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I 100% want the reading vlog of the weird books! I love weird books so much.

Yes! Please do a vlog on the ‘weird’ books you picked up last year in the bookshop. 👩🏻👍🏼 This video was a great idea! I’ll need to do the same with my shelves! Thanks!

"Grab a drink, a blanket, a fluffy animal." Me, in 39° weather: 😃 Girl I wish.

I reread some Jane Austen every year. I find it really fascinating that with every reread I see the stories from a different perspective. Love works that stand up to repeated study, especially these because there is so much humor.

I would love a part 2 of this series: reading five star first line books! That would be so fun

Ahhh...yes.... goals: a bookshelf just for tbr!!

You have just GOT to watch the A&E miniseries adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth if you've never seen it. The casting on it is really great, it's a very faithful adaptation of the book, and I feel like it has the best understanding of the subtleties of Austen's writing. All the unlikable characters in the book are played by actors who really get why their characters are the worst. I swear, Mr. Collins even managed to get me mad at his hairstyle.

i did james joyce when i was in uni and had a visceral reaction to you pulling out that book...further validated by the face you made trying to read that first line!😆 this is a great way to decide what book to read next, i'm absolutely gonna do this to pick my next read

I would love to see that weird book reading vlog! I think that would be a fun premise.

The Left Hand of Darkness first line was so intriguing to me, I want to start it immediately! Dangit, hahah.

Yay, P&P! I reread it every year 😊 (dead serious - unless you’re going to study Modern 20th century English/Irish literature you can skip Joyce 😉). Would love to see that “five weird books” vlog

I love when books have detailed and serious content warnings!

I would love to see you read all the weird books! My favourite genre has to be weird-lit. If you want another weird-lit recommendation (that I know I've already given once before) it would be The Monsters We Deserve by Marcus Sedgewick. It was my first weird book and it still is so fantastic!

Seeing you have On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden was a delight for me! I’m a big Tillie Walden fan and I think she writes very emotionally driven stories. On a Sunbeam and Are You Listening are two of the greatest graphic novels I have ever read. ❤

really hope you'll get to reading the remainder of Ursula K Le Guin's work!! her work really is amazing - and the more of earthsea you read the better it gets

I'm so glad you read P & P. I love it, but my favorite Jane Austen is Persuasion. This was a fun vlog. I am toying with if I should do this as well...my TBR is ridiculous...

P&P is one of my favorites books ever! This video was really fun and I had to add "Making love with the land" to my TBR, can't wait to read it at some point 😅

I would LOVE the weird books vlog!

Your videos always make me feel cozy. ☺️

I started reading Jane Austen in like middle school and was in college by the time I'd worked my way through, so I was much more able to grasp them at the time (and I'm pretty sure the 2005 movie altered my brain chemistry). But I've since reread them all a few times as an adult and the writing hits so much harder now 😂 It's actually been a few years since rereading, but I recently fell down the KZfaq hole of Austen analysis, and specifically got obsessed with Dr. Octavia Cox who has fantastic deep dives into the seemingly tiniest bits of writing/language/characters/history that make me love the books all over again.

This video came at the perfect time as I’m currently reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time! 🥰

Thanks for sharing this! I found it helpful in terms of writing a gripping first line

I loved the bit where you relate to Elizabeth, I felt so many of the same things. I re-watch the Keira Knightley P&P adaptation at least once or twice a year.

Haven't even watched the video yet but I am excited. I have my sun tea and some mending to do while I listen. Goodreads is also open to add to my virtual TBR....hopefully

The 1 star line reactions were my faves 😂😂

The 1940 P&P movie with Greer Garson is great too (the costumes and the attitude)

If you're ever so inclined to give a tv adaptation of a book a chance, the 2004 BBC North and South with Richard Armitage is such a comforting watch!! Like Anne of Green Gables, I rewatch-it every year.

Look, I would love it if you read and discussed some nonfiction on this channel from time to time! I've yet to come across a book tuber that does that. You read em, so we don't have to! If anyone could inspire us to learn more about topics that we know little to nothing about, it's you! I love your content. Thank you for sharing your love of books with us. ❤

“Alone with you in the ether” was one of my total surprises for the year. I was so disappointed with the Atlas trilogy, but this romance between a bipolar and autistic young adults was just breathtaking.

That first line of Andrew lang totally caught my attention! But of course it did. I'm such a fairy tale lover lol

Loved this! and yes, please to the weird book vlog. My favorites was Stone Blind ("I see you" when the book is about a person who's sight turn you to stone 😬) and Pillars of the earth. The first is now on my TBB (to be bought) and the second is probably do for a re-read.

Opening lines are important to me, really giving vibes of what’s to come. Love this way of picking what to read from the ever-growing TBR so many of us relate to! And, I am a sucker for the purple prose!

I really loved this video! It's interesting to see what first lines are interesting to you (and to me). Gives me some ideas for my writing projects as well. I have 635 books on my goodreads TBR which is INSANE and I keep adding things and reading the new shiny things. The rest of this year + next year I'm reading only from my TBR shelf. I mean there is enough and there must be something I'm in the mood for right? 😆

A video I would be super interested in is a deep dive of your p&p annotations, actually. I watched your annotation overview videos, but it would be really interesting to see in action on a work I'm so familiar with.

What a great idea! I would love to do this with my German/English TBR and live as a Stream! I also loved your reactions! Especially when it was just one name that was shouted at the beginning of a book. :D My favorite from your stack was probably magic steeped in poison. Thanks for sharing! (And ofc: yes to the weird books!)

How fun! I'm now inspired to do this with my physical TBR. P&P is one of my favorite books of all time! I've read it a few times, which I don't typically do because theres so many new-to-me books i haven't read yet. Little Women is another favorite that I reread. As far as P&P adapations go, Colin Firth is my Mr. Darcy (you gotta watch that one, too). In terms of the stereotypical nature of the characters in the book, I always felt that was a reflection of Lizzie's opinions of them and by the end of the book you tend to see characters differently as she becomes aware of her own pride and prejudice. JA is so tongue in cheek, like that first line is soooo sarcastic, that the sterotypes are certainly intentional and self-aware, right? An that makes rhem not only acceptable to me, but actively fun to read. And finally, intellectually I'm a huge Joyce fan but reading him is definitely a labor. I recommend getting the annotated companion to Ulysses, it's pretty necessary. Also reading it as a book club or with a course, more slowly over time, to translate and process and digest. I always tell people it's more like an encoded poem than a novel, and the fulfilment I got from reading it was in the process of digging through it with a small literature studies cohort in university. It was a formative experience that impacted my intellectual interests for the next decade. I'll be curious to see what you think if you read it!

I enjoy watching your recommendations. I don't regularly read sci-fi, fantasy, or horror, but your recommendations help me expand my book selections. If you get back to that James Baldwin collection, read the short story Sonny's Blues. I read it first in my early 20s and it helped me develop a more empathetic view of those dealing with addiction.

joyce is so fun … if you like experimentation and dense prose then don’t listen to people who tell you to skip his stuff !!! and i hope you get around to the left hand of darkness .. it’s THE definitive sci fi imo

i’m so early!! have you read interview with the vampire by anne rice? not to add one more thing to your TBR but i think you’d enjoy it :^)

Austen has been one of my favorites for many years, I'm glad you enjoyed P&P 😊 This was a really cool video, I've never seen such a big physical TBR 😅

Your genuine enthusiasm exudes 5 stars for P&P, Lizzie! 😂

I had to smile as you were taking in that book smell. I reminded me of a part of one of my favorite books. And I know, I already recommended it to you. 😅 But I have to give you a short insight. Quote from "The city of dreaming books" by Walter Moers: You can smell the place from a long way off. It reeks of old books. It’s as if you’ve opened the door of a gigantic second-hand bookshop - as if you’ve stirred up a cloud of unadulterated book dust and blown the detritus from millions of mouldering volumes straight into your face. There are folk who dislike that smell and turn on their heel as soon as it assails their nostrils. It isn’t an agreeable odour, granted. Hopelessly antiquated, it is eloquent of decay and dissolution, mildew and mortality. But it also has other associations: a hint of acidity reminiscent of lemon trees in flower; the stimulating scent of old leather; the acrid, intelligent tang of printer’s ink; and, overlying all else, a reassuring aroma of wood. I’m not talking about living wood or resinous forests and fresh pine needles; I mean felled, stripped, pulped, bleached, rolled and guillotined wood - in short, paper. Ah yes, my intellectually inquisitive friends, you too can smell it now, the odour of forgotten knowledge and age-old traditions of craftsmanship.

Yes please, always here for a weird book reading vlog!

This was so fun! I really enjoyed rereading P&P as an adult but also *loathed* Wuthering Heights, It's #1 on my Most Hated Books list 🤣

Does your glittery nail polish match the color of the walls? Love it! You've inspired me to finally read Pride & Prejudice and do this with my own TBR cart. Good luck everyone with getting through your own TBR lists!

The Classics don't usually do it for me so I was rooting for A Magic Steeped in Poison based on its first line. I've added it to my TBR though! I also would love to see the weird books vlog.

This is such a fun video - I'm going to do this with my TBR too (and maybe make it into a podcast episode...) - thanks for the idea! And so glad you liked P&P - Austen is always my go-to when I'm in a reading slump because I know I'll always have a good time and I won't want to skim because the prose is so good.

This was so fun! Would truly LOVE to see a working-through-my-TBR reading vlog after seeing all that’s on your shelf 😊

Jane Eyre is my favorite book! I re-read it all the time

I love the weird books idea, I think that could definitely be a series...like ask us what we think are weird books LOL..... Also I was really hyped that you had bout Pillars of the earth, you love Labrinyth o f the spirits, and you are reading Jane Eyre !! Yes Queen!! Also now my tbr is a thousand books long lol. Books I was interested in that you were not: JG Ballard has a book that;s called The Garden of Time which sounded interesting. woman in black sounded good. Ann petry the street. (sp?). on a sunbeam, lies we sing to the sea,

Very intrigued in the non-fiction first sentences!

I think you could really love Washington Black. One of the most beautifully written books I’ve read.

The Left Hand of Darkness was already on my tbr but that first line totally bumped it up for me damn. Also would love if you made this a series and worked through the other books you gave 5 stars!

I started reading P&P about 3 times but never finished it. I remember liking it but classics are always hard to get into. It's still on my TBR and will finish it one day.

Oh, but I love the idea, I should try to do it with my own TBR even though it’s not as big I still have quite a few books waiting 😅 I have read The woman in Black by Hill , I liked it😊

I also really enjoyed Pride and prejudice and zombies😂. It was a fun take on the classic and Matt Smith as Parson Collins was perfect.

this is such a genius idea i will do that right now *continues to read every first line of all her tbr books*

Not me waiting for your French tbr and you not reading the first lines of it hahahahaha love P&P though ! good choice ❤

Love In A Fallen City is incredible, you should read it soon! Eileen Chang is a great writer and she also had a crazy life. I wrote part of a paper on her, she's so cool. (This is typed before seeing what she chose to read.)

Based on what you loved about Pride and Prejudice, you should read North and South. It's similar in a lot of ways. As to adaptations, the BBC one of Pride and Prejudice, with Colin Firth, is the best. I'd also recommend the BBC adaptation of North and South. I own DVDs for both of these series, and I have lost count how many times I've watched them 🙂. I enjoyed listening to the first lines. And you made me go back to the excellent book I had just finished and read it's first line - this time noticing how much it intrigued me. I think I'm going to pay extra attention to the first line, and first paragraph, of all my reads going forward. So thanks for that. Of the lines you read out, I think the one that grabbed my attention the most was the chicken pox one. I feel like I need to know more. I'm planning to hunt that one down to add to my own extensive TBR - but maybe I'll try the library first.

Excellent video as always, Elizabeth. I will strongly recommend to watch not the Keira Knightley version of pride and prejudice but the really old one with Colin Firth, which is a 6 episodes series. He is the perfect embodiment of Mr. Darcy, as well as amazingly handsome.❤❤❤❤ by the way, please read Jane Eyre and The left hand of darkness. You won’t regret it.

Yes, please to the weird books vlog!

I did this once with my own TBR and there was a book amongst them, with an opening line that was so cringe, that I have been giving it the stink-eye ever since.😆 I don't know that I can sit through 600 pages if the rest of the writing is as bad as the opening line!🙊 So, this idea can be dangerous as well. 😅

I love Pride &Prejudice!! I read it every December 🥰

You have inspired me to go through my books and separate them between books I have read and haven’t read and the. Trying first lines for books for my next book XD Sorry for run on sentence

See this works well for me, I'm interested in books I already have ❤

Regarding the topic of perfume of musky old books - there is a Spanish company that created a vegan scented candle called Biblioteca (library) and it's absolutely spot on :D

omg if you DO decide to do an in-depth review for p&p that would be AMAZING! you could pair it with a movie review? (i mean it's not like 2005 p&p is one of my comfort movies or anything). ooh or you could do a reading vlog of jane austen books? i'm just requesting things i want now 😅

I would love to see a video picking apart the epic proposal scene line by line for P&P! Even the movie scene is sooo epic! I'm also interest to know what tabs you landed on for this book 🩷

Crime and Punishment is absolutely fantastic and one of my favorite books of all time, do with that information what you will. 🥰

The most intriguing ones are "Sundial" and "Song of silver flame like night" 🤣 Now, I need to know! Uh~ and the one of "If an egyptian cannot speak english" left me with some questions, too 😅

Oh wow. I'm actually quite shocked you've never read the Pillars of the Earth. It's Historical Fiction and it's considered one of the best Historical Fiction! It has one of my most-hated characters EVER (which I think is a sign of great writing). This game was fun AF!

If you enjoy a good long sentence, Thomas Mann is your man.

Thanks for this! I have found that we have quite a similar taste in books, and this video really cemented it. I've been looking for a new audiobook, and now I have several. I must also recommend The Dancers Dancing by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne. I am rereading it right now and I think you'd love it. I haven't seen anyone talk about it and it deserves to be read and loved.

I particularly like the tv series of Pride and Prejudice. It's longer, but the costuming and the language is much more reflective of the book, I think. The 2005 is still great, though.

I would love the five weird books vlog! As an English Literature major, I waited expectedly on your response to Joyce. Your facial expressions and thoughts mirrored my own on reading him. It was hilarious, but I feel your pain, confusion, and frustration. He is male WASP entitlement at its worst IMO. He is part of the cannon for a reason, but no one needs to subject themselves to Joyce as an example of this type of writing unless a student in this field (and if you are my sympathies). Read Fight Club or Slaughterhouse Five instead.

You mentioned reading Jane Eyre - highly recommend! I read it this past winter and, given that it is technically a gothic, may I suggest reading in the fall to enjoy its essence in its entirety?

Noooo you should watch the BBC mini-series adaptation of Pride & Prejudice with Colin Firth!!! It's the most faithful adaptation, in my opinion!

The Lost Apothecary is so good. Highly recommend you read that at some point!

Favourite opening line: "To start with, look at all the books." (Jeffrey Eugenides, 'The Marriage Plot')

After you watch a normal movie version of P&P you need to watch P&P&Zombies. It's one of those things that's so wrong it's right. It is a definite mood lifter. It had no business being as good a movie as it was!

I mostly agreed with your reactions. I’m glad you left nonfiction out because I live in the US and need fiction desperately these days

I'm so curious about the French books! I work with adult second language learners so I'm always curious about books that manage to draw in anglophones to French!

When Elizabeth was created, she certainly was "not like other" female protagonists!

I absolutely love pillars of the earth!!!

I am predicting right know that you will hate "pillars of the earth", but I'd love a ranty reading vlog about it!

The BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is the best one. Colin Firth as Mr Darcy is….😍😍

I wanted to know about the French books 💔 Well now I need to re-read Pride & Pred 😂

Loooove P&P ❤ have you seen the BBC adaption with Colin Firth? Sooo good, I’ve seen it so many times 😂

You should watch the 1995 TV series. It follows the book more since it's a series and not one movie and it's good too. I prefer the movie but I'm always rewatching the series too.

I have never read or watched this book. Even with you reviewing this book doesn’t seem like I would like this book. I have a really dislike for books that’s based on really live. My life is hard enough so I prefer books that are fantasy based. But I love to hear other people views on these types of books. Maybe one day I would change my minds so I still keep a list for the future.

Ken Follett writes historical fiction!

I currently have 4 bookcases full to bursting of books I haven't read. It's over 400 books. I have a problem.

Hummingbird Salamander was a DNF for me. It felt very random and the main character made some great lepas of logic and figured everything but really quick. A no for me but I would try another from him.

wodnerful video as always! side note: where did the sweater come from?? I have to have

I was unreasonably irked by the 2 stars for Jane Eyre vs one star for some others :-P but great video as always and I love this concept for a video, it was so interesting to see what intrigued you versus what not, great things to take not of from a writer standpoint. :-)

First line of Pillar of the Earth gets more disturbing when you know it’s an historical novel about the construction of a cathedral in medieval time. So early arrival for the best seat at the matinee entertainment?

Your hair colour is awesome

Fun video! Question, what are those tabs at the top of your book instead of at the side?