My Favourite People

hi guys it's Sophie so today I'm gonna be filming a video that was requested by one of my subscribers and this is like a favorite authors slash favorite people video so I mentioned I'd talked about James Baldwin that I thought he was someone who might become a favorite person and I do kind of have this I do can have certain authors who I like beyond their work I like the sense I get from them as like a whole individual so this video is going to be exploring a couple of people that I feel that way about which I think can be interesting because it's something that rarely happens but when it does I feel like a real connection to those people um so yeah it's gonna run through a few days so the first one is quite an old one for me I just absolutely love this person I'm in focus hofstadter so he wrote gödel Escher back and he also wrote I'm a strange loop they're both really meaty philosophical books that Center on mathematical logic and girlish abarth is talking about the ways in which the the three individuals sort of interrelate and how there are these underlying patterns that run through our world I'm a strange leaf is more sort of about how we find these little cyclical things in our life that repeat and replicate in a way that sort of mirrors things and this happens in the natural world and he also compares it to like his emotion or this book about maths and about grief but Hofstadter in general like it's hard to explain quite what it is but I feel like a kinship with the way he thinks about things sometimes he's obviously far more intelligent than I am but the way of understanding the world through like almost a mathematical logical lens to try make sense of things that are really obscure or that complicated philosophies I I just really feel for him in a way that I don't feel forever one that I write from read from sorry yeah it's one of those he's often say that he's my biggest that intellectual crushed like he is someone that I would love to meet in real life but I actually don't think I would like properly functioning I I think had a feel like almost like fangirling over him just because I love the way he thinks so much and it it feels so natural to me so Hoff's I was my first of my favorite people and the next person I have is another one that writes nonfiction and that one is Siddhartha Mukherjee so Siddhartha Mukherjee wrote the Emperor of all maladies which is a book talking about cancer and may treats it very much as a story it's so it's the biography of cancer no it does feel like a life story and he also wrote the Jean and intimate history talking about genetics and the way in which human genetics affect sort of illness and health and I have a nerve but from here which was a TED talk he did which is the laws of Medicine field notes from an uncertain science similar kind of feel here so so whilst I don't feel as though I'm gonna hold up a random book for you just have them to look at whilst I don't feel as though I share his sort of thought process in his mental process as much as I do Hofstadter's the way that Mukherjee mixes science and interpersonal stories I absolutely adore and I felt reading his works I really connected with him on that sense and I think the care and the attention to detail that he puts into his books and into the facts and each sort of each sort of the way he sort of explains things so he's not only giving you quite complicated information it feels as though he's making sure you understand it before you move on and that is really valuable to me so in who know the UNPROFOR maladies I felt that understood the process of cancer for the first time so it had very much been like a ethereal sort of bad thing that happened but he gives an example that breaks it down into like like a subatomic level in terms of what's happening to each individual cell and how that then relates to account some more sort of widely and that sort of thing I've really valuable so it's an idea where the way you people have explained it to me before I can kind of grasp it but I don't truly understand it and I think he is very good at giving you the chance to let properly understand what's going on he also just seems like a really like good guy like a really good person but like I said I watched like his TED Talks and stuff and I think I've now read everything he's written but I don't know I don't even tempted to go and like read his papers just because I feel file but he's so interesting and so yeah I hope interested in kind of like medical nonfiction and then he's like my stand out from that now I mentioned at the outset of the video that the reason this came about was James Baldwin and I'm tentatively including him here even though I've only read one of his books because he I'm Fame why he I think might be one of my favorite people so I read notes in the native son by him and it's absolutely adored it I again I felt that he was very intelligent that he uses his words not fairly but incredibly sort of targeted word use and I feel he's a very careful writer I also felt as though he was very successful at relaying an emotion or relying a set of ideas in a way that makes them feel very easily acceptable even if you don't share them or even if you had never thought about in that same way and I found that to be really valuable saying this tends to be the way it works with my favorite authors if they have something else I'll pick something else up so I have go tell it on the mountain to read to see and I'm really hoping I do his fiction as much as his nonfiction because if it has that same sense to it I think he may become one of my favorite people I can't say is because I've only read one so far but we'll see how I go with him and yeah I'm hoping that it's gonna be good stuff with him and the next is one I think you guys would kind of expect to be here and that's David Foster Wallace so alright Infinite Jest last year and I read a supposedly fun thing on a video again so this is fiction these are his nonfiction essays and so have The Pale King that I'm yet to start of his it's gonna pop down these two for the heavy but with David Foster Wallace I really did enjoy his writing but the bit that made me attach myself to him as an individual wasn't his writing up with his writing paired with his interviews so David Foster Wallace interviews in a really intimate manner and he he speaks in such a way that you can tell how carefully he's considering what he's saying and he's ensuring that what he is expressing is directly what he believes if it isn't he will correct himself and go back his sort of own insecurities come through when he is speaking alongside his kind of ideas about how the world works and he feels simultaneously like this intellectual giant and this really fragile individual now I related an awful lot to a lot of the stuff that was in Infinite Jest I think this sort of like the the psychological variability that comes along with like an intellectual achievement was something that I really recognized in myself and I think in reading his biography which is by DT max which I've not grabbed off the shelf but I don't know a lot about how his background with him was in mathematical logic and that that drew him to the logic that he writes within so again there's that kind of feel of the understanding of his universe being on on a similar way to the way that I would comprehend mine and when I kind of knew that he died and I knew that he killed himself and when I saw the need that to begin with him and I admire just reading Infinite Jest it didn't really bother me because I don't really feel like I had any connection with him but when I kept reading his essays and the more I learn about him the more I read about his life I there's a brilliant interview by his sister that talks about who he serve was as a person it became more and more personally affecting for me and and to the point where I feel like there is a sense of loss there and it's it's just one of those things like I never I'd never really known who he was until after he was dead but I still feel as though there's that link to nothing interesting I think he just kind of shows like the ways and what your writing can affect people like after a long period of time so David Foster Wallace be another one and then the very last one that I'm going to go through today is Jose San Diego now I read blindness and I was seen by him I do have a spotlight video on Sarah my ego and his works if you want to know more about the books feel free to check those out I've also picked up because he has got more stuff I haven't read yet it's death intervals which I will hopefully get to see maybe when I do my next TBR this might be one that makes its way in now sorry Megan I think what I loved about him is like his political honesty as well as this incredible writing style that he has that it's like a punch in the gut like like um he doesn't hold back from anything and I feel as though there's a bravery and sorrow makers writing that I can't help but think must be reflected in him as an individual I feel as though he's a powerful person in in himself like I feel as though his self as a powerful person I have a lot of respect for his writing and a little bit of respect for being as open as he is now I'm really lucky in that I do have a lot of Sammy go left to go through but I I just feel as though you know as I keep going through his work and keep progressing through it I'm gonna find the same kinship so there are a few other people you know that I could have really easy mentioned in here there are lot of other authors that I read a lot of and I really enjoy but the people I chose and then here are not just my favorite authors because say so I'm you should hopefully have a video up already on Stephen King he's one of my absolute all-time favorite authors but I don't have that connection with him simile Cormac McCarthy who I read a lot of last year I love his writing but I don't feel as though I know him as a so the Sidious is specifically around authors that are important to me beyond just what they write though I know them through what they write let me know if you ever have this with also the people you read or interact with or sort of lecturers or people who write papers whatever when you feel this connection to them on a more personal level not just on that sort of reader/writer level because I think I think the five people do have this with some authors especially their favorite authors so I'd love to know who you feel you connect with in the comments down below and if you know why they're gonna be interesting to think about why yeah because I'd love to know that and see how different people affect different readers well honestly yeah hopefully you enjoyed this video it's been a little bit different I really actually enjoyed filming it so I'm really hoping that the video comes out okay and I'll see you soon in my next film all right buh-bye 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Channel: Portal in the Pages

Views: 4,764

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: favourite authors, douglas hofstader, david foster wallace, jose saramago, james baldwin, siddhartha murkerjee

Id: xss_fCOoVNc

Length: 11min 36sec (696 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 22 2017