April Book Haul | Part One | 2021

hi and welcome to my channel i'm simon and today i am back with my april book haul part one so the books that i've been sent by publishers some that i've been gifted and some that i've bought myself as book shops have opened in the uk and it's been very exciting anyway let's start as always with books from publishers and two of my most anticipated reads of the year the first of which is dear senderan uh by kwaki ameze a black spirit memoir and this is told through letters uh that obviously give memoir an insight into a koke a meze life i'm so excited about this one i have loved every single one of their books so far and they have become one of my absolute favorite writers so when this arrived i was overjoyed and we'll be reading it very very soon as i will deborah levy's real estate which is the third in her living biography and the last one and i'm gutted and i almost started it on arrival and then i got that nerve thing where you've got an author that you love so much you know this is the final one of their works like not ever but like in a particular um trilogy which i've enjoyed so much i've read the first two this year and but yeah i need to get to it i'm so excited but at the same time i don't want it to all be over if you know what i mean so yeah her insights into her life and her writing life are fascinating and i just love her not only her prose but her outlook on life her sense of humor which is quite dry and quite dark and and yeah just enjoy being lost in her words now a book that's coming out uh when is this um i think it's in june or july and is this which is assembly you can't tell because it's the proof edition cover um but this is by natasha brown and this sounds like it's going to be really really incredible this is um about a black woman who is going to her partner's like a garden fate almost on their estate and it looks race it looks like class and i think it does it in a really distilled short sharp way so this one i shall be reading very very soon indeed because i can sneak that one in between some women's prize reading which i'm still doing at the moment and then this book arrived with cookies i mean what more could you need in life and also a books are um magic uh tote bag uh because the author um emma straub owns um books of magic in brooklyn where i've been and it's a brilliant book shop this is all adults here i don't know how many of i don't know which number of her books this is because i know she's written a few and i've meant to read her for years and this is all about astrid who sees um she's 68 years old and she's sees like a fatal accident happen and decides from that moment that she wants to live her life with more authenticity and be more direct and and so she decides to start with her children but are they ready to be grown ups and see like the grown up hurt i think this is going to be really really really interesting so yeah i should be heading to that soon then from the lovely folk at press i got corpsing uh by sophie white which is my body and other horror shows now i've said i would like to read a lot more uh essays going forward and it's something that i haven't really done in my reading life particularly um i've been listening some actually on audio i'm really really enjoying them and yeah this one i am very very much intrigued for and i think it looks at health mental illness uh grief addiction and sometimes this the sometimes the hilarious cruelty of life i also think that cover is brilliant so i want to head to that one soon these books like they're going to be super fun and i still haven't read the first one which is death goes on skis and virago are republishing nancy spain's mysteries and this is poison for teacher i think they're quite wa-ho but i discovered nancy spain when i read the most incredible and graphic novel last year that looked at the history of the lgbtqia plus community and nancy spain was somebody i hadn't heard of she was um a tv presenter she a radio presenter and she died uh very early quite tragically aft and she had started writing these um mysteries and they're all introduced by sandy toxic who i love and so yeah and the fact this has got like a i suppose it's meant to be a school not a country house but i'm very much in the mood since having been to a country house earlier this month or last month maybe it might have been um yeah wanting to get now it was this month it was easter um wanting to get to some more books that have a sort of country mansion setting i'm just in the mood for it so we'll see how i got on with that one now the lovely folk at profile books and serpent's tale sent me a um selection of books because um i was i got an email asking if i would like this which is resistance uh by val mcdermid and catherine briggs and it's a graphic novel i don't know much about what is in here at all all i heard the word although all i heard with the words found in derma graphic novel and i was like yep i'm totally into it so yeah i think it's going to read a bit like a thriller i think it might have something to do with medicine because it's also uh published by um serpent salem profile with the welcome collection so yeah i'm i'm intrigued i'll show you a bit of the inside of the illustrations um it's all uh done in a black and white um so yeah i'll report back because this is something i can probably devour in an afternoon so again another book that i can read in between the women's prize books and i was also sent these next five books the first of which is man enough to be a woman by jane county now jane um county was i think one of the first trans uh punk stars i want to say um and and she was in a band and it was at the time of the stonewall riots and it's a bit of queer history that i don't know enough about and should educate myself on much more and but drew at serpent's tale was like i have to send you this book you have to read it it's incredible and so i'm going to it's been published as one of serpent tales classics and i love the pink that's going to go very well with my bathroom more for an instagram picture i'm just going to say that now i mentioned in my 39 things that i want to do in my 39th year that i would love to learn more about cheese and i'm hoping random butchery i'm hoping to be doing a video in a cheese shop in the next couple of months so if there's any thoughts on what you would like that video to include please let me know in the comments down below but before that i'm going to read a book that i've been looking at longly for ages and just haven't got around to so when i uh heard from profile and sentence tale i was like drew can i please have this too and he said yes and it's a cheese mongers history of the british isles by ned palmer and that i feel is all you need to know it is a history of a cheese monkeys in the british isles and it's got pictures i mean there's going to be lots of cheesy face in here that are going to begin we want to raise the fridge on there let's be honest but yeah i just thought this would be really interesting fun and i think he has another book coming out about cheese uh soon so i'm gonna have to get my minutes on that one as well and another book i've been going to the beach a lot more and i want to learn more about things that i don't feel i know enough about i think in my last wrap-up i talked about um what was it it's down here salt fat acid heat it's just down there literally because i haven't filled my one-in-one out yet and i will be soon but um i mean there's enough books in here too this is 101 i was going to go crazy and anyway these won't be part of that the other one as well moving on simon move on get on with it and one thing i really want to learn about because i live near the sea is seaweed and i'm going to be learning about cheese i'm going to be learning about seaweed i want to be a dj and at the end well i'll be talking about something else i really really want to learn about um but yeah this is the seaweed collector's handbook by meek zambon and i'm looking forward to going along the beach and sort of trying to find some gramophone for example or what does this one say here oh that was where i flicked too and quickly truffle of the seas i don't actually like truffles um anyway i'm really really looking forward to finding out more about this i just think it's going to be really interesting book about nature as well and see we did something that i've not contemplated enough but feel i should contemplate more i was going to watch see spirity but i don't know if all of you have seen all of the like huh about how it's not factually correct and that's been quite interesting the netflix show anyway moving on um kate moss is a author and a woman i absolutely adore this is her first non-fiction i believe it's an extra pair of hands and it's coming out in june and this is all about um sort of caring aging and everyday acts of love and looks at the relationship that kate has had with um older people in her life though she's cared for and i don't think we talk enough about elderly people and there are more elderly people that have ever been before and so yeah it's something that i think a lot about like old age and what that might look like and all those kind of things and i think this is going to be um a real emotional moving uh well book an account um so looking forward to that as i am um and i should say emma is a friend of mine uh looking forward to the final book that serpents tell sent me which is uh after the storm by emma jane unsworth who is a woman that i adore um and it's postnatal depression and the utter weirdness of new motherhood and knowing emma as i do um i think this is going to be very frank very direct and also very funny even though it's about a quite a tricky subject to put it mildly and so yeah heading to this one very very very soon so i shall report back hopefully i wrap up in the not too distance future because wrap ups are back i'll link my latest one down below then we have um from w n who part of orion this is out in june uh nothing by daniel o'connor and this is about a man who is hit in the head by a golf ball and when he wakes up he can remember literally nothing but what he starts to be able to do is make things happen or so he believes so he can make things disappear or appear or guarantee people could be safe if he wishes it he believes and so is it true is it not what's going on could be something could be nothing see what i did there um and yes i'm looking forward to that one um this memoir sounds like it's going to be incredibly heartbreaking and yeah i think it's going to be a devastating read and it's consumed by aretha agbar who um is a journalist who i really respect she's just quite a few prizes as well and and this is all about how her sister became very ill and everyone thought it was just going to be some sort of short sickness a bit of time in hospital but then be home and actually she sadly died and this is all about the well the grief that followed from that but also how it was whilst it happened and i think it's a look back on um a sister that she never had but how would that relationship have been um and yeah i think it's just going to be very very very moving indeed now i asked for this book and because i was very very excited for it when i um saw it and looked into it it's called dreamland and that cover might be my favorite cover of the year so far and it's by rosa rankinji and this is all about um margate which is where dreamland is i'll link a video i did in my gate when me and chris went to visit lauren and david because we went to dreamland and margaret is kind of a bit of a ghost town a lot of people left um after the heyday of his sort of seaside resort status declined and um we we head there in the sort of not too distant future when the seas have risen and people are moving into the inland even more so this what was a ghost town is now completely a ghost time in the moment it's kind of up and coming margae but this this doesn't uh this reimagines what happens you know if there's an eco crisis and what's going to happen to possibly beach resource anyway um as people are moving out one family moves in and we follow what it's like for a family who have been living in bed sits and um on different estates and moving around a lot when they suddenly move near nature and all this space even though there's sort of this threat of the awful going on behind and the people they meet there and what happens and i just think it sounds like it's going to be amazing i've seen some cork in reviews but not really heard that much about it either one of those books and so yeah i want to read that soon too then the lovely folk at hodder sent me amanda blocks the lost storyteller and this is a book all about books and stories and it's about a woman called rebecca who has never really known her father and he was a tv presenter kids tv presenter i think and then he sort of just disappeared and what's happened is there's been a book discovered i think which is bringing with fairy tales of which the proof came with one of the seven tales in it which i think is genius and and so she realizes that actually these fairy tales might not be quite as um unbelievable as you think and that the uh there may be some possible truth within them and i love a book about books i love fairy tales i'm intrigued to see how um amanda block does that it's a debut and it's out in july um this book is out very soon i'm recently listened to um i mentioned that i've been listening to essays and i recently listened to this author's essay collection funny weather finally which i have winged on about on this channel for ages this is olivia lang's new collection everybody a book about freedom i think it's also about bodies medicine alternative medicine but also very much about artists i think there's going to be stuff in here about christopher issued i remember being in the blurb and nina simone and malcolm x and susan sontag and and she really writes incredibly about people and the work they've achieved and somehow does it without um you don't have the work in front of you and you go off and google more out of books that make you do that and yet she gives you enough inference so that you almost can visualize it anyway if it's say art um or music that you haven't seen or heard um yes i'm really really keen to get to this one very very soon um and faber very very kindly sent me uh clara and the sun by kazuo ishiguro i feel like this book doesn't need any introduction because it's been talked about a lot i was actually gonna hold off reading this until i've read the remains of the day because i'm quite shocked that i haven't and i haven't even included that in the 40 books i wanted to read before i'm 40 but it is one such book and so yes i'm torn now do i read this one or do i read the remains of the day because i do like when he writes sort of dystopic and i believe this is about um robots and and i've read one of his other books which has i won't say what the title is or what the subject matter is but it has a very dystopic twist and i thought that was incredible so yeah i'm intrigued by this one but um yeah torn do i read the classic or do i read that one then two books uh finally from publishers and that sent me books um that i've mentioned before on this channel but these are finished editions i wanted to remind you of them the first is sorrowland by river solomon i've wanted to read rivers work for a while and they write about sort of well it's sort of fantasy i think meets dystopic and i believe this is about a woman who's pregnant i think with twins and she's running away from a cult that she's been part of but it looks at the world around her which is other and how she feels other within that world so i want to read this very very soon as i do ariadne which i think the publisher is also very kindly sent to my mother which is a retelling of the myth of ariadne i feel like i need to say no more partly because i don't know very much about the myth of ariadne but there we go so um yeah very very excited for this now onto books i was gifted this very kindly came from francis who sent me this as a belated birthday gift or i think may have pre-ordered it and then it arrived post my birthday but my wishlist is gone now and this is the undocumented americans by carla conejo villa vicentio i hope i've said that right um and this is um about the author's experience as an undocumented american but also the experiences of other people that they met and that really interests me and this is the kind of non-fiction that i think will really really sort of i'll really get and already learn from and i think i will i think it's going to change my perceptions on things in like i'm very i feel for people who have to leave wherever they live to move anywhere else like it's horrific but i i don't feel like i've read enough of those experiences i feel like i shy away from them sometimes because they're almost too much to take on and that isn't really very responsible with me as a grown man um so yeah i i really want to get to that soon and then my lovely friend louisa who worked for faber came around and she brought not only did she bring baked goods she brought tulips um and lots of giggles and chat and also some books which is very very exciting so the first of those and the one that i think well no firstly one is actually that i'm probably gonna give my mom um because sorry i thought my neighbors were watching me they're not they're looking at their own bushes as it were anyway um but this one is my mum because i've not gotten as well with this author but my mum absolutely loves them and this is the country of others by leila slimani and it's out in august so yeah when i like see my mother she's going to get this one i don't know what it's about she can tell you maybe because they're probably one of the books that she loves uh most this year because she does really really love laura smiley's writing i wasn't such a fan and then i like i said i want to read more essays but i have said on this channel a few times recently that i shy away from books that deal with chronic illness because i have a chronic illness i don't even though i've known about it for like five six seven years now i still sometimes think i'm slightly in denial about it and just want to carry on as usual and so reading about other people's experiences while could potentially be helpful also sort of makes me have to think about my condition which is called durkheim's is a very rare condition um so anyway this book is one such book and i'm going to give it a whirl because it came so highly recommended by louisa it's places i've taken my body by molly mccully brown and i did have a flick through this and i thought these looked like my kind of thing they're very short sharp um well essays and vignettes about what what molly's been through so yeah intrigued for this one as i am another selection of short sharp vignettes but i think this is just about life full stop um i actually know it's adventures in anxiety sorry it's my mess is a bit of a life by georgia um pritchett and um i flicked through this and just started absolutely howling with laughter so yeah um georgia um is a writer for tv she's written for shows such as miranda she's written for i think lenny henry and so she's got this real wit and it really really really comes out in the uh bits that i flicked through like i was literally laughing it was one of those books i was thinking hang on i need to read this behind i was like saying it to louisa who's already read it but i was still reading her and chris then so um yeah there's subjects such as quite quack there's subjects oh does that mean she had a pet duck anyway i'll read it and i will report back so i'm very very excited for this one and last but not least i don't know anything about this book but louise said i had to read it so i will because if somebody puts a book in your hands that you really really need to read this book and you know them really well you know they're reading text and i should say louisa is um a quake editor and also edits um in grid episode etc so yeah i'm like her taste is bang on mine and but this is a debut boys don't cry by fiona scarlett don't know anything about it we'll head to it soon and we'll let you know but um i'm keeping away from debuts until i finish reading all of the desmond elliott prize long list which is now out here i know the 10 books i'm reading at the moment then um the author ellie eaton very kindly sent me an american edition of her book because i have the uk edition but i just think this is so beautiful i have mentioned this on the channel before it's about um i don't know if it's a boarding school or a private school uh yeah it's an english boarding school an elite english boarding school and i think it's about this group of girls who um make themselves the popular girls and actually i think there's some much darker stuff going on so yeah i'm really really looking forward to it just show you that cover thanks it is it's absolutely stunning thank you very much ellie for that in fact i'm now worried that i haven't thanked her on instagram so i will do as soon as i finish recording this right onto books that i bought myself so one of my favorite thriller writers and because i pick them up i just get completely lost in them and also me and pip well it's a it's an author that me and mutually love and i think pitt might have already read this one i feel like i've said pip quite a lot we will be back with crime time uh i think the second week of may just to let you know we'll be talking about um when noah is watching but i think also probably about some sherry lepina which was the um author and the book that i was getting to and this is the end of her which i think is her fourth or fifth maybe even sixth but i've read three possibly four and loved every single one because i just get lost in them like i said and they're just like a roller coaster thriller so yeah looking forward to this one very much and i've seen sophie over at portland the pages talk about this book and um she said it was quite a full-on read so i think i'm going to pace myself with this collection it's um color femi's paul and these are um poems but these are very much in the sort of claudia rankine sort of multimedia element so you've got photos and stuff with him which really i think illustrate what i mean i love that picture of joy there that picture is so lovely um and uh yeah i'm really really excited to get to this but like i've heard sophie say it's one that you need to not just sort of binge read you have to have breaks from it and sort of be in the right frame of mind for it but yeah very very excited for this one now i went to my first book shop uh on monday just gone uh to lingam's on the wirral where i live and um i got two books there the first of which was alan bennett's two besides uh which a pair of talking heads two new talking heads i love alan bennett i love his sense of humor i love how can i there's this northern nature to it all but also i don't know it's just the way he manages to like get certain lines that are so true to life and he's another author where they make the ordinary extraordinary and i just love that so yeah very very much very very much looking forward to this and it was signed as well which i was really really chuffed by um and then i also got um the color by rose tremaine which is one of the novels of hers that i don't own i thought i had every single registration novel turns out not at all i think i've even got half of them so uh what i want to do a lot more when i support um bookshops going forward is not just pick up the newest release but also try and get like get a new release but also get something from an author's back catalog that i really love they have just reissued loads of road trimmings and books in these lovely editions lovely editions with like this bold color and then i am tempted to like re-buy everything that i already own of hers but i'm gonna hold fire speaking of rebuying though i went to um some charity shops and bought four books uh within them within them whilst i was in them i bought four books at different ones the first of which was zed murders by jay jefferson fargone and and um yeah i these are sorry i should say part of the british library crime classics got him realized already had it but i really really loved his mystery in white and so every time i see him i can never remember whether i've got his book or not i should have somewhere on my phone a list of all the books on my shelves but i think that might make my head hurt making it um so yeah so i will i don't know what i'll do with this one i shall pass it on to someone lovely i did intentionally buy a second copy of this book and that's the poison with bible by barbara kingsolver as i mentioned um earlier i have a list of 40 books i would like to read by my 40th which is next march and the poison bible is one i have a beautiful beautiful edition of it and this one because it's a bit already worn is the one i'm gonna read from i also love this font it makes me very happy indeed there you go um so yes i've got myself that then i got um burning bright by helen dunmore and helen demo i've only discovered in the last couple of years and um i read her poetry collection which i didn't love which won the costa um sadly after she died um but then i read um a spell of winter this is fellow winter and thought that was absolutely amazing and um yeah so i saw this it was in really lovely condition for a secondhand book and so i was like right i want more backlist by authors i really really love so there we go and leslie glazed her now i didn't feel like i could justify buying trick or treat that much other than her books are very hard to get hold of they're not all in print and but i've never actually read any of her books i've always just heard that they sound really me and a book with trick or treat in the title also sounds really me and when a book is 50p why not that's how i felt about this i do have slight torn feelings on charity shop books because well i was brought up on buying quite a lot of them and in fact a lot of the books i have on these shelves i bought a cherry shop where it was like five for a pound and but i do also there is nothing of the author doesn't make anything from that but i also think wow lots of thoughts and i also think that you're more likely to go and buy a book buy a new book by an author you discover through a charity shop just as you do through a library although library resources do make money from the books and and then go off and find more that's what i think anyway last but not least um one thing that i want to learn about aside from seaweed aside from cheeses aside from djing this year is house plants and so i got myself plantapedia admittedly after i bought six new houseplants of which i've discovered a few are toxic for pets thankfully though before i get any comments of complaint or anything and my cats are just not interested in houseplants they ignore them they don't care about the christmas tree they don't care about any of the cacti i have i'm very good with succulents which sounds rude um but it's true and so i'm much more interested in finding out about foliage trees trees foliage plants and like i just want to buy all of them i mean look at that that's and this book makes it all really simple for you to sort of like how pretty is that and the images are stunning um and yeah it also says the information is like really short and to the point so you just get it and i really really appreciate that i also like books like this that you know you can sit on the coffee table or possibly put in the loo and just pick up here and there and learn loads from them so yeah very very excited for this so there we go those are all the books that i got in the first half of april what you got in the first half of april let me know if you've got any of these if you didn't enjoy them don't tell me that hold fire on that thought i'd love to talk about all the ins and outs of why you didn't enjoy a book that i've read once i've read it but because i'm excited about them i don't want to hear why you might not have liked them um and yeah just anything else you want to have a chat about in the comments down below let's do it i'm on top of comments at the moment i'm really really enjoying chatting to you all about this that and the other so on that note i'll go i will see you all tomorrow where um when mine and melanie's latest book will can't speak mine and melanie's latest book club will go live where we're talking about exciting times by nisha dolan and i'll be doing it as a premiere so i will be chatting away with you all as it goes live for extra thoughts and all those kind of things i will hopefully see you all then bye

Channel: SavidgeReads

Views: 5,358

Rating: 4.9865322 out of 5

Keywords: Book Haul, Booktube, Savidge Reads, April Book Haul, Akwaeke Emezi, Deborah Levy, Natasha Brown, Emma Straub, Sophie White, Nancy Spain, Val McDermid, Ned Palmer, Jayne County, Kate Mosse, Emma Jane Unsworth, Daniel O'Connor, Arifa Akbar, Rosa Rankin-Gee, Olivia Laing, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rivers Solomon, Jennifer Saint, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Leila Slimani, Georgia Pritchett, Helen Dunmore, Barbara Kingsolver, Alan Bennett, Rose Tremain, Caleb Femi, Shari Lapena

Id: HEBAwBNIS0Q

Length: 27min 58sec (1678 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021