Always so funny to see Australian native flowers in British flower arrangements! Kangaroo paws! I wonder how they’re grown. I used to have a subscription service like this and loved it so much
That footage of the Thames is calling for a spooky story! I loved this video - I have a habit of anticipating a book so much that I put off reading it for months and months. I love the sound of The Snow Collectors!
Thank you, Jen, I enjoyed this video! Especially love the footage of all the beautiful scenery & architecture from your walks. I'm vicariously sight-seeing through you! And Lola looks utterly adorable in that little blue puffer jacket (if that's what it is) 😄 I've had From The Neck Up buried among my extensive TBR list for the longest time, and your review just reminded me that I should get around to reading it. I'm still in the midst of both Fifty Sounds and Nightcrawling, which I picked up due to your reviews in previous vids. No anticipated new releases for me, as I'm just trying to wrangle my TBR down to a now manageable size.
I love it when people do these accountability vids. I'm geekily fascinated by them. Yep do another for 2023. Yes to all the stats! I've been tracking my anticipated books for about 3 years on goodreads, hadn't thought about being accountable, lol. 2018 was when I started tracking the year books were released, more to keep track of what was eligible for literary prizes. I think I'm a punter at heart, love prize prediction videos too. Please read The Yield by Tara June Winch. I read it prior to it winning the Miles Franklin Literary Prize and it was my pick for all the prizes that year. I was hoping it was going to make The Booker list, still can't believe that it didn't.
Lovely vlog! I’ve added The Snow Collectors and Walking on Cowrie Shells to my list! I don’t have any particular method for figuring out most anticipated books other than to say “social media,” be it BookTube, Bookstagram, BookTwit, IndieNext, and emails from authors and publishers. Once in a very blue moon I will find something I didn’t know about in my local indie or Barnes & Noble, but since my taste run very much toward books published in the UK, my local shops are never going to get the jump on me for those.
Yeah for these long videos! And the stats are very interesting, by the way! Thanks Jen for yet another excellent video. And, Lola in her raincoat is just adorable ❤❤❤❤
Really enjoyed this. Love the walks; make me quite jealous (except the near mugging). Food looks great too. Enjoyed the stats. I'm bad at math and keeping records, so I appreciate the effort. Enjoy the cameos from your fellow denizens whether they are making tea in the background or keeping an eye on the neighbour's cat.
Hi Jen, I hope you’re having a lovely Monday 😊 I am fairly new to your channel and loving the books you are discussing. You are introducing me to new authors who have some wonderful stories to tell. I am very interested in reading The Snow Collectors and have just started Unexpected Vanilla - thanks to you - it is a wonderful read! I used to pre-order a LOT of books but often found that I was disappointed by them or they didn’t live up to ‘my hype’ so I only pre-order a few now and wait for the reviews to come rolling in 😅
What a great video! Thank you so much for sharing! What you could do is calculate how many books you've loved total of all the books you've read since 2015, figure out the percentage of books you loved out of the books you read. If it is lower than 41%, you know that your anticipated releases are better on average at predicting a book you will love! Though that sounds like a lot of work, lol! =) I'm a quilter too, and that quilt is gorgeous!!!
I love these longer, cozy, chatty videos! Perfect company while getting ready for the day (with a notebook to hand, for jotting down titles I'm interested in). Four titles added to my TBR this morning! - BTW Jen, I've just picked up The Girl Aquarium and am loving it!
Hi Jen not messy, just intetesting as usual. Re The Starless Sea: loved The Night Circus which, i see, boasts a new cover. But tho Starless had irresistible ingredients such as cats, secret doors and alcoves of books i just didnt take to it. Nor did many other readers as it doesnt seem to move from the shop's shelves.
Oh Jen, what a wonderful vlog! Watched it in little snippets since yesterday evening and was always excited to have a little more to go. I loved the combination of statistics and reflecting on past reading, your reading experiences and little stories, but mainly the walking footage, it made me want to travel so bad! And I now have about five new books I want to read. Just a gift all around. Thank you ♥
I love your videos and appreciate how much work you put into each one. Your story about the flowers that were delivered to the wrong address is . . . I don't know what to say! I hate when that happens. Due to the delivery company being sloppy, they put both you and your neighbour in an uncomfortable situation. In the last 6 months, my husband and I have ordered about 10 things -- hardly anything compared to lots of people. Two of the deliveries were left at a different address. Two mistakes out of ten is a terrible rate. It makes me not want to order anything anymore. Unfortunately, we live in a world where delivery is often the only option. Very frustrating. Anyway, glad you got your flowers and I hope you made a friend
This must've been so satisfying to do - go back through your tbr and tick those books off of your shelves. I felt the same about Supper Club, and that Angela Carter biography is still one of my favourites, alongside Red Comet, Hermione Lee's Virginia Woolf, and the Martin Stannard one of Muriel Spark. I still have The Beauty on my tbr from your recommendation lol. That battle of the birthdays moment was ace. Glad you got the flowers in the end 🤣
Loved this video, Jen. 🥰 Brightened my day, the Thames' ghostly fog and all, and inspired me to make tacos for dinner. Finished watching in bed with a cuddly kitty. Yes, would love to see another video like this. I used to try to find new reads via Booklist and other magazines, but now I mostly look for books recommended by you, video essay writers, and folks on tumblr. I check them out of the library and keep my checkout receipts and email notifications so I can go back and find books I liked or didn't have time to finish. If I can afford to buy any books this year, I want purchase Franklin's Flying Bookshop and Leena Norm's poetry collection. The only book I bought in 2022 was Cold Enough to Snow, because one of the dogs chewed the corner off a brand new library copy, so now I've paid for it and got to keep it. 😆
Last year was my first try doing anticipated releases, and I think I ended up with some similar numbers to your overall stats in terms of how they ended up working for me. I'm still trying to get to everything that I had on my lists, but for the ones I read, I mostly liked them, with a few absolute favorites and a few DNFs. A couple of them I've lost interest in after hearing reviews once they came out, but most of the rest are ones I'm trying to prioritize and get to now. I tend to try to put things on my lists that I haven't heard anything about yet (especially lots of new to me authors), and those ones are always hard to guess ahead of time if you'll like or not. It's fun to try them, though!
Fever Dream by Schweblin is very Jen! I’m confident that you will love it. It is complex, layered, so very clever, and open to multiple interpretations. It still haunts me to this day. Her latest work doesn’t compare.
A lovely blog of bounty! 💐 Bountiful books, walks, and flowers. The snow drops and crocus hurt my heart since we’ve just come thru a snow blizzard here. 🌬️Delicious food and beautiful dungarees and quilt. That quilt is so perfect for you tears even sprang to my eyes. Bountiful friends! TY 🙏🏼
I always wonder, when I see your footage from those beautiful walks you and Mr M go on, is it truly that much safer in London than it is where I live - because I would NOT feel safe walking through such wooded areas around here, but apparently things DO get odd for you as well. I had London all glorified in my mind regarding safety 😅
You used really fun music in the bagel section. :) And the bagels look very professional. As you can see I read I'm responding as I am watching, but WTF?! That guy in the forrest. That sounds scary. I'm happy that it ended well for you guys. Unfortunately I am in a massive reading slump at the moment. I read mostly backlist and I pick things up on whim. So I don't actually look too much at new releases. I am heavily influenced by booktube so I do pick up the occasional newer release, with varying degrees of succes. Loved this vlog. Lots of good stories.
I do just love these long reading vlogs! I find doing certain tasks difficult with chronic pain sometimes (like laundry or eating dinner) and having you on in the background makes them much easier. I also like all the London footage; primrose hill is my favorite so it was nice to wave hello to it. The competing creperies are perfect 😂 I got a tear in my eye when you showed the quilt that your friend made. Sometimes it really makes a different to talk to someone who has the same condition as you, and your friend seems lovely. I think your hit rate with most anticipated books is pretty good! I wonder if there’s a way to quantify the opposite, books you weren’t expecting but ended up loving? I would be interested in hearing how that compares emotionally to liking something you picked out in advance.
I've read "Now She Is Witch" last month and enjoyed the book enormously. After different hints in the story I kind of anticipated the ending, with exception of one or two things. 😄
Sometimes if I’m really excited for a book I have to force myself to read it. 😅 Could I be that person and ask where your sofa is from? I’m looking for a nice green and that’s lovely. x
I really enjoyed this reading vlog! I listened to it while I was doing chores around the house. I found your channel after reading The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers. Loved it!!
I am a bit of a chicken with my most anticipated reads. I generally wait until there are reviews out from people who generally have similar taste to me, unless it is an author I have read and liked before. Generally I just add them to my never-ending "to buy" list and sometimes eventually get around to reading them.
My first time watching your vlog and did enjoy the content and now have few extra titles to peruse. I hesitated to mention this, but at the 59 minute mark you note that you loved 32 of the 128 titles which is 25%, not 41%, so your original intuition that the number is low ie one and four is correct.
I hope you're having a good Sunday, everyone. It's a long, cosy reading vlog today. I hope you like it. x
PS Correction! I read the wrong figure for books I loved: that's 25%, not 41% x
Watching these videos are a perfect way to chill on a Sunday night.
☺️ thank you x
Always so funny to see Australian native flowers in British flower arrangements! Kangaroo paws! I wonder how they’re grown. I used to have a subscription service like this and loved it so much
That footage of the Thames is calling for a spooky story! I loved this video - I have a habit of anticipating a book so much that I put off reading it for months and months. I love the sound of The Snow Collectors!
Thank you, Jen, I enjoyed this video! Especially love the footage of all the beautiful scenery & architecture from your walks. I'm vicariously sight-seeing through you! And Lola looks utterly adorable in that little blue puffer jacket (if that's what it is) 😄
I've had From The Neck Up buried among my extensive TBR list for the longest time, and your review just reminded me that I should get around to reading it. I'm still in the midst of both Fifty Sounds and Nightcrawling, which I picked up due to your reviews in previous vids. No anticipated new releases for me, as I'm just trying to wrangle my TBR down to a now manageable size.
I love it when people do these accountability vids. I'm geekily fascinated by them. Yep do another for 2023. Yes to all the stats! I've been tracking my anticipated books for about 3 years on goodreads, hadn't thought about being accountable, lol. 2018 was when I started tracking the year books were released, more to keep track of what was eligible for literary prizes. I think I'm a punter at heart, love prize prediction videos too. Please read The Yield by Tara June Winch. I read it prior to it winning the Miles Franklin Literary Prize and it was my pick for all the prizes that year. I was hoping it was going to make The Booker list, still can't believe that it didn't.
I've not heard a bad word about that book! ☺ x
The quilt - what a lovely gift!
Isn’t it just? ☺️
Lovely vlog! I’ve added The Snow Collectors and Walking on Cowrie Shells to my list! I don’t have any particular method for figuring out most anticipated books other than to say “social media,” be it BookTube, Bookstagram, BookTwit, IndieNext, and emails from authors and publishers. Once in a very blue moon I will find something I didn’t know about in my local indie or Barnes & Noble, but since my taste run very much toward books published in the UK, my local shops are never going to get the jump on me for those.
Yeah for these long videos! And the stats are very interesting, by the way! Thanks Jen for yet another excellent video. And, Lola in her raincoat is just adorable ❤❤❤❤
I love your longer videos! This was amazing. So many wonderful things. Reviews, food, walks, flowers, stories... Thank you! 🙏
A cosy reading vlog is just what I needed today (in a chronic illness flare at the moment). Thank you Jen x
Really enjoyed this. Love the walks; make me quite jealous (except the near mugging). Food looks great too. Enjoyed the stats. I'm bad at math and keeping records, so I appreciate the effort. Enjoy the cameos from your fellow denizens whether they are making tea in the background or keeping an eye on the neighbour's cat.
Hi Jen, I hope you’re having a lovely Monday 😊 I am fairly new to your channel and loving the books you are discussing. You are introducing me to new authors who have some wonderful stories to tell. I am very interested in reading The Snow Collectors and have just started Unexpected Vanilla - thanks to you - it is a wonderful read! I used to pre-order a LOT of books but often found that I was disappointed by them or they didn’t live up to ‘my hype’ so I only pre-order a few now and wait for the reviews to come rolling in 😅
Absolutely lolling at the dramatic music accompanying the cake icing. A heroic effort!
* bows * 😅
What a great video! Thank you so much for sharing! What you could do is calculate how many books you've loved total of all the books you've read since 2015, figure out the percentage of books you loved out of the books you read. If it is lower than 41%, you know that your anticipated releases are better on average at predicting a book you will love! Though that sounds like a lot of work, lol! =) I'm a quilter too, and that quilt is gorgeous!!!
The taskmaster house very much excites me!
I love these longer, cozy, chatty videos! Perfect company while getting ready for the day (with a notebook to hand, for jotting down titles I'm interested in). Four titles added to my TBR this morning! - BTW Jen, I've just picked up The Girl Aquarium and am loving it!
Thank you ❤
Hi Jen not messy, just intetesting as usual. Re The Starless Sea: loved The Night Circus which, i see, boasts a new cover. But tho Starless had irresistible ingredients such as cats, secret doors and alcoves of books i just didnt take to it. Nor did many other readers as it doesnt seem to move from the shop's shelves.
I love overalls on a little baby! Those ones are so adorable! Always love your reading vlogs
Oh Jen, what a wonderful vlog! Watched it in little snippets since yesterday evening and was always excited to have a little more to go. I loved the combination of statistics and reflecting on past reading, your reading experiences and little stories, but mainly the walking footage, it made me want to travel so bad! And I now have about five new books I want to read. Just a gift all around. Thank you ♥
♥️
What a lovely way to spend my Sunday evening. Thank you , Jen
Enjoyed every minute of this video especially the walks…thank you for this
I love your videos and appreciate how much work you put into each one. Your story about the flowers that were delivered to the wrong address is . . . I don't know what to say! I hate when that happens. Due to the delivery company being sloppy, they put both you and your neighbour in an uncomfortable situation. In the last 6 months, my husband and I have ordered about 10 things -- hardly anything compared to lots of people. Two of the deliveries were left at a different address. Two mistakes out of ten is a terrible rate. It makes me not want to order anything anymore. Unfortunately, we live in a world where delivery is often the only option. Very frustrating. Anyway, glad you got your flowers and I hope you made a friend
So many great recommendations in this video! Loved all the baking, as usual 😊
This must've been so satisfying to do - go back through your tbr and tick those books off of your shelves. I felt the same about Supper Club, and that Angela Carter biography is still one of my favourites, alongside Red Comet, Hermione Lee's Virginia Woolf, and the Martin Stannard one of Muriel Spark. I still have The Beauty on my tbr from your recommendation lol. That battle of the birthdays moment was ace. Glad you got the flowers in the end 🤣
Loved this video, Jen. 🥰 Brightened my day, the Thames' ghostly fog and all, and inspired me to make tacos for dinner. Finished watching in bed with a cuddly kitty.
Yes, would love to see another video like this.
I used to try to find new reads via Booklist and other magazines, but now I mostly look for books recommended by you, video essay writers, and folks on tumblr.
I check them out of the library and keep my checkout receipts and email notifications so I can go back and find books I liked or didn't have time to finish.
If I can afford to buy any books this year, I want purchase Franklin's Flying Bookshop and Leena Norm's poetry collection.
The only book I bought in 2022 was Cold Enough to Snow, because one of the dogs chewed the corner off a brand new library copy, so now I've paid for it and got to keep it. 😆
The music for the cake! 😂
Last year was my first try doing anticipated releases, and I think I ended up with some similar numbers to your overall stats in terms of how they ended up working for me. I'm still trying to get to everything that I had on my lists, but for the ones I read, I mostly liked them, with a few absolute favorites and a few DNFs. A couple of them I've lost interest in after hearing reviews once they came out, but most of the rest are ones I'm trying to prioritize and get to now. I tend to try to put things on my lists that I haven't heard anything about yet (especially lots of new to me authors), and those ones are always hard to guess ahead of time if you'll like or not. It's fun to try them, though!
Fever Dream by Schweblin is very Jen! I’m confident that you will love it. It is complex, layered, so very clever, and open to multiple interpretations. It still haunts me to this day. Her latest work doesn’t compare.
Thanks. ☺️ I’ll keep that in mind x
A lovely blog of bounty! 💐 Bountiful books, walks, and flowers. The snow drops and crocus hurt my heart since we’ve just come thru a snow blizzard here. 🌬️Delicious food and beautiful dungarees and quilt. That quilt is so perfect for you tears even sprang to my eyes. Bountiful friends! TY 🙏🏼
This was such a good video. Thank you for sharing all the little anecdotes.
I always wonder, when I see your footage from those beautiful walks you and Mr M go on, is it truly that much safer in London than it is where I live - because I would NOT feel safe walking through such wooded areas around here, but apparently things DO get odd for you as well. I had London all glorified in my mind regarding safety 😅
You used really fun music in the bagel section. :) And the bagels look very professional.
As you can see I read I'm responding as I am watching, but WTF?! That guy in the forrest. That sounds scary. I'm happy that it ended well for you guys.
Unfortunately I am in a massive reading slump at the moment. I read mostly backlist and I pick things up on whim. So I don't actually look too much at new releases. I am heavily influenced by booktube so I do pick up the occasional newer release, with varying degrees of succes.
Loved this vlog. Lots of good stories.
Reading slumps are such a pain; I hope you find something you love soon! x
I do just love these long reading vlogs! I find doing certain tasks difficult with chronic pain sometimes (like laundry or eating dinner) and having you on in the background makes them much easier. I also like all the London footage; primrose hill is my favorite so it was nice to wave hello to it. The competing creperies are perfect 😂 I got a tear in my eye when you showed the quilt that your friend made. Sometimes it really makes a different to talk to someone who has the same condition as you, and your friend seems lovely. I think your hit rate with most anticipated books is pretty good! I wonder if there’s a way to quantify the opposite, books you weren’t expecting but ended up loving? I would be interested in hearing how that compares emotionally to liking something you picked out in advance.
As I start watching this Jen , I’m hoping you’ll read The Yield. I loved it. Best on audio.
Not in this video but I really must read it this year! ♥️
I love it both on audiobook and from the page, I dip into it now and again, just because I have so much love for Poppy's dictionary entries.
I have LOVED this video! Such a great idea! Thank you so much r sharing! 📚❤️
Thanks for watching :) x
I've read "Now She Is Witch" last month and enjoyed the book enormously. After different hints in the story I kind of anticipated the ending, with exception of one or two things. 😄
Love a long video! And I love this idea too:)
☺
Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin was one of my favourite reads last year! Very gripping.
Woah, also yikes about the almost-mugging. Glad you're both okay!
Sometimes if I’m really excited for a book I have to force myself to read it. 😅 Could I be that person and ask where your sofa is from? I’m looking for a nice green and that’s lovely. x
It’s from sofa dot com x
(The fabric is Mossymere)
I really enjoyed this reading vlog! I listened to it while I was doing chores around the house. I found your channel after reading The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers. Loved it!!
How lovely ☺️ thanks for being here! x
20:20 Lola is concerned because she can see a cat across the street. 🥰
Yay, an hour long vlog!
☺️
being mugged on your walk certainly was a downer but the comedy of the pub and crepes was a fun incident.
I am a bit of a chicken with my most anticipated reads. I generally wait until there are reviews out from people who generally have similar taste to me, unless it is an author I have read and liked before. Generally I just add them to my never-ending "to buy" list and sometimes eventually get around to reading them.
So happy to have an hour-long vlog!! I hate to be this person...but isn't 32 out of 128 a 25 percent success rate on books you loved?
😅 yes! I accidentally read the wrong thing from my notebook. I knew 41% sounded high, ha. x
I do keep ear out for new releases & add all WTR, new and old , to one giant TBR in my notes on phone .
Phew on cyclists!!!
Ty for this 📖🪱💚
Phewf for cyclists indeed! x
My first time watching your vlog and did enjoy the content and now have few extra titles to peruse. I hesitated to mention this, but at the 59 minute mark you note that you loved 32 of the 128 titles which is 25%, not 41%, so your original intuition that the number is low ie one and four is correct.
I know, there’s a correction in the pinned comment. I read out the wrong bit 😅 x
I love this!
I felt the same about whistle in the dark so disappointed
🖤💚