The 5 Best Books I've Read This Year

Join my Discord server

My other YouTube channel, about reselling things online:

00:00 He Died with His Eyes Open by Derek Raymond
02:50 The Female Man by Joanna Russ
06:50 Moderan by David R. Bunch
10:35 The Unsleeping Eye / The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D.G. Compton
13:41 Inverted World by Christopher Priest
17:05 Next Video

[armoredtuba]

This has to be one of my favorite channels on the tube. No intros, no "like and subscribe", no script and no frills. Just straight up great content, solid suggestions and well opinionated criticism. We don't always see eye to eye - I kinda liked reading THE Liu Cixin Trilogy in pre-netflx times - but it's thanks to your channel if I read some of the best books I ever read. Blindsight in particular, that book lingers.
A big thank you from Italy, keep it up!

[HakimALIGHT]

The Inverted World blew me away. I had to sit and think about it for a few hours when I finished it. A slap in the face. Christopher Priest was a gift.

[gamingwithkaya]

Something cool that I noticed while looking at the goodreads book statistics on moderan is that on July 8th, 84 people added it to their want to read shelf after you initially talked about it in an earlier video released on the same date. The average number of people who added the book was 3 people a day. After figuring this out I got curious and did more research and learned that this same phenomenon has happened with many other relatively obscure books. Just think it is great how much your videos affect what people read and how obscure books are able to get more attention and praise because of your videos. Keep making great videos, your recommendations (Namely Jack Vance and Silverberg) have never lead me astray and you are my favorite science fiction channel on yt.

[civoreb]

Priest is someone that is slowly becoming one of my favorites. He deserved a lot more credit than he received when he was alive.

[PasseScience]

Ah, the journey to the southern tip in The Inverted World. It's definitely something that stays in your mind. The first thing I did was reread those few pages in the middle of the book. A really unique moment.

[keithdixon]

I'm about halfway through Priest's The Affirmation, which is SF... just. A guy writes his autobiography to try to understand himself, but then realises he has to fictionalise the narrative to get at his 'truth'. Then the next section IS that narrative, which is written as an alternative world (though still Earth) with the characters from the first part now in the guise of other people ... Beautifully written (thankfully, because the narrative can be a little slow) it could have been written by Borges or Marquez. My first Priest, and it now seems I have to move on to Inverted World 👍

[sidgen]

Humble recommendation for crime fiction: Gorky Park, followed by Polar Star and Red Square. These first three are just magnificent novels, and they conform a highly satisfying, extremely well-written trilogy. I don't like at all where the author, Martin Cruz Smith, took the series with the fourth installment, Havana Bay, but I must admit that it is well written because Smith just cannot write badly. The rest of the books in this series are good but, in my opinion, none of them reaches the heights of Gorky Park and its two companions. If you go for them, avoid the film: not a bad effort, but chopped and incapable of truly showing, in a different medium, the expressive richness, the serious historical value, and the emotional pull of the novel.

[monstersfromtheid]

Death Watch (1980) was the film adaption of The Unsleeping Eye.

[mbllwyg]

Thanks Matt, great vid. Excellent tree

[VMSelvaggio]

Thank you for these reviews, I will have to check out Chris Bunch and Christopher Priest now...

[M-l-C-A-H]

Just picked up Inverted World recently. After watching this it’s going straight to the top of my “read next” list

[JakeFromMaine]

BABE WAKE UP NEW BOOKPILLED BEST BOOKS VIDEO

[skwzbxx]

I really appreciate you reading these books and doing incredible reviews on them.
I now buy books without a second thought based your recommendation.
Your backdrops are fantastic, also.

[thecryptile]

The ending to Inverted World was mind-blowing, I loved it.

[jakefromstatefarm]

I have my copy of Inverted World, it's next on my tbr

[RemnTheteth]

I read He Died With His Eyes Open at your recommendation and I loved it. I've also never read crime novels before.

Wow. The dialogue is just astounding. And the tape sections are beautiful. Tragic and realistic, funny and with really great, fallible characters. I highly recommend it.

[Rogue_VI]

I love how most everything you read is older, mostly unknown stuff.

[TheShadesofOrange]

I'm so glad you also loved Inverted World!

[badfinger]

I can’t remember in which video you spoke of Asimov, but you mentioned how he had written many books of nonfiction and you were curious about them. Yes, he wrote a lot of nonfiction. He wrote essays in many periodicals, and these were often collected into books, kind of a “fix-up” nonfiction book. The subjects range from physics, biology, technology to history, and they are fantastic.
Asimov was great at explaining complex ideas to the layperson. I recommend these nonfiction books over his fiction; and I realize that I am probably pissing folks off for saying that. I’ve learned so much more about history through his books. In the book about the biology of the human body, he starts off by explaining how life evolved and then carries those ideas into describing the different biological systems of the body. You see how the underlying principles of biological evolution carried over into our bodies.
It was brilliant. Even though the books would not have any recent discoveries in the various topics, they are nonetheless accurate and provide a well-written foundation for readers.

[durwoodmaccool]

I absolutely love the format the locations and the visuals of this channel. Please keep up the great work. I recently read The Inverted World. I wasn't that into it at the time, but looking back I think you're right about the technical aspects of it. I'll have to check out the others on the list.