I've never read anything by Ishiguro, but I just requested Never let me go from my library because of you. Your adoration for literature is infectious.

At this moment, the two books I would like to read for the first time again are: This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, and You Always Cry At Endings by SJ Whitby. Both for very personal reasons.

Some books I would want to reread for the first time are: The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan Inheriting Her Ghosts by SH Cooper Lure by Tim McGregor From the Belly by Emmett Nahil Our Own Unique Affliction by Scott J. Moses Affinity by Sarah Waters Providence Girls by Morgan Dante Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (of course I have to include that! Lol) Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen Haha that was a lot. There's more but I'll stop there. 😅

Excellent video! Never Let Me Go and Flowers For Algernon would definitely be on this list as well. They were so good the first time around. Another one I'd add to this list is As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh. It's a heartbreakingly beautiful book that I wish I could read for the first time again.

Ooh! Breasts and Eggs is sitting on my shelf. Meiko's book "Heaven" really was incredible. I think the cheatyface answer for me is the manga Oyasumi Punpun by Inio Asano. It's so real, and really tackles intergenerational abuse in a gritty and tragic manner. It helped me deal quite a bit with a trumatic upbringing in retrospect. As for book books, I recently read "The Pearl" by Steinbeck, and Foster, by Claire Keegan. Both of which are just... perfect, in every possible way. It takes the art of writing to a new level. Also, i'm shocked you didn't put Frankenstein in the video 😂

Flowers for Algernon..... I love that book. I am still searching for a good copy for my personal collection. I remember crying as well reading it. ❤

Very nice reflection! Hahaha! It's true that I would like to feel like reading Crooked House again! And so many others. Literature has something special. The possibility of reliving good experiences in other fields does not create that same nostalgia in us. Books leave something behind that never becomes bitter with time.

American Gods is such a fun read. I’m also reading Klara and the Sun right now, pretty close to finishing it and wondering what the twist will be (assuming there is one). Will definitely check out more of that author

There are so many books that have profoundly impacted me, but the Boudica series by Manda Scott literally took my breath away. I still remember that agonizing wait for each of the following books and the absolute thrill of finally getting them in my hands. Every book was an excruciating emotional rollercoaster through love, hope, fear, anger and despair. The injustice of it all! The cruelty and battles and loses the characters experienced ... they were so painfully vivid. And this series contains the event that made me cry harder and longer than any book ever has, to this day. I couldn't stop. I learned that day how deeply a book can wound you. Which sounds terrible, and it kind of was, but my god I would give anything to feel the shock of that heartbreak again!

what a great idea for a list, I'll think about it all week! 😍 agatha christie would be my choice too, erasing the ending from memory would be gold!

American Gods is so good indeed ❤ i wish i could read again

I only read Never Let Me Go in this video and I agree 🥺 and putting Flowers for Algernon in my never ending reading list 😆

I completely agree with you about Ishiguro and in particular about THIS book

This video got me thinking of which of my favourite books I would like to read for the first time again, and instantly it was like Anne Brontë's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall", Le Fanu's "Carmilla", and "Alice" by Christina Henry. But then I also thought about favourites that I am so glad I read at the age I did, like "The Dud Avocado" by Elaine Dundy, because that was a better fit for my life at 20 years old, which is why it remains a book so close to my heart. Had I read it now, I don't think it would have had half the impact because my life looks and is traversing very differently at 31 (as it should!)

I'm about to read flowers for algernon for the first time and I am so excited.

Two books I would love to read again for the first time are The Giver by Lois Lowery and Laurie Halse Anderson. Both have definitely imprinted on me since reading them in middle school. And.... I would just love to read for the first time again any book by Tamora Pierce. I know she is still writing, but her first books about Tortall and the Circle universe. Absolute gems ❤

I’d also want to experience Never let me go and Flowers for Algernon for the first time! Other top-of-mind titles for me are: - A monster calls - The paper menagerie and other stories - The secret history - The things they carried - Tiger lily

Books/short stories that I want to reread for the first time: Gideon The Ninth & Harrow The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, also I will evangelize about Locked Tomb series so more people will read it The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula Le Guin This Is How You Loose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (and I just want to reexperiance the frenzy about this book after that viral tweet by biogolas dickolas) Flowers for Algernon (the short story version not the novel tho) Red Tower by Thomas Ligotti My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Kabi Nagata Going Clear by Lawrence Wright, which is the only non-fiction book that permanently changed the wiring in my brain in a good way

Ive been meaning to read "flowers of algernon" scifi isnt entirely my cup of tea but ive picked it up a couple times, ill have to check it out.

I'd love to experience Hermann Unger's The Maimed for the first time. It's absolutely repulsive and I loved it.

Willow, thank you for this wonderful video! I'll be moving: Breasts and Eggs, Never Let Me Go, and American Gods up my TBR. I love this type of bookish content because it really makes me question how I process books differently from other media. In comparison, I feel the need to re-experience favorites in film and music, a lot more often. While I do have favorite books that I rave about and recommend to others, I very rarely feel the visceral longing to re-experience them, especially for the first time. (*edited to add: I'm a big time reader and have had books completely wreck me in the best ways. Books that have changed my life.) Not the case for music or film. It has me questioning why and if this is a common thing? Also, somewhat unrelated lol, but I was wondering if you have seen or heard of the show Scavenger's Reign?

I loved seeing most of my favorites on this list, I will be taking the other 3 as recommendations! Never Let Me Go pushed me from being a casual one books every few months to falling back in love with reading. Breast and Eggs helped me so much to be proud of my mixed feelings about being a woman and motherhood, to express those emotions and allow them to come out and flourish instead of suppressing them.

Hmm! Great choices, Willow. Thinking about mine…. Something by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, like Leaf Storm or Chronicle of a Death Foretold. His worked shaped my mind so much in my teens and twenties; I wonder how it’d affect me freshly as I close in on sixty. James Tiptree Jr’s collection Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. Her white-hot anger and carefully crafted prose would presumably be a revelation all over again in this time patriarchy evolving fresh tools.

I would like to read again any Agatha Christie book since I can never guess the twist.

Where did you get the adorable bunny plush? SO cute! 🥺 If you respond, thankyou for your response in advance! Love your book videos as well!

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan, but instead of reading for the first time (I read it just last year), I wish I had read it in high school. It is a snarky magic school adventure that pokes holes at portal fantasies but also focuses on a complicated kid who is comfortable with his bisexuality but not with the expectations people place on him. If I had read it as a teen, it would have put to words so many things I couldn't manage at the time and help me find my center 20 years sooner than I did.

Nice idea, I don't think I thought about rereading that way. The closest is when I envy my friends that they meet a book for the first time. And I often wonder: what would be the impact of a book if I hadn't known about it - in a way, if I could read chronologically and acquire the tropes linearly as literature progressed and infuenced itself. Like, what would I think of Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde if I hadn't known the story. Or for detective novel: what would it be like to read a twist for the first time. But for your topic: I think for me it'd be Sophie's World (Jostein Gaarder). It was the first young adult book I've read, 25 years ago that had an adult themes and ideas. It set me off from reading young adult (mostly detective stories) to adult literature and gave me courage to attack our "classics edition" shelf at my home. So what followed were Decameron, Picture of Dorian Gray, Prus' Pharaoh, The Last Days of Pompeii and many more. Ps. Flowers for Algernon destroyed me as well. Pps. As always my response is long and not in accord with comment standards, I apologize.

Such a great video. While I would not want to ever forget my most precious books, not even for the joy of re-descovering them again, I am so excited for other readers when they experience them for the first times. So I always recommend "Piranesi". But a translated novella that I adore is such a hidden gem and not may people heard abouot it. It is "Tainaron. Mail From Another City" by Leena Krohn. The letters of a unnamed narrator from a city of insects. It portrays so much humanity trough those insects....

Never Let me Go got spoiled for me by a recap video of the film. So when I read it for the first time years later I felt really disappointed in the novel. I wish I had gotten the original experience that everyone raves about.

I wish I could read the entire Hitchhikers Guide series again for the first time.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem and When Nietzsche Wept by Irwin D. Yalom

For me, it has to be Fingersmith!

For me its A little life and Frankenstein

I wish I could read The Atonement for the first time

I just finished Breasts and Eggs, I feel like I need to read it again.

🧡