My First Book Haul

hello everybody how are you doing today welcome to what i believe is my first overt book haul i've shied away from doing book calls i've never really been a fan of them because you kind of get the sense that the books are not really being read the the measure of a successful reading program to many who do book hauls is quantity and i've always been about quality i've always been about deep re-reading in fact the books that i'm currently re-reading for the umpteenth time these are the books i'm more excited to discuss i'm currently rereading my favorite gothic novel of all time with the hardcore literature book club that's frankenstein by mary shelley i've just finished a great deep read of thomas hardy's test of the oberville and i absolutely fell in love with it all over again i'm going to do a podcast on this one it's a great autumnal read hardy is perfect just like dickens for rereading i've been rereading the essays of emerson and thoreau and i've also been loving a deep reread of george eliot's middle march samuel richardson's clarissa great book at the turn of the screw again we're reading this in the original serialized publication form with the book club that's henry james great ghost story fits the season perfectly and i've been falling in love once again with the secret dickens novel slated for the christmas period i'm not going to reveal what it is yet but look forward to it if you're part of the club it's absolutely brilliant it's so so much fun we're going to really enjoy this one but let's get into the book haul and excuse me for going quickly but there are a lot of books now these aren't book recommendations but i know a few of you have expressed interest in seeing what kind of books turn up like i said i'm more interested in my rereads in my deep returnings to the classics but recently i had quite a haul turn up and i'd like to show you some of the books that i find myself rifling through and enjoying okay first things first let's get the oxford world's classics out of the way because i've got three of them i absolutely love these editions the pictures chosen for the cover are always so beautiful um let's see what turned up so we have dh lawrence the rainbow funnily enough though i have enjoyed lawrence's poetry for many years i've never really got into his novels in a big way when i was much younger i read sons and lovers but i couldn't remember it having re-read thomas hardy and almost exhausted him i thought the next logical step would be to pick up some dh lawrence i've started with the rainbow and i can't believe it's taken me this long to get to the prose is gorgeous it's biblical if you haven't read the rainbow and you're a fan of thomas hardy then i would highly recommend d h lawrence i also picked up some emile zola this is the first novel in the rugom makkah and i'm probably butchering uh that a series of novels one of the members of the book club has expressed zola as actually we have a few fans of solar but as his favorite novelist and he loved reading through the whole series i've heard the entire series mentioned time and again so i thought it time to see what the fuss is about so i'm starting with that i did read zola's better main many many years ago but once again i can't really remember it um and it's very very slim it's very doable so i'm looking forward to seeing zola and keeping with the french i have some molieri i ordered this even though i've already read mollieri again many years ago i ordered this because i found myself feeling a little bit misanthropic so i kept having molly aries play title the misanthrope come into my mind i don't know why or where it came from but i thought i'm going to reorder that and i'm going to check out one of the latest translations and so far i'm loving it next up we have some poetry wallis stevens the complete collected poetry and prose in the library of america edition i'm a huge fan of library of america you can see a couple behind me eisley leguin baldwin and now stevens i love how compact they are this is over a thousand pages you wouldn't be able to tell would you but the paper quality it's very thin it's very fine but it's supreme it's a it's a premium product the dust jacket if you take it off you can see the original the the hardback underneath is in a nice royal blue uh wallace stevens is wonderful i've been rereading and chanting aloud from the auroras of autumn um if you haven't already come to wallace stevens i strongly urge you too he is tremendous and we have breaching the penguin classics we have some german poetry with friedrich herldaling and forgive me for butchering the pronunciation of that i've never read him before i don't think maybe i've read him in passing anthologies but other than that i've not come to him in a huge way and now i felt the time was right so i'm gonna dive into that if you have already read him then please recommend me uh the poem that you think i should start with keeping with the penguin classics this one got recommended to me based on my buying trends by amazon this is italo calvino why read the classics and i was almost ready to dismiss it i've seen this recommended a few times i thought i don't need this book and then i opened it and started reading his introduction his introductory essay and i felt like it was myself mirrored back to me he's got obviously got a different writing style but he was saying things almost verbatim the same things that i have said and i've never read calvino before so hey i've found the kindred spirit and i'm loving the essay so far he's got essays on homer he's got essays on dickens and many more so i'm i'm enjoying that so far i also i didn't mean to get this i think i hit this accidentally but i'm glad i did it's d h lawrence studies in classic american literature he talks about walt whitman benjamin franklin edgar allan poe herman melville and many more and though i don't actually agree with much of what he's saying his mode of expression is always that of the poet and it's a good read in and of itself and it makes one think of the inherent value of american literature it's a great one very slim one as well next up we have arthur miller's the crucible now i've read this many many years ago i know what it's about but i thought it was time to dust it off or buy it again and read it again it's about witch hunts well it's actually about mccarthyism but it's it's a topic that is applicable to every time and i can feel a podcast brewing a good one especially reading this in conjunction with the next book this is a reread again this is stacey schiff's the witches i think schiff is a wonderful historian i've also got her cleopatra if you're into your history schiff is a good one to go for now let's look at some esoteric reads now i get some really out there recommendations um this one here is called on the kabbalah and it's symbolism and that's by gershom sholum we also have the message of the alien god and the beginnings of christianity the gnostic religion by hans jonas now i must say they're both incredibly dense and difficult but i'm looking forward to unpicking them soon i also have one which is a rebuy i had this many years ago it was on the required reading at oxford and i don't know where it ended up i do remember struggling with this and the other day i had a thought an inspired thought because i've read so much romantic poetry uh since then i thought maybe i can try that again mh abrams who kept writing well into his old age i believe he reached the age of 100 that's some goals right there the mirror and the lamp romantic theory and the critical tradition he has stuff in here on coleridge wordsworth blake shelly uh keats and so on and once again it's incredibly dense so i might have to give myself a headache i might have to read this one with a pen poised and a fun one this is a relatively new everyman pocket poet i love all of these they have a new one coming out which i've pre-ordered which is a series of poetry on books and the love of libraries and book collecting but this one's perfect for the season this is poems bewitched and i'm torn because i absolutely love the dust jacket but if you take it off it's also in a really nice vivid pumpkin orange color my plans for halloween are to read aloud some ghost stories for the hardcore literature book club i'm also going to be choosing a patreon ghost story that's one pinned by one of the book club members i'm going to read several aloud with some classics thrown in and i'm gonna weave in some spooky poems it should be a really fun show so i'm looking forward to that i love halloween i love the season and i love aligning my reading with the season and so that's just a choice selection of some of the books that turned up the other day one of my favorite things to do in the evening is to surround myself with books and to just pick up disparate volumes from the pile dip into 10 over the course of an evening it's great fun and it all sort of compounds and mingles in my head it's a great way to spend some time anywho if you liked the book haul and you would like me to show off more books here and there then do let me know if you've enjoyed the video please hit like and subscribe and let me know what books did you pick up recently what was on your latest book haul happy reading everybody

Channel: Benjamin McEvoy

Views: 7,072

Keywords: book haul, booktuber, booktube, first book haul ever, 2021 book haul, 2022 book haul, halloween book haul, classics book haul, Christmas book haul

Id: anbVYeGaCBg

Length: 9min 24sec (564 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 18 2021