Getting life together & a week of book hauls🏡

[Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] are you guys okay we doing good yes hi welcome back to my channel if you're new here my name is emma it's so nice to speak with you again um today is the last day of the year it's the last day of 2020. it's december 31st i think it's around like why do i have no clocks in my apartment it's 12 30. um i'm still in my pajamas it's like technically it's like a unicorn onesie anyway um we all know the days like after christmas and like before january 1st is just like a dead sleep where you become a couch so that is my only aspiration for today although i am just about to sit down and film my oh december wrap up which is exciting but i haven't vlogged for a few days so i have a whole bunch of reading updates and things to catch you guys up on as well i have a mini little christmas day book haul that i thought i would share with you right now since we're here and i did already film a very big large i guess collective book haul that's gonna go up i guess probably after this vlog so i thought i would just show you the books that i didn't get around to showing in that video since i got them on christmas day um and yeah and i have some books i'm currently reading and loving and of course tomorrow is the new year so i guess this whole week i like kind of failed on my goal because at the start of the week i told myself i was gonna get my life together right before january 1st but i guess now it's just going to be kind of the whole first week of 2021 getting my life together it should be a fun productive probably a little bit of a messy vlog because i have a lot of stuff that i've just put off because i was tired and lazy and not feeling like much of a human being but i really have to get into some sort of gear and some sort of plan and action because i have a lot of stuff coming in the new year and i'm so excited to share all of it with you guys um before i'll probably say a huge expansive thank you at the end of this vlog but just today on the last day of the year thank you so much for this channel for helping me create it for helping me love it for helping me with ideas with your beautiful words with your advice with your hearts um it's just meant everything to me this year and it means so much so thank you without further ado before i get completely mushy on you all um let me show you some books that i got on christmas day she's like i even have wings this is the best thing ever it's extremely warm though and i got very warm very easily so might not be the best choice for today but the first book i'm just so gosh darn excited about i don't really keep an eye out i don't think for releases or new releases or anticipated releases just because i just i just don't have that energy in me but this was one that one of you guys actually told me about so thank you this is the phantom of the opera the graphic novel this was released i believe early november in 2020 and my grandma got me this for christmas of course i already read it i spent pretty much all of christmas day and the next few days after that getting through it it was so nice because it was easier for my little sad brain to read a graphic novel to close out the year and it was just wonderful i'm not sure if i'm completely thrilled or in love with the art style some of it i really love um but i'm just i would read anything that is phantom of the opera any graphic novel that comes out after this one i would highly snatch up as soon as possible immediately this one i believe is illustrated and put together by varga tony um right yes who is a hungarian artist and colorist so um i love this it was so good i'm so glad that my grandma got this for me thank you so much grandma um of course i loved it i loved it so much i'm so glad that like a graphic novel of my favorite novel now exists i can't wait for more iterations if anyone knows of any more let me know i had a pretty hard time trying to track down any and this was even hard to find so yeah but that is one of the ones i got she also got me this book that i've been raving about since august and that is the castle in the clouds by kirsten gere i just loved this book so much i'm so thrilled this is the absolutely stunning beautiful hardcover coffee and then the inside is gorgeous it's just it's beautiful oh my gosh so if you haven't heard me yell about this book this is a young adult that i absolutely love um it is about a hotel uh that's like very fondly called a castle in the clouds it's set in the swiss alps and sophie um is tasked with being i guess a babysitter and kind of the maid for the little children who come and stay at this hotel like their parents are rich people who are off doing i guess busy rich things and sophie has to take care of them so i loved it i loved it so much it combined a mixture of so many strange weird quirky charming things one of the most charming books i've ever read i could definitely see this like in my mind it just was like a studio ghibli film i guess if that kind of makes sense but um absolutely adored it it was so charming i'm so glad i have it i highly recommend you read it in the winter or around christmas because this book does contain christmas within it and new year's i think this book actually ends on new year's day so it's just like a really nice winter fun romp through the snow um and mountains and quite perilous things that go on in this book so that is that one this next book i found just sitting in my po box um there was no note with it so please if you sent this to me let me know so i can thank you and give you a hug of some sort i guess not a real one but there we are um and that is swimming in the dark like i said there was no note along with this stunning book so please if this was you tell me um so yeah swimming in the dark by tomas schwarowski am i saying that right please let me know if i'm not saying that right um i've never heard of this but this is actually another 2020 release which is exciting and let me just read you the little synopsis so poland 1980 anxious disillusioned ludwig glovacki soon to graduate university has been sent along with the rest of his class to an agricultural camp here he meets i'm so sorry januz he meets he meets someone and together they spend a dream like summer swimming in secluded lakes reading forbidden books and falling in love but with summer over the two are sent back to warsaw into the harsh realities of life under the party exiled from paradise ludwig ingenues must decide how they will survive but their different choices risk tearing them apart so um this sounds like it's gonna be amazing and thank you so much whoever mysterious santa person you are thank you i'm so excited to get into this so that is swimming in the dark this next book is from my beautiful friend kira over from the channel kira foster thank you so much she read this book and she i don't think she really liked it all too much but it sounds super interesting and that is bunny by mona awad i've heard so much about this i wanted to get into this book for so so long i'd guess this could kind of fit into the umbrella of dark academia because we're at a very prestigious uh university in new england called warren university and a clique of unbearably saccharine yet sinister rich girls who call each other bunny and seem to move and speak as one invite our protagonist named samantha into their group as samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the bunnies world and begins to take part in their monstrous experiments the edges of reality begin to blur so i've heard this is an extremely strange complicated weird little book to read but it sounds very much like everything i would ever want so kira thank you so much i can't wait to get into this um i think it's gonna be so fun so this next one is from mary from mary amongst stories thank you so much this is absolutely beautiful this is my cousin rachel by daphne du maurier it may shock you all to hear that i've not ever read a daphne du maurier book because it sounds like everything i would ever want ever i have this feeling that she's going to become one of my favorite authors by the time i ever get around to reading any of her actual work but my cousin rachel how do i describe this to you i think a lot of you guys have read it because a lot of people have recommended it to me but so orphaned at an early age philip ashley is raised by his cousin ambrose single ambrose delights in philip as his heir knowing he will treasure his grand house but then ambrose sets off on a trip to florence he comes back with his wife rachel i think but ambrose has actually died so we get philip delving into this world that's now ambroseless and all rachel but he starts to get this feeling and have these suspicions that maybe rachel was involved in ambrose's death so um i'm hoping it's gonna be super creepy super gothic have everything i ever want in it i've heard so many good things about this book and this is just absolutely beautiful so thank you so much mary i love you so much so those are the books that i got on christmas day i was so happy to open them all um yeah i think i'm going gonna love absolutely all of them but um i think what i'm gonna do now before the light gets any worse than it already is i'm gonna sit down film my december wrap up and then update you guys on what i'm reading what's going on what my plans are for today and i guess the first week of the new year um i hope you're all doing super well i hope you had a safe healthy happy new year i'm completely exhausted right now so i'm probably gonna fall asleep well before i see anywhere near uh midnight but that's okay so um probably one of the first things that i should show you guys is as you can see i changed up my little book nook and now it kind of feels like an actual office or something of sports it's still very cozy i of course left all my bookshelves um where they were because i wasn't gonna move those again but i just put my chair back here in the corner i like that like there's a little bit more room there and then i'm slowly starting to fill these two holes up with prints although like they are concrete so i can't nail into them but um i need to get like some more command strips and stuff and then i decided to put my desk all right here and then it is quite um big and open which is nice it feels like there's a little bit more room and then obviously i had to move the couch somewhere so i just chose to put it right here against this wall i'm still moving some things around um filming today and yeah however something i'm definitely not thrilled about is this chair let me show you the top i don't know i'll probably have to show you different but the top is literally like coming off of this chair i have had this chair for like oh gosh six or seven years eight years um as you can see like it's never been a comfortable chair there was no way it could have ever been a comfortable chair it looks like a torture device more than a comfortable the seating apparatus but the back is now like literally coming off of um the chair like it's so wobbly um it's so hard it's not comfortable at all i literally break my bones sitting in it um i have it because when my grandma moved from her house to a new location she's getting rid of it this came from her shed it's from my grandma's shed so she's had it for literal decades as well it is so old i don't think this is his first pandemic and i'm just it's time i think it's time for a new chair um that's one of the things i want to do this week is just get a new chair i don't know why i just don't buy myself what i need in my life but we're going to get a new chair because i am going to be sitting at my desk more and more now that i'm going back to school which is of course all online so i'm really excited i'm not sure what i want we're also in lockdown now which is another development we've been in lockdown since the 26th so of course i can't do what i normally would do which is go to a thrift store which is where i found this chair my reading chair which i adore with my whole heart so that's out of the question and um i think i either spend money on a new chair or spend money on a chiropractor that is an awful sound i think my good friend it is time for you to go i mean not yet because i don't have a replacement for you but it's just so awful like no one ever sat on this chair it literally housed my grandma's like pots and spades and little shovels so um that's the first goal this week um and then currently on my reading chair i guess you guys have already seen the announcement video which is super exciting um i did start reading childhood boyhood youth by leo tolstoy this is one of the books i'm currently reading so i will definitely um talk about this in a few seconds because i'm so excited for the book club if you haven't seen the announcement video i will post it um up above and yeah oh my goodness and then right above my chair like i said i'm slowly putting together this wall so right now i do have like a few things from you guys to put up this one actually lucy made me um a while ago this is like prometheus um and it was right after i read prometheus unbound which is one of my favorite plays and then i currently have still the quote from rilka and then this is a new print i got for christmas which i'm so obsessed with oh my gosh it's mary shelley and her monster writing frankenstein um it's not bi i think that says robert boyle it's by abigail larson definitely someone who i've seen her art basically all over i love so many of her pieces i just never knew who the artist was but then ashley from a frolic through fiction actually posted a really beautiful um christmas gift guide kind of supporting artists and local not local businesses what am i saying online businesses and small businesses and arts and bookish gifts so i got this one of mary shelley and then i also have another one that's actually a lot bigger which i think i'm gonna put right here and i'll show you that too [Music] [Music] all right so i got dressed i finished my coffee it is now almost 11 a.m yes and i have a few things i wanted to do today i definitely want to do one of keira's yoga videos from the yoga corner because it's been a few days since i've done like a session like that so i really want to get that in and then i did end up ordering a chair because you guys know that was something i wanted to do to get rid of this torture device so that is done it won't be here for a couple of weeks so my back will have to break a little bit longer but that's ordered i'm really excited i hope it like comes okay because i obviously didn't get to test it or sit in it or anything like that um but that is done and then of course as is the tradition that everything you own breaks at the same time if one thing breaks everything else looks at it and thinks oh i must now malfunction as well my laptop my poor very old laptop is hitting the bricks um he's dying he's not doing well the last video i uploaded it took me i think eight or nine different tries i can't tell you how many times my computer has either like corrupted a file wholly deleted a file imovie crashes every single time i open it um and the last video i uploaded to youtube on this channel took over 12 hours yeah so honestly it's something i should have done a long time ago but i'm someone who just likes to wait and wait and not buy something until the absolute last second that like i need it or something like explodes and then i find myself without that something i need as is the case you've witnessed this week with the chair and the laptop and my sanity it's definitely not something i really wanted to do or purchase but like this channel means everything to me and obviously my computer is not okay so i think it has to be done it's something i need to do so that's what i'm also going to be ordering this week because very ambitiously and perhaps very stupidly i've decided to build a computer it's going to be fun um we're going to see how it goes i am really excited though to finally have something that actually works and doesn't um delete all my videos i can't tell you how many of my videos i've lost to that computer it just like eats them it can't handle the footage and so it chucks it out i guess but i'm excited i'm excited i don't think all the parts are gonna arrive for probably a couple weeks as well so i guess i'll just have to really see if i can squeeze out a few more videos um onto this channel from my poor laptop i've had it since high school um i don't know i guess we're gonna find out wish me luck i really hope this footage survives and you get to see this hi hello if you did we did it um so that's that on that let me tell you what i'm reading yes if you have seen carolyn and i's announcement video where we announced finally our secret project which is the dickens versus tolstoy the great debates book club we are reading one of either charles dickens or leo tolstoy's works every single month sometimes of course they take two months because they're quite large but our first book is childhood boyhood youth by leo tolstoy there he is on the cover um as you can see i've started it i'm loving it i'm tabbing it with carolyn and i's um pretty loose annotation system like it's up on our instagram highlights if you would like to join in but basically the only tabs i've got here so far are pink purple and yellow that's it pink is for stuff i'm absolutely adoring yellow is for quotes i love and purple is stuff i would like to debate carolyn on yeah so a lot of you have been asking how we're gonna debate i think for the first year we're not gonna be totally oppositional because this is the first book of the book club we haven't read any dickens yet um for the book club so i think the points that i've ticked off here to debate they're parts that i don't think this book is a strong book what am i trying to say their weaknesses that i would like to debate and to try and say hey tolstoy messed up here or this wasn't so good there are a few things in this book seeing as this is one of the first pieces of soul soy's writing um that i have picked apart and tried to be like okay this isn't super strong even though to be completely honest i'm absolutely adoring this book i can't lie um i think it's wonderful and of course i'm not going to lie about it i'm loving it um but just to answer that question for now the things i'm trying to debate are things that i don't love about this book that i think aren't super great that's kind of that on that i'm not going to talk too much about this book even though i probably already have because i am filming a whole separate reading vlog devoted to this book um it'll be up when i finish it it's probably going to be extremely long because i'm talking in depth about all these points and stuff like that so we're really excited um thank you so much for all your responses and support and so many people are joining in and we love seeing all your votes right now whose corner you're in and we're just really excited about it so that's the first thing that i'm currently reading i'm 43 pages through and i can't lie i'm loving it like i said i am of course reading childhood boyhood youth but i've also started a couple other books the first one is snow country by yasunari kawabata i started this on audiobook i'm reading this on audible and i'm really really like i'm listening to it on audible i guess i'm really really liking it i am now 34 pages through it's not a very long book at all um i'm really enjoying it so much is just so beautiful and tragic in this book this is a tragic love affair set up on a hot mountain spring in japan and of course the atmosphere is just superb it's extremely snowy one of the snowiest places on earth actually where this book is set and it's just so nice there's so much imagery that is just so beautiful because the introduction so brilliantly said that it says that kawabata has been put i think rightly in a literary line that can be traced back to 17th century haiku masters haiku are tiny 17 syllable poems that seek to convey a sudden awareness of beauty by a mating of opposite or incongruous terms thus the classical haiku characteristically fuses motion and stillness similarly kawabata relies very heavily on a mingling of the senses in snow country we come upon the roaring silence of a winter night for instance or the round softness of the sound of running water and these like flashes of comparing things is just so nice it's so subtle that like you almost miss it and you almost don't know it's there and it's like something that thanks to the introduction i'm really really hunting down and finding and it's just so beautiful these like little flashes of things um the opening scene where one of our characters shimamura is on a train going to this hot mountain spring it's just absolutely beautiful the way that like the window of the train becomes very dark and the lights of the train come on and it's nighttime and you can kind of see the passing landscape but then there's a woman sitting i think diagonal to him and her face is also reflected on top of the window on top of the imagery and then it's like her face has become the landscape and it's just really beautiful like this whole books over has been filled with stuff like that and we're not very far through it's just so nice but basically it's about shimamura and he's from tokyo i think and he goes to the hot mountains ring to see a geisha whose name is komako and it's just about the tragic love story so that is that i'm absolutely adoring it i also started listening to a conjuring of light by v.e schwab which is the third book in the shades of magic trilogy it's the last one obviously um just so that i could have something light fun i don't really need to pay a lot of attention to it doesn't require a lot of analysis or work and i also wanted to start off 2021 by finishing a series just so i feel i don't know a little bit productive and accomplished okay i also thought that i would set my goodreads 2021 reading challenge goal um as of right now because that's something that i have to do that's productive and i'm excited about it so last year i said at 250 and they ended up reading 151 books i'm not gonna lie that was definitely like you know it took a little bit um and it's not something i really feel pressured by but i just don't think i want to set 150 this year because this year i really don't even have any new year's resolutions i just want to have fun and be happy is the goal so i think i'm just going to put it to 100 books um this year because why not i think that's a good or maybe what do you think 111 100 books i could even do 50 but maybe let's just do 100 and you know okay let's do it start the challenge there we go i'm on track beautiful all right we've now come to the part of the day where i've exhausted all of like the semi-fun things on my to-do list and we just get to the really boring like uni slash adult stuff that like i hate doing and i don't want to do i love doing uni work when i say uni i mean like like admin uni stuff do you know what i mean like ordering textbooks or like emailing people or just getting like your tuition in order not a fun time but um it has to be done so i think i'm just gonna sit down put on some music and try to plow through it oh oh my gosh my one course is up oh guys okay maybe i can also tell you what the courses are which one is this oh my gosh 19th century fiction of the individual is up i love the cover image that my teacher chose i love it oh my gosh okay i'm so excited god i'm gonna frick i'm gonna cry it's been so long since i've been in school or even on my university site if you are new here i've been dealing with a concussion since october of 2019 still dealing with it as of the present moment and here we are i'm finally back on this website i am terrified i'm excited i'm like really losing it right now but i'm still trying to be like coherent and talk to you um i'm terrified i'm terrified that it's gonna make my concussion worse i'm terrified it's gonna make me feel sick i'm terrified i'm not gonna do well at school because of this injury um but oh my gosh right now in this moment i'm just so happy to to be back here okay the course is both courses that i'm trying to take are all online holy the syllabus okay i'm opening the syllabus okay i'll tell you the authors we're reading and then when the textbooks come in i'll let you know what what works there so we have charlotte bronte tennyson mary seacole uh thomas hardy for like the the big novels i'm guessing and then we have a lot more i really forgot how short of a time um english courses actually spent on one work and like how much you actually have to read i don't know if i can do this i think it's gonna be a really scary journey that i'd like to take you guys on to see if i can actually get back to university i've been out of classes for a while now i definitely feel like all my knowledge and everything i had has gone out the window i feel like i don't even remember how to write or construct an essay i feel like that's going to be really hard and i'm not really sure like how i'm going to do this i'm not sure like looking at the syllabus and looking at the amount the timeline of the reading and um like the assignments and the essays do and the time frame um already the first essay is due the first week of february um which is actually soon and i don't i just don't know guys i don't know we're gonna see we're gonna find out um i'm just scared of like disappointing people i think or disappointing myself i know obviously people probably don't care if i like drop out of a course because of my health like obviously that's um a thing like obviously that's completely okay if that's what has to happen but i just really don't want to like let myself down because this is like what i want to do so absolutely adore the image though that's um my professor pegged look at it oh i love it but i'm gonna go for a walk the sun is gone it took my motivation with it but i'm gonna get out go to the post office i think i'm gonna have like a clementine finish my tea i need to drink some more water um and that's what i'm gonna do and then when i get back i'm gonna try my hardest to try and edit my worst books of the year video because that's the one i'm currently working on and just see how that goes because my laptop like literally freezes every time i try and like hit the play button or like cut the footage and then i just keep having to like shut shut it down and like force quit everything so yeah we're gonna see how that goes i have to say i'm an hour through a conjuring of light by v.e schwab a little over an hour through kind of not enjoying it um i don't know if it's because like i read the second book back in i think when did i read it june i read it in june and i don't know if it's because so much time has elapsed but i'm just not really buying into anything that's happening like immediately when the third book begins kind of the two things that or i guess the three things actually that finish off the second book to do with kell rye and holland as the third book starts it's almost like they're immediately resolved almost and i'm like well what was the point of that then like everything just seems really easy right now and kind of strange anyway so i'm not super enjoying it but hopefully it'll pick up because i do want to finish that series and just you know have it done and of course she begins a romance and a relationship with the young man on this ship i believe he is the cow is he the captain or the first mate don't know this book made me snort with laughter because it was just so bad um the writing was incredibly bad [Music] good afternoon ladies and gentlemen today is january 3rd um you know what i really wanted this week to be a productive get things together week and if i'm being honest i've just been completely derailed um it's 3 30 almost and basically since i talked to you yesterday i don't really want to go into it that much right now but maybe later um basically all of last night and then all of today until this exact moment um i've just been receiving like an absurd amount of bad news and um just really unfortunate things and things that aren't going well and like things that are throwing big wrenches in my plans in my um like every part of my life weirdly i don't know why the bad news always comes at um all the same time but i feel like every time a new year rolls around or at the start of a new month you know you always like to put more energy into trying to be productive or into trying to accomplish some things you want to accomplish or to feel good about your life or yourself or whatever it may be because it feels like a little extra surge of that push and motivation that you need that you're starting something again like a beginning to try something new out to try a new pathway out or something um and i was feeling you know pretty good about that obviously i've been quite scared to get back to school but i i feel like very motivated to try and get healthy enough to do so and unfortunately basically just yeah all of last night and today um there was some crying in the club for sure there's a lot of crying in the club and in the shower if i'm being honest but like i can accept things and not do something to change this thing that i know i can't actively change by doing anything about it like i can just accept it and let this bad weight or whatever it is fall on me and like fully take it into my life and understand that but i'm not very good at not letting it affect my mood and not letting it affect other things in my life if that makes sense so like even if you can accept this thing it doesn't mean that it's not still going to affect you i'm not really sure how things are going to go um school is something that this thing affects and a whole bunch of these things that are happening effects but i do think that i still want to give it my best shot regardless of everything seeming to go wrong every time i turn around um it's still something i want to do it's still something i want to try being able to talk being able to talk to you guys and being able to just talk and have this channel and stuff and um i'm not trying to complain or look for pity or anything like that because like i fully understand my situation and uh what's up it just sucks basically is what i'm saying it's not something i can ignore but it's something that i want to try and power through and not let it stop me because i think i've gotten to a point just with everything just with this like health uh thing that's been going on for almost 16 months now i think i've just gotten to a point where like obviously i'm still frustrated grieving sad sick um but you get to a point where like you just you're just done you don't want to think about it anymore you just want to go and do things regardless of how bad you know it's going to make you feel or whatever you just want to live life again and you want to do things and you just want to like power through it and like forget about it and kind of just throw it all out the window even though obviously you can't do that it's your own brain this chat has been pretty long it is what's today sunday today sunday i didn't get a video up today because i i just couldn't i'm sorry about that um you guys mean the absolute world to me and i just appreciate your support literally so much when things are going bad sometimes like a comment will pop up on my phone from one of you beautiful people or so many so many discord messages from you guys talking to each other um talking about things that are going well for you raving about books saying amazing things and creating friendships and just being really all around really cool amazing beautiful people and honestly just to have that there um even if a lot of days i can't look at it with my eyes it's just really nice knowing that so i just really wanted to thank you because um youtube has just helped me in so many ways and you guys of course have helped me because you you you guys are youtube basically as cheesy as that sounds but um this channel has just really helped me in so many immeasurable ways and especially in the situation that i'm going through right now so i just wanted to say thank you like from the bottom of my heart anyway today's sunday um i just had breakfast at 3 30 so you know that's a win that's a win today and i got to wash my hair and it feels very soft and it smells nice and now i'm going to have a cup of green tea i'm going to clean up the outer apartment space a little bit i have been proof listening to my worst books of the year video that i think i was talking about i wanted to get up today but it didn't happen so i guess maybe tomorrow or i don't know what this week and then i need to go for a walk i said i was gonna go for a walk yesterday and go to the post office that didn't happen because all the bad things happened um right before i was gonna go so i think i'm gonna do that today i'm listening to a conjuring of light uh still i've been listening to a little bit today i'm not loving it like i'm just not really loving it i don't know if it's gonna get any better but like the villain in a conjuring of light and i guess a little bit in the second book what was the second book i don't know um i just feel like he's not at all compelling like the villain and the whole main conflict i'm just kind of like what is the point of this like what are your motivations why are you here yeah if you guys are going through anything literally no matter what it is no matter how minor an inconvenience or how huge a landslide um here's a hug okay let's do it so i finished proof listening to my video and then i started to upload it and then halfway through um it crashed and now my my whole entire edited video is gone it's all gone so i'm back on the couch as you can see [Music] good afternoon guys so it is tuesday now this morning i slept in a little bit and then i managed to do yoga with adrian's video i think i'm a day behind but it's okay um i painted my nails and i'm slowly but surely mourning the loss of my deleted video and moving on and hopefully i'll be able to get some more out to you soon like i'm hoping but anyway i have a few reading updates and then apparently this is the week of book hauls because i have i think three three more books to show you guys that i recently received so i guess i'll just start briefly with my reading updates i am still reading childhood boyhood youth by leo tolstoy as you can see it's going really well um i'm now on chapter 21 of childhood so i think i'm almost done childhood yeah um i'm loving it i'm loving it so much i found so much to talk about and to discuss and to debate with carolyn so it's just going really well and i'm really having fun filming my whole tolstoy reading uh vlog about this book so that is that i'm now 93 pages through snow country as well i'm still really enjoying this it's definitely one of probably the most delicately subtle classics i've ever read i absolutely love how just like quietly devastating and hard it is to read i think i said that this is about shimamura who comes from tokyo to the hot mountain spring and starts to talk to this girl he's just come for the second time to the hot mountain spring to talk to komako there's also another woman in here who shimamura is very drawn to her name's yoko so it's just oh there's so much like suffocating and kind of like blanketing it's almost like everything is muffled and muted by how much snow is around and it's also like every time shimamura goes on the train um to get to this mountain resort and this mountain locale it's like he's entering into this kind of fantasy world where things have different rules things take on different shapes and forms and things act quite differently and follow different patterns and it's just really interesting um seeing it so i'm absolutely loving it i think i'm gonna be finishing this one up probably the first but i have a lot more books on the go which leads me to this next one this is actually i guess also part of the book haul and that is the furies by katie lowe because this is our dark academics book pick for january 2021 if you'd like to join us this is our first book this is our first book pick of the year series is set i think it's an all-girls boarding school and we're following violet she is the new girl at the school and she's quickly accepted i think into this elite study group that's headed by her mysterious art teacher named annabelle so i literally started this one this morning i'm really liking it i'm only on chapter 2 which is about 24 pages in but basically this novel begins with there's a girl found dead in the prologue on the campus of the school and then we flash back to violet coming to the school for the first time we learned that in this little town i think this book is set in england yes with the previous year or like i think a few months before she attends what is the school called elm hollow academy her dad and her sister died in a car crash that she survived so now she is at the school she's just been talked to by the dean who's already introduced her to this whole idea of witchcraft that was occurring i think on the actual grounds of the campus in the 17th century which is so interesting because i know this book is going to focus a lot on witchcraft and mythology i believe celtic and greek i also still have a conjuring of light on the go by v.e schwab i'm just loving reading so many books at the same time i already i always find it really fun to switch around and just hop to whatever story i'm in the mood for so honestly i have to say i'm about six hours through a conjuring of light it's quite the long audio book but i am not really enjoying it i'm finding it super slow super repetitive i'm not enjoying the plot or the villain i think i mentioned um and it's just not really holding my attention um and it's certainly the book i'm least enjoying out of those four because i'm really enjoying everything else i'm reading but conjuring of light i don't know like i do want to finish it i do want to finish the trilogy i've come so far it's taking me almost three years to finish the shades of magic series so i think i should just do it and get it over with and see how it ends finally because i do want to know but i just have to say i'm not like super impressed so i'm hoping it picks up the pace i'm hoping that like the schwab's writing gets a little bit less like dusty and dry because it feels very stale and stagnant especially because the way she writes like fight scenes and very dramatic like physical scenes um feels very like copy paste to me and i'm not a fan of it that brings me to the two more books that i've acquired since i last talked to you the first one is room by emma donoghue this was shortlisted for the man bunker prize man booker prize in 2010. um i've been wanting to read this for a while i actually have this on libby on audiobook i don't think there's any holds on it so like i could pick it up pretty soon and read it i'm not sure if i'm going to enjoy this book because judging from the synopsis it's not something that i would probably really gravitate towards myself but emma donahue is just such a famous author and i've heard so many good things about room and about so much of her other work that i would really like to at least try um and dip my toes into emma donahue and since room has just drifted into my life um i thought maybe that's what i would do but basically we're following jack who is a five-year-old and i think his mother he was born in the room which is how big is it it says how big it is 11 it's an 11 by 11 foot room i don't know i'm intrigued but i'm also a little bit weary and just kind of scared of this book but a lot of people seem to enjoy it so that is the first one and then this next one i've actually never heard of and that is mistress of the arts of death by ariana franklin this is historical fiction set in england in medieval cambridge actually which is so interesting and it says that four children have been murdered right so after that king henry calls on his cousin the king of sicily yes history um and he asks him for his finest master of the art of death which is the earliest form of a medical examiner but they kind of get more than they can bargain for because who they end up with what is her name we get the mistress of the art of death adelia she has to conceal her true identity in order to avoid accusations of witchcraft and along the way she's assisted by one of the king's tax collectors i'm intrigued i've never ever heard of this so i think it should be interesting definitely going to add it to my historical fiction shelf although now we have some reshuffling to do for sure all right good morning guys today is wednesday i think i'm gonna come on here close off the blog blog the vlog it's been a long week and i guess it's has it been a week i think it's been a little over the week but um i think i've been as productive as i could possibly be to top it all off this week i've just been feeling extremely sick with my concussion um more so than usual so it's just been really hard to stay productive honestly this week but um i'm really hoping that either by next week or the week after that's gonna turn around because of course i start school and i think six days five days i think it's five days i guess six counting today but um i'm quite nervous for that i know i keep saying that throughout the whole video i'm sorry but um yeah it should be interesting i'm really excited though to vlog it and to finally be able to share with you some school content again because that was my favorite content to film um i am really happy with how my painted they kind of look like pills actually these two fingers but i'm quite happy with how my nails turned out at least so that's good last night i was able to put up some twinkly lights in my little reading corner so there's a bit more illumination happening because before i only had like the moose lamp it just wasn't cutting it so now those are up i tried to hang my other artwork the piece by abigail larson to compliment the mary shelley piece and it actually fell and uh the artwork itself is okay but the the frame at the bottom chipped a little piece since i can't drill into this wall because it's concrete so you know it's a good way to finish off the week i think we all saw it coming and there we go i just really wanted my like i'm really i really like this background i really like having my desk here actually um so that's something that i'm like so pleased about to come out of this week or last week was it the whole rearranging of this area so i'm really happy about that um i think i'm gonna be ordering computer parts like immediately i said that my laptop crashed imovie crashed um deleted everything so i'm really sorry i haven't been able to get videos out since i guess my dickens versus tolstoy video um i'm also like very stressed about it because i have a sponsorship that i need to get up um and it has to be pre-approved so i'm just a little bit frazzled about it all but um i know it's gonna be fine i know it's gonna work out and yeah i might see if i can squeeze out one more video although i am super scared of editing the whole thing again just to have it crash and delete itself like it did last time so that is something but um there's also good things and i do want to talk about that this week's been a reminder that i just need to take things a bit slower and not get super excited when i start feeling better um and not do too many things not try to go for longer walks or read a few more pages or do anything like that and it's just it's not a nice reminder to have i don't think but unfortunately that is reality so yeah audiobooks are just always my constant companion and to talk about audiobooks for a second just before i close off this vlog i'm feeling super chatty today but i always use libby i adore libby although of course it does have the fatal flaw of making you like have to wait and wait for each audio book because of course when it's your public library your local library they don't always have it in so i have in the past waited literally like eight months to get a book so i recently tried scribd you guys know i was doing that for a little bit wasn't super impressed with it because it kept glitching and doing all the stuff but then my free trial ended but then i forgot to cancel it so now i am paying for another month so i thought i would just basically squeeze everything i could out of scribd because i paid for it i didn't mean to but i did i forgot to cancel it so um i have a whole bunch of books basically saved on scribd that i want to get to in january which should be interesting and then as if i didn't already have enough apps for audiobooks i do have audible now which is so exciting um because there's just like it's just like unlimited power and as someone who consumes audiobooks constantly like it's my main way of just like listening and consuming anything literature media whatever is just audio and to have like that free unlimited range of course audible doesn't have everything it doesn't have childhood boyhood youth none of the apps i have have childhood boyhood youth by tolstoy but it is on youtube if you are wondering i believe the uh librivox uploaded it to youtube so it's there if you need an audiobook copy of our toll story pick as well just to let you know what's on youtube um but yeah audible i've been listening to snow country on audible i have a whole bunch of titles saved because they have ones that are like included in your membership so i'm quite excited about that because a lot of the books are ones that i have and i really really want to get to a lot on my shelf this year that is my main goal so i'm really happy about that and i just feel like i have like audiobooks coming out my eyeballs now it's a little bit overwhelming like which app to actually use and which app to choose to listen to them on but um for someone like me who just like audiobooks is my constant they are my constant companion it's just been really nice especially this week when things have been going wrong and i've been feeling so sick just to have someone's voice tell me a story is always the thing i prize most of all when i feel like this so yeah let's talk about them to i guess wrap off this vlog wrap off this vlog what enjoying it um i i always caught between wishing there was like a little bit more in here but then also realizing that that's kind of the beauty of it the missingness the denial the i guess bleakness of the story the kind of blanketed muffled uh writing and the blanketed muffled experience of these two and three people who we follow in snow country so i do realize that um i just don't know if it's entirely my style right now like i said it this book feels like the quietness that comes out of the snow falling if that makes sense you know that very particular quiet it's like one of my favorite sounds in the world that specific quietness um that muteness almost that comes with particles taking up the airspace and it's just absolutely beautiful so that's kind of how i would describe this book the furies by katie lowe i'm taking this very slowly because i have a lot of time to read it this is the dark academics book and i'm really liking it i'm very intrigued because violet our protagonist when she arrives at elm hollow academy she chooses to study english and classics classical studies greeks romans um and that's hello that is me that's what i'm studying when i get back to it eventually so that's just been really cool very intriguing to me i'm excited to see how candy low writes that and like how much i'll actually relate to her purely based on her area of study as it is i am on page i think 43 and she's just been kind of inducted into this group of robin alex and grace the three girls who form the furies of which violet i guess becomes the fourth member but we've already had a class with annabelle the mysterious art teacher who's very provocative i guess and pushes her students to really explore things and kind of evokes this almost like idolized view in her students of herself of annabelle so i think that's gonna go catastrophically wrong but um it's really interesting and i love i always love in dark academia books when they mention so many books and paintings or whatever art form they're talking about because it makes me want to read them all and it makes me want to look at the paintings for example they mention goya's black paintings they mention um a different piece of art called the sleep of reason produces monsters i think childhood boyhood youth is going marvelously i feel myself losing quite badly to carolyn in this debate because um i am supposed to be finding points to talk about to i guess not super praise it but to kind of see where tolstoy might be missing the mark or going off the rails a little bit and i do have a few points for sure but definitely nothing major i'm enjoying it so much um so that's that a conjuring of light is just i don't know like delilah bard always gives me a lot of motivation and inspiration to try and fight off whatever mundane sickness or health issue or mental health challenge i'm facing because of course i don't have you know shadows and darkness and magic to fight off i don't have what she's facing but i do find and i know a lot of people find so much comfort in reading about protagonists especially in fantasy that are going through such horrific things of big magnitude to insert into their own lives and it does provide me with a lot like a wealth a whole host of like comfort and inspiration to try and take a little bit of those character traits and insert them into my own life even though of course what i'm and what probably we're all dealing with is invisible are things that you can't you know do really much about except change your attitude about and honestly like having someone like delilah bard or just the characters in the shades of magic series in any fantasy series for that matter is just a help even though i'm honestly not really enjoying a conjuring of light so that's that um and then i did start oh my gosh what else did i start that's four bucks one two three four um i think i started a fifth book because i'm just in the mood to read absolutely everything at the same time right now which is fun but i started a touch of darkness on scribd because like i said i'm trying to really take advantage of scribd while i can before i cancel it at the end of the month so i think a touch of darkness is a romance i believe it's a retelling of like the hades persephone thing i'm not too sure i started it last night because i heard ashley from frolic through fiction mention it and i was like okay we'll give it a go um because of course i heard about fortuna sworn from her and becca so i thought i would pick up their next romance um i guess not really supernatural romance but it's set in like modern day it's something like new athens where persephone is in the mortal world she's obviously still a goddess but um she's taking i think an internship at like a journalism news place so i don't know should be interesting i'm not sure if i'm actually gonna you know carry it through or dnf it but we'll see so yes that is a big long ramble of everything i'm reading this vlog has probably been very long thank you for coming with me on this perilous journey that was this week i hope your guys's time went a little bit better um i'm still going to try and be super productive and get and accomplish things that i want to accomplish for the rest of this week and next week so maybe i'll do like a part two where hopefully everything doesn't catch on fire and blow up and go badly but yeah so oh my gosh also i completely forgot um but yesterday uh there's 50 50 000 50k is what i'm trying to articulate thank you so much um just thank you so much it means so much to me especially coming kind of at the end of this week and this um you know time where things weren't going well it was just so nice and i appreciate it so much um i did post a poll on instagram asking if you guys preferred another q a or something else and q a did win i believe it's i think there's like 60 something percent but um i think i'm just going to do both because i did have an idea and since there were still hundreds of people asking for something else i think i will do both so um a q a announcement will be coming probably on instagram and probably in my next vlog on youtube soon so yeah thank you guys just so much for being so lovely and it's just it's so flabbergasted it blows my mind so yeah i think that's it for me for this week i'm gonna go try and have a very nice day today take it easy the sun is shining which is nice probably spend the day singing cleaning trying to feel a little bit better combat the dizziness and then nausea nausea i can never say that word and um yeah so much love to you guys thank you so much i hope the new newness of the new year is treating you well and yeah i hope you're doing okay so thank you so much for watching i will hopefully hopefully fingers cross you see you in my next video yeah ciao

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Views: 81,717

Rating: 4.9735518 out of 5

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Id: 2fHpDrgu1kQ

Length: 58min 0sec (3480 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 10 2021