I like summer better in books

[00:00:01][music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Hi guys, hope you're doing well. I wanted to give a brief announcement that the first fragment of this vlog was filmed in a park. And because your girl is still learning, I had no idea that the sound is going to be so not cool.

[00:00:54]However, I decided to keep the fragment because I really like it. I talk about the feast by Margaret Kennedy in it and also about parks. If you want, you can just keep it. I promise the sound is going to get better. It is really hard to believe now, but summer used to be my favorite season when I lived back in Russia. I think that summer in Russia or specifically in Moscow where I lived was never as hot as it is in New York. So, having moved here, I definitely started loving summer less. One thing that is good about summer though is that you get to read outside more. So, that's what I'm trying to do. One of the best things about living where I live in Brooklyn is the proximity to the park, which I personally think is maybe not the best park in the world, but one of the best parts in the world for sure.

[00:01:39]Some would say, what about Central Park?

[00:01:42]And of course, Central Park is a very iconic spot and it's beautiful, but it's so full of people and so full of tourists. Whereas in Brupa Park, you still get to enjoy the vastness and the greenery without all the crowds. It was a bit of a culture shock for me when I came here because in Moscow there are a lot of parks, but all of them are a different type of park. Maybe I'm making it up, but I think that there are two main types of parks. One is called like French park and the other is an English bit park. Maybe the name's different but the French park is where you see a lot of hunts, a lot of flower beds and you have specific crowds you can follow. And the English park is a place where you have a lot of lawns where people can actually sit down and chill. And I think that in Moscow French parks prevail. As a child, as a teenager, I don't really remember myself sitting on a lawn in a park, in a public spot. In fact, there would often be a sign that you are forbidden to go on a lawn. I'm currently reading Margaret Kennedy's deceased, and I'm loving every single page of it. It's a perfect summer read because it follows a group of people who are vacationing in this coastal guest house. And we know from the start of the book that there's a cle that will fall on the hotel and everybody's going to die. Or maybe not everybody. But the reason why I absolutely love this book is a obviously suspects because you know what's going to happen but then you kind of go back in time and follow all of the guests of the guest house. And the second it's so smartly written. There are different written artifacts like diary entries, letters, notes, and just fictionalized memories of the characters that are written by Margaret in a chronological order. So, we get to see the sequence of events spread to the accident from the points of views of the different characters. And I'm really enjoying it.

[00:03:34]I haven't read a book that would be so engaging in quite a while.

[00:03:42][music] >> [music] [music] >> I genuinely admire people who can read multiple books at the same time because I'm barely managing to. I was written Henry and June and I think about a third in. I just got sick of her emotionality of Anesn's emotionality as she's describing her feelings to Henry and to June. I knew that I wanted to read something in parallel. So, I picked up The Feast by Margaret Kennedy. And it's such an amazing book. I love it so much.

[00:04:48]And isn't that always the case that when you're reading two books, you will always love one more than the other. So, in the end, I find myself picking up The Feast a lot more.

[00:05:01]In fact, all the time. And I have completely given up on Henry and June. I haven't picked it up for like a week. So now till I finish the feast, I just can't possibly imagine myself picking up Henry and June. So then I'm not reading in parallel. I'm reading sequentially.

[00:05:16]That happens every time I say that I want to read something in parallel. I just end up reading the second book and then [clears throat] getting back to the first one. The only way it really works for me is if I read one book as a physical copy and listen to another as an audio book. But that's not the same.

[00:05:31]I'm getting ready for work and I don't have much time, but I desperately need to give you an update. First, I finished The Feast last night. I absolutely loved it. It was everything I was hoping for and so much more. It kind of reminded me of A View of the Harbor by Elizabeth Taylor, but crisper and funnier. But now I'm facing a hard choice. I have Henry and June. I really don't want to get back to it, but people were so excited when I picked it up. Sometimes when you abandon the book for a while, it's sort of less and less appealing over time, and you kind of just have to get back to it. But tomorrow I'm going upstate for a couple days and obviously choosing a book for a trip, even if it's a short one, is really, really important. So, does picking Henry and June up now, mean that it's going to be the trip's book?

[00:06:20]Because I have a summer season that I really want to read. I open the first page and first the introduction starts with in the summer season is Elizabeth Taylor's sexist novel. I obviously didn't read any more of the introduction because it always has spoilers in it.

[00:06:37]But then the first part of the book is at the beginning of the summer and since it's the end of June already, I fear it might be too late for me to pick this book up. [laughter and gasps] So now what do I do? I think I know the answer that I need to be a responsible reader and pick back up and June.

[00:06:58]Elizabeth Taylor, I'm so sorry.

[00:07:02]Oh, that's not a workout.

[00:07:09]Better.

[00:07:12][music] [music] [music] Heat. Heat. N.

[00:07:33][music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> Hi guys. It's been about two weeks since I last recorded. I've read all of the books that I've been talking about. So, I thought that I will give you a reading update and tell you what I'm going to read next. I will say that all of these books are fantastic summer reads. And this is coming from a person who doesn't really love summer anymore. I definitely used to love summer when I lived in Russia, but I think that summer in Moscow and summer in New York are two very different summers. And I also think that when you're younger, you like summer more. Now that I'm a bit older, I don't really need that much daylight anymore. I would rather be in my pajamas by 400 p.m. to be honest, but when it's still so hot outside, when it's like three or four more days of daylight, I can't help but feel guilty.

[00:09:08]In winter, I don't. Anyway, let's talk about the books. First book I finished is The Feast. And I think that I talked about how much I love it and I still stand by it. It's a perfect vacation drama. I said in my short format video that is practically white lotus in a modern classic. And I think it's pretty accurate because we know from the start about a dramatic event that is going to take place. In the case of the feast is the landslide that is going to fall onto the guest house. And we know that some of the people in the guest house are going to die. But then we get to go back in time and follow all of the intricate relationships between the people in the guest house. And that was a very fun and a very smart read. And I'm very very curious to read more of Margaret Kennedy's work. By the way, I think that this makes a great vacation read. And it's not just because the people in the book are vacationing, but more so because the suspense is so intense that you can swallow the book over a weekend.

[00:09:55]Although I will say that the suspense in theory is the landslide but at some point I literally forgot the landslide is happening because I was so focused on the relationships between the characters. Next book I read was Henry and June and his diary and as you remember at first I was really overwhelmed by her emotionality and the way she's describing things and frankly speaking I almost dened because at a certain point it was very very hard not to judge her. She is cheating. She's lying. She's very confused in her own lies and apparently she doesn't really see a problem with it that she's lying to her husband while being romantically involved with multiple multiple people.

[00:10:33]However, I'm really glad that I didn't do enough of it. I think a lot of it is honestly about expectations setting because I've been seeing this book circulating online a lot and nobody really talks about how it's very dark and twisted. I've definitely seen a lot of romantic quotes and how it's about earning loss, discovering your own sexuality. But if you take a step back and even read some basic information about Ana Nin and her life available online, you will realize that it's all kind of problematic. However, I'm really glad that I continued reading it because what I found interesting is that I think that I began to admire the way Nina is so honest even with herself. I feel like being this honest and this vulnerable even on the pages of your own journal can be sometimes really hard for people and I couldn't help admiring her for that. And then another thing that I found really curious was the way we get to see as readers how she gets to discover different aspects of herself through these relationships with different people. And while in theory she's just sharing her life experience in this journal, I couldn't help but start reflecting about my own experience, about my own relationships, and how they got to open up different sides of myself to me. I found it really fascinating how she lets us deep into her thoughts, and yet somehow I ended up in mine. It's almost as if it's not the book that shook me, but my own interaction with it.

[00:11:56]I don't know if that makes any sense, but I'm really curious if anyone has had a similar reading experience because this is not the romantic love triangle story that I was expecting at all. Then I read In the Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor. I absolutely love Elizabeth Taylor. And although this is probably not my favorite of hers, I still found it really great. In this novel, the main character is a 40-year-old widow who has two grown-up children and her oldest son is about 20 and she gets married to a man who is about 30. So, there's this interesting dynamic created from the age gap between her son, her new husband, and herself. I think that I was a bit underwhelmed by the finale of the story, but overall, it was still a very enjoyable read, and I'm definitely going to read more of Elizabeth Taylor. She's probably one of my favorite modern classic female authors ever. If you're curious about Elizabeth Taylor, I'd rather recommend you read A View of the Harbor by her. It's my favorite novel of hers and it's kind of similar to The Feast except it's not as suspenseful, but it's also very smart in a way how she portrays different inhabitants of a coastal town in England. It was charming, funny, but also sad. Exactly the kind of book that I like. Speaking of my reading plans, I've made an entire video about the books that I'm excited to read this summer. And to be honest, so far I've been more or less following that list. However, East of Eden came through in my library and I decided to pick it up. And oh my goodness, I'm very illiterate when it comes to American classics, but as far as I understand, this is one of the big ones. And I am really shocked that apparently some people read this at school and find it boring because I'm about a quarter in. And I genuinely can't put it down to the point where I fall asleep very late and don't get enough sleep before work because I'm so so intrigued by what's going to happen next. But to be honest, that is not very surprising to me. I feel like people often underestimate how engaging and interesting classics can be and that is yet another proof of them being wrong. And then after I finish, to be honest, I don't really want to plan my next read. Let that be a surprise for everyone.

[00:13:58]I think that I'm going to end the video here. Thank you so much for watching.

[00:14:01]Hope you're having an amazing summer.

[00:14:04]Stay hydrated. [music] >> [music]