Thank you for watching and especially thank you for creating such a unique and thought provoking tag. I've really enjoyed watching entries from other creators and hope people continue to add on.
Really excited to have discovered your channel via Ruben (from 'To Readers It May Concern'). Love your channel handle too - brilliant you! Thanks for a really engaging video, such a rich variety of books, some new to me, & I love your considered responses to them. I look forward to following your bookish adventures.
Mervyn Peake really is great. I have not read Iris Murdoch but she sounds like an interesting author who fits in with a lot of my interests. Is there a place you recommend starting with her bibliography?
@@CruelSpirit: probably 'The Sea, The Sea' or 'The Bell' for fiction; & 'Metaphysics as a Guide for Morals' or 'The Sovereignty of the Good' for philosophy. Happy reading!
We have highly similar tastes. Excellent selection here. Anniversaries is an inspired choice for Beauty in Character. I love your description of Palestinian literature. Are there other works worth mentioning within that milieu? Feels like a blindspot for me.
I've definitely noticed your copies of Anniversaries in the background of your videos in the past. Truly a unique book with far too much to mention in one discussion. I do think Mahmoud Darwish really is the best starting point just due to how simple, yet beautiful his works are. They are often referenced to this day by activists so you definitely get a larger insight into understanding current viewpoints. Beyond Darwish I recommend the other's I poked at here in this video. Emile Habiby's The Secret Life of Saeed, a book from the 70s of a Palestinian trying to exist within Israeli society. Adania Shibli's Minor Detail, probably the biggest of modern Palestinian works, it's quite short at around 100 pages but very unique in it's storytelling methods, she was set to receive an award from the Frankfurt Book Fair last fall but had that offer revoked solely because German guilt associates her with the actions of a few and expects her to answer for them. My overall favorite is Anton Shammas' Arabesques. I've been long teasing a full video on this but I've needed to find the time to record it and also I want to provide as much citation and detail in my analysis as I can rather than these typical conversational videos. Maybe not the greatest starting point if you aren't as familiar with culture/history of the region I do think it is the kind of book you might enjoy. It focuses more on the Palestinian as well as Israeli identity in a very metafictional and postmodern presentation. There are a lot of unique elements to this book and I feel like a lot of it goes over people's heads and this book is highly underrated both by those who read Palestinian fiction and those who read more general literary works. William H Gass reviewed it back when it first came out in the 1980s. Both Barth and Borges are name checked in the book. Its something more people would enjoy if they gave it the chance. Thanks again for tagging me in this. I appreciate the thoughtful and insightful nature of your videos and I truly appreciate you thinking of me when it comes to offering my own thought on this topic.
@@CruelSpirit This is an excellent set of recommendations! I purchased Arabesques straightaway and have the others saved. That one especially appeals to my literary eye. Sometimes I have trouble connecting to a work if it doesn't struggle with itself; I need to feel the author aware of the textual toying and emergent narrative choices available in their chosen form (as opposed to a film or some other medium-when a book is too much like a film I grow tired). Of course, there are exceptions. Please continue giving us your thoughts on books you discover. There are only a few BookTubers who match my tastes, and it makes me feel a tad lost in this BookTube space.
@@ToReadersItMayConcern I hope you enjoy Arabesques. I definitely think it is in line with your tastes and one you'll like. That is an interesting way of considering books. I agree that an author considering the form of the medium and the audience often deepens my interest and appreciation for a book. I definitely will continue sharing what I find but as we all know reading is not a quick process. I'd rather share something when I feel most compelled rather than flooding the feed with quick highlights for the sake of it. I've also been living a very busy life as of late so any time I can spend reading or making videos I'd like to dedicate to what I'm most passionate about. I get what you mean about not finding others of similar interests as easily. I've spent a lot time searching youtube for deep and interesting discussions and I feel like now is the best time for finding those people, they just aren't at the surface.
Hi, great list. Thanks for participating, The Trial for incompleteness is simply perfect!
Thank you for watching and especially thank you for creating such a unique and thought provoking tag. I've really enjoyed watching entries from other creators and hope people continue to add on.
Really excited to have discovered your channel via Ruben (from 'To Readers It May Concern'). Love your channel handle too - brilliant you! Thanks for a really engaging video, such a rich variety of books, some new to me, & I love your considered responses to them. I look forward to following your bookish adventures.
Thank you so much for the kind words and taking an interest. I hope to offer more in the future.
Ah, Mervyn Peake, I'm a big fan too. I like to read him alongside Iris Murdoch (& the existentialists) - so much fun!
Mervyn Peake really is great. I have not read Iris Murdoch but she sounds like an interesting author who fits in with a lot of my interests. Is there a place you recommend starting with her bibliography?
@@CruelSpirit: probably 'The Sea, The Sea' or 'The Bell' for fiction; & 'Metaphysics as a Guide for Morals' or 'The Sovereignty of the Good' for philosophy. Happy reading!
@@apoetreadstowrite Thank you. I'll be on the lookout when I'm searching the used bookstores.
We have highly similar tastes. Excellent selection here. Anniversaries is an inspired choice for Beauty in Character. I love your description of Palestinian literature. Are there other works worth mentioning within that milieu? Feels like a blindspot for me.
I've definitely noticed your copies of Anniversaries in the background of your videos in the past. Truly a unique book with far too much to mention in one discussion.
I do think Mahmoud Darwish really is the best starting point just due to how simple, yet beautiful his works are. They are often referenced to this day by activists so you definitely get a larger insight into understanding current viewpoints.
Beyond Darwish I recommend the other's I poked at here in this video. Emile Habiby's The Secret Life of Saeed, a book from the 70s of a Palestinian trying to exist within Israeli society. Adania Shibli's Minor Detail, probably the biggest of modern Palestinian works, it's quite short at around 100 pages but very unique in it's storytelling methods, she was set to receive an award from the Frankfurt Book Fair last fall but had that offer revoked solely because German guilt associates her with the actions of a few and expects her to answer for them.
My overall favorite is Anton Shammas' Arabesques. I've been long teasing a full video on this but I've needed to find the time to record it and also I want to provide as much citation and detail in my analysis as I can rather than these typical conversational videos. Maybe not the greatest starting point if you aren't as familiar with culture/history of the region I do think it is the kind of book you might enjoy. It focuses more on the Palestinian as well as Israeli identity in a very metafictional and postmodern presentation. There are a lot of unique elements to this book and I feel like a lot of it goes over people's heads and this book is highly underrated both by those who read Palestinian fiction and those who read more general literary works. William H Gass reviewed it back when it first came out in the 1980s. Both Barth and Borges are name checked in the book. Its something more people would enjoy if they gave it the chance.
Thanks again for tagging me in this. I appreciate the thoughtful and insightful nature of your videos and I truly appreciate you thinking of me when it comes to offering my own thought on this topic.
@@CruelSpirit This is an excellent set of recommendations! I purchased Arabesques straightaway and have the others saved. That one especially appeals to my literary eye. Sometimes I have trouble connecting to a work if it doesn't struggle with itself; I need to feel the author aware of the textual toying and emergent narrative choices available in their chosen form (as opposed to a film or some other medium-when a book is too much like a film I grow tired). Of course, there are exceptions.
Please continue giving us your thoughts on books you discover. There are only a few BookTubers who match my tastes, and it makes me feel a tad lost in this BookTube space.
@@ToReadersItMayConcern I hope you enjoy Arabesques. I definitely think it is in line with your tastes and one you'll like. That is an interesting way of considering books. I agree that an author considering the form of the medium and the audience often deepens my interest and appreciation for a book.
I definitely will continue sharing what I find but as we all know reading is not a quick process. I'd rather share something when I feel most compelled rather than flooding the feed with quick highlights for the sake of it. I've also been living a very busy life as of late so any time I can spend reading or making videos I'd like to dedicate to what I'm most passionate about.
I get what you mean about not finding others of similar interests as easily. I've spent a lot time searching youtube for deep and interesting discussions and I feel like now is the best time for finding those people, they just aren't at the surface.