hello everyone i am Reesha and this is
for the love of classics.
I hope you are all doing well. Today's
video is going to be my self-isolation
reading vlog number three, so in my last
vlog
i finished reading the prince by Niccolo
Machiavelli and Ethan Frome
by Edith Wharton, since then i have also
managed
to finish the woman in white by Wilkie
Collins
this is a Victorian classic and it is
one of the first
detective novels ever written. it took me
a while to finish this because it was a
long book:
almost 730 pages long.
i gave this a three and a half star on
goodreads.
i really enjoyed the first half of the
book: in the second half of the book the
story
got a bit slow, i also got annoyed by how
wilkie collins kept
talking about the role of women and
i thought that the heroine of the story
Marian Holcombe
was such a powerful character but she
was not given the freedom to do things.
i really enjoyed his writing style so
i'm looking forward to reading more
books by Wilkie Collins:
not in the immediate future, maybe, i will
pick up
the moonstone next year. i had ordered
the plague by Albert Camus from
libertybooks.com it is a Pakistan based
online bookstore but i got an email
ages later telling me that they are not
doing any international deliveries at
the moment
because of the pandemic so then i went
on to
book depository and ordered myself a
copy. they were previously out of stock
but now they have restocked the plague
by Albert Camus.
i was torn between three editions: one is
by vintage and it has this
black cover with white polka dots.
i also really liked this one other
edition: i think this is by penguin
but it did have one scary cover
and then the book which i ended up
buying
is the plain orange penguin classic.
i do not have any of these so i am
excited to add one to
my collection. i'm not sure when the book
will get delivered.
i really hope it gets delivered soon.
so after finishing the woman in white i
started reading
the brothers karamazov by fyodor
Dostoevsky.
i know i keep repeating myself but there
is a read along which is hosted on
instagram by
Hemingway to Dostoevsky and it is
called the
self-isolation read-along. they started
this book during the first week of
April and today is the first of May.
so for the read along they have divided
the book into bits and they are reading
it over a period of time. so i think i
can catch up with them.
i was so intimidated by picking this
book up
because it is so big. it took me two
months to read
war and peace by Leo Tolstoy which is
another
magnum opus Russian classic but i really
wanted to start this one because i have
been avoiding this for a couple of years
now
and i thought the read-along would help
because i did read war and peace
uh with a read-along so between these
two the brothers comes off
does look smaller uh war and peace was
1200 pages long
and it also had a lot of characters.
the writing inside this edition was
pretty
big as compared to this penguin edition
which has a smaller font.
so the brothers karamazov has been
divided into four parts
and i know that this is a story about
four brothers
which is not the reason why it is
divided into four parts but
anyways, so i used these tags
to color code the different parts of the
book. so the pink one is the first part
which has
further three books inside, so there are
three pink sticky notes and then this is
the second part, the third part and the
fourth part.
i thought this would make it a bit
easier
yesterday i finished part 1 book 1 which
was just 50 pages of this book so i have
to say the story has already drawn me
in, i am invested in the characters and i
want to know what will happen
next. thankfully there are not as many
characters as there were
in war and peace, so it's easy to keep
track of them.
this edition is translated by David
mcduff. the brothers karamazov is the
last book which
fyodor dostoevsky wrote before he died. i
have read
two of his other books which i
absolutely loved:
crime and punishment and the gambler. so
this is going to be my third book
by dostoevsky.
um
i knew it was going to take me a while
to finish the brothers Karamazov
and i did not want to get bored of it so
i decided to start
another book as well and after a lot of
consideration
i finally decided to read the warden
by Anthony Trollope. this is such a
beautiful edition by vintage. i love the
cover of this one.
this is my last unread vintage red spine
so i'm really excited to
finish off the red spines i have on my
shelf. so the warden is the first book of
the
Barsetshire chronicles series written
by Anthony Trollope. this is a Victorian
classic
through and through. i really enjoy
reading Anthony Trollope. he is so easy
to read.
the sun is finally up, i can't open my
eyes.
oh god the sun is so bright.
i had to change places because i could
barely open my eyes over there.
this is a present from my father-in-law.
the Barsetshire chronicles series has
six books in it.
everyone says that this is not the best
of the whole series but you have to
start from book one.
so it says here on the back that it is
about mr harding who is a good man
and he is awarded to an alms house,
which provides a peaceful home to 12 men.
the young john bold is also a good man
but he believes he sees in harding's
comfortable existence
and injustice which must be exposed. this
causes a crisis in the quiet
country town of barchester. there is
another series by Anthony Trollope which
is called the Palliser series and i have
also read the first book from the
Palliser series which was can you
forgive her?
and i have the third book in the series
which is called the Eustace diamonds but
i do not have the second one which is
phineas finn, so i'm going to get myself
phoenix finn, so i can continue with
both of these series by Anthony Trollope.
so i started this book last night
and now i'm on page number 20. this is a
small book it is just
212 pages long.
um
so
so i have been finding it a bit
difficult to film
because it is Ramadan which is a holy
month for Muslims in which we fast
so my reading schedule has changed a bit
as well. i'm now reading in the morning
after my fajr prayer usually at six
in the morning and i barely get any more
time to read during the
rest of the day so i try to make the
most of
my mornings in terms of reading.
i just filmed three videos in a row and
i never do that but i'm really excited
to edit them and i'm
really excited to hear what you guys
have to say about them because they are
different from my usual content.
also my husband has started reading
animal farm by George Orwell.
i gave him the book as a present. i can't
wait to know what he thinks about it.
i watched the movie troy and i really
enjoyed it.
and since the movie troy is based on the
Iliad by homer,
i really want to start reading this book.
it is also another long book
and i have already started the brothers
Karamazov
i don't think it's wise to start the
Iliad an
epic poem alongside
the brothers Karamazov but i'm really
tempted to start
reading this.
um
also i wanted to say thank you to all my
subscribers
because i just hit 1500 on my youtube
channel!
and i'm so excited and so grateful and
so happy about it!
i think i've been on youtube for almost
three years now!
time goes by so fast! i didn't even
realize how long i've been here for but
thank you so much for subscribing and if
you haven't subscribed already please do
it now!
hello everyone today is the 11th
of may and it is 7 o'clock
in the morning. my sleeping schedule has
been all over the place
and since i was awake i thought i would
give you guys an update about my reading.
yesterday morning i finished the warden
by
Anthony Trollope. i actually really liked
the book.
this book was about mr harding who was
the warden of an alm's house.
mr harding has two daughters: one of them
is married and the younger one Eleanor
lives with him.
every time i start filming the sun is up.
it is probably going to blind me but
i'm going to continue filming. so i
really like the character of mr harding.
he's a good man but he does not like
discontent and he doesn't want people
to be against him.
i really enjoyed how Anthony Trollope
talked about
mr harding's feelings and how torn he
is between doing the right thing
and just leading a simple life.
so
it kind of reminded me of Agnes gray by
Anne Bronte because this is a simple
book.
the story is simple and yet it is
beautifully
told. i think sometimes simple stories
need to be told as well.
after reading big massive books with
so many characters and so many multiple
plots sometimes
a simple story describing just one thing
but in detail
can be very satisfying to read. the
writing in the book was simple but
beautiful.
Anthony Trollope also made a sarcastic
remark about
Charles dickens which i was not
expecting: he talked about
bucket and mrs gamp who are
characters from Charles dickens books
bleak house and martin chuzzlewit
and he also made a reference to Mrs
Radcliffe which i think
is Ann Radcliffe: another Victorian
author of the time.
i would like to share one of the
passages from the book which i really
enjoyed:
in former times great objects were
attained by great work,
when evils were to be reformed reformers
set about their heavy task with grave
decorum and laborious argument.
an age was occupied improving a
grievance
and philosophical researches were
printed in folio pages
which it took a life to write and an
eternity to read
we get on now with a lighter step and
quicker
ridicule is found to be more convincing
than argument
imaginary agonies is touch more than true
sorrows
and monthly novels convince when learned
quarters fail to do so.
i cannot even imagine what Anthony
Trollope would have to say about the
world we live in today because there is
so much influx of information on our
phones
and it is all superficial information
which basically just
stays with us for a couple of minutes or
even seconds and then we move on to the
next thing.
i thought that was an interesting
passage, so i gave this book a four star
rating
on goodreads and i cannot wait to
continue with the series.
the second book in the series is
barchester towers and i do not have a
copy of that book yet.
i have continued reading the brothers
Karamazov by fyodor Dostoevsky
currently on page 145.
this is book three of part one. this book
is so heavy so i cannot
carry it with me everywhere i go when i
read so that is the reason why i
finished
the warden earlier and i'm not giving
this book as much time because i need to
sit down and read
in one place because i do not want to
damage the spine
of this penguin classic but so far
so good. i am not having any difficulty.
we have been introduced to all the four
brothers: the oldest brother is:
and i'm going to butcher these names:
they are just complicated russian names
which i am not sure how to pronounce
at all, so the first brother is Dmitri
fyodorovich who's the eldest, fyodor
pavlovic Karamazov has two sons
from his second wife Ivan and
alexi. so Ivan is the intellectual: he is
writing
articles for journals and the third son
alexi
is a religious man. so the father along
with his three sons
and two of their uncles go to meet the
elder: who is a religious
scholar or leader and they go to him
with their problem because the eldest
son and father have fallen for
the same woman and they basically
misbehave in front of the elder,
especially the father
fyodor Karamazov basically just disrupts
the whole meeting and he's behaving in
such stupid way in front of these
respectable
religious men. that is pretty much what
has happened
so far. after finishing the warden by
Anthony Trollope, i was unsure about
which book to start next and one of my
friends
suggested we should read Mansfield park
by Jane Austen together.
so i've taken this off my shelf but i'm
not sure if i will start this book,
if i finish this book this is going to
be my last
of Jane Austen's novel. i've read all of
her books
except Mansfield park and i think i have
been putting it off because i don't want
to
end the journey of reading Jane Austen's
books
but i have to read this one day and
after i do this then i will be able to
rank
Jane Austen's novels from best to worst
so far persuasion and pride and
prejudice are my favorites,
followed by north anger abbey and the
bottom two
are Emma and sense and sensibility.
so i have a Wordsworth edition of
Mansfield park
this one is 380 pages long this edition,
also has beautiful illustrations which i
really
enjoy. i'll keep you guys updated whether
i decide to read this book
or not.
i also thought i would start reading
short stories by Anton Chekov, these are
short stories for our time with an
introduction by Boris fisherman.
this is such a pretty edition it is by
restless books. org you can check out
their website
i did yesterday and this is such a
pretty cover with embossed
font. it also has illustrations inside.
i'm kind of scared of reading short
stories because i haven't read many and
i'm not sure how i'll feel about them
or how to go about them. you can't
basically read them all in one setting
because then you would barely remember
anything at all. so i thought maybe i
should read one story
a day. so they have divided his short
stories into five groups the first
is the stories of love, the second is
zero is the highest number, slow fiction,
Russia she is a hard country and
miscellaneous delights.
and then these groups have further short
stories
in them. i read one story by Chekhov
for my English class which was the
beggar: that story raised a lot of
questions about morality,
about poverty and how people deal with
it, also
this book smells amazing!
it's the best smell out of all the books
i own and this reminds me...
it reminds me of my school but i love
the smell of this book.
i also went book shopping i had to buy
some stuff
and now that the lock-down has eased i
decided to
visit a bookshop as well so the book
which i bought
is by H.G.Wells and it is
the shape of things to come with an
introduction
by John Clute, not sure if i'm
pronouncing that correctly.
i just came inside because it was so
loud out there.
there's construction going on right next
to our apartment
and the noise is unimaginable. so i hope
this
works. it's so difficult to find
a good place with good lightning to film.
as i was saying i went out
book shopping: i visited an old bookshop
and i got myself a copy of
H.g wells the shape of things to come.
he basically foretold about some of the
things which would happen in the past
up till 2105. he foretold an era of war,
plague, political chaos, instability in
the middle east,
second world war and cultural changes. i
also got a bookmark
so i already have one book by H g wells:
which is the war of the worlds
and i have not read this one yet. i
basically do not have any idea about H.G.
wells. i am not a literature student or a
history major or anything like that.
so i basically read for fun. any help
would be
welcome. i would love to know what would
be the right place to start with
H G wells. i keep hearing about the war of
the worlds a lot, so i got myself a copy
it is a tale of alien invasion and it
remains one of the most
influential science fiction works. so
basically i do have now
two penguin black spines by H G wells.
there were a lot of other books by H g
wells in the shop as well and i think
that
somebody was trying to get rid of all of
his H G wells
books because they were all brand new
and penguin black spines
but their descriptions did not seem
interesting. the only thing which
sounded interesting to me was this piece
of non-fiction.
so i got myself this. i also went to Kinokuniya
and i got myself a book which i am
super excited about
it is a penguin english library book and
i am so happy to have another one of
these.
it is Framley parsonage by Anthony
Trollope.
it is such a beautiful book.
i was jumping with happiness when i saw
this book and
got it for myself. it smells great as
well.
i love how floppy these, are i love the
spine
and it's so clean and pretty and new.
this is the fourth book in the Barset
shire chronicles series by
Anthony Trollope, since i finished the
warden, i needed other books
in the series i have a copy of dr thorne
in the penguin
popular classics edition, it has such a
pretty
vintage cover. this is the third book in
the series,
i got this from an old bookshop as well
and i just found
these inside: it says Istanbul so it's
probably from turkey.
i also have the small house at Allington,
which is the fifth book in the series. i
have this in the penguin English library
edition as well.
two years back penguin English library
editions were for 39 dirhams
this one i got for 52 derhams. this one
has a picture of Anthony Trollope inside
and it was a present from my sister
and nephew and brother-in-law for
finishing my medical school.
so now i just need two books from the
barset shire chronicles
series: i need the second book which is
about Barchester towers and i need  it
ASAP. if i have to continue the series
and i
also need the last book which is the
last chronicle of barset.
do you guys know any websites which do
international deliveries with free
shipping other than
book depository because book depository
does not have
copies of these classics in PEL
when i was in Pakistan i used to cover
my books with plastic
sheet like this and this
protected my paper backs so much. they did
not get damaged when i
shipped them from Pakistan to the UAE
and
now that i'm here i have been searching
for plastic sheet
for months and i cannot find a plastic
sheet
like this anywhere. the only ones
available here
are self-adhesive ones, i don't mind them
but
what if i have to remove the plastic
cover one day?
it will probably damage the whole book
and i don't want to do that.
so then i found this which is a table
cloth and it is transparent plastic.
i think this can be used to cover books
as well.
so after ages of searching for plastic
sheet i think i'm going to try using
this and see how it goes.
i got myself two tablecloths. let me open
one
it smells exactly like the plastic
sheets i have back home in Pakistan, so i
think it would work.
i also thought i would show you guys how
my husband is annotating his
book animal farm: it honestly breaks my
heart:
the way he's doing it but since it's his
book he can do with it whatever he wants
to:
he's using highlighter to highlight
words
and then he's also underlining words,
he's also making notes but with the
highlighter!
there was a little accident with my copy
of the warden:
somebody sat on it while it was lying on
the sofa
there's a bit of a crease here but
nothing major: it just broke my heart a
little when i saw this.
i think i'm probably going to end my
vlog here.
it has been a long vlog as compared to
my previous ones.
i'll probably go now and edit my video
about the prince by Niccolo Machiavelli,
then cover some of my books, read a
little
and then i have to go do some grocerery.
i'll see you all in my next video very
soon!
bye!
