead, it isn't even past".. a message that seems ever so germane today as we take about the war in Isreal or my damn 40 acres and my mule! Besides, speaking of Faulkner, who says that a genius should be pigon holed into one narrow canyon. Nobody ever reads his pre-Yoknapatawpha County works but I found Soldiers Pay excellent (Hemingway could easily have written it) and Mosquitos had to have been a collaboration with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Mark Twain or atleast Jerome K. Jerome! No where in either book do you find the slightest hint of Thomas Sutpen or Quentin Compson...but they're coming, and so was his Nobel Prize! I know this is a classics channel and that's for the most part my thing too but every now and again I'll pick up somebody that's not dead, GOD forgive me...and want to read 3 more disparate novels then The Goldfinch, The Little Friend, and The Secret History...good luck! Incidently Donna Tartt's second book is what brought me to re-read my Faulkner cannon, I just assumed that grandma Edie was supposed to be Harper Lee's Scout projected out 50 years, hence down the Southern gothic rabbit hole...I think FEMKE's got us reading a couple Oscar Wilde plays next? Hope you enjoy them!

@@dougirvin2413 Doug: I’ve made a note of all of them. Cheers!

Thank you!! 🥰⭐️

I’ll have to read The Moonstone next! I can already tell Collins will be a new favourite author of mine :)

Thank you!

Ahhh how fun! Enjoy your reading :)

@@femsfables Thank you!

I hope you get around to reading it one day. It’s so good!

I will order it for sure 😊

These books were definitely rather challenging, but I highly enjoyed reading them anyways :)

I had never heard of this book either before seeing it in my local second hand bookstore, but I’m so glad I found it!

@@dougirvin2413 It is indeed really difficult to top Wuthering Heights! Thank you for the effort you put into writing this comment and sharing your opinions on these books! You are right, I forgot one of the books I wanted to mention (sadly!)… That book was ‘Jezebel’s Daughter’ by Wilkie Collins, a recent read that I loved soooo much!

​@@femsfablesIn the immortal words of Charlie Brown…”Awwwwwww!” I’ve had Wilkie Collins come across my radar before, but for some reason never tried him out. So I started your Jezebel this AM. I can tell this title is going to be triggering. It looks to be only 10 hrs or so (I’m SUPER dyslexic, only recorded books for me) but I should be through it in a couple days. Thanks again for the recommendations!

@dougirvin2413 Let me know what you think of it! Enjoy your reading :)

​@@femsfablesHi FEMKE, alright I got through Jezebelle PTL! I made a bunch of notes (I usually don’t do that!) so if you’re interested in a more nuanced discussion I’d be happy to meet you on a live stream or comments after your own review video, if you want to make one. I said before Jezebel would be “triggering” and O boy was I right. I’m a retired prison guard and spent fully 7yrs of my career working in maximum security psyk including with the SMPU (Self-Mutilator Prevention Unit)...yeah I’ve seen some s**t! So I was fascinated by the early introduction of the Jack Straw character in this novel, elements of which did not disappoint! I totally know Jack Straw, quite a few as a matter of fact. I always love it when an author is able to capture some small, fine point of an esoteric topic that I happen to know something about. I’m an old guy (obviously!) and not a Harry Potter fan, but one of my reading buddies some years back was and she ‘made’ me read the first few books in the series, and I was struck by her depiction of the guards in her Prisoner of Azkaban. J.K.R. imagined their primary job was to suck the souls out of the incarcerated wizards…I thought ‘damn, that’s my job!’ She wasn’t far from the truth! Similarly Wilkie really nails some little known aspects of RTP (Residential Treatment Programs) aka prison psky wards. Like the custom made restraints (absolutely true!), and the Warden of the institution calling for the two day-shift regular guards by name (we were called RUO’s, Regular Unit Officers and made a few dollars more than the CO’s, Corrections Officers…but we were assigned to the cell blocks every day, usually the same block, so you got to know the prisoners in your block pretty well.) I totally knew Jack Straw! did I mention that already?!? LOL! His real name was Spanky McDonald, a bit of a legend in the Michigan Dept. of Corrections! He became the most expensive self-mutilator the State ever housed, he was famous for his belly cutting (did I say I’ve seen some s**t?!?). Spanky couldn’t read or write so when he’d get letters from his mother he’d ask me or one of the other RUOs to read them aloud to him. By way of his own letters back to his mom he’d (wait for it, this may make you cry!) carefully trace out his own hand on a blank sheet of paper and mail it home…I’m not making this stuff up…triggering! Spanky is dead now, but just like with Mrs. Wagner…he’ll be back! As for the rest of this little Victorian jewel…well I happen to have a soft spot for the genre so maybe my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. You see my mother read aloud to my sister and I when we were kids and over the course of a year or so she read us all the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, to this day The Hound of the Baskervilles is my go-to. So Doyle was kind of my gate-way drug into serious literature, they don’t get anymore Victorian than Sir Arthur! That said, my only critiques of Jezebel are superficial and maybe due to my own rush to get through the title so I could discuss it with you. On the whole I found Collins to be a solid good read (I concur with it’s 3.8 out of 5 score). Incidentally other readers do not cite this as his best work, like I said I’ve never met him until now, have you read other Wilkie’s, which one is your favorite? I thought Collins was going to do more in the direction of his early feminism than he did with this novel. He starts out with the whole “hire more female clerks at the firm” thing but then kind of only makes it an afterthought. Seems like he might have contrived a female narrator instead of David, the story could have lent itself to that, especially since he didn’t pursue the plot line of a 3rd wheel relationship between David and Minna when anybody could see they should totally have fallen in love after their first meeting in the post office scene. Come on Wilkie, where’s your imagination guy?!? Of course he did bring us basically strong female protagonists, a real innovation for the Victorian mind I’d say! My beloved Sir A.C.D. only has one woman who jumps out of 1321 pages of Holmes, in his Irene Adler of A Scandal in Bohemia. Mostly female characters of this era are expected to just go to parties, gossip, drink tea, chase boys, and faint. I know I’m being too judgemental on this one point but I always hate it when an author with a readership shys away from a full throated commitment to some progressive idea in which they clearly believe, I’m still mad a William Faulkner for not coming right out and saying “hey Southern bigots are stupid” when he had a platform to do it, instead he dances around with hundreds of circuitous pages of Henry Sutpen and Quentin Compson ‘representing’ the antebellum South and acting like a**holes. Come on man! just say it!! GOD help me, surely this has done me more good in the writing then it will you in the reading. Like I said, if you want to discuss Jezebel’s Daughter or any other classic work please “Just Send Me Word”-Orlando Figes. (WOW! there’s another one for you, but I’ll shut up now!) Take care FEMKE and “Keep up the good work, we’re all counting on you!”---Airplane, circa 1980AD

@dougirvin2413 Woah thank you for this incredible comment! I wish I could answer to everything you said, but that would take me quite some time.. I haven’t read anything else by Wilkie Collins but after my experience with this book I know I have to! I do agree that it would have been interesting to read more of the feminist side of the story that was introduced at the start. And yes… a little love affair between David and Minna was looming and it would’ve been great to see that happen. I’ll discuss this book a bit more in depth in my wrap up at the end of the month :)

It truly is very horrific and heartbreaking!

@@femsfables It came as a surprise to me, just picked up the book by chance, and at worst expected to find it a little bit boring. At that point I had to put the book down and it took me months to pick it up again...

I understand! I was already familiar with Hardy’s novels so I knew they could be quite violent and triggering sometimes, but this one was on a whole other level…

Thank you! Kafka is perfect for a dark autumn read!

Hi @angirlgarrido, hope you're 'enjoying' The Metamorphosis! I've found Kafka to weird to like, but he certainly dredges up truth in a way that might make any Old Testament prophet proud. When you're braced for more Kafkaesque whak-a-dooness I'm sure you'll find his The Trial to live up to all the hype, no disappointments! I hope you 'enjoy'!

I hope you’ll love Hardy as much as I do when you get around to reading something of his! I’ve recently finished Jezebel’s Daughter by Wilkie Collins and loved it. Can’t wait to read some more of his books :)

Hi KB, I just finished Jezebel and loved it. Everyone seems to be saying Moonstone is even better, guess I'll put it on my TBR list. I haven't read my Hardy cannon in 20 years, but as I recall they ALL have at least one scene that is exceptionally well written and all but maybe Far From the Madding Crowd (this is his book that brought us one my most oft quoted lines, the one about "the fate of dogs and other philosophers who carry an idea to is logical conclusion."...BRILLIANT!) have some pretty macabre elements, Jude probably is the worst offender. That said, as I mentioned in a previous post, Jude really is the patron saint of all of us who wished we could have been FEMKE, but instead ended up being Septimus Warren Smith...spoiler alert!...he totally doesn't end up owning a house at Purley and a motor car! (GOD bless Virginia Woolf). I say try out a Hardy, makes no difference which one, all are good. Enjoy the read!

I think it’s just really hard to keep a book still when we’re so excited to talk about them :)

@@femsfables maybe get a bookstand

I disagree! I love when booktubers hold the books, rather than a pic on the screen! You get to see their edition of the book, any tabs or how well read the book looks, and just seeing the real book being held or being shown the pages, is comforting and the reason why I watch book videos!

Thank you!

zot he?! dankje 🥰

Thank you! And yes, me too :)

Ahh I absolutely love Wuthering Heights, but to each their own of course :)

Awh enjoy reading Wuthering Heights! It’s the perfect book to read on a dark day 🌧️⭐️

Thank you! I appreciate your constant support!

Oh ‘Yonge’ and young do make sense! Thank you for that info :) I have found it on world of books as well and have ordered it on there!

Wow that’s great! It’s always the shipping that makes it expensive 😩 thank you!!

Thank you! I am looking forward to reading these a lot :)

Ah I am so excited to read The Doctors Wife! I’ll definitely read Lady Audleys Secret as well some day :)

Thank you!

It is and it is beautiful!

Thank you! Greetings back to you and happy Victober! ⭐️

Thank you so much!!

Happy Victober! Mary Barton is one of my favourite books so I hope you’ll love it as well!

Thank you so much for your help! I found a copy on Abebooks :)

@@femsfables yay!! YW

Thank you for your recommendations! I will be vlogging my reading throughout Victober so there will definitely be a video about Jezebel’s daughter :)

Good luck if you try it! It’s so much fun :)

Wow I didn’t expect to find a new comment on such an old video! Thanks for watching it :)

Exactly this!!

good luck!!

To The Lighthouse is really good so I would definitely recommend it, even though I had to get used to the writing style at first!

@@femsfables okay I will try it then thank you very much for the recommendation ☺️☺️

Yay! Welcome!

I’m glad I’m not the only one! I’ll try to read it again this autumn and I hope I’ll love it as well.

Yes! This is such a fun way to choose your tbr :)

I have yet to read Little Dorrit!! I'm so excited to be reading his books again :)

@@femsfables 🤗👍