Hi everyone it's Lauren and this is my
December reading wrap up. I know that it's
New Year's Day today, people are
probably feeling a little bit tired so
that's ok, just settle yourself down, let
me talk to you about books - you don't
even have to listen if you don't you
want to! Just anything that stops you
from vomming, that's completely fine!
The first book I finished in December is
actually a bit of an overhang from
November because I was reading
nonfiction in November and that is a
short...A Very Short Introduction to
African History and this is one of those
Very Short Introduction series. I bought
a few of them earlier this year and so
far haven't been that impressed by them
and this book is no exception I'm afraid.
The first book I read earlier this year
was A Very Short Introduction to Myth
and that was rubbish. This one
is better than that; I actually did learn
some things, but it really takes a tone
that I didn't expect. The tone of this
book is very much like - 'African history'
ok, but what is Africa though? and what is
history?
oh mate, you tell me, you're the one
writing the book! I understand where it's
coming from because it's saying you know
who are we counting as Africa
and Africans and what part of history
are we looking at?
and it talks about how history has been
collected in Africa like like
historically, but you know I just kind of
wanted to learn some facts and that is
interesting, but it's just not what I
expected and I do feel like these books
generally are very dry. I have one more
book to read which is A Very Short
Introduction to Modern China and I'll
see how that goes but....blaaah! But the
main event of my December reading was
Lord of the Rings for my Lord of the Rings read-
along that I was running. I have
finished all of them in December just
about, finally! I was reading these
because I just love Lord of the Rings and every
year my friends and I watch Lord of the Rings
we do like a marathon of them the weekend
before Christmas, which you can watch
in a vlog here if you really like, and
so I thought this year I would reread
them and get everybody involved. So I
hope anyone who read it with me, I hope
you enjoyed it and it was a fun
experience. I really expected to struggle
with the writing in these books because
I did read them before when I was about
14 and I love the story, but I remember
struggling with the prose and I expected
it to be hard going.
It was actually a lot better than I
expected.
It's not that it's hard to read it's just not very
well-written, it's just like someone's
thoughts are just then on the page, it's
not like the sentences are very nice,
you're getting very much literature from
them, but it's almost just like reading a
script of a play or something there's no
much more explanation than that.
So considering I like the story, you know,
I found that fine, and Tolkien's writing in
general I just found hilarious, like it
it's so interesting to see how he's
writing. He's got very strong opinions on
things like class and race and gender
and industrialization and it just comes
out so much you can just see his
politics on the page and that's what i
found that quite interesting. Ialso just
had to laugh at the way he writes in his
own world and the thing he's really into
I found is not just the languages and the
history of everybody, but also the
geography of Middle-earth and he's just
so exact to the point that it's
laughable. The main story idea is that
the ring has to get from The Shire to
Mordor, you have a map in the books, you
know where The Shire and you know where
Mordor is, but we constantly have
characters justifying the way they're
going or justifying who's doing what; you
might have Gandalf go 'oh well I mean
obviously, obviously the quickest way
would be to go south, but we can't do
that because there's actually some
people in the way and then to the east
there's the mountains and I guess what we
could do is get some ships and sail away
down there but that would just take too
long...' and it you're reading it like I
don't care! I don't care! I don't know
your geography better than you, Tolkien,
like nobody's gonna come back to you and
say 'well I'm sorry the fellowship of the
ring went the wrong way, they should have
gone this way it would be quicker!' It's
like you've built this world just tell me
what's happening
I don't mind! But there's also something
very endearing about that and that's
what I quite like, I quite liked reading
it going oh Tolkien, you just can't write
can you? But I love this world that
you've built! So you know don't read it
if you really want an amazing work
or literature, read it if you like fantasy
and you just want to be immersed in a
world - from that point of view it's
wonderful. Iwould absolutely love to
hear from any of you if you did join me
on the Lord of the Rings-athon and how
you found reading books, especially if
you've not read them before because I
think I sort of knew what I was getting
into beforehand and I'd be interested to
know
if you are a reader and you read a lot
what you think of these books. And then
the last book that I read in December
but it was just in between I think like
Two Towers and Return of the King I was
just getting a little bit like bogged
down and I read Eric by Shaun Tan which
is a very short, illustrated book
which was gifted to me by Jen I think a
while ago, I can't remember why maybe
just because she's nice, and this is the
story of a foreign exchange student who
comes to stay with a family and it's really
adorable, very endearing and it's about
sort of how people connect and view the
world differently depending on where they're
from and it's just...yeah this was just a
really, really nice little read, very
beautiful and very good at breaking up
the monotony of the Lord of the Rings! So
I hope you all had really good
Decembers and really good Christmases
if you celebrate Christmas
I'm really looking forward to January
I've got next week off work which I
really like doing because I feel like I
can sort of reset myself and just get
everything ready from January onwards.
You can write off the old year and I
quite liked having some time by myself
at home
just to kind of sort everything out
so I'm going to be filming lots of
videos, I've got loads of stuff planned
for January-February and I'm feeling
quite positive going into the new year
because I think I felt a bit like...
December has been a bit difficult like
it's just been...I feel like everything's
been getting on top of me a little bit
and I want to take back control a little
bit of my life so I'm looking forward
looking forward to that! My next video i
think it's going to be a best reads of
2016
I'm going to best reads and a worst reads
haha so that will probably be the next
time you see me and yeah...take care
till then!
Bye!
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