Hi guys it's Sophie. So I wanted to film my
April wrap up today for an awful lot of books I will briefly show you literally just show you
the ones I’ve read for prize reading this month because I’m going to make another video talking
about each of the two prizes that I’ve now finished reading which is great. Consent, spoilers
if you don't know, but consent wasn't shortlisted for the women's prize I’m not going to read
any more women's prize and I’ve read all of the longlist of the Jhalak prize so I will be
sharing my thoughts on both those prizes in the next two videos I put up I’m also going to
tell you my thoughts on the shortlists and my predicted winners from the shortlist in those
other two videos so keep an eye out for that. Actually let me do that bit first so
the ones that I’ve read from the women's prize which I hadn't already read were Summer
by Ali Smith, Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller and No One Is Talking About This by Patricia
Lockwood so that'll be my women's prize video and then from the Jhalak prize I have The First Woman,
What's Left Of Me Is Yours, A More Perfect Union, Are We Home Yet, then three poetry collections
which were RE: Desire, Antiemetic for Homesickness and My Darlings From The Lions so quite a big
pile there for prize reading in April. As I say full thoughts will be elsewhere on the internet
but I wanted to just show you the completeness the first one I’m going to show I’m also going
to do a separate video about I’m pretty sure which is The Dangers of Smoking In Bed this
is one of the books that was shortlisted for the man booker international I’ve now read four
books so two from the three from the shortlist one sorry three of the shortest one from the
long list I think and I’ve got one more left that I own but have not read yet I wanted
to just briefly talk about this collection first I really enjoyed this I saw Jen talking
about it on her channel as well and it is a like horrid dark little short story collection
ghostly and threatening and just dark and lovely if you're into like dark stories you'll definitely
like this I actually hadn't realized I’d read her before she wrote Things We Lost In The Fire
I thought this was my first time reading her and it isn't I would very much recommend this
one if you haven't read it or haven't heard of it I gave it five stars especially if like
creepy gross short stories are your thing. Then I read The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley,
I read Starve Acre and picked The Loney up as part of the video I made with Tom where
he chose my books I actually didn't enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed Starve Acre
but I still really liked it. It follows a like religious group that though their religiosity
is almost to the point where it's like cult-like though it is like a recognized religion and they
travel to this isolated area to undergo a special ritual every year to try and help one of the
sons of one of the women in the congregation it is like dark and wintry and countrysidey
and nasty so it definitely does fit that kind of like folks left rural horror
which I’ve been enjoying recently but I think Starve Acre just slightly eclipsed it
in terms of the which of the two I enjoyed most. The next one I was sent for review and
this is Long Live The Post Horn by Vigdis Hjorth I spoke about this one in a reading
vlog that may or may not be up yet but this one is a very strange little novel and
I have to I didn't love it I really thought I was going to find more in
it than I did but it felt very like slow I guess in brief it's about a woman who
works in like a PR company and she's feeling very gray and very flat and I think there's
kind of implications movie has bipolar and she begins to work on a piece of PR for removing the
EU's ability to change the postal service taxes and we're just gonna follow her like little life
it's very much in her head which normally I quite like but I didn't I didn't really get this one
I didn't feel like there was enough of the plot in there to pull me through it was just kind of
character study which again it depends like it's very hit or miss with me with those but that was
Long Live The Post Horn and then the rest that were non-prized reading were all non-fiction this
one is The Sleeping Beauties by Suzanna Sullivan I’ve read ,it's called I’ve read another one by
Suzanna Sullivan let's see if it says in the front yes I’ve read It's All In Your Head too, stories
of imaginary illness but I haven't read Brainstorm which I probably would like because I really
like both of her books this is a story about as it says like unusual illnesses but kind of
things like contemporary equivalence of like the dancing plague and like mass hysteria though
she talks a lot about in this book about how that as a term isn't particularly helpful and it's
essentially like demonize a lot of people from feeling like they can express that that's what's
happened to them I really like her writing on like the brain and how it functions reminds
me of Oliver Sacks a little bit and if you like kind of unsolved mysteries vibes I think the
sleeping beauties is really interesting as a read to explore what goes on in people's heads.
Next I was also sent for review by Verso, the first I like very much this is How
To Blow Up A Pipeline by Andres Malm and this is a story encouraging you to take
more violent action in the climate movement whilst I don't think I’m the type of person who
would take more violent action in the climate movement I find these kind of like diatribe by
violence just to define meaning in terms of like property damage not people damage but
the this kind of book talks about the way in which the climate movement has
become kind of siloed in the sense that throughout it it's listed as a non-violent
movement and how there's positives and that that's increases its kind of acceptability quota and
more people who are moderates may be more likely to join in and accept the messaging but that
there's no like extremist faction though I kind of think there are to some extent but they're talking
about like the pros and cons of social justice and violence in some forms to promote change and
I just thought that was an interesting read in respect of the climate movement as I say I
have no intention or inclination to undertake violence of any kind but I do think that it
was like good about the way it was kind of like referring to lots of other aspects
of social history and how we always read them as nonviolent but the reality might be
slightly different so I really like that one. Planet on Fire I was less keen on but I think
there's a couple reasons for that so this is what I would count as your more like broad
brush climate book and it covers lots of different areas and offers some solutions
so things about like common ownership and how finance works in relation to climate change
how it relates to different kinds of politics I did like that this had like the impacts
of COVID woven ends that was quite exciting but I think I’ve read quite a few books that have
similar if less deeply explored messages around what the kind of politics in respect of climate
change are so yeah I think maybe if I’d read this one sooner if I hadn't read a number of other
books with this one on top I would have liked it more it wasn't bad at all it just kind of covered
some similar ground other stuff whereas this one has some ideas in it I hadn't kind of thought my
way around yet yeah so that is uh Planet on Fire. And the last one I picked up in my vlog
where I went to Waterstones and that is Mixed/Other by Natalie Morris and this is talking
about the experience of being a mixed race person living in the UK we kind of talk about what it
means to be mixed how quite often that's seen as white plus rather than any other mixes of
different races what mix means in different like national context I suppose so in the UK we
don't really class people as Latino but in the states Latino is like a substantial portion
of the population and a recognized like term to describe people as a race so kind of like
what mix really means the experienced people who are mixed whether they like in terms
of like dating life family connections work and I’ve not read anything at all about
mixed race people yeah I don't think I have anything that was like specifically about that
so I found that one an interesting read and it's fairly like introductory light not a lot of
like theory they're more about like storytelling so if you are up for that kind of thing that is
mixed other so as I say the reviews of the other books that I read and spoke through from the
prizes will be up in two subsequent videos but hopefully you've enjoyed hearing a little bit
more about the books I read in April that were non-prize reading I'll see you guys again soon in
my next video and look after yourselves until then Bye
