Hey, booktube! Chelsea TheReadingOutlaw back to do
another Friday reads video for you guys
I just want to start off by saying thank
you to everybody who has commented on my
last couple of videos especially my last
Friday reads video and has reached out
on email or Twitter or Instagram and all
those places with your positive thoughts
your positive words and your condolences
about my grandmother and all of those
things. I was in a really dark place
I am still kind of in the process of
moving out of that place but for the
most part I'm doing much, much better.
I have managed to get out of my own head
some and just flip things around
I have my beautiful little rose quartz
necklace to channel all those positive
vibes and my Harry Potter quote necklace and yeah! I'm just doing much better and I
hope that you guys are doing much better
as well let me know down below
how your how you doing how you're coping
how everything is going in your life and
of course let me know down below what it
is that you are reading over the course
of this weekend. I have a couple of
things that I wanted to get through - it's
gonna be a pretty heavy like nonfiction
weekend that seems to be kind of what
I'm feeling at the moment. So to start
I am still reading my way through Neil
Gaiman's
The View from the Cheap Seats. I am about a
third of the way done
I have gotten through his first section
which is his section on the importance
of libraries and literacy and stories
which I really, really enjoyed. I will say
if you're going to pick up this
collection
it might be better to be like one essay
from each section and then go back and
start at the first section and kind of
do it like that, because having read
through all of the first section in
kind of one or two sittings, it definitely
got a little bit repetitive. Which I
understand, because these are nonfiction
collections, like pieces that he's pulled from
multiple collections so he was making
the same points in a variety of venues. But
they do tend to get a little bit
repetitive
so I might recommend reading it that way.
I'm really, really enjoying this -
like I said in my last Friday Reads, I
think that Neil Gaiman for me works best
in shorter doses and he started his
career as a journalist so he definitely
has some nonfiction chops. And along those
same lines, I am also reading
The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron
Hurley. This is a collection of essays
that are both like former blog posts and
like previously published nonfiction
pieces along with essays that she wrote
specifically for this collection. And it
is pretty much exactly what it sounds
like! It is
essays about writing and geekdom and
being a woman on the internet - which as
you know is a particular a hot spot of
mine and thing that I love to talk about.
This is one,
first of all I have my Luna Lovegood
bookmark in there because she seemed
like the perfect person for The Geek
Feminist Revolution, but then as you can
see this is one that I have just taken a
pen to like to the ends of the earth and
I am really, really enjoying it.
I have not read much of Kameron Hurley's
nonfiction published online so a lot of
this is new to me, but if you've been
following her and her writing career for
a while some of these pieces, like I
said, will be repeats. But I'm absolutely
loving it makes a really good counter
position to Neil Gaiman because they
talked about a lot of the same things
but come at it kind of from two
different lenses, both as a man and then
as a woman. Obviously there are some
differences there so I'm really really
enjoying that. On audio, I am about 35, 40ish
minutes away from being done with
Ruthless: Scientology, My son David
Miscavige, and Me. And this is by Ron
Miscavige the father of David Miscavige
who is the current essentially president
and de facto leader of the Church of
Scientology. If you've been watching my
videos for any length of time I do not
need to tell you about my obsession with
Scientology and this book promised to be
even more interesting because not only
did it look at the Church of Scientology
and its leadership but it's also a dad
dishing some dirt on his son which I am
completely here for!
I think that it's really well told - it
does kind of rely on some external
knowledge of how the Church of
Scientology is structured and how it
works.
Ron tries to provide kind of some
operating definitions and some ideas as to
the structure as he goes,
but he I think takes for granted a
little bit that readers will already
have like a passing familiarity with the
Church of Scientology and how its
organized.
So that might, you know, you might do
yourself a favor and stop by the
wikipedia page first before you get into
this. But I'm really enjoying it -
like I said I'm listening to it on audio
and it is NOT narrated by Ron Miscavige
himself, but the narrator does a
very good job and it's only like six
discs long so it's actually really
really short read on audio! So I
recommend that if you are into a semi
celebrity memoirs or books about
Scientology and or fringe religions. And
then, lastly, because I can't have no
fiction going on at the moment, I'm
currently reading Songs of Susannah - excuse
me - Song of Susannah by Stephen King.
This is the sixth book in The Dark Tower
series, and follows up on The Wolves of
the Calla, which was the only book that
I managed to read for the #TomeTopple
readathon because I failed miserably at
that one! I got one of my four books
finished. But this is the sixth book it
picks up directly where the fifth book
leaves of. I'm trying to keep the ball
rolling and not let it be months and
months and months between each 
Dark Tower novel that I read. So I am
getting into this. I really like it - it
promises to focus mostly on the
character of Susannah, who is basically
are only female member of the ka-tet
and what she is going through. This is
also the book in which we meet Stephen
King as a character. For those of you who
don't know, the last books of the Dark
Tower - which are written by Stephen King - feature Stephen King as a fictional
character so he literally rights himself
into the novel.
It's very meta, could be very weird. I'm
not entirely sure how I feel about it
yet but this is the book in which that
happens so I will report back on how
that ends up landing for me as the
reader! But yeah! That is what I'm reading.
As I said beginning of the video, please
let me know down below what it is that
you are reading and loving this weekend
please feel free to hit me up on
Instagram, Goodreads, Twitter - I am all
over the internet and I'm always here to
talk books with you guys!
All right - much love! Bye!
