Hello everyone!
I am Ashleigh, and today I'm going to be doing
my uni book haul!
This is for my second year of studying literature
at university, and I'm not even attempting
to lift up this huge pile of books because
it goes further down than you can see.
And it's like, longer than my arm basically.
So this tall.
These won't be all of the texts that I'm studying
because I have some that I already owned and
I have things like poems that I don't buy
because the university will give them to me
and I don't like poetry that much so I don't
want to go out and buy them.
But basically these will be the majority of
all of the books that I'm studying in my second
year of uni.
So yeah - I'm not going to do that because
that is very precariously built.
I do kind of have some organisation to this
so we'll see if this works.
But...yeah.
As always, everything will be linked down
in the description box.
Most of these were bought secondhand.
I think there might be five which I've bought
from new, and then the rest of them are secondhand.
Some of them you can really tell they're secondhand
and then some of them look brand new so...I
don't really care because I will end up writing
all over the majority of them so it doesn't
matter to me and it saved me a lot of money.
And so let's just talk about all the books
that I have before they topple over and crush
my cat...because he's not laid in the cleverest
of positions.
So the first book that I got is very stereotypical
for a literature student because it's the
complete works of Shakespeare.
Which is huge.
I don't think you can be a literature student
in England and not study Shakespeare.
It's just a given.
For this year I do have an entire module dedicated
to Shakespeare and there's also a couple of
plays outside of that module as well so it
was just easier to buy all of his works in
one big combination - I nearly knocked the
entire thing down.
OK!
This is a dangerous book.
I'm going to put it down.
But it was just easier for me to find a bound
up collection of them and I found that one
in a charity shop for like, £3 so it was
a bargain.
But in case you were interested, I will just
read out the plays that I do have to study
because I made this like timetable type thing,
reading schedule in my bullet journal so they're
all listed here.
But I have to read Hamlet, As You Like It,
Measure for Measure, Richard II, Richard III,
Macbeth, Titus Andronicus, The Tempest and
Anthony and Cleopatra.
I don't know if there's more than that because
there might be some more in semester two but
I can't remember any of them.
I don't think there is.
And last year I studied Othello and A Midsummer
Night's Dream, so at this point I feel like
I'm making a substantial dent in Shakespeare's
works.
And when then book is that big, it could actually
be a dent because you could clobber someone
with that.
Next up I'll move onto the gothic module,
and the majority of these books are really
short apart from one, and gothic is probably
going to be one of my favourite modules because
I just love dark stories, so these are the
ones that I've been most excited about.
First up we have The Castle of Otranto by
Horace Walpole, which is apparently the first
"gothic" story.
This follows the Prince of Otranto, who is
called Manfred, and he has set his 15 year
old son to be married.
However, on his sons wedding day, his son
actually dies by being squished by a giant
helmet.
Because of this, Manfred no longer has an
heir.
He does have a daughter but because of when
it's written and the fact that she's female,
he doesn't have an heir.
And so he comes up with this brilliant idea
that he will marry his son's fiance instead,
which she's not thrilled about.
She runs off.
Lots of weird things start happening in the
castle.
And so the story happens.
I have already read this one.
It's full of annotations.
It's very strange.
And...yeah.
And it's quite intriguing to read one of the
first gothic novels written.
Next up we have A Sicilian Romance by Anne
Radcliffe, which is apparently exactly the
same as The Castle of Otranto.I haven't read
this yet but I am reading it tomorrow so I'll
see how true that is.
You don't know when "tomorrow" is because
I'm filming this last week in your time, I
think, I can't remember when I've got this
scheduled to go up.
But anyway.
As I'm filming this I haven't read this, but
as you're watching it I will have read it.
But all this mentions on the back is two women
who live basically in a very isolated castle
and weird things happening, which to be fair
does sound like The Castle of Otranto, so
we'll see how it goes.
Next up we have The Monk by Matthew Lewis,
which always reminds me of Neville Longbottom
because the actor is called Matthew Lewis.
And I'm just like "wrong person, it's not
Neville".
This is about a man who is tempted by a young
girl who is disguised as a boy in a monastery,
and from this everything just goes downhill
by the sound of it because it says on the
back that "he continues his descent with increasingly
depraved acts of sorcery, murder, incest and
torture"....yeah.
It also says "it combines sensationalism with
acute psychological insight" and I love it
when dark stories are dark in a psychological
way so I might get along with this one particularly
well.
And I hope so because it's probably the longest
one of this module.
It has a very intense cover.
Like...that's...something.
Next up I have The Turn of the Screw by Henry
James, which is about a young governess who
takes on two orphans as her charge to teach
them, and she ends up finding a malevolent
thing following them and just over them at
all times, and she's trying to figure out
whether this is actually to do with the children,
whether it's following them, whether it's
vicious, whether it's violent or just - she's
just trying to figure out what it is, basically,
from what I can gather from the back anyway
because again the back is not very insightful.
But this seems like it has the typical ghostly
thing happening relating to children, which
does creep me out more than it should so this
could be a good one.
Especially because I will be reading it, like,
around Halloween time I think.
Possibly?
Oh wait no I'm reading it later than Halloween.
But oh well, nevermind, I'll still enjoy it.
I also have what is probably deemed as a cult
classic for gothic stories because this is
The Bloody Chamber and other stories by Angela
Carter.
I have never read The Bloody Chamber but people
rave about it so much, so I'm very intrigued.
And this is basically just a collection of
dark stories, some of them are based off fairytales
and legends that we have in England, or just
that we've heard of in England at least.
And I honestly haven't even read anything
of Angela Carter so I'm quite intrigued to
see what my opinion on her will be.
And then the final book I bought for my gothic
module is Nothing on Earth by Conor O'Callaghan.
This is a very modern gothic story which surprised
me, because we tend to do classics at uni
and this is like, 2016 I think it was published?Let
me have a look.
Yes this was published in 2016, so very very
modern by university standards.
And this one...basically a man is in a house
of some sort, and a young girl comes, knocks
on his door, and everything changes from there
because she's starts telling him her story
about where she came from, and it's just weird
because all her family are disappearing one
by one, and there's not really any clear cut
answers to all these weird things that she's
talking about.
So yeah, that's what I've gathered from the
back anyway.
And it has questions on the back like "is
she telling the truth?
Is HE telling the truth?" so again it might
be quite psychological as well which I would
be quite interested in so I'm very intrigued
to see how this very modern take of gothic
will live up to the very old classic editions
of gothic.
It should be interesting.
So next up I'll be moving onto books that
I bought for my philosophy module.
We do talk about the philosophy behind literature
so...yeah.
The book that basically this entire theory
stems off is Aristotle's Poetics, because
this book basically talks about the basic
concepts of art and literature.
It's very short, it's literally 50 pages just
talking about how art should be built and
received and valued.
Yeah.
It's - you can't really explain it any more
than that, it is just 50 pages worth of theory.
But in relation to that theory we have quite
a few books to use as examples and to pick
apart different aspects of philosophy within
literature.
So the first one that we have for this is
On Beauty by Zadie Smith.
This is basically about two feuding families
and it asks questions such as "why do we fall
in love with the people that we fall in love
with?
Why do we pass on our mistakes to our children?
And what basically makes life beautiful?"
Because of that sort of synopsis, I thought
this would be a lot more...philosophically
based than it is.
But from the very short bit that I've read
so far - again I will have finished this by
the time this video goes up - but from what
I've read so far, it's just a standard story,
so it might just be one of those things where
you pick out the philosophical side of things
when you analyse it rather than it being like,
thrown in your face, which I'm hoping for
because I just - I like fiction more than
like, overly analytical things.
Words.
But yeah we have this one.
I'm quite excited about it to be fair because
I've been wanting to read something by Zadie
Smith for so long, and I just have never picked
up anything by her even though she's got quite
a few books out so if I like this one, I'll
be looking for recommendations about which
one to go to next.
I know she has one called White Teeth which
is quite popular, but if you have any recommendations
for Zadie Smith - because I think she has
quite a lot of books anyway?
I said that in full confidence as if I know.
I feel like I just see her everywhere, and
I don't know whether that's about the same
books or whether she's got quite a few that
people love.
But if she does have quite a few then please
do recommend me another one because I'll definitely
be picking up more if I enjoy this one which
I think I will.
But the next book is Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.
And this is...crap.
Ughh no it's about a man who sets up Fight
Club, which is basically a place to go and
fight out any of their problems that they
have and basically just fight away the stress
of life.
However Fight Club becomes out of control,
basically, and it is - there is a lot more
behind the story than that but I can't tell
you about it because that would be spoilers,
so yeah.
I have already read this one.
Didn't like it.
I'm sure you know this by now because I've
probably ranted about it in my most recent
wrap up which I think was in September.
Yes.And apparently Angela Carter is a thing
for this year, because I also have The Passion
of New Eve by Angela Carter.
This has a very...vague...synopsis I think,
because it says "New York has become The City
of Dreadful Night, where dissolute Leila performs
a dance of chaos for Evelyn.
But this young Englishman's fate lies in the
arid desert, where a many breasted fertility
god will wield her scalpel to transform him
into the new Eve.
The Passion of New Eve is an extraordinary
journey into the apocalyptic vision of the
author Lorna Sage called the boldest of English
women writers."
So I think it is just an Adam and Eve retelling,
and it looks weird.
It sounds weird.
It's Angela Carter so it probably is weird
from what I've heard and...I like weird.
So let's see how this goes.
I also have Hard Times by Charles Dickens,
which you can tell very much so that this
is secondhand because the cover...is about
as wrecked as my heart when I see something
this beautiful this wrecked.
THAT was dramatic.
It is what it is.
I haven't actually read any of Charles Dickens'
full novels, but I do have two of them to
read this year.
So I guess it's time to start.
I have read A Christmas Carol and his short
stories last year though, so if that counts
then brilliant.
But anyway, this is about a town called Coketown,
which is dominated by a man called Mr Gradgrind.
I think that's how you say it.And he doesn't
really tolerate anything fanciful or imaginative.
He is very utilitarian in how he runs things.Because
of this, his daughter ends up in a loveless
marriage, his son ends up rebelling against
him by going into gambling and robbery.
And at some point in the novel they end up
meeting two people who are basically the exact
opposite, I think.
And it's a story of kind of being enlightened
to another way of thinking, or like another
perspective I guess.
And it says on the back that "Gradgrind is
eventually forced to recognise the value of
the human heart in an age of materialism and
machinery".
So it sounds like it's going to be quite a
redemptive story.
And the last book for the philosophy module
is Labyrinths by Jorge Luis...Borges?
Bor-ges?I'm not quite sure how you pronounce
that one.
But this is a collection of short stories
which I think have philosophical undertones
to them.
And that again is basically all the synopsis
says so I apologise for not being able to
give a better synopsis but there are lots
of stories in this so I guess that's why I
can't.
But I had literally never heard of this before
so I can't really give much a synopsis.
Ughh this is the bad thing about doing book
hauls for university, because it's hard enough
doing synopsis' for books in book hauls anyway
because you've not read them yet - well, if
you've not read them yet - then you obviously
don't know what the synopsis is.
But like, if it's for university, you've not
chosen the books yourself and so you've not
looked into it to see if it's something that
you would enjoy or like, picked it out of
your own accord, so you can't remember it
out of an enjoyment side of things, and also
when there's just this many all of the blurbs
mix together.
And it's very hard to come up with synopsis'
for them all until you've read them, is basically
the end of that ramble but moving on.
I also have a children's module next semester
so I'm not studying these ones yet, but I
do have The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson
Burnett.
And by the sound of it this is about a little
girl who is apparently horrid, and because
of this she's sent to live with her uncle
as a sort of life lesson I'm guessing, getting
another experience.
Kind of like Nanny McPhee 2 because, you know,
the children are sent to a farm in that one.
So a similar thing in this.
Upon arriving at her uncle's house, she ends
up tending the secret garden, she meets a
friend, she meets her cousin who has been
hidden from her this entire time.
And they are changed through this experience.
I'm guessing it's quite a - not redemptive,
because, you know, she like nine years old
or something like that - it's one of the growing
up things where it's like "the moral of the
story is to be a nicer child" type story,
I think.
I've never read this before.
I know it's a lot of people's childhood favourite.
So I'm quite intrigued to see what it's like
and also what we'll be taking from it, because
I think on the children's module we'll be
talking about how dark children's stories
are or like the hidden messages in them so
it could end up being quite intriguing.
Next up is one that is very much beloved of
the young adult community quite awhile ago,
but that is Noughts and Crosses by Malorie
Blackman.
This, like I said, is a young adult book,
and I think it's a retelling of Romeo and
Juliet because society is split into Noughts
and Crosses, and there's one person from each
side, a boy and a girl, who end up attracted
to each other, and they shouldn't be.
Oh.
What a dilemma.
But yeah.
I don't actually like Romeo and Juliet so
we'll see how this goes.
I feel like the trope of forbidden love for
me is either a massive hit or a massive miss,
so we'll see what side this lands on.
Next up we have another favourite of many
people, and that is The Boy in the Striped
Pajamas.
Now I'm not going to give a synopsis of this
because I'm going to read the one that it
gives for a very particular reason.
You'll understand why when I read it.
Which I'm going to do now.
Because all it gives you for a synopsis is
this; "The story of the boy in the striped
pajamas is very difficult to describe.
Usually we give some clues about the book
on the jacket, but in this case we think that
would spoil the reading of the book.
We think it is important that you start to
read without knowing what it is about.
If you do start to read this book, you will
go on a journey with a nine year old boy called
Bruno.
But this isn't a book for nine year olds,
and sooner or later you will arrive with Bruno
at a fence.
Fences like this exist all over the world.
We hope you never have to encounter such a
fence."
Now a lot of you will probably know what this
story is about and what it means with the
fence and why it's being quite allusive to
the story.
But I haven't read it.
I haven't watched the film.
I know what period it's set in so I know that
I will probably cry.
But I have been meaning to watch the film
for ages, but I always said to myself "I'll
read the book first", but then never got round
to it.
So university is actually helping me get through
my TBR because this has been on it for many
years and I'm only just now getting round
to it because I have to.
And then I have four more left which I can't
remember which modules these fit into because
I have one which talks about the representation
of power, death and desire, and then there's
another one which is for the 18th century
literature.
So I don;t know which ones these fall into
because I've not sorted them out yet, and
I'm definitely missing some because I'm sure
I have more than four books between two modules.
That just doesn't seem right.
So I'll probably have to buy more books in
January when I actually figure out those reading
lists, but that's a problem for later on because
I have to get through like, pretty much all
of these for semester one.
And there's more.
So that's a problem for another day.
But the first one I have I'm pretty sure is
for the 18th century module, but that is Moll
Flanders by Daniel Defoe.
This is about Moll Flanders, who was born
in Newgate prison and abandoned six months
later.
When trying to find her place in society,
she ends up resorting to adultery, prostitution
and becomes a thief, so she does actually
end up back in Newgate prison but obviously
a lot older than six months old.
I don't think I'm going to get along with
this one, but I'm trying to be optimistic
so I'm going to say that I'm intrigued, as
I've been saying with every book so far.
And we shall see how this one goes like, in
January or February or March.
Next year.
Next up we have The Woman in White by Wilkie
Collins which I read over summer because it's
800 pages long and absolutely huge.
This is about a ban - a ban?
It's not about a ban.
This is about a man called Walter Hartright
who is appointed as the drawing master at
Limmeridge House.
On his journey to Limmeridge House he comes
across the woman in white, who has apparently
escaped from an asylum.
I'm talking too fast to get my words out properly.
I apologise.
After this event lots and lots of weird things
happen.
There's marriage scandals, lots of intrigue
and mystery.
But yeah, I've already read this one.
Again I will leave a link to the wrap up that
this is in down below.
I also have another Charles Dickens book,
and that is Oliver Twist.
I haven't read Oliver Twist, like I said I
haven't read any of Dickens' full novels and
I don't think I've watched a film.
I've watched a production of it before but
that was a very long time ago, so I can't
really remember the plot.
But I'm pretty sure there was something about
Oliver Twist being an orphan, and he's sort
of taken out and trained to be a thief.
That's literally all I can remember but I
know there's so much more to this story than
that.
It's just that I haven't read or seen a version
that goes in depth enough, or that I can remember
enough of to be able to explain any more than
that.
And the final book that I bought for university
as of right now at least is Mary Barton by
Elizabeth Gaskell.
This is about Mary Barton - believe it or
not - and she;s kind of caught between two
men.
There is her lover, who is working class,
and there is also the mill owner's son.
She abandons the working class man for the
mill owner's son because she wants to better
her future and has a better chance of doing
that with someone who is of a higher class.
But then the mill owner's son is actually
accused of shooting the working class man,
and she is caught between them both.
I've never read anything by Elizabeth Gaskell,
but I know that this is a very popular book
of hers so...I need a different word for "intrigued"
because I was going to say again "I'm quite
intrigued to read this one!"
I'm always intrigued to read books that I'm
given because that's just who I am.
But yeah.
You'll know my thoughts on this one sometime
next year.
So that huge pile there is all of the books
that I've bought so far for university.
I didn't have to buy them all because my university
does give out links to online versions, and
that's what I'm doing for any poetry that
I have to read.
I know that I've got to read some by Edgar
Allan Poe for the gothic module.
But I do find it hard reading on screens and
I also just like having physical versions
I can return to whenever I want to and annotate,
because then when I'm writing essays I can
just like, get them all out around me and,
you know, reference them at will instead of
having to try and find them online again and
go through all that.
It just - the thought of that stresses me
out, so I like having my nice physical versions.
And I do buy them all secondhand so even though
it does still come to quite a lot, it comes
to considerably less than they would if they
were all new, because I think that price would
actually give me a heart attack.
And like I said there are some books that
I'm studying but I haven't bought because
I can either find like, poetry through my
university or there's some that I'll be borrowing,
so I know that I have to study Katy by Jacqueline
Wilson, and I don't really want to own a Jacqueline
Wilson book so I'll be like, finding that
somewhere else.
And then like I said there are some that I
already own, such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
and Wuthering Heights, I have to study those
two for the gothic module.
And for the children's literature module I
have to study the third Harry Potter book,
Prisoner of Azkaban so obviously I already
have that.
So yeah, there is a lot of reading to be done.
And I feel well impressed with myself when
I see them all stacked up like this because
like, I'm powering through this entire stack
and more.
It makes me feel amazing.
As always, I would love to hear your thoughts
on any of the books that I've mentioned and
your thoughts on the fact that I'm studying
them, because y'know - *cat meow* why are
you interrupting me?
*cat meow* Why?
* cat meow* Why?
Come on then.
There he is!
Took him long enough.
So yeah, like I said I would love to know
your thoughts on any of the books that I've
mentioned, as many as there were, and also
your thoughts on the fact that I'm studying
them, because a lot of them, like the children's
classics, will have been read just out of
enjoyment so...I don;t know.
I feel like people might find it intriguing
to see that I'm studying them.
I feel like words aren't happening anymore,
so I'm going to go now.
Hopefully it's also given you an idea of what
I do at university, the sort of books that
I study - I mean, it will have done because
it's literally a list of them.
Again, words aren't happening so I'm going
to go now.
And yeah.
I hope you're having a lovely day.
Oscar hopes you're having a lovely day.
And I shall see you next time with a new video.
Bye!
