The way I RAN to my couch to watch this video! One of my faves of the year! My top books of 2023 are Our wives under the sea, Black butterflies, The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels, October october, Once there were wolves, The Bandit Queens, Foster and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell!
I loved how fun and silly The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels was! One of my fav reads this year. But then I picked up the second book and it just felt like the same story again but with less likeable characters? Don't know if I'm alone on this, but League of Gentlewoman Witches was my one DNF this year.
“No feeing like [recommending a book to someone, they like it so much they recommend it to someone else]” LENA, per your recommendation I read POD. And loved it. Recommended it to my aunt. She loved it and recommended it to my other aunt. YOU DID IT AGAIN.
Same. Leena’s recommendations are populating my library. I’ve requested they stock so many reads she has recommended and they have never not ordered my (Leena’s) suggestions!
My reading challenge is carrying over from 2023! I'm rereading the entire Discworld series as a preparation to finally read the very last book, released after the author passed away. I'd been meaning to do this for years and decided to follow the advice floating around to actually do the nice things you've been putting off for a Perfect Time. I got through 24 books in 2023 so I'm about halfway through :)
I love this challenge! It feels like a daunting one, with SO many books, but his writing style is so funny and fluent that I find I read them surprisingly fast. Good luck! 🧙
My goal is also to read less but read better! Even though I didn't have a goal I was working towards last year, I still found myself pushing to read more quickly. In 2024 I want to give myself the freedom to read hard books that will take me a long time, and also to read more in my first language, which also takes me a longer time (which is why I need more practice!)
My favourite this year was ‘Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead’ by Olga Tokaczuk. The atmosphere of the novel lives up to the name and it’s so refreshing to have the main character be an older woman. Plus it got adapted into a play which is saw this year too
I'm sooo happy to hear Mans Search for Meaning on this list! That book changed my life and got me out of a really dark time. It doesn't get enough love!
omg YES BANDIT QUEEEEN!!! i’ve been trying so hard to get back into reading and this was a book that i picked up and literally devoured in like. 1.5 days. absolutely incredible story, somehow funny and suspenseful and heart wrenching, with morbid dark humor done so well, 10/10 would recommend!!
Reading isn't for me as I find it really hard BUT i took your recommendation for braiding sweetgrass and have been listening to it as an audiobook and I love it, I listen to it as I clean or paint and it's awesome. I've noted down some of these books to continue reading more this year (technically listening but still)
I had a lovely reading year, a great part because of the Gumption book club on Discord 🥰My favourite books of the year were: - The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro - Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield - Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead - The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow - Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune - The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson - Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer - Shy by Max Porter - Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree - Ballad for Sophie by Filipe Melo and Juan Cavia - Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit by Jen Campbell - Vandaag vrij, altijd vrij by Anton de Kom (a Dutch poetry book) - The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna - The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff - Trouble by Lex Croucher
I got to choose Our Wives Under the Sea when I joined a new book club recently and we all got so much out of it. It's nice to read about other people enjoying such a strange book
Man's Search for Meaning came in at the library today a few days after requesting it since watching your video. Just wow. I am already halfway through. I would never have picked up something this challenging if you hadn't recommended it. So thank you!
The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow, the writing style was so close to Austen's style but had cool different perspectives of Mary Bennet. I love Naomi Novik's books, especially the Scholomance series because its fantasy fiction that gently makes you think about inequality and who we decide is a worthy 'Chosen one'
My favourite book of the year was probably "A Honeybee's Heart Has Five Openings" - cannot recommend it enough. A beautiful memoir of Helen Juke's first year as a beekeeper, filled with not only wonderfully interesting information about bees and the history of beekeeping, but also the beautiful community forming around Helen because of her new hobby. Plus, it's set in Oxford (impeccable vibes) and her good friend works for the Oxford Dictionary, so they discuss etymology and the varied interpretations of words such as "keep". Infinitely interesting and heartwarming ♥ I read 60 books in 2023, which is probably my highest number ever, but for the first time in a decade I have decided to not set a reading goal for this year. I've had the same issue as you, of reading too fast (also cranking up audiobooks to 1.5 speed) and not actually absorbing the stories and information because I was too obsessed with reading as much as possible. I have enough stress in my life and reading should not add to that, so this year I'm all about leisure when it comes to books :)
I loved hearing more about Black Butterflies. I read it after you spoke so highly of it in the Womens Prize videos and it was a fave for me in 2023 too.
70 books 😮wow. I loathe being dyslexic, I only managed three. I’m half way through ‘ The Bandit queens’ ( I may have bought two other books to read). I need to get on audio books, I feel like this would help me so much. But this awesome, I always love your book lists. You save us all. Also note to people - I read an awful book called ‘Animal’, which was possibly one of worst books I ever read. I read ‘ crying at the H Mart’ and ‘ my sister the serial killer’ I loved both of these books! Also adoring The bandit queens! So thanks for recommending.
I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS LIST. I saw this and I immediately went under the blankets, grabbed some tea to give my full attention for some excellent recommendations!!
Last year wasn't a great reading year for me, i mostly re-read favourites. But my top new read was Black Butterflies. I also read Pop on your recommendation and i cant stop thinking about it!
I am reading a book that I think you would LOVE! I hope you see this suggestion, it's "the book of tresspass" by nick hayes. It's about trespassing and the laws but he also talks about inequality, racism, feminism and other marginalised groups. Oh my gosh is such a good read! It's been such an eye opening book and has made me question so much if what we are told!
I read 59 books this year and the ones I'd recommend are: - How High we go in the dark -A swim in the pond in the rain -Hyperion -Sea of Tranquility -The sparrow I felt like a lot of the books I read this year were kind of meh and can barely remember but these ones have stuck with me and I still remember how much I enjoyed them and most of the plots!
Yayy, new books to add to my tbr. My favourites of the year were: 1. The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen (what a gut punch of a memoir) 2. Bunny by Mona Awad 3. Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin 4. Our Share of Night by Marian Enriquez 5. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Also you can track minutes as well in Story Graph so you see how reading vs listening is distributed 😊 I liked that a lot. Only works if you track audio books with minutes though and not with percentages.
I WILL NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS BOOK - Leena if you loved Monsters by Claire Dederrer you will be OBSESSED with Lauren Elkin's Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art. It is a longer exploration of the same idea of being a female art monster and so much more!
Thanks for the list, more to add to my reading list. Three of my favorites read in 2023 were A Psalm For the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West, and a re-read, Larry’s Party by Carol Shields.
a crossover for you is the amount of textiles with William Morris prints on them...for clothing. His prints were the high class standard for both wallpaper and cloth (fun rabbit hole start?)
Love the love for noviolet Bulawayo-I picked up “we need new names” at random from the library when I was a teen, and thought it was really good/powerful-and then heard nothing about her for the next almost ten years. Excited to read Glory!
My favourite books of the year were my reread of A Psalm for the Wild-Built (it hit differently the second time around!), Ducks: Two Years in the Oilsands, and Our Wives Under the Sea (which I read on the recommendation of many people from the gumption book club!)
My favorites of 2023: - Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (a story about friendship, and the creative process! set in the 90s! with video games!!!) - Aristotle and Dante discover the Secrets of the Universe (a ya book about friendship and growing up, feels like a summer afternoon where you know there will be lightning later, with a very unique voice) - The long way to a small, angry planet (soft sci-fi book with the best characters, perfect found family and really creative worldbuilding) - The fifth season (a difficult but deeply rewarding sci-fi/fantasy book set in a broken world, makes unbelievable narrative choices, the narrator voice is the most genius thing ive ever read)
We seem to have very similar book taste! Loved the first fifth season book - have you read all? Also just finished all the four wayfarers books from Becky chambers and … I adore them very very much!!
@@Marek-rg4zw no i havent, im always overwhelmed by everything being a series :D also i was confused that the second wayfarer book seems to be only about two characters? Is it good anyways? i just finished her "psalm for the wild-built", which was excellent. btw feel free to recommend me anytihng else :)
Leena, our reading goals for 2024 sound exactly the same and we have exactly the same reasons! I had a 40 book goal in 2023, so this year I'm dropping to 20. Also among my goals are to annotate in my books more, and that I won't be purchasing any new books. I either have to read ones from myself or borrow from the library. And for borrowing from the library, I borrow audiobooks, so I'm going to try and get ones that I already have a paper copy of. As I go through the year I'm also going to be "decluttering" my bookshelves a bit and I just hate to get rid of something I don't even try! But I'll be brutal about DNFing books that don't speak to me and really kind of curate my collection of books down in anticipation of a move.
Oh I feel like Leena and reading about William Morris is a match made in heaven! I studied a module on Victorian Social and Political Thought in my final year of uni and was so interested in him
i didn't know Morris made books but his walpapers are amazing, i've been to that one house in Britain that is completely decorated with his wallpaper or maybe even more, i don't know, was young but must visit Leena!
For your William Morris exploration, the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, London is great and looks like it has a very cool exhibition about the art and socio-politics of land right now!
If your interested in learning more about William Morris you should visit the William Morris gallery in Walthamstow - it’s in his childhood home. My fave museum to take people when they come to visit the stow and they do the best veggie haggis cheese toastie ever
Leena! I recently read '84 Charing Cross Road' by Helene Hanff for the first time, which is adorable (and VERY short) but what I have enjoyed even more are the following books she wrote about the subsequent success of '84 Charing Cross Road' which are 'The Duchess of Bloomsbury' and 'Q's Legacy'. They are memoirs, non-fiction, sweet, uplifting and also a really interesting historical insight into the times when she was writing. The review at the back of the copy of 'Q's Legacy' (that was published in 1985) says it all: 'Oh, I enjoyed this. So will you. It is a confoundedly sour world we live in, we are all so bloody cynical these days, it is no longer the thing to be enthusiastic, warm, emotional. Miss Hanff is all three, and writes well into the bargain.' - Charity Blackstock, Books & Bookmen Around a month ago I didn't have a clue who Helene Hanff was, and now she might be one of my top 5 favourite writers. Her first book is about trying to make it in the theatre scene in New York in the 1940s! I haven't read it yet, but very much looking forward to it. Happy New Year!
I read 20 books last year and I finally feel like i have a spark for it again so I will try to read at least 30 this year. Currently reading Klara and the Sun!
If you want to start reading hopeful and adventures books look into the monk and robot series from Becky chambers. Or to be taught if fortunate. They are all on the shorter side but soooo good books - and especially the monk and robot series as so many good questions and reflections about our world and what (good thing) could come after a “climate disaster”. ❤
I always enjoy your book videos even though I don’t think we have the same book taste, my favourite this year was Demon Copperhead which I think I remember you dnf’d, and I also dnf’d Bandit Queens as I couldn’t stand it 😂 It’s interesting to hear what people are reading and why they love their faves, even when we don’t have the same faves.
One of my favourite reads of the year was Saving Time by Jenny Odell - so much to think about and explore I actually think it could be a pretty good candidate for your podcast 😊. Also Verona in Autumn and Monsters are immediately on my 2024 TBR. Thank you!
For the second year in a row, I'll be trying to read a short story every day of the year. Last year I read a little bit less than 365, but still an amazing amount, so I'm hoping to read even more this year! (And I'll try listening to short stories through a few podcasts, I'm sure it will be fun!).
Lavar Burton Reads is a great podcast to listen to and find short stories! A pretty good backlog already and he almost always recommends a way to find similar stories at the end of the episode. Good luck I think this is a great goal!!
For William Morris, Fiona Mccarthy biography of him is great! Bought it for a module I was supposed to do on Morris which was sadly cancelled but I read it anyway and super loved 😊 One of my goals for this year is to read more on his daughter May Morris, she was a creator in her own right and is also the reason we have a lot of his letters and stuff and she just sounds really interesting 😁
If you like well-read, performed audiobooks, then I recommend Trevor Noah's autobiography, Born a Crime. It's about his life as a mixed race child when it was a literal crime to have a White and a Black parent in South Africa. He is SO good at accents and painting a vivd picture of his life growing up. In my top 3 reads of 2023!
Monsters sounds so interesting! You said it’s a theological look at the dilemma. How so ? Thank you for the fun plane analogy! So relatable🤣 “no. I’ve got this”
I will read Wicked for you, Leena, so I can enjoy those future videos more! If it's not like I have always thought, then I'll open that door. One of my favorites this year was "The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida" by Shehan Karunatilaka; it won the 2022 Booker Prize, but I haven't found many people have read it. I think it is just as fun and witty as Bandit Queens, but there were moments of deep reflection about death and our relationships to other people. The main character spends most of the time as a ghost?! 👻
Have you read My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite? It sounds a lot like Bandit Queens! It’s quite dark, very interesting and still just a very fun read somehow.
Saved all of these to my Storygraph!! Three of my favorite books this year were "Fair Play" by Tove Jansson, "Tiny Beautiful Things" by Cheryl Strayed, and "Invisible Women" by Caroline Perez!
Well you’ve sold me on the idea of reading Wicked. Was alreafy considering it because i want to finally go see the musical like I've been intending to 20:14 for AGES (had no idea about the film but makes me want to see the show this year even more) and then you said that an issue with people disliking Wicked is they see the musical first so was considering reasing it but then saying its about the nature of terrorism and our idea of who we are vs who we are has me SO intrigued
I HIGHLY recommend "The Rock Eaters" by Brenda Peynado. It's a collection of short stories that discuss how we connect with ourselves and with others (especially when it comes to immigration). But, each story is written in a metaphor, set in a different fantastical world. It is so clever, enchanting, and thought-provoking, I want to read it again.
I would love to know how you make notes on books. It's not something I've ever done, and would love to know your process as it sounds like it helps you absorb the information and I would love to get better at that !
My favourite books this year were A Complicated Kindness, a really kindhearted novel by Miriam Toews, Hard Core Roadshow (the diaries of screenwriter Noel Baker, delineating how his film Hard Core Logo got made), and Camus' The Plague. It's been a bit all over the place but I'm really happy with some of the discoveries I've made!
Two of my favorite reads this year were recommendations from you: Pod and Still Life! I think you might like a short story collection called Bad Thoughts by Nada Alic - very bite sized feminist-ish short stories about women who are, in some way, adrift or dissociated from their world.
Retelling recommendations : Just City by Jo Walton, Mary by Anne Eekhout, the dark fairytales by Christina Henry and not a retelling but my fave this year was The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
I've read a lot of books that I've enjoyed this year. My average rating is 4.1 stars 😅 I think my favourite looking back is absolutely The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein. Never imagined I would be so in love with a biography but Sandra (the subject) had such an interesting life and the way the story was written with snippets of her working with clients, or how she behaves while being interviewed is so cool. It was also really cool that author really cares about and admires Sandra and she tells you! Hearing people talk about things or people they love is just amazing
Hi, Leena! I discovered your channel during the autumn and you inspire me to be a better person in the world. Thank you for all you do! 🙏🏻 Your William Morris read-YES!! 😍 As a huge Morris fan-one of my big creative heros-I can VERY HIGHLY recommend Fiona MacCarthy’s biography on the great man entitled, William Morris: A Life for Our Time. This man did everything-art, writing, community-building, politics…he looked to create a new, ideal world… AMAZING! Perfect, no, he wasn’t, and he was a prodcut of his time, but he inspires us still towards making a better world. 💜 -Tracy B.
Monster sounds soooo good!! i wrote my dissertation on the relationships between creators and their creations (monsters) in literature and this sounds like I'll want to write another dissertation about it 😄
omg my favourite book this year was ‘strong female character’ by fern brady and i will be shouting about it forever so that as many people as possible read it!!! it’s a memoir about her growing up with undiagnosed autism and it’s heartbreaking and funny and wild all at the same time
this is so random but I’d love to know how (if?) you take notes on books- especially nonfiction and non physical copies? I’m only just ‘getting into’ nonfiction so I’d appreciate knowing how others processes it.
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang! It was the first book I read last year, and remained on the no. 1 spot throughout. Adventure, translation/literary theory, secret anticolonial organisation in academia, sassy footnotes & maps: it has it all!
My favorites of 2023 that I recommend are The Rachel Incident, The Great Believers, and Queenie. But only a week into 2024 and I already have one of my favorites of the year: In Memoriam by Alice Winn. I saw this mentioned in a 2023 wrap up video and I was immediately sold. I'm a sucker for a complicated love story set against history, especially when the author is examining the historical event critically. I was surprised to find the book reminded me of War and Peace but taking place during WWI instead of the Napaoleonic Wars. I highly recommend!!
I always love love love seeing what books other people enjoyed reading during the year. Really like that there's such a mix among your 2023 faves, Leena!! Especially cos I'm on the lookout for some good non-fiction to read for 2024 :) Some of my favourites from this year that weren't rereads were: Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion Women Talking by Miriam Totem Fire and Blood by George RR Martin Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
My top books this year were: 1. Five Survive by Holly Jackson (thank you for the recc Leena!!!) The rest are in no particular order: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (reread) The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins-Reid As Good as Dead and Killjoy by Holly Jackson
I'm gonna recommend the book I talked about on the premiere of the spooky reads video!! It's called "If We Were Villains" by M. L. Rio! I couldn't put this book down and was literally walking down the street reading it (dangerous, but worth it!). It's set at this old art uni and revolves around a group of theater major friends who speak in Shakespeare, so it's literary(✨) and has this unsettling vibe to it. A lot of people compare it to The Secret History (which I haven't read yet) but I can say it has a similar feeling to Saltburn in a way (although Saltburn in comparison feels a lot more extreme). I keep thinking about this book all the time, it has this mystery to it that kind of feels like you're reading a detective novel but not really? I can't really place it honestly and feel like I can't do the book justice but just oof!!! I love it so much!!
I loved The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna and The River has Teeth by Erica Waters (YA). My nonfiction skewed US law heavy this year but one of my favorites from 2022 was The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh.
Have you heard of "Go Away, Romeo"? It's a webtoon rather than a book but it's basically the fallout a few years after R&J "die" (read: run away to be together) from the perspective of Rosalind, Romeo's previous fling, trying to protect her now-fatherless child from the politics of Verona.
I read and listened to 78 books. Some of those were children's chapter books, and finishing a book from last year. I need to get more sustainable and check out storygraph, because those stats are insightful.
I decided my reading goal this year will be to try and read more books that I either really enjoy or get a lot of value from. I want my favourite book of 2024 to be a very close race, not like 2023 where I read about 24 books and only around 5 or 6 which I really liked or was truly glad I read
My favorites were in no particular order: -A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall -Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo -Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott -The Princess and The Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz -Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett -Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson -Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner -Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch -The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi
If Leena recommends a book, I'm getting it. And if it's ten, I'm getting ten.
literally updating my wishlist for ebooks at my library as i'm watching the video.
The way I RAN to my couch to watch this video! One of my faves of the year! My top books of 2023 are Our wives under the sea, Black butterflies, The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels, October october, Once there were wolves, The Bandit Queens, Foster and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell!
I loved how fun and silly The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels was! One of my fav reads this year. But then I picked up the second book and it just felt like the same story again but with less likeable characters? Don't know if I'm alone on this, but League of Gentlewoman Witches was my one DNF this year.
I loved Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell!! I'm planning to read Piranesi this year
The Wisteria Society is SOOOO good!
Jonothan strange and Mr norrel was so good!
Our Wives Under the Sea was a top favourite for me too. So beautiful
“No feeing like [recommending a book to someone, they like it so much they recommend it to someone else]”
LENA, per your recommendation I read POD. And loved it. Recommended it to my aunt. She loved it and recommended it to my other aunt. YOU DID IT AGAIN.
Same. Leena’s recommendations are populating my library. I’ve requested they stock so many reads she has recommended and they have never not ordered my (Leena’s) suggestions!
I read 23 books in 2023! Proud of me!!!
My reading challenge is carrying over from 2023! I'm rereading the entire Discworld series as a preparation to finally read the very last book, released after the author passed away. I'd been meaning to do this for years and decided to follow the advice floating around to actually do the nice things you've been putting off for a Perfect Time. I got through 24 books in 2023 so I'm about halfway through :)
I love this challenge! It feels like a daunting one, with SO many books, but his writing style is so funny and fluent that I find I read them surprisingly fast. Good luck! 🧙
My goal is also to read less but read better! Even though I didn't have a goal I was working towards last year, I still found myself pushing to read more quickly. In 2024 I want to give myself the freedom to read hard books that will take me a long time, and also to read more in my first language, which also takes me a longer time (which is why I need more practice!)
heeeeeeey I have the same goal about reading more in my first language! Go us!
My favourite this year was ‘Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead’ by Olga Tokaczuk. The atmosphere of the novel lives up to the name and it’s so refreshing to have the main character be an older woman. Plus it got adapted into a play which is saw this year too
i’ve missed your book videos so much ❤
I'm sooo happy to hear Mans Search for Meaning on this list! That book changed my life and got me out of a really dark time. It doesn't get enough love!
omg YES BANDIT QUEEEEN!!! i’ve been trying so hard to get back into reading and this was a book that i picked up and literally devoured in like. 1.5 days. absolutely incredible story, somehow funny and suspenseful and heart wrenching, with morbid dark humor done so well, 10/10 would recommend!!
Reading isn't for me as I find it really hard BUT i took your recommendation for braiding sweetgrass and have been listening to it as an audiobook and I love it, I listen to it as I clean or paint and it's awesome. I've noted down some of these books to continue reading more this year (technically listening but still)
Yes! 👏 Man’s Search for Meaning! The best
I LOVED Frankl's book and I'm so glad I hear anyone talking about it. Thank you Leena, for keeping it real 😊
I had a lovely reading year, a great part because of the Gumption book club on Discord 🥰My favourite books of the year were:
- The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
- Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
- The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow
- Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
- The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
- Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
- Shy by Max Porter
- Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
- Ballad for Sophie by Filipe Melo and Juan Cavia
- Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit by Jen Campbell
- Vandaag vrij, altijd vrij by Anton de Kom (a Dutch poetry book)
- The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
- The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff
- Trouble by Lex Croucher
I finished The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches literally today and it's soooo good!
I got to choose Our Wives Under the Sea when I joined a new book club recently and we all got so much out of it. It's nice to read about other people enjoying such a strange book
The Remains of the Day is one of my all-time favourite books 😍
Man's Search for Meaning came in at the library today a few days after requesting it since watching your video.
Just wow. I am already halfway through. I would never have picked up something this challenging if you hadn't recommended it. So thank you!
The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow, the writing style was so close to Austen's style but had cool different perspectives of Mary Bennet. I love Naomi Novik's books, especially the Scholomance series because its fantasy fiction that gently makes you think about inequality and who we decide is a worthy 'Chosen one'
My favourite book of the year was probably "A Honeybee's Heart Has Five Openings" - cannot recommend it enough. A beautiful memoir of Helen Juke's first year as a beekeeper, filled with not only wonderfully interesting information about bees and the history of beekeeping, but also the beautiful community forming around Helen because of her new hobby. Plus, it's set in Oxford (impeccable vibes) and her good friend works for the Oxford Dictionary, so they discuss etymology and the varied interpretations of words such as "keep". Infinitely interesting and heartwarming ♥
I read 60 books in 2023, which is probably my highest number ever, but for the first time in a decade I have decided to not set a reading goal for this year. I've had the same issue as you, of reading too fast (also cranking up audiobooks to 1.5 speed) and not actually absorbing the stories and information because I was too obsessed with reading as much as possible. I have enough stress in my life and reading should not add to that, so this year I'm all about leisure when it comes to books :)
Your outfit kinda match the cover of Black Butterfly, which made me think that you should do a "dressing like my favorite books" video!
I loved hearing more about Black Butterflies. I read it after you spoke so highly of it in the Womens Prize videos and it was a fave for me in 2023 too.
70 books 😮wow. I loathe being dyslexic, I only managed three. I’m half way through ‘ The Bandit queens’ ( I may have bought two other books to read). I need to get on audio books, I feel like this would help me so much. But this awesome, I always love your book lists. You save us all. Also note to people - I read an awful book called ‘Animal’, which was possibly one of worst books I ever read. I read ‘ crying at the H Mart’ and ‘ my sister the serial killer’ I loved both of these books! Also adoring The bandit queens! So thanks for recommending.
I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS LIST. I saw this and I immediately went under the blankets, grabbed some tea to give my full attention for some excellent recommendations!!
You recommended my favorite new book in 2022 - Once There Were Wolves and read Migrations this year. I'll read anything you recommend Leena!
yes!!!! i have been waiting and checking and hoping and praying for this vid!!!!!!!!!!!! thank you!!!
Adding some of these to my storygraph tbr
Last year wasn't a great reading year for me, i mostly re-read favourites. But my top new read was Black Butterflies. I also read Pop on your recommendation and i cant stop thinking about it!
LOVE that you are representing Lucy & Yak, not once, but twice!
I am reading a book that I think you would LOVE! I hope you see this suggestion, it's "the book of tresspass" by nick hayes. It's about trespassing and the laws but he also talks about inequality, racism, feminism and other marginalised groups. Oh my gosh is such a good read! It's been such an eye opening book and has made me question so much if what we are told!
I read 59 books this year and the ones I'd recommend are:
- How High we go in the dark
-A swim in the pond in the rain
-Hyperion
-Sea of Tranquility
-The sparrow
I felt like a lot of the books I read this year were kind of meh and can barely remember but these ones have stuck with me and I still remember how much I enjoyed them and most of the plots!
Yayy, new books to add to my tbr. My favourites of the year were:
1. The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen (what a gut punch of a memoir)
2. Bunny by Mona Awad
3. Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin
4. Our Share of Night by Marian Enriquez
5. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Omg love Bunny! xx
Yes the Copenhagen trilogy is so good!
We’re book twins haha
Also you can track minutes as well in Story Graph so you see how reading vs listening is distributed 😊 I liked that a lot. Only works if you track audio books with minutes though and not with percentages.
I WILL NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS BOOK - Leena if you loved Monsters by Claire Dederrer you will be OBSESSED with Lauren Elkin's Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art. It is a longer exploration of the same idea of being a female art monster and so much more!
omg thank you - just looked it up and it has THE BEST cover too!
I know the UK cover is superb! @@leenanorms
Thanks for the list, more to add to my reading list. Three of my favorites read in 2023 were A Psalm For the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West, and a re-read, Larry’s Party by Carol Shields.
Becky Chambers' books are so soothing! Hope you enjoyed the second one in the series, too!
Cloud Cuckoo Land
it’s a few years old but i CRIED
also reading wicked for the first time and i am completely blown away. it’s a masterpiece
a crossover for you is the amount of textiles with William Morris prints on them...for clothing. His prints were the high class standard for both wallpaper and cloth (fun rabbit hole start?)
Love the love for noviolet Bulawayo-I picked up “we need new names” at random from the library when I was a teen, and thought it was really good/powerful-and then heard nothing about her for the next almost ten years. Excited to read Glory!
I really need to read monsters. I’ve had it on my pile since it came out!! Love a book vid from u as usual xxx
I love the idea of reading less, but reading better! Hoping to carry that into my own reading year!
THE VIDEO WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR
My favourite books of the year were my reread of A Psalm for the Wild-Built (it hit differently the second time around!), Ducks: Two Years in the Oilsands, and Our Wives Under the Sea (which I read on the recommendation of many people from the gumption book club!)
My favorites of 2023:
- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (a story about friendship, and the creative process! set in the 90s! with video games!!!)
- Aristotle and Dante discover the Secrets of the Universe (a ya book about friendship and growing up, feels like a summer afternoon where you know there will be lightning later, with a very unique voice)
- The long way to a small, angry planet (soft sci-fi book with the best characters, perfect found family and really creative worldbuilding)
- The fifth season (a difficult but deeply rewarding sci-fi/fantasy book set in a broken world, makes unbelievable narrative choices, the narrator voice is the most genius thing ive ever read)
We seem to have very similar book taste! Loved the first fifth season book - have you read all?
Also just finished all the four wayfarers books from Becky chambers and … I adore them very very much!!
@@Marek-rg4zw no i havent, im always overwhelmed by everything being a series :D also i was confused that the second wayfarer book seems to be only about two characters? Is it good anyways? i just finished her "psalm for the wild-built", which was excellent. btw feel free to recommend me anytihng else :)
I switched to storygraph when you talked about it some time ago and I really looove it
Leena, our reading goals for 2024 sound exactly the same and we have exactly the same reasons! I had a 40 book goal in 2023, so this year I'm dropping to 20. Also among my goals are to annotate in my books more, and that I won't be purchasing any new books. I either have to read ones from myself or borrow from the library. And for borrowing from the library, I borrow audiobooks, so I'm going to try and get ones that I already have a paper copy of. As I go through the year I'm also going to be "decluttering" my bookshelves a bit and I just hate to get rid of something I don't even try! But I'll be brutal about DNFing books that don't speak to me and really kind of curate my collection of books down in anticipation of a move.
Oh I feel like Leena and reading about William Morris is a match made in heaven! I studied a module on Victorian Social and Political Thought in my final year of uni and was so interested in him
My most anticipated video every year!!
i didn't know Morris made books but his walpapers are amazing, i've been to that one house in Britain that is completely decorated with his wallpaper or maybe even more, i don't know, was young but must visit Leena!
For your William Morris exploration, the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, London is great and looks like it has a very cool exhibition about the art and socio-politics of land right now!
If your interested in learning more about William Morris you should visit the William Morris gallery in Walthamstow - it’s in his childhood home. My fave museum to take people when they come to visit the stow and they do the best veggie haggis cheese toastie ever
Leena! I recently read '84 Charing Cross Road' by Helene Hanff for the first time, which is adorable (and VERY short) but what I have enjoyed even more are the following books she wrote about the subsequent success of '84 Charing Cross Road' which are 'The Duchess of Bloomsbury' and 'Q's Legacy'. They are memoirs, non-fiction, sweet, uplifting and also a really interesting historical insight into the times when she was writing. The review at the back of the copy of 'Q's Legacy' (that was published in 1985) says it all:
'Oh, I enjoyed this. So will you. It is a confoundedly sour world we live in, we are all so bloody cynical these days, it is no longer the thing to be enthusiastic, warm, emotional. Miss Hanff is all three, and writes well into the bargain.' - Charity Blackstock, Books & Bookmen
Around a month ago I didn't have a clue who Helene Hanff was, and now she might be one of my top 5 favourite writers. Her first book is about trying to make it in the theatre scene in New York in the 1940s! I haven't read it yet, but very much looking forward to it. Happy New Year!
I loved 84 and I’m so excited to learn about these other books! Thank you!
I had Wicked on my 2023 TBR - haven't read it, but I will in 2024, especially with those videos of yours coming!
I actually GASPED when you when you said you find the Pre-Raphaelites boring 😅
Also I only found out about News from Nowhere recently and it's definitely on my TBR too!
I’m so sorry I hope we can continue our friendship
I read 20 books last year and I finally feel like i have a spark for it again so I will try to read at least 30 this year. Currently reading Klara and the Sun!
I went to the William Morris House in Walthamstow recently, it was fascinating!
If you want to start reading hopeful and adventures books look into the monk and robot series from Becky chambers. Or to be taught if fortunate. They are all on the shorter side but soooo good books - and especially the monk and robot series as so many good questions and reflections about our world and what (good thing) could come after a “climate disaster”. ❤
I always enjoy your book videos even though I don’t think we have the same book taste, my favourite this year was Demon Copperhead which I think I remember you dnf’d, and I also dnf’d Bandit Queens as I couldn’t stand it 😂
It’s interesting to hear what people are reading and why they love their faves, even when we don’t have the same faves.
One of my favourite reads of the year was Saving Time by Jenny Odell - so much to think about and explore I actually think it could be a pretty good candidate for your podcast 😊. Also Verona in Autumn and Monsters are immediately on my 2024 TBR. Thank you!
One of my favourites and inspired my political science dissertation! Such a fascinating book...
This is one of my favorite video traditions ❤️
i love your outfit in this. the acessories, makeup, and hair, really bring it together
For the second year in a row, I'll be trying to read a short story every day of the year. Last year I read a little bit less than 365, but still an amazing amount, so I'm hoping to read even more this year! (And I'll try listening to short stories through a few podcasts, I'm sure it will be fun!).
Lavar Burton Reads is a great podcast to listen to and find short stories! A pretty good backlog already and he almost always recommends a way to find similar stories at the end of the episode. Good luck I think this is a great goal!!
For William Morris, Fiona Mccarthy biography of him is great! Bought it for a module I was supposed to do on Morris which was sadly cancelled but I read it anyway and super loved 😊 One of my goals for this year is to read more on his daughter May Morris, she was a creator in her own right and is also the reason we have a lot of his letters and stuff and she just sounds really interesting 😁
If you like well-read, performed audiobooks, then I recommend Trevor Noah's autobiography, Born a Crime. It's about his life as a mixed race child when it was a literal crime to have a White and a Black parent in South Africa. He is SO good at accents and painting a vivd picture of his life growing up. In my top 3 reads of 2023!
I love it when you talk about books, Leena!
Monsters sounds so interesting! You said it’s a theological look at the dilemma. How so ? Thank you for the fun plane analogy! So relatable🤣 “no. I’ve got this”
I will read Wicked for you, Leena, so I can enjoy those future videos more! If it's not like I have always thought, then I'll open that door. One of my favorites this year was "The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida" by Shehan Karunatilaka; it won the 2022 Booker Prize, but I haven't found many people have read it. I think it is just as fun and witty as Bandit Queens, but there were moments of deep reflection about death and our relationships to other people. The main character spends most of the time as a ghost?! 👻
Have you read My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite? It sounds a lot like Bandit Queens! It’s quite dark, very interesting and still just a very fun read somehow.
Saved all of these to my Storygraph!!
Three of my favorite books this year were "Fair Play" by Tove Jansson, "Tiny Beautiful Things" by Cheryl Strayed, and "Invisible Women" by Caroline Perez!
Yes Leena! Added all to my tbr pile :D
Well you’ve sold me on the idea of reading Wicked. Was alreafy considering it because i want to finally go see the musical like I've been intending to 20:14 for AGES (had no idea about the film but makes me want to see the show this year even more) and then you said that an issue with people disliking Wicked is they see the musical first so was considering reasing it but then saying its about the nature of terrorism and our idea of who we are vs who we are has me SO intrigued
I HIGHLY recommend "The Rock Eaters" by Brenda Peynado. It's a collection of short stories that discuss how we connect with ourselves and with others (especially when it comes to immigration). But, each story is written in a metaphor, set in a different fantastical world.
It is so clever, enchanting, and thought-provoking, I want to read it again.
I would love to know how you make notes on books. It's not something I've ever done, and would love to know your process as it sounds like it helps you absorb the information and I would love to get better at that !
Excellent video Leena! The books are back in the game! Thank you!!!!
My favourite books this year were A Complicated Kindness, a really kindhearted novel by Miriam Toews, Hard Core Roadshow (the diaries of screenwriter Noel Baker, delineating how his film Hard Core Logo got made), and Camus' The Plague. It's been a bit all over the place but I'm really happy with some of the discoveries I've made!
That is so interesting what you said about Glory, everyone I have seen speak about it say it’s bad and now you have peaked my curiosity even more
Two of my favorite reads this year were recommendations from you: Pod and Still Life! I think you might like a short story collection called Bad Thoughts by Nada Alic - very bite sized feminist-ish short stories about women who are, in some way, adrift or dissociated from their world.
Retelling recommendations : Just City by Jo Walton, Mary by Anne Eekhout, the dark fairytales by Christina Henry and not a retelling but my fave this year was The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
I've read a lot of books that I've enjoyed this year. My average rating is 4.1 stars 😅
I think my favourite looking back is absolutely The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein. Never imagined I would be so in love with a biography but Sandra (the subject) had such an interesting life and the way the story was written with snippets of her working with clients, or how she behaves while being interviewed is so cool. It was also really cool that author really cares about and admires Sandra and she tells you! Hearing people talk about things or people they love is just amazing
I saw the Wicked musical this year. I'm off to buy the book now in preparation for your video.
Hi, Leena! I discovered your channel during the autumn and you inspire me to be a better person in the world. Thank you for all you do! 🙏🏻 Your William Morris read-YES!! 😍 As a huge Morris fan-one of my big creative heros-I can VERY HIGHLY recommend Fiona MacCarthy’s biography on the great man entitled, William Morris: A Life for Our Time. This man did everything-art, writing, community-building, politics…he looked to create a new, ideal world… AMAZING! Perfect, no, he wasn’t, and he was a prodcut of his time, but he inspires us still towards making a better world. 💜 -Tracy B.
Monster sounds soooo good!! i wrote my dissertation on the relationships between creators and their creations (monsters) in literature and this sounds like I'll want to write another dissertation about it 😄
oooh really excited for the film and your video essays on Wicked. I'm reading Wicked for the first time at the moment and am really loving it.
omg my favourite book this year was ‘strong female character’ by fern brady and i will be shouting about it forever so that as many people as possible read it!!! it’s a memoir about her growing up with undiagnosed autism and it’s heartbreaking and funny and wild all at the same time
the audiobook especially was so great
this was my first audiobook of 2024! Really enjoyed it too, very eye-opening and touching!
I still listen to the audiobook when I fall asleep! Idk why but this one just struck me.
this is so random but I’d love to know how (if?) you take notes on books- especially nonfiction and non physical copies? I’m only just ‘getting into’ nonfiction so I’d appreciate knowing how others processes it.
I also re-read Wicked this year! Your video essay may be more exciting for me than the movie for me haha
So so so happy we get this insight into your brain ❤
I recommend Cracking Ibiza and Jane of Manchester! 🙃
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang! It was the first book I read last year, and remained on the no. 1 spot throughout. Adventure, translation/literary theory, secret anticolonial organisation in academia, sassy footnotes & maps: it has it all!
Oo that’s exciting I’ve just started it today! xx
My favorites of 2023 that I recommend are The Rachel Incident, The Great Believers, and Queenie. But only a week into 2024 and I already have one of my favorites of the year: In Memoriam by Alice Winn. I saw this mentioned in a 2023 wrap up video and I was immediately sold. I'm a sucker for a complicated love story set against history, especially when the author is examining the historical event critically. I was surprised to find the book reminded me of War and Peace but taking place during WWI instead of the Napaoleonic Wars. I highly recommend!!
Couldn’t recommend more the William Morris Gallery in London. Went knowing almost nothing about him. Well worth it!
Fave video of the year! All added to the 2024 TBR
I always love love love seeing what books other people enjoyed reading during the year. Really like that there's such a mix among your 2023 faves, Leena!! Especially cos I'm on the lookout for some good non-fiction to read for 2024 :)
Some of my favourites from this year that weren't rereads were:
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
Women Talking by Miriam Totem
Fire and Blood by George RR Martin
Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
My top books this year were:
1. Five Survive by Holly Jackson (thank you for the recc Leena!!!)
The rest are in no particular order:
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (reread)
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins-Reid
As Good as Dead and Killjoy by Holly Jackson
I'm gonna recommend the book I talked about on the premiere of the spooky reads video!! It's called "If We Were Villains" by M. L. Rio! I couldn't put this book down and was literally walking down the street reading it (dangerous, but worth it!). It's set at this old art uni and revolves around a group of theater major friends who speak in Shakespeare, so it's literary(✨) and has this unsettling vibe to it. A lot of people compare it to The Secret History (which I haven't read yet) but I can say it has a similar feeling to Saltburn in a way (although Saltburn in comparison feels a lot more extreme). I keep thinking about this book all the time, it has this mystery to it that kind of feels like you're reading a detective novel but not really? I can't really place it honestly and feel like I can't do the book justice but just oof!!! I love it so much!!
i listened to the same panel about brigerton (which i admit i haven't watched) and picked up incomparable world based on the author's talk!!
YAY for William Morris!
I loved The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna and The River has Teeth by Erica Waters (YA). My nonfiction skewed US law heavy this year but one of my favorites from 2022 was The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh.
I just read The Bandit Queens because of you! And I've just ordered Verona in Autumn :)
omg there is literally nothing i love more than Romeo & Juliet retellings!!!! i've been so obsesses with them since gcse english 😭😭
Have you heard of "Go Away, Romeo"? It's a webtoon rather than a book but it's basically the fallout a few years after R&J "die" (read: run away to be together) from the perspective of Rosalind, Romeo's previous fling, trying to protect her now-fatherless child from the politics of Verona.
So excited to take the opportunity to reread Wicked, and then feel like I'm in a book club with Leena :D
I read and listened to 78 books. Some of those were children's chapter books, and finishing a book from last year. I need to get more sustainable and check out storygraph, because those stats are insightful.
I decided my reading goal this year will be to try and read more books that I either really enjoy or get a lot of value from. I want my favourite book of 2024 to be a very close race, not like 2023 where I read about 24 books and only around 5 or 6 which I really liked or was truly glad I read
My favorites were in no particular order:
-A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall
-Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
-Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott
-The Princess and The Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz
-Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
-Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
-Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
-Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
-The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi