So I love the movie based on this book, and I‘m glad to finally have read it. Still Alice was a heartfelt and insistently earnest look at the ravages of Alzheimer‘s and I book I won‘t soon forget. The writing was a tad clunky I thought in the early parts, but when it really hit its stride it was something to behold. Highly poignant and deeply affecting, Still Alice is def worth your time. Full review here:

https://youtu.be/X4YU5Ueejuk

So I read Gilead finally. I thought it was mostly really good. Very warm and humane. Lots of reflections on life and faith and such. Very poignant as well. Kinda lost steam in the 2nd half though I thought. Still, I liked it pretty well. Give it a B+. For my full review, see here:

https://youtu.be/mOQzHaZWa14

Not much of a 007 fan, but this only cost me a quarter so what the hell. This book was pretty meh. The writing was decent but it was overly expository in places and the characters were thin. It did have some exciting moments tho. But DAMN is James Bond an asshole in these books! Misogynistic, sexually deranged; women are basically just meat to him. 🙁 Still, a fairly entertaining thriller. Full review here:

https://youtu.be/CbolqruIBh8

So I‘d wanted to read this book for a while, and boy does it give you a lot to chew on! 😆 I‘ve long considered myself an antinatalist, but I didn‘t know I was a full blown pessimist until I read this, but I guess the shoe fits. This is a hella bleak book, but I think it can give people some really valuable perspective. In short, existence itself is horror. Read the book to see why. 😉 For my full thoughts, see here:

https://youtu.be/85zbzFIxzt8

So, being a fan of the 1974 grindhouse classic film Death Wish starring Charles Bronson, I decided to read the little remembered novel upon which it was based, and oh boy, this was a knockout! Brian Garfield‘s Death Wish I think represents my favorite kind of literature: it‘s fun and engaging to read, but also well written and thoughtful. One of the best books I‘ve read recently. For my full review, click here:

https://youtu.be/ZuCL5sSdv04

So I picked this book up on a whim, but I‘m really glad I did. This was an excellent work of creative nonfiction detailing the author Susanna Kaysen‘s experiences whilst confined to a mental institution in the late 60‘s. It was written in a fairly conversational style, but it worked well for this story. It also raises interesting questions about sanity and perception, and I could recommend this. Full review here:

https://youtu.be/QXNM1i3K_74

So I made a video on my booktube channel in which I count down the 10 characters from all of literature which I consider to be the greatest. Of course it‘s subjective and somewhat grandiose, but that‘s just how I do. 😎 Anyway, if you‘re interested, why not click on the link below and come see which 10 characters I consider to be literature‘s finest. 🤗

https://youtu.be/CSewyuWOPdc

In preparation for the upcoming release of The Passenger, I‘m tryna knock out the last few McCarthy books I haven‘t read. Went back to his debut with The Orchard Keeper and was rather underwhelmed. It was a pretty forgettable Faulkner clone with some ridiculously overwrought passages and very thin characters and a seeming lack of any message or point. A far cry from Blood Meridian. 😒 For my full thoughts, see here:

https://youtu.be/xEGRKBgcqrw

Aight, so hold your fire; I know this author is...controversial, to say the least, and I‘m not some blind disciple, but I do find her endlessly fascinating and, like it or not, I actually did learn a couple things from her. So I wanted to revisit Anthem, a book I initially had to read in high school, and damn if it ain‘t pretty good. Say what you will about her, she could in fact write. Anyway, full review here:

https://youtu.be/Xruzmr1o0e8

So this was the first novel by Marilynne Robinson, of Gilead fame, and wow this was one heck of a book! Gorgeous writing, memorable characters, and a rather quirky coming of age tale. Would definitely recommend. For my full thoughts, see my review here:

https://youtu.be/j9L8A9K8Vok

So this is a brand new Black Label comic that DC released to cash in on the hype for Matt Reeves‘s The Batman, and damn if it didn‘t surpass it! 😍 This was easily the best comic I‘ve read in quite some time. The story was mature (and definitely not for kids) and the artwork was mostly fantastic. So glad I picked this up! If you‘ve seen the movie and want something in a similar vein give this a go! Also, my review:

https://youtu.be/4XWihtwM7o0

So in honor of the upcoming film The Batman, I decided to take a look at the comic that seems to be its principal inspiration, Scott Snyder‘s and Greg Capullo‘s Batman: Zero Year. If you don‘t know, I‘m a huge (and I mean HUGE!) Batman fan, and I found this modern retelling of his origin to be mostly well done. For my full thoughts, see my review here:

https://youtu.be/K6HZbm-uNb0

(Hella stoked for the movie!!!! 😍😍😍)

My first book by Octavia Butler and wow was it good! 😵 This was a phenomenal story that used a lens of science fiction to look back on America‘s painful legacy of slavery with a very nuanced eye. Well written and with quite human characters, Kindred was fantastic! 😃 For my full thoughts, see my review here:

https://youtu.be/00sPF86lYpI

So this was my latest King read. He and I have such a turbulent relationship that I usually don‘t know what to expect when I read one of his books! 😅 This was pretty good. Usually when King writes female characters it‘s cringe AF, but this time was actually good. It‘s not perfect, but I think it‘s prolly one of the upper tier King novels. Haven‘t seen the Kathy Bates movie but would like to. Anyway, a lil more enlightened than King‘s usual fare.

So this was a pretty good book! I‘ve never read any of Maya Angelou‘s poetry, but her autobiography was very interesting and well written. For my full thoughts, see my YouTube review here:

https://youtu.be/tqCNrYDjlCY

Good book! ☺️

Wanna give a shoutout to Kate Chopin, whose 172nd birthday it is today! She was a real renegade, saying things so far ahead of her time that it killed her career, but she‘s so important for that. For those who don‘t know, The Awakening is my 4th favorite book of all time, & one that had an immense impact on me as a person. If you wanna hear my thoughts on it, check out my discussion at:

https://youtu.be/KcOP7NfbchA

And happy birthday, Kate! 🥳

So I‘d had this book on my shelf for months, and even though it wasn‘t written by a black author I thought it might lend itself to some interesting commentary in light of Black History Month. And yeah, I was not wrong! 😂 Anyway, this book was such a perfect fusion of good and bad; I‘ve never really read anything like it. For my full thoughts, check out my review here:

https://youtu.be/Z8EDhmTf02Q

This vid was the highest quality I‘ve made yet😃

Finally read this book! OMG this was amazing! 🥵 Such a simple and direct story told so eloquently and movingly! I LOOOOOOOOOOVED this book! For once the hype was actually warranted! 😅 Anyway, for my full thoughts on this little masterpiece, check out my review on YouTube entitled “Stoner book review: A Little Life”. Just an incredible read! 🥰

So my new year‘s resolution is to try to grow my booktube channel as much as I can. I ❤️ Litsy, but it only lets you type like 451 characters & that just ain‘t enough for me! 😂 So if you‘d like to hear some really in-depth discussion of some great (and not so great) books, come on over to my YouTube channel, TH3 F4LC0N. I do other stuff too, like philosophy & film & stuff, so there‘s a variety of content. Tryna hit at least 500 subs this year. 🤞

So I don‘t read too much nonfiction, nor am I much of a sports fan, but this was a phenomenal book! Eye-opening and really quite disturbing. Not so much a book about football as a book about the practically religious role that football plays in a town whose priorities are direly skewed. Informative, but also heartbreaking at times. Really good book; would definitely recommend.

Full review here:

https://youtu.be/ST4j74iHlRU

Thnx so much to @DrexEdit for tagging me for the top 21 of 2021! 🤗 Cant do 21, but here‘s my top 5. So, here are the 5 best books I read in 2021, with links to the respective reviews on my YouTube channel. ☺️

5. Grendel
https://youtu.be/zNms2ED1Bcc

4. To the Lighthouse
https://youtu.be/k2U_tF32kUw

3. Wizard‘s First Rule
https://youtu.be/sh4JHRH8et8

2. The Outsiders
https://youtu.be/udvjzRTUNvE

1. Moby Dick
https://youtu.be/NxWyTM1fAcI

Finally read this book and oh man, this was a flat out masterpiece! 🤤 Very rarely do I come across a book that I can say is truly perfect, but this is one. Well written, great characters, important messages, and deep emotionality. Truly one of the best books I‘ve read this year. If you‘ve never read this book, definitely check it out. And give the movie a view if you haven‘t. It‘s really good too! 🙂

Well, I finished my yearly Christmas tradition! 🥳 I know everyone prolly knows this story, but if you haven‘t read the original novella, please do yourself a favor and do so. It‘s a 10/10 book. Literally perfect. Humorous, heartwarming, and uplifting; one of the greatest stories ever imo, and I‘m not even a big fan of Dickens. Love revisiting this little story every Christmas.

And remember: “God bless us, every one!” 😘

My first Agatha Christie book! 😛 This was a great little read! It kept me riveted, it kept me on the edge of my seat, and it kept me guessing. Admittedly it requires a great degree of suspension of disbelief, but the effect was still fantastic. The characters weren‘t great, but they were good enough I suppose. The writing was a little simplistic, but the story was mostly well told. I can see why this is one of the bestselling books ever. 😮

This was a really good book! Written in a Faulknerian manner heavy with stream of consciousness, it was never hard to read. It dealt with the Great Recession and the decline of the steel industry and the local middle class without ever getting preachy or too political. The characters were great, but the ending was not so much an ending as just an abrupt stop. Really left too much hanging. Still, a well written and enjoyable book about hard times.

Full review here:

https://youtu.be/6yspJr9s2oQ

In short, the movie was better.

That last handshake... (You know what I‘m talking about.)

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

My first Virginia Woolf book! 🥳 This was...stunning. One of the best books I‘ve read this year. I was worried that it might be kinda hard to read or something, but I was happy to find that it was actually very readable. The writing was gorgeous, the characters were excellent, and its philosophical insights were very profound. Woolf really knew how to draw the transcendent from the mundane. One of my first exposures to Modernism, and it was great!

So I read “the book that defined a generation”. And yeah, that generation was horrible! Honestly, anyone who thinks millennials are bad really ought to read On the Road. The Beat Generation were apparently a bunch of douchebags, or at least Jack Kerouac and his friends were. They gave no shits about anything but themselves, they stole, and they treated people (especially women) like shit. So yeah, Jack Kerouac was an ass. The writing was good tho

Finally read this book! 😃 Overall I thought it was pretty good, though not nearly as Earthshakingly awesome as everybody else seems to think it is. I admired the narrative voice in which the story was told, although the way the plot develops was...questionable, to say the least. But still, it was a fun book, though not one that I‘ll probably reread anytime soon.

Finally read this beast of a book! This space here is far too small to tell what I thought of this book. Suffice it to say, Moby Dick truly is probably one of the five greatest books ever written, and almost assuredly the greatest written by an American. If you wanna know my full thoughts on this masterpiece, you can check out my in-depth review/analysis of it at:

https://youtu.be/NxWyTM1fAcI

In closing, read this book if you haven‘t! 🤯

Thought I‘d try the Witcher series since it‘s so popular. Having read The Last Wish, I‘m really scratching my head. Like, what the heck do people see in this book? The writing isn‘t really bad, but it‘s not that good either. The characters weren‘t that memorable or fleshed out. And you can really tell he hadda work to make make these stories into a semi-coherent whole. Just not that impressive. Will I continue with the series? Yeah, not likely. 😕

Another Halloween read. If you‘ve ever read a Laymon, you pretty much know what this book is like. Perpetually horny characters, over the top violence, women who get naked at the drop of a hat, etc. All in good fun though.

“Jake looked at his wristwatch. For a moment, he couldn‘t remember why he was looking at it. Then he realized it was because he wanted to know what time it was.”

That is an actual line from this book! 😂

Finally read this book! Such a wild ride! There‘s a lot that goes on in this book to say the least. It really has something for everyone; there‘s comedy, tragedy, philosophy, etc. Really just a blast to read as well. Did a more in-depth review on my booktube channel which can be found at:

https://youtu.be/M0Zl8VQ02S4

Anyway, this book was fun but also profound in many ways. Would definitely recommend. 🙂👍

So this was my big Halloween read for this year. This book was surprisingly good! It was pretty much Stargate meets 28 Days Later, but it was pretty well written and the characters were pretty good. There‘s a portal, there‘s some zombies, mayhem ensues. All good fun. Lebbon also surprised me with the ending as well. Would definitely recommend! 👍

So this is where it all started; the oldest story in the world. It was repetitive as hell, wildly contradictory at times, had a very loose continuity, and plot holes galore. And yet, somehow it was actually kind of fun to read, though perhaps more so in an anthropological kind of way than a literary one. (And btw, this Penguin Epics edition, which was a whopping 63 pages, cost 12 f*cking dollars!!! Just another reason why I hate Penguin Books. 🤬)

Well, I finally read the Inferno, part 1 of Dante‘s epic Divine Comedy. Not gonna lie and say I really understood a lot of it, (I would need to take a whole course in Italian history for that), but overall it was actually surprisingly readable. So much so in fact that I‘m actually tempted to go ahead and read Purgatorio and Paradiso, even though I‘ve heard they‘re a lil more difficult. But either way, I enjoyed this more than I expected to. 🙂

Happy Banned Book Week everybody! The week in which we lovers of literature celebrate those works which are or have been verboten. Let‘s all be thankful for our ability to read what we want when we want (assuming you live somewhere that‘s the case). And let‘s spare a thought for those who don‘t have that right. Made a more in-depth video on this topic on my YouTube channel. You can check it out if you want at:

https://youtu.be/e70ayMG9SNM

My fourth go with Delillo, and definitely my favorite. This book was genuinely great! A meticulously written fictional autobiography/secret history speculation, Libra details the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and the events which put him on the fast track to infamy. Didn‘t expect Oswald to be such a sympathetic protagonist, but Delillo surprised me. The writing was great and there was an appropriate sense of tragedy. I prefer this over Underworld, tbh

Finally read The Metamorphosis. My second exposure to Kafka after The Trial. I enjoyed this one much more. Short, sweet, though very opaque. Nonetheless enjoyable though. I think it was about society‘s abandonment of those who can‘t contribute...or something, but hell, I don‘t really know. Made a more in-depth review of it on my YouTube channel which you can watch at:

https://youtu.be/y2EhK7_hunY

A little late to the party with this one, (although it sounds like the party is actually still going on), but I finally got around to reading this book. I though it was pretty good. Great descriptive writing, and an earnestness that really shone thru. The characters could have been better, and the dialogue was honestly pretty bad - like, some parts were Harlequin romance level bad. But overall, I enjoyed it. Would definitely recommend. 👍

So, for those who don‘t know, I LUV Dick! 😆 That being said, this was not one of his finest outings. The premise was intriguing but was ultimately handled very stupidly. However, this is definitely one of his most explicitly philosophical/theological works; lots of musings on time, life & death, and religion. All you really need to know though is that in this book people eat with their asses and defecate with their mouths.

So I bought this on a whim, cuz I heard it was a mashup of Scooby-Doo and H. P. Lovecraft and I‘m a fan of Lovecraft (and Scooby-Doo! 😅). It was pretty good. Characters were pretty well rendered; story took some interesting turns. The writing was pretty awful, if I‘m being honest, but the story was still unique enough to get a pass. So yeah. Ok book overall. A good fun light read.

Been working my way thru Lovecraft‘s works for a couple months now. Just finished probably his most famous story last nite. Really enjoying myself so far (mostly). Love the archaic writing style, and Lovecraft‘s imagination was truly remarkable. I know he‘s controversial now, and rightly so, but still, dude‘s work was amazing. Probably one of the best short stories I‘ve read in a while. Really looking forward to his longer works.

This was a neat little book! Really showcased a decidedly Lovecraftian bent before Lovecraft even got going. My biggest complaint is that he just abandons the weird, macabre “King in Yellow” motif halfway thru, so it feels ultimately disjointed; like he was originally writing something akin to a mosaic novel but then just lost interest and padded it out with unrelated material. Still, it‘s all well-written and I enjoyed it. Would recommend. 👍

Now reading. So I actually bought all three of these Silo books several months ago, and I‘m just now getting around to reading them. 😁 I hear they‘re really good though, and I‘m hoping that‘s the case!

So I‘m not really a huge fan of fantasy, but this book absolutely blew me away! Legitly one of the best books I‘ve read this year. And yes, I know Goodkind was kind of an ass and is one of the most divisive authors in the fantasy genre, but speaking strictly for this book, he killed it. I ADORED this book. Will I read the sequels? Dunno. I‘ve heard they devolve into a mixture of Objectivist diatribes and bondage porn, so 🤷‍♂️. But this book is 🔥

Well, it‘s finally here; the thing into which I‘ve poured every ounce of my being. My book, at last! Did a video on it on my booktube channel (TH3 F4LC0N) entitled “So I wrote this book...” if anybody wanna know more. But, long story short, I‘ve got 2 remaining author copies here ripe for giveaway. 😁 Would love to get some feedback. If you‘re interested in a free book, just contact me at:

carrollwainwright@yahoo.com

Also on Amazon.

✌️

This was the single most disturbing and upsetting book I‘ve ever read. Definitely not for the faint of heart. Brutal beyond belief. Very well written though. Made a video review on my booktube channel (also TH3 F4LC0N) where I really break it down, but it‘s enough to say here that this book will f*** you up. It‘s a pick, although I can‘t really recommend it since it‘s so extreme. Truly just a stomach-churning book. 😰

It‘s been a long time since I last wept - not cried, but wept - but this book fixed that real quick. It took me half an hour to read the last 10 pages, because of the tears. Literally just sat and sobbed after finishing it. This book needs to be read, because it reminds us what‘s really important in life. So I‘d just like to say thank you, Mr. Saint-Exupery. Your book truly brightened my life. (And broke my heart!)

Just bought this the other day. I‘ve heard it‘ll make you cry. Can anybody verify? Really looking forward to reading it! 🙂