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I love how thoughtfully you reflect on each book! Thank you for sharing your 2024 favorites with us! ♥

Thank you so much! Really great video keep it up. Very detailed tips we are going to copy and paste your trip ❤❤❤

My very last book of 2024 was a 5 star read. Don't wrap up the year before it ends, guys! Totally agree.

Cool ensamble and topic

Interesting thoughts about individualized feminism in history, will ponder that some more. <3

Love the scenery in your walks! Need to visit Cumbria...among many other places :DDD

Excited for this new chapter of your channel!!! So lovely to hear your thoughts on the book club selections hahahah 🫶🫶 happy new year!

I am trying to decide how I feel about footnotes. I agree with you on wanting to read a book without the footnotes. I get too distracted by looking at the footnotes. I wonder if I should go back to the footnotes of a book after I am done, as you said. I read two books in 2024 with footnotes not this one, but yeah, doing some self reflection on why I don’t love the footnotes. I have Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell on my TBR and have heart many good things. On another note, I am not sure how you feel about Irish Catholic short story collections from women, but I just read a re-publication of a collection of short stories originally written in the 1970’s, Yellow Roses by Elizabeth Cullinan, if that interests you.

“A lover’s theory of marxism” oh my gosh!!!! This video kept getting recommended to me but i was hesitant to watch it bc i thought it was going to be a take down of rooney just for the sake of knocking her down bc of the hype w/o actually engaging in the ideas in her work. This was the opposite! Really enjoyed this video!!

wasnt really interested in reading this, but now both books are on my growing tbr

I'm still piling up and watching every Best of 2024 video I can find! <3

Your background and your appearance are so cute! So is ur thumbnail!

Susanna Clarke's Piranesi is beautiful!

eep! the video i've been waiting for! was not surprised to see the last book you mentioned here in your top 10 as you had put out a wonderful wonderful breakdown of the book and its politics. wishing you a wonderful reading year in 2025! can't wait to see what titles you'll pick up in the new year :))) <3

The Wren The Wren was a fantastic book, loved this one too. ♥️

Great video - I loved Intermezzo and have Mongrel ready to go! A few recommendations, if you’ve not already read them - and Irish author who’s also a young man (!): Evenings and Weekends by Oisin McKenna was probably my favourite of the year. Another Irish author who writes working class novels really well is Megan Nolan - I loved Ordinary Human Failings this year.

Thank you for reviewing My Friends. I have it on my must read list after reading a sample of the writing but hadn't seen any reviews yet.

I loved Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange and Intermezzo! I am also in the process of reading Brooklyn by Toibin. I love the diversity in your selection

We have two in common, Only Here, only Now and Mongrel, both I feel as if should have a wider audience and have more push behind them, but especially Only Here, Only Now, that book was sheer brilliance and the characters handled with so much care and compassion.

Apart from Brooklyn , I’d encourage you to read Blackwater Lightship. Also try The Gathering by Ann Enright. I gave 30 books 5 stars in 2024. However that leaves me unable to sort/ decide on best books of the year. I recommend Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes

lol deleted my comment right before getting to your "silence" bit.

This was such a great analysis, I learned so much!! Thank youuuu now Im sure I have to get into Sally Rooney’s writings this year

Fantastic video! I love this kind of deep analysis.

If I could get a YSL kislux bag for 500 euros I would buy one, but for 2000 euros I really don't think it's worth it. I think a lot of consumers are like this, which means that brands that choose to jack up prices to astronomical amounts lose a lot. I wouldn't spend that much on a woc, but a real bag that can hold more than one phone

Doyle is probably my favorite Irish writer, certainly one I've read the most from. I read The Woman Who Walked into Doors some years ago and was so impressed by how well he wrote from a woman's perspective in a DV situation. I have Paula Spencer, but have been putting it off in favor of his other works because of the difficult subject matter. Most (not all) of his other stuff is lighter and funnier. I do recommend reading the first book if you liked the writing and the characterization!

Have you read The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes? There were a lot of books about sisters in 2024, but I liked it best.

The Woman Who Walked into Doors was dramatised by RTE in the 90s. Very impactful.

You might get on better with Abby Hermenez. She writes romance with characters with believable backstory or problems. Mental health, economic difficulties, parental failings etc

Great analysis, you made me want to read the books. Just one note: you speak so fast, I had to set the video at 3/4 speed to understand it.

Very well-put

I live in a developing country and I feel this sense of inadequacy deeply. You see people that are better off and worst than you. Your sens of self is very tight to capitalism, work and means of life. The criticism towards the novelist sounds like very privileged people talking from a stance of power. If you can't barely save yourself how could you save the world.

I agree with your criticism of The Neighborhood. One of his worst novels for sure. But Vargas Llosa used to make great stuff when he was younger. If you're willing to give him another try, I would recommend Conversations in the Cathedral or Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, which are some of his best books written on his prime. The City and the Dogs, his first novel, it's also good though maybe not as an introduction, same thing goes for The Green House, which is a VERY experimental and technically marvelous book but not an easy read. Vargas Llosa, like García Márquez, Cortázar and other Latin American writers from the so called Latin American Boom are the most important contributors to literature written in Spanish in the last century, but unfortunately they were also men of their times, which is very apparent specially in their misogyny, even if they were otherwise very progressive and left leaning.

Great video, I really appreciated the Irish context and quotations. Subscribed!

As an American it took me until 3/4 of the way through Intermezzo to understand why Peter was really so upset. I couldn’t understand why he seemed so averse to just continuing to go on seeing Naomi and Sylvia. Who cares what other people think? And really what is the big deal about Ivan seeing a woman 12 years older than him? But now I realize that the ideas of “just go your own way, ignore what other people think, do what is true to you” are very American. We shame those that want to conform at all costs in order to be accepted by their community. But, it is a very natural and human instinct to want to be accepted and therefore change your behavior to be “socially normal.” This isn’t to say that a strong desire to conform to your social group is “right” per se, but it is a real emotional struggle and cannot be easily dismissed with “ignore what others think and say about you and follow your own path.” Peter’s struggle with being “not normal” is real.

amazing video!<3

Do try Glorious Exploits. It is very different.

Great vlog! I have about 100 pages to go before finishing Intermezzo. The one thing/idea that I did notice is the still crippling pall that Catholicism has on the characters, Margaret and Peter specifically: the inability (as you say in your vlog) to disentangle themselves from the parochial constraints of their world.

This was great! Thank you

My favourite Irish novels of 2024 The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes The Coast Road by Alan Murrin Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Haworth Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan How To Build A Boat by Elaine Feeney Solider Sailor by Claire Kilroy Service by Sarah Gilmartin ☘️👋🍀📖📚📕☕️ Happy New Year Roisin 🤩🎉🥳

What is your favourite Irish novel?

Intelligent bookish woman discusses culture and class! Instant fan *subscribes*

Really good video - I do not tend to see people discussing Rooney’s marxism ideas on her stories. I enjoyed how you explained and went over the basic concepts. 😊

your accent is so interesting i love the really non-rhotic words and then suddenly rhotic r’s, like ireland and deterioration

i love sally rooneys ability to write characters who feel so real and who feel like they exist in our world

what a great video!! i learned so much from it thank you so much

You are amazing. Our NGO's magazine, The African Literature Magazine, is running a volunteer project in Nigeria and a few other African countries. We provide small financial incentives to school teachers to improve their English skills and recommend various British TH-camrs for listening and pronunciation practice. The results have been phenomenal!

When I see statements like ‘the world’s beauty died with the fall of the Soviet Union,’ I wonder-what does beauty mean to you? Is it the Soviet regime that destroyed millions of lives, sought to eradicate any sense of identity (language, culture, memory, history), and used mass repression to force people into becoming Soviet or ‘Russian’? Has this become a model of statehood for millennials from the Western world-imperialist, totalitarian, intolerant, devoid of freedom of the press or speech, and rife with repression? In looking back to analyze the colonial past of the West, you choose to inherit another tyrant. What makes you think it’s any different?