The Best Books of 2021 (according to Waterstones)

hello hello how are you doing as you probably know i love bookshops and i love looking at lists of books and so i thought a fun activity uh to do since every year waterstones have started doing this book of the year thing and they almost run it like a book prize then where early in november they announce a short list of their best books of the year and at the beginning of december i think they announced what their winner is and what is declared their best book of the year and so i thought a fun thing to do rather than just look at this list online would be to actually go to waterstones and one of my favorite bookshops of waterstones piccadilly and actually do a kind of like scavenger hunt to go around the bookshop and see if i can find all the books and actually look at them because a lot of these books include illustrations and stuff or they're beautiful editions and so i want to actually hold the book in my hands and have a look at it and so i thought i'd make a video talking about how i went to go do that and show some footage of when i went in the shop now before you get on my case i'm fully aware that waterstones lists of their books of the year is probably more a kind of like marketing strategy rather than you know a big group of booksellers getting together to all vote for their best books of the the year um that this is probably more a group of like marketing executives uh trying to figure out what is gonna appeal to the widest possible reading audience and what will people wanna buy for their friends and family uh over the holiday period and so you know i'm fully aware of that but at the same time this is just sort of a fun activity and like and also i'm aware that there's lots of other bookshops in london and around the uk independent bookshops i know that waterstones is like a big chain so this isn't meant to be like an advertisement for waterstones but it is just literally one of my favorite bookshops to go to since uh waterstones piccadilly in london is um as they well at least they claim to be one of the biggest book shops in uh europe and they they're certainly the biggest bookshop in london because it spread over six very large floors and uh so it makes it you know a fun kind of scavenger hunt because there's a lot of the bookshop to look through and so of course i like to uh yeah have a browse through other books as i'm going through and searching for these 13 books which they have picked for their shortlist so i'm gonna go through each of the books and give little descriptions of them and talk about them and it's very like kanye of uh i think bookshops have been coming out recently with special editions of books uh to you know try to sell more copies but obviously for book geeks like me it really works because i'm really drawn to these special editions and just this morning i saw that waterstones in gower street which used to be a famous used bookstore and sells a lot of academic books as well as like new titles and so um and they have a great sort of section of rare editions and and stuff it's it's a really beautiful book shop but it was taken over by waterstones a number of years ago but they've come out with a special edition of orlando by virginia woolf and uh this is specifically published because uh waterstone gower street is in bloomsbury and that's where the bloomsbury group was that's where virginia woolf lived for a period of time and and so they're coming out with these additions like special to them that they i think are only selling in their bookshop itself so you have to go there in order to get these special editions and and i'm really tempted because even though i already have a really beautiful copy of orlando i still want this new special edition so it's yeah very candy of them to do that because do i need another edition of orlando no but do i want it yes very much and so uh yeah um i i think it's uh really candy of uh these booksellers and bookshops and marketing executives or whoever making these decisions to uh bring out these special editions um so last year uh waterstones book of the year was hamnet by maggie o'farrell which won the women's prize uh last year as well and uh yeah was a big like popular bestseller and uh yeah is absolutely beautiful book uh in itself uh but yeah they have 13 books on this year's shortlist which is yeah quite a long short list and to be having and they're books that range from novels uh to children's literature uh to nature writing uh to non-fiction and yeah so a big range of titles but i'm gonna go through them all uh talking first about uh clara and the sun by kazuo ishiguro um which absolutely was one of my favorite books of the year it's such an engrossing story told from the point of view of an artificial friend and uh you know the the first edition itself is like a really beautiful uh copy but of course waterstones have brought out a special edition of this with a gold spine to it uh which is really beautiful and i do want a copy of it even though you know i already have this copy so definitely don't need another one but uh yeah it's it's so um they make it so tempting and uh yeah and i just love this story so much i think it's such a riveting tale like in itself just the the story itself following uh the very dramatic uh things that are happening behind and there's a whole like mystery to the story which just draws you through it and makes it quite thrilling but also it raises a lot of larger questions about what it means to be a human and where we're going in our society and what is the meaning of consciousness and our connection with each other and the meaning of faith and all these big larger questions which it raises and then that i have continued thinking about after finishing the novel but when i was just first reading the novel itself i was really engrossed in the story and so i think it's such an amazing like writing achievement you know in itself and he ishiguro deservedly award deserves deservedly deserves all the uh the attention um he's gotten i know a lot of people you know there there are some readers that didn't respond as strongly to this book and i totally respect that and understand that but uh me personally i i just loved it then there is the novel open water by caleb azuma nelson which is a debut novel and is one of the most powerful debuts of this year uh about a young black uh british couple that that meet and form a friendship and a romantic relationship with each other in modern day london um they they've both gone to uh art had arts university degrees and one is a photographer one is a dancer and it uh just gets into the intricacies of their psychological reality you know especially from his point of view it's mainly told through his point of view and it's uh told through the second person um it's has this real direct style which um speaks directly to you but also speaks about more universal subjects um and yeah and is talking in particular about young black british life in uh england today uh but you know is also speaking about more universal social and uh societal issues uh in in the world today and it's it's such a powerful impactful uh beautiful story and uh so yeah i'm glad this is one of their choices ariadne by jennifer saint this is a retelling of a classical mythology uh and there's been a lot of these uh recently uh so much so that there's a whole like shelf dedicated some to uh to some uh mythological retellings from a feminist point of view uh in in water stones which is sort of uh funny to see um but i i think it's great i totally like welcome uh this these like retellings i mean you know for thousands of years these stories have been told and retold mainly through men's points of view and so you know why not have a few years stint um where uh it's focusing more on female characters from these mythologies and so ariadne was a princess of crete that lived in a beautiful palace but below in the dungeons of that palace dwelt the minotaur which was a bloodthirsty beast and was also ariadne's half-brother and uh so yeah it gets into her story of the the story of uh when a thesis comes to uh visit the palace and tries to destroy the minotaur and how she sort of teams up with him it also gets into the story of her sister phaedra and uh so yeah it sounds like a riveting tale told through a really fun new perspective next is a book that really nicely complements that's that previous novel that i was discussing uh which is greek myths a new retelling by charlotte higgins uh which comes with illustrations and this is a non-fiction retelling and re-examining of uh some of the greatest myths but looking through uh the point of view of the the female characters from these different mythologies and each chapter of the book is sort of organized around a different figure such as athena helen cersei and penelope to tell the stories um more from their point of view or focusing on what details we know about them and uh so yeah i think this would be a great sort of compliment to reading some earlier like editions of the mythologies then there is a new non-fiction book looking at different kinds of mythologies which is storyland a new mythology of britain by amy jeffs and this is looking at the history and the landscape of britain through its different mythologies over time and telling the stories of the landscape itself and some of the greatest landmarks in the country and uh why these things are play a such a significant role in uh the nation's uh history and uh the kind of mythologies um which surround these different landmarks of how they were created and and what role they played in the citizens lives over the years and over time and how this has really formed the modern day identity of what it means to be british there's a novel which is a literary thriller called the appeal by janice hallett and this is told in a really innovative way where it's a sort of murder mystery where in a small village there's a group of a theatrical group and someone dies from that theatrical group and someone goes to prison for that murder but there is more to the story than than that and you gradually uncover um what's happening behind this murder and the the mystery surrounding it but not through straightforward storytelling uh but through documents and so you read a number of emails and letters and text messages and through that you piece together uh what's really going on and uh yeah i think that's that sounds like i i don't read all that many literary thrillers um but uh this sounds like a fun new way of of doing a kind of murder mystery story now recently i've been reading some more uh nature writing and really enjoying that um after following the the wainwright prize this year and uh so i'm glad to see that there's some new nature writing also shortlisted for this and one of the books is around the world in 80 plants by jonathan drory and lucille clark and so this is a book doing exactly what it says in the title of um showing you 80 different plants and illustrations of those plants from around the world from the common uh tomato plant or tomato plant however you want to pronounce it i i do a sort of mishmash of american and british way of pronouncing a tomato but but also dandelions and spanish moss and looking at the the history of these plants and their evolution and what these plants and their use in society says about our own history and culture and folklore and so i think it's a really interesting way of looking at the the past of uh you know these different organic life forms and and how they uh play a role in our society there's also a book of travel riding with the amur river between russia and china by colin thubrun and who's a very famous travel writer and when he was 80 years old he went and followed a river from the very origins of this river in the mongolian mountains all the way down to the the sea and this is the 10th largest river in the world and he experienced a lot of trials and tribulations along the way i think he was actually even like arrested while he was making this this journey and uh so it's the sort of discovery of the river itself and the the societies that live on either side of it there are also some books of children's literature and uh so first off there's a geography book called a history of the world in 25 cities by tracy turner and andrew duncan and so this does you know what it says in the title again it looks at the the world um through specific cities and it has illustrations of these cities not so much a representation of uh how the city is actually laid out but through some of its biggest landmarks and what that says about the the city and uh what i really like is uh how this book seems to go into uh the story of childhood life in these different cities and so it seems like a great way of exposing children to different cultures and lifestyles all around the world and and how children actually live you know in everyday life um in these different cities there's a middle grade book uh called julia and the shark by kieran millwood hargrave and it's illustrated by tom de fresten and this is a story about uh julia and how she and her parents uh go to live on a remote island one summer and her father goes there for work and her mother goes on this like obsession in a search of the elusive uh greenland shark and uh while she's on this journey she encounters some trouble and uh julia sort of has to go after her and and find out what happened to her um but also uh more about this this shark and uh it was really lovely when i found a copy of this uh book on the the table that it was on uh also nearby there was uh anna james most recent book um my wonderful friend anna james um who had a new book out recently and i know because anna's friends with kieran um it's just lovely that they're sharing a table together there's a young adult novel called they both die at the end by adam silvera and this is set i guess in a sort of dystopian type society you know like a lot of young adult novels where a organization called death cast calls two different individuals to young men and tells them that they are going to die today and so before the end of their day they go on an app that's specifically for people that know that they're going to die very soon in order to meet each other and so these two young men meet up with each other and have a day together where they try to fit in all of the events of their life into one single day and have this exchange and form this friendship before they meet their inevitable end so that that's that's quite a like unique idea for a story paul mccartney has brought out a big fancy really beautiful looking book called the lyrics where he goes into all of the lyrics and the songs that he's written over the many many years of his musical career uh going into the the stories behind them what inspired them some of his literary influences and uh and you see reproductions of some of the documents of some of the the handwritten uh lyrics of of these songs that he he wrote along with a lot of photographs and it comes in uh two big volumes uh all collected in this big beautiful box and you know it's a very pricey uh thing um waterstones are selling it for 60 pounds and so i saw somebody commenting on twitter that if this does win book of the year it's going to be really tough for booksellers to you know say at the the till like hey why don't you give a try to this big expensive uh new book that's our book of the year um yeah it's going to be quite a hard thing to push but but it is a really beautiful object and i love that they have some copies open out on the tables in waterstones so you can have a look and a browse through it because a lot of the copies come in shrink wrap and so you're not able to open it up but but you are able to browse through it in the store now on my little scavenger hunt through the the bookshop i did find all of the books except for one because yeah it's quite a big book shop and it took me quite a while to find a lot of these these books i was in there maybe like between half an hour and 45 minutes just browsing around and obviously i was distracted looking at a lot of other books as well but one book i couldn't find uh and the the final book the 13th book uh on their list shortlist for the best books of the year uh is you are a champion by marcus rashford uh who is a footballer and uh became a really big celebrity as he got involved in a campaign in britain to end child food poverty and so yeah really inspiring uh great figure and a great uh individual uh but uh i know nothing about sports or or football and uh so i went up to the sports section in waterstones for the very first time in my life and felt like a bit of a fish out of water and like oh i don't really know how to navigate these bookshelves and so i looked under football trying to find this book uh which uh then i because i couldn't find it i started to question myself like oh is marcus rashford actually a footballer or does he play some other sport because i i really have no idea about sports or know anything about him other than this you know great uh campaign that he had that he led and which led to real change in the country uh but uh yeah i couldn't actually find a copy of this book and then realized afterwards that this is geared a book geared more towards children and talking about how you can find inspiration because he came from quite like a humble background but then has obviously gone on to be this big celebrity and star footballer and so yeah it's meant to be an inspirational book for children but when i was leaving the shop i did actually see it out displayed in the the window of of the shop so i did find it there but i didn't find a copy a physical copy that i could go look and browse through um so i obviously should have gone to the children's section anyway so um so i failed the scavenger hunt in that way but i did find most of the books and uh so yeah it's i thought it'd be fun to actually show copies of them uh in this video so those are all the books uh on the list i did make some purchases while i was there but i'm not gonna show them on camera because i bought some of these books for gifts for people and uh so for some friends and family of mine some of whom i know sometimes watch my video i don't know if they'll be watching this video but i don't want to spoil the surprise of giving these books as gifts um so yeah so i'm not going to talk about what books i actually bought while i was there uh but yeah i did make some purchases and yeah had a really fun time looking around the the bookshop so yeah let me know if you've read any of these books if you would recommend them or if you're interested in any of them now and which book you think you should win the book of the year for the water stones you know for what it's worth and uh thank you for watching hope you're reading good things and i'll speak to you again soon bye

Channel: Eric Karl Anderson

Views: 7,006

Keywords: booktube, Waterstones Picadilly, Waterstones, best books of the year, best books of 2021, Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, best novels of 2021, Ariadne by Jennifer Saint, Greek Myths by Charlotte Higgins, The Amur River by Colin Thubron, The Appeal by Janice Hallett, Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera, The Lyrics by Paul McCartney, You Are A Champion by Marcus Rashford

Id: jN2oX4bYIAA

Length: 21min 31sec (1291 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 26 2021