Books Read in Pasanauri

This is a screenshot from my Goodreads page.

In mid July, we left the heat of Tbilisi for Pasanauri, a small town in the valley of the Aragvi river, 90 km north of Tbilisi, where the temperatures are much cooler. There is not much to do in Pasanauri except swim in the river or walk in the woods, so I have been doing a lot of reading. I have finished 14 books so far and will probably finish another one or two before I return to Tbilisi on Thursday (1 September).

I have reviewed many of these books here (you can click on the links if you are interested in more details about the individual book).

1. Book Review: “Dead Land” by Sara Paretsky (V.I Warshawski #21)
2. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov https://youtu.be/ETqQf4rF8ho
3. Book Review: “Persuasion” by Jane Austen
4. Book Review: “Nights of Plague” by Orhan Pamuk
5. Book Review: Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
6. All the Names by Jose Saramago https://youtu.be/y2t7-8JWkbo
7. Book Review: “The Hanging at the Hollow Tree” by Sarah M Stephen
8. Book Review: “Forager” by Peter R Stone
9. Book Review: “Grub Line Rider” by Louis L’Amour
10. Book Review: “When We Had Wings” by Ariel Lawhon, Kristina McMorris and Susan Meissner
11. Book Review: “A Sunlit Weapon” by Jacqueline Winspear
12. Jargan by Max Brand. A western about a gambler who saves the life of an Argentinian don.
13. ExtraOrdinary #0 by V E Schwab. A graphic novel about a girl who can see how people die.
14. Confederates by Thomas Keneally. I haven’t written my review yet.

There has been a wide variety of genres, but all are fiction. Persuasion, Forager and When We Had Wings were the five star reads for me, but I have enjoyed all of them. The Master and Margarita was a little disappointing for me, I found the story difficult to follow.

Reading The Black Book in Pasanauri on the banks of the River Aragvi

Struggling to finish Northanger Abbey

In the Booktube world July is #janeaustenjuly2021. Every July we celebrate the works of Jane Austen by reading her works, watching TV adaptations and suchlike. Last July, I read “Emma“, I’ve now read half of her main novels (I read Pride and Prejudice several years ago). I am not the biggest fan of Jane Austen, she is a fine writer and I appreciate the humour of her work, but the romance genre really isn’t my jam. It also seems having read three of her novels now that the heroine will always end up with a happy ending. I bought Northanger Abbey way back in January in preparation for #janeaustenjuly2021 and duly began on 1st July to read it, At 250 pages, Northanger Abbey is no mammoth, not like Anna Karenina which I was reading over a period of 4 months.

Is Jane Austen over-hyped? I’m not qualified to answer that. Of the 19th century women authors I prefer Emily Bronte and Mary Shelley and recently I enjoyed reading Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell.

As July neared its end I had still only managed to read the first of the two volumes of Northanger Abbey, our heroine Catherine Morland hadn’t even got to Northanger Abbey, she was having too much fun in Bath with that viper in the bosom in the shape of Isabella Thorpe. I had been reading other books in July with strong and gripping plots like Her Winter of Darkness and The Cartographer’s Secret. These are both newly published books, Northanger Abbey‘s plot didn’t grip me in the same way, I didn’t feel the same page turning compulsion. I was also distracted by the vehicles in the plot, what is a curricle, a chaise and four or a gig? Henry Tilney drove a curricle with more prowess than John Thorpe.

A curricle is a two wheeled carriage drawn by two horses

Finally, I found a method to get the book finished, I found the audiobook of Northanger Abbey on YouTube and listened to that as I followed the text. Not the ideal reading experience but it got the job done. I did consider DNFing (DNF=didn’t finish, to DNF a book is to put it aside) the book, but I felt I was too far in for that option.

Northanger Abbey won’t meet the same fate as The Mystery of Udolpho in the 2007 film adaptation of Northanger Abbey.

My rating 3.5 out of 5

The Definitive Guide to Booktube

In this video I look at what Booktube is and what kind of videos are put up.

Starting a Reading Journal

I thought it would be a good idea to start a reading journal 📖. I had seen a few very decorative reading journals on Booktube, mine is not a pretty journal, it won’t have much in the way of artwork, it is just somewhere I can write down my thoughts on reading to inform my Booktube videos and generally enhance my reading. 📚

My January TBR: Noir, Anna Karenina and Sword of Kaigen

January 2021 TBR (the books I’d like to read)

This video is about the books I intend to read or at least start reading in January. My granddaughter is in the thumbnail holding the books but she doesn’t appear in this video. Pandemic restrictions prevent me from having access to a wide selection of books. Public transport is not running and my local bookshop only stocks around three shelves of books in English, from which I have bought all the ones that interest me. In addition, Tbilisi English Book Swap, which has been a great source of reading material, hasn’t been meeting because of the restrictions.

I’d like to read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (there will be a readalong of this from 6 January led by Sofia Clef, here is her video about the readalong:

Another tome I’d like to read is Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens.

I also have Noir, a cyberpunk novel published in 1998 by K W Jeter.

I also added ლექსები – ნოდარი დუმბაძე (Poetry by Nodar Dumbadze), I would like to be able to read a whole book in Georgian, even one intended for six year olds.

It has been a long time since I last read a novel in French, I have Fort comme la mort by Guy de Maupassant, the story of an aging painter and his mistress, Maupassant was more famous for his short stories than his novels.

Finally I have a fantasy novel on my kindle app called Sword of Kaigen by M L Wang, this was recommended by Gregory LaPerche’s in his video :

I wish you all a happy new year.

My Bookshelf Tour

This is a video showing some of the books I have around the flat. They are in a rather chaotic order.

Booktube…posting about books and reading on YouTube

On 20th September I posted my debut Booktube video, since then I have been posting two videos a week (one on Sunday and one midweek), related to books and reading.

Here is a list of the first ten videos.

1. Debut…about my current reading… this has the most views to date (324) and is the longest video being a second less than 10 minutes.
2. TBR (Books to be read)… this was an overspill from the first video, as I found the free editing software I was using only allowed for a maximum of 10 minutes, and I had some extra footage.
3. Booktube Newbie Tag … here I answered 10 questions for Booktube Newbies, like “why do you love reading?”
4. #Victober Virgin… in the Booktube community “victober” is a celebration of Victorian Literature throughout the month of October with various challenges.
5. This is Embarrassing… my fifth Booktube video and I hadn’t finished a single book, which was slightly embarrassing. I liked making the thumbnail for this.
6. Tbilisi English Book Swap … on my second video a commenter asked where I find books in English in Georgia. One of the places is at Tbilisi English Book Swap, a monthly meeting of booklovers in Tbilisi where books are exchanged.
7. #Victober Virgin Update… talking about The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde, which I had managed to finish and my progress with “Dombey and Son” by Charles Dickens.
8. The Ten Inalienable (განუყოფელი) Rights of the Reader part 1 (after Daniel Pennac) … looking at Daniel Pennac’s rights of the reader, which aimed to re-ignite the magic of reading for those who had had that magic extinguished by poor teaching in school.
9. The Inalienable Rights of the Reader Part 2 (after Daniel Pennac) … the second part of the Pennac video, my grandchildren helped with this, I don’t know who had more fun, them or me.
10. The First Month on Booktube a review of the first month.

This has been an interesting experience, I appreciate now how much work is involved in maintaining a YouTube channel.

My first booktube video

Today I posted my first booktube video. Booktube is a community of youtubers who post about books and reading.

In this video I looked at what I am currently reading: “Dombey and Son” by Charles Dickens and my experience of Charles Dickens from school until now. “Cry, The Beloved Country” by Alan Paton. “Storm of Swords” by George R R Martin , “იაპონური ზღაპრები” (Japanese folk tales in Georgian), “The First Man” by Albert Camus and the problems of reading books in translation Then, I looked at my TBR (to be read) list: “Little Dorrit” by Charles Dickens “Stories” by Nodar Dumbadze, (there were more, but I found the free editing software, which I was using only allowed for videos up to 10 minutes long so I had to cut the rest out. I might add the cuts to a future video). I cut the video down to 9:59.

The cut pieces with some new material I incorporated into a follow up video.