Top 5 Books of 2021... So Far!

hey everybody so about half the year is over if you can believe that actually a little bit more than half the year now so i thought i would take a minute to talk about my top five reads of 2021 so far and i cannot wait to tell you what they are so let's get started hi everybody and welcome back to my channel it's russell with inking paper blog how are you all doing today as always i hope you're happy i hope you're healthy i hope you're safe and of course i hope you're reading an amazing book or two or three hopefully one i've recommended to you i cannot believe that july is almost over i cannot believe how fast 2021 is running away but i have to say it has been a fantastic reading year and i have loved sharing all of the amazing books that i've been getting and reading with all of you so thank you all for watching and talking and commenting it has been fantastic so today i'm here to talk about my top five reads of the year so far now i decided that i was gonna do five i was like you're only gonna do five russell and then i realized that that was so hard because there are so many books that i would like to recommend as my top reads of the year books i cannot get out of my head that i think are fantastic however i did decide to go ahead and just do five and i would would love to do a list of everything that is right there almost fighting its way into the top five but i'm not gonna do that i am going to make sure that i just focus on these five books so as always get out your pen get our paper get out your goodreads however you keep track of your tbr if you are so able please get these books from your local independent bookstore actually all of these books that i'm going to talk about today are actually out and you can get your hands on them and um i highly recommend every one of them and i've raved about most of them throughout the year as well so i'm assuming that you have heard of them but hopefully today i will convince you to read them if i haven't convinced you already okay are we ready i put these in order alphabetical by author's last name um so there is no order like this is my favorite read of the book so far read of the book read of the year so far i am gonna save that for the end of the year so this is just the top five in alphabetical order by author now the first book i'm going to talk about actually was just in my last video is one of those books that i just don't think enough people are talking about and that's the arsonist's city by hala alan out from hmh i adored this book and i believe if i'm not mistaken um i read a great article on it and her that just sort of inspired me to love it anymore anymore even more and i just think it is so good so this is the story of a family and it's a family that comes from a lot of different places we have the mother who is syrian the father who is lebanese and the kids who are all born in america and very much so they are connected as a family though they have their issues um and they are sort of spread out all over the united states and the world there are three children the oldest daughter i believe is in california the middle son is in texas and the youngest daughter is in beirut now beirut is the where most of this story takes place what has happened is that the grandfather so the father of the father character has passed away and left the home the family home to his son but he has decided that he is going to sell that home which the mother is not on board with and we learn throughout the chapters sort of the history of the things that have taken place in that home and why she is so connected to it and what she decides to do is she sort of like um manipulates her children to all agree to go to beirut with their father to convince him not to sell the home but the other part of this story is we get sort of this family saga about all three children all parts of their lives what they are doing the oldest daughter is a teacher but her and a mother and her relationship is a little bit rocky the husband winds up staying behind the middle son wants to be a musician has been in a band for a long time but it has never taken off um and but he's really really good with food and cooking and so he's sort of giving up his passion for music and how that makes him feel he's in a relationship he doesn't know what he wants to do with that and then the youngest daughter is living her queer life in beirut and is sort of a musical prodigy slash um she has a band that is just very very popular and she is really well known for the music that she puts out and but she's always been sort of separated from her family we've not really been truthful about who she is in a hundred percent authenticity and all of this stuff comes together as we also get flashbacks on how the mother and father met the relationships that really brought them together and all the backdrop of sort of conflict in the region and how that affects all of the characters and their decisions and how they wind up in america and all of that it is such a family saga and it is so so good everyone is so developed the language is beautiful um it is just a beautiful beautiful book so that's the arsonist's city by chala alan out from hmh and if you haven't read it yet if i haven't convinced you please let this be the time to read it and talk about it and recommend it to all your friends okay the next book is another one that i've talked a bit about um but i just cannot get it out of my head and that's the living sea of waking dreams by richard flanagan um i have to say that i made a mistake in my last video so this book takes place in um australia and tasmania okay and i think i said tanzania maybe in my last video when i talked about it but sometimes i make videos after work after working like 12 hours and my brain and i are not on the same page so australia tasmania our main character is anne and this is the story really of her family and herself what has happened is her mother is in hospital and is is passing like her body is giving out she's in a lot of pain and really the doctors are telling anne and her brothers it's sort of time to let your mother go allow her to pass um but what the youngest brother is just anti this idea he is not a and and he have not really been active in the mother's life it's the other brother that has really been there for the mom this whole other time and he wants to allow his mom to sort of just get peace right but the youngest brother won't let it happen he is fighting he is doing and he sort of like manipulates the hospital and politics and all sorts of things to try to keep the mother alive but at the same time parts of anne's body are starting to disappear i know that sounds weird but like all of a sudden she realizes she's missing a finger but no one else is really noticing and then she starts to notice that things are disappearing around her so the book starts to then focus on the sense of loss the sense of loss of self for anne the sense of loss of her mother along with this backdrop of the fires that were destroying australia and tasmania and really causing havoc on that beautiful beautiful country and that loss and how that environmental loss is going to affect us all in the long run um richard flanagan you know he's known he won the booker prize he is a phenomenal writer and he also i believe he lives in uh tasmania as well let me make sure yep he lives in tasmania as well um and he's just this is just a brilliant story i think it's a little bit of a take off from what he normally writes because it's got this sort of sci-fi element to it but it's brilliantly interwoven and it is so so so good in this cover at least the us cover is just absolutely gorgeous so this is the living sea of waking dreams by richard flanagan i wonder if we will see this on the book or long list that's coming out in the next few days i'm hoping so because i think it's so brilliant but we will see okay the next book that i want to talk about is a book that i read much more much earlier in the year but still sticks out and it's probably because i've become sort of a stand for the author because i have loved loved his last two books and that's the removed by brandon hopson this is out from echo books and he was shortlisted for the national book award for where the dead sit talking which i thought was utterly brilliant but i think the removed is even better but that being said i always have a hard time um summarizing this book but this is a another family story so this is the story of the ochota family it's been 15 years since their um oldest son was killed in an act of violence at a mall where a police officer shot him and killed him and he was innocent of any wrongdoing what has happened in that 15 years is the mother has taken on the role of really supporting the entire family the father is dealing with alzheimer's and dementia um the other the sister um has sort of created a life where she is failing to connect she was always sort of a very um introverted reclusive sort of person but she's sort of failing to connect with those around her until she meets a man with a young son where she starts a relationship where that goes and how that ties into the entire story is brilliantly done and then the youngest son is out of state so this takes place in oklahoma um but the youngest that i believe starts in new mexico he has been dealing with drug addiction for quite some time sort of living with the ghosts of everyone in his family but what's also brilliantly sort of interwoven through here is the history and this sense of the spirit um as told through what happened during the trail of tears and what happens is that sort of sits in the background of this family story of them all trying to come together 15 years after the death of their son and brother in order to celebrate his life at a gathering i want to i don't want to say the wrong gathering cherokee national holiday and they're all supposed to come together to celebrate ray ray's life 15 years later and it's all about these people and these relationships and how a tragedy can sort of sprink spread everyone away but what what also happens is that the mother and father wind up taking a foster son a young um i think he's cherokee as well a boy into their home while he is in the system trying to figure out where he's gonna land and it spawns reminiscence for the father who has really been losing his memories and sort of inspires him to sort of come back to who he is he sort of gets that sense of reality back that um he has been losing um and there's just like this hope and this love and it's all it's really about all of that but it there's just sort of a sense of history to everything brandon hopson writes there's like a reverence to tradition that just really sort of hits at the heart of his characters that i just find beautifully done um i loved this book i think that it will probably be one of my favorite books at the end of the year as well um and it's one of the books that i've read that i can't stop thinking about so that's the removed by brandon hobson out now from echo books okay we're gonna go completely different here and this is probably my favorite read of the year that just sort of made me laugh and hugged my heart and just made me feel so warm and fuzzy at the end and that's the gunkle by stephen rowley and i think every once in a while for someone like me if you've watched my channel for a long time you know that i tend to read very dark books there's a lot of sadness and tragedy in most of the stuff that i love that's just who i am as a reader it's what i've always sort of um been attracted to and i'm good with that but every once in a while i just need a book that just makes me feel good and the gunko look just look at how fun the cover is so it starts with a bit of sadness so our main character's best friend who is also married to his brother has passed away she has been fighting illness for quite some time and unfortunately she loses the battle so it's her funeral he lives in palm springs and i believe the family lives in connecticut he goes home for the funeral where his brother admits two things one he would like his brother he would like him to take his children um his knee uh the uncles niece and nephew um and take them for a little bit of time in order for him to go into rehab because he admits he has become addicted to um to narcotics during this whole episode trying to keep it all together um so really our main character is like i gotta remember his name patrick there you go patrick is um like no like this is not for me i'm not the one to do this but he does and if you are not aware the term gunkle is for gay uncle and that is exactly what he is and he takes these children into his home and he just sort of helps them through their loss as they help him through his loss and we find out that he has lost a partner and ever since the loss of that partner he's really never felt whole again um this book is laugh out loud funny the patrick has a stinging wit and if you meet steven rowley you just sort of know that steven is that funny as well and so they just sort of go back and forth and it is so very very good but it is heartwarming and it's how people can help each other family can help each other through very tough times and there's humor and love and it's just everything you need so if you have been at a point where you're like you know what i just need something to make me feel good this book has a little bit of sadness there's a little bit of loss but there's a little love and humor and just all of that goodness in it so that's the gunkle by stephen rally this is out from putnam and highly highly recommend um it i was going through a really rough time when i read the gun call it was just work had been really hard and there was a lot of stuff going on and i opened the gunko and i was laughing so hard i was in tears in the first few pages it just helped me get through that time so i i just i recommend it in so many ways okay last but not least in this video alphabetically only is the short story collection filthy animals by brandon taylor now if you don't remember brandon taylor's novel real life was my favorite read of the year um last year um i think he is a brilliant voice in literature um and i am so excited to see what he does next and i follow him on instagram and i follow him on twitter and i just enjoy sort of his take on the world um and this is a collection of short stories some interconnected some not the interconnected ones focus on the life of i want to say his name is lionel but you know how i am with names so let me check it is lionel um lionel is a young gay man who has survived attempting suicide and is finally getting back into the world where he meets a couple a man and a woman and sort of starts a relationship with the man that has all sorts of complications to it um with permission of both parties and sort of how that all develops and what brandon does is he brings us into the life of not only lionel but both of those two characters and other periphery characters that we meet throughout the interactions of that group um that to me was probably the strongest part of this because i really wanted to know what was going to happen i i thought that that was very convincing but there is a story um about a lesbian couple in here as well and i always want to make sure i get i'm called anne of cleves which to me is the strongest story in itself um in the book that i just thought was brilliant i sometimes think when i read short story collections what stories are going to be taught for years to come um anne of cleves i think is the one from this book though i think the short story filled with the animals is also very very good um brandon has a way of capturing people that is just so fresh and new and and now if that makes sense um his dialogue is just so also so just true true to the people true to the character true to the story and he also can surprise you you think you know where you're headed you don't he will do something that will surprise you i promise and he has fantastic fashion yeah i love his duck shirts and his sweaters and all of that so highly recommend filthy animals by brandon taylor highly recommend real life by brandon taylor if you haven't read it yet but that is my fifth favorite and it's not an order but the fifth book i talked about today um of my favorite reads of the year so far and that is the stack right there i know that i always say i hope you read them all but in this case i hope you read every single one of them they are all fantastic as always if you are new to my channel i thank you for coming by i hope you subscribe i hope you come to see what i talk about i do love books so very very much if you are a return subscriber i could not do with this without you you are all the heartbeat of this channel and i appreciate you so very very much so as always i encourage you to read globally shop locally and until next time i wish you happy reading bye everyone you

Channel: Ink and Paper Blog

Views: 3,401

Rating: 4.9529409 out of 5

Keywords: Books, Reading, Book Reviews, Book Recommendations, Book Clubs, Booktube, Kid Friendly, Family Friendly, Hala Alyan, Richard Flanagan, Brandon Hobson, Steven Rowley, Brandon Taylor

Id: 1YaaVj10a9M

Length: 19min 22sec (1162 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 25 2021