 All right, here we are I'm finally sitting down to record my April and May reads video for the last two months And it's it's June 8th. We're already a week into June. I have been Not at all motivated over the last two months to sit down and record this video for the last Week every day. I've been saying to myself, okay I'll record tonight or I'll record it in the morning and then I haven't done it Finally, I'm gonna sit down and record this. This is how my videos are gonna go from now on There'll be one a month where I talk about what I'm reading The books I've read in the past month the books that I bought in the past month and I'll include brief book reviews in those videos and there's there's a Reason for doing it this way besides me just being fed up with my videos not being watched Number one and I'll reiterate what I said in my video two months ago when I said I was canceling everything People are not watching my videos They're just not My book review videos are not getting views The the book discussion videos that I've been recording and Going to a lot of trouble and a lot of time of recording both with Becky and with other guests people are not watching those videos They are not watching those videos. The only book review videos that get views are The the monthly reads I I've never been able to figure out why I think I have a clue One of my more recent videos It's a book discussion. I had with Becky about the book binti As of today it has 29 views only 29 And The the views that it's gotten in the past month. It's only gotten 10 views. It was stuck on 18 For several weeks right after I posted at least one of those views is Becky because Becky always watches the videos and always comments on 29 views over the course of two months for a for a channel that has been around for many years and Has a thousand subscribers my subscriber count today by the way is one thousand one hundred eleven. It's eleven eleven I finally got past the eleven hundred mark and Subscribers are still Trickling in which is another thing I'll get to in a minute, but anyway People have not been watching that book discussion video with Becky. It has Becky in it It's about binti, which is a popular book and it's the least viewed video in the series why I think Combining that with the lack of views on my book review videos And the idea that my monthly reads videos and my My bookstore walkthrough videos, which are just slideshows of pictures of books that I've taken while I walk through bookstores Those get more views than my book review book review videos Taking all that into account. I think I I'm starting to understand why people watch the monthly reads videos It's because people are not interested in book reviews. They're specifically not interested in book reviews Of books where the title of the book is on the the review on the video People will see the name of a book. They've already decided they don't want to hear a review of that book Or they don't like that book or they've already read it. So they don't watch the video But with the monthly reads Videos people don't know what's in the video. So they watch the video and with the With the bookstore walkthrough videos, which again are just slideshows of photos I've taken of books People watch those again because they don't know what they're gonna see So that's what I'm gonna do from now on is just do a monthly reads video where people If they want to learn about books, they they watch the videos if they don't know what specific books they're gonna learn about That seems to be actually keeping people away and also People are not watching videos on my channel period So I have enjoyed Recording my book discussion videos with Becky and I want to continue to do those and I've talked about this with her But if we continue to do them in the future, I don't want them posted on my channel I want them to be posted on her channel where they will be seen because they're not being seen on my channel And then going back to my 1,100 subscribers New subscribers are continuing continuing to trickle in over the last two months Even though I've not been posting videos which base the question of where are these subscribers coming from and why are they subscribing? clearly they're not subscribing for science fiction or for book reviews over the last two months My number one video has been the review. I did of that works A weed wacker that works electric stream screen string trimmer Over the past 30 days, I'm looking at it on my screen here behind my camera That video has gotten six times more minutes watched than its closest competitor at number two, which is a review I did of the The Wacom bamboo Drawing tablet The video is called you don't need a $2,000 centique. That's number two video number three and this has always been highly ranked in my videos is my coherence movie review So the coherence movie review has fallen to number three the my review of a piece of lawn mowing hardware is Running away with the number one position the last two months for the last two years The video that's been number one far far out in number one was that Rubik's Cube video I did that all the Rubik's Cube kids hate Not only is that video not number one over the last two months. It's not even in the top ten. It's disappeared But coherence is hanging in at number three At number four and here's another surprise This book is this video has never been one of my most viewed but somehow it's at number four For the last 30 days how to pack a comic book for shipping That's the thing. I did a little over a year ago in my top ten videos for the last 30 days Only one of them is a book review. It's the war of the world the rest of the top ten are Vintage board game reviews that I did years ago That's that should tell you something about what People want to watch what people are watching because it's not my subscribers who are watching these videos. These videos are old It's people who are finding them through YouTube searches and through suggested videos that YouTube itself is suggesting that's where 75% of all views come from is YouTube searches and suggested videos and on top of that 80% of all of my video views come from non subscribers, which means that Subscribers are not watching my videos Taking that into account the 29 views that the binti book discussion has If 80% of those views are coming from not subscribers and they are all all of my videos have the same percentages Then that means only one or two of my subscribers have watched that video only one or two when I announced two months ago that I was canceling all these series and gonna stop making videos almost all together except for the monthly things I Wanted to I said that I was disgusted with these numbers and I still am and I'm still very angry about it I see new New youtubers coming on who have only been on for a few months and they already have 700 subscribers Their videos already get 150 200 views Where are they coming from? How are they doing it? I don't know. They're not doing anything special. I can tell you that And then here I am I've been doing book reviews for six years six years. I'm not a beginner And I can't get more than a handful of views On my videos and the the videos that are getting the views are not the material that I'm doing People are clearly not interested in the videos videos that I'm making even my subscribers are not interested Which Begs the question where are these new subscribers coming from where are my regular subscribers? The people who subscribe because of the science fiction book reviews. They're not coming back even though they remain subscribers They're not bothering to unsubscribe the new subscribers must be coming from the few people who are watching the The who the hell is Thanos video Which is in the top 10 for the last month and the people who are watching the We whacker video I had I've had a few comments on that video people thanking me for making that review I am not going to switch to making reviews of lawnmowers I'm not going to do that But people are I guess they're they're seeing the video they're liking they're kind of liking that particular video They're hitting the subscribe button Even though they don't know what I do and they're not coming back to watch more videos If my subscribers are not aware of my new videos YouTube has that problem a lot of youtubers are complaining that Their subscribers can't find their videos The idea that subscribers can't find someone's videos that's nonsense all they have to do is Look on their subscription page. I guess People who normally watch YouTube don't bother to look on their subscription page. That's where I look every day To to see the new videos from the people I subscribe to if people aren't doing that. There's nothing you can do if people aren't bothering to look at who their favorite YouTubers what new videos their favorite youtubers make if they're just looking at the YouTube front page all they're gonna see is music videos and movie trailers and commercials If they're not gonna bother to look at the subscription page There's nothing that you or YouTube or anybody else can bother to do I mean youtubers always telling people to hit that hit that bell button so that you'll be notified by email Why the hell bother? Speaking of which my revenue I have people say to me Are your videos gonna get demonetized if you say such and such or show such and such it doesn't make any difference I Started I turned on monetization for my videos last November The total that YouTube tells me I've made in Those nine months is eighty nine dollars to sixty nine cents. I'm looking at it right here. Why bother You have to get millions of views To make any kind of money and YouTube has never paid out money to me I've been thinking this whole time that they'll pay out when I get when I reach a hundred dollars But I honestly don't know that if I do get a payout. I'll turn off monetization completely because that's you know Why? Why bother? Anyway, what I want to say is about my what I said before about Turning everything off because people aren't watching and how how angry I am about all this I'm not looking for words of encouragement I'm not looking for people to tell me how much They personally enjoy what I'm doing. I know I know those the handful of people who watch all my videos interact with me I know you enjoy it I'm not a teenager. I'm not a struggling College student. I'm not new at this. I've been on the internet for 24 years. I've been on the internet since 1994 And I have never had anything that I would call successful and If if one of you wants to tell me that oh, it's a labor of love you should do it because you enjoy I'm gonna delete that comment because I don't want to hear it. I Know I'm doing this because I enjoy science fiction. I enjoy talking about it, but the reason me or anyone else posts this stuff on the internet is because I want to share that enjoyment with other people. I want other people to see it and people aren't seeing it so This idea that I'm doing it just as a labor of love Part of the labor of love is sharing it with other people and if people aren't watching why should I bother? Doing making an informal video like this once a month that I'm not going to bother to edit by the way I'm gonna handle it more like a live stream Doing it more than just this once a month is a waste of my time. It's a waste of my energy. I I discovered three months ago When I started that drive to raise $500 to To pay my bills and to go to conventions and I started posting videos every day. I spent a lot of time Making those videos. I discovered number one that people were simply not gonna kind of donate. They simply weren't gonna support that So fine that message was loud and clear Excuse me the other thing I discovered was that when I post videos Every day when I post videos too often People only see the the latest video that I posted They did if I post a video today and then post one tomorrow people will only see the one that I post tomorrow The new video will sabotage the video from the day before People don't bother So posting every day for me for someone like me who's not getting very many views Actually shoots myself in the foot as far as views go so more than once a week would be a mistake for me I've discovered for me that My I post a video and over the course of a week. It'll reach a certain level It will get 40 views 60 views if I'm lucky maybe a hundred hundred twenty views and it'll stay there It will never grow after that aside from the videos in my top 10 every month that people seem to keep finding My regular Weekly videos they reach a level and they stay there and if I were to post a new video That same day or the next day. I'll sabotage Whatever videos whatever views it's gonna get because people don't bother to look at what other videos I have Okay, so I Guess I'll start talking about books. I guess that's what you're here for what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna talk about the books that I read over the last two months I'm gonna do brief reviews of them. There are two books that I'm gonna talk about at length But first I want to talk about books that I've bought I have my lists here Oh One of the thing I should say I've rewatched the entire Steven Universe series over the last two weeks all five seasons If you have not watched Steven Universe, you are missing One of the science fiction events of the decade. I'm not kidding. I'm not exaggerating And you cannot jump into Steven Universe in the middle You need to to watch the entire series from the beginning the It's a slow burn. The the first few episodes will strike you as being silly. They did me That's how they did me But as it goes along and you start to see how well written it is and how how thoughtful it is and how good the science fiction is I can't stress enough how good the science fiction is in this series if you're a fan of classic science fiction Big picture cosmic science fiction you need to see this and you need to pay attention Seeing the entire series as a single work watching it through from beginning to to the present I've begin. I was appreciating the writing already seeing it as a single work I've been really floored how how much foreshadowing there has been in this series from the beginning from episode one Rebecca sugar who has written this series Has had her vision has had her five-year vision from go it really is amazing and What else I bought a I boosted a Facebook one of my Facebook posts as a test I spent $5 because Facebook is always badgering you to boost your posts And I thought I'd see I'll spend $5 to see if I get any response at all to to this So I put I boosted my shut up about Star Wars t-shirt. I got nothing Facebook told me that I got something like 1800 or 1900 impressions But only like Only like 10 or 12 click-throughs To the page where I'm selling the t-shirt. That's a pathetic rate And of course I got no sales none Going back to what I said before I've been on the internet for 24 years I've been selling stuff on the internet for 24 years. I've had so many creative projects over those years More than I can count. I've never had anything that I could call success About a month ago, I saw this guy This guy on Twitter and tumblr who does He does the thing called swear trek where he makes animated gifts from the original Star Trek series And sometimes the animated series and sometimes Next generation It's just animated gifts of the the actors and the characters Swearing they're kind of funny. He started a patreon in 24 hours. He got $700 a month in pledges. I Was so mad. I was so angry. I actually twittered. I actually tweeted in response said are you I said are you shitting me? I Can't sell one t-shirt not even one t-shirt and This guy overnight gets seven hundred dollars in monthly pledges I And again if one of you wants to respond and say to me well, you can't expect to make your living on you I'm not expecting that. I'm expecting Something I'm expecting some Kind of sale some kind of views and I'm getting Nothing after all these years 29 views on that that binti discussion video That's the same as zero views For a channel that's been doing this for six years and has Almost 700 videos. I've made 650 something videos 320 330 book reviews and for any of my videos to not even get 30 views That's the same as zero and I'm not gonna put up with that anymore and And then I see something like square Trek who just he just makes animated gifts. He gets $700 a month in pledges overnight. I'm I'm sorry, but I'm angry about that and I'm not Going to accept it. I'm not gonna sit quietly um All right, I was about to get to books. So I guess I should um All right, I Review that I never got to Flow my tears the policemen said by Philip K. Dick My short review is it's bad. It's very bad. I thought it was really bad one of my regulars When saw it when he saw that I was reading he piped up and says that it's his favorite and he also said that the Man in the high castle Is one of his least favorite man in the high castle is one of my favorite. I think it's Philip K. Dick's best writing So he and I are reversed on this Flow my tears I was very poorly written the first two chapters were Fantastic immediately after that it went right into the toilet It was incoherent. It was scatterbrained. It was all over the place. He couldn't tell a coherent story He's he switched From telling the book from one person's perspective and started telling it from another That that's too disjointed and unacceptable to me actually the end of the book was Really disappointing the idea that he had was really fascinating what what the problem turned out to be really fascinating He didn't do it justice in my opinion really bad book Written by someone who's clearly Unable to focus because he was on drugs and that's that's exactly what it read like All right a Book that I showed you before When I got it new tales of space and time it's an anthology of short stories I Posted I tweeted By the way, if you're not watching me on Twitter and on tumblr I'm continuing to post over there when I When I buy new books when I start reading new books, I'm reviewing things all the time talking about science fiction all the time If you're not over there, you're missing You're missing most of what I'm doing I've made this appeal before and I know it doesn't work people who People who see you on whatever platform whatever their favorite platform is they will not go watch you on some other platform They just won't do it. So I know I'm I'm yelling into the wind but Anyway I'm really disappointed in the quality of the stories in this book the first Story in the book is by Ray Bradbury. It's the same short story that Ray Bradbury always wrote He wrote the same short stories over and over The second story is by Isaac Asimov. It's not at all interesting. That's what most of the stories in here are like There's a story called Little What's it called I Always forget little Anton It's a it's a really long Story that I've seen in other anthologies. I've read it before it's an attempt at science fiction humor I don't think it's funny. I actually think it's offensive in a lot of ways But I've got one more story to read. I haven't finished them. There's one story in here that I didn't bother to finish because I thought it was so poorly written and it wasn't holding my interest The one thing I want to talk about though is A story called Betty Ann That's one word there is Betty Ann by uh By chris neville It's an author whose name I don't recognize but this story is so beautifully written I have to mention one of the most beautifully written stories. I've ever read I haven't been able to find uh the story online if I do I'll let you know But if you can find an anthology with that story in it, I encourage you to read it Just tremendous writing I also read Voyagers in Time an anthology Edited by Robert Silverberg. This is uh this came from that box set of Tempo books that I found at uh That's the the tempo books logo up there. Yeah um, I found this at uh Oh that that big bookstore in Portland whatever whatever that's called um This is a pretty good collection There's no particular story for me to rave about But uh overall quality much better than that other anthology Yeah, I like I like this one. These are all time travel stories by the way if you haven't if you can't tell from the the title uh, there's more short stories to talk about here's uh a short story collection that I bought this this um The cover of this book by the way is a deep purple. I'm seeing on On camera. It looks like it's bright blue. It's not at all I don't know how the video will look when I when I upload it, but on my little screen here. It looks bright blue It's not It's a really beautiful deep purple. Anyway, it's called the Belletrist by uh Miranda mayor. This is a woman I saw uh Selling her books at a table at a convention I forget which one It was in Portland. I believe it was one of the uh fanfests. I think Anyway, she had this little collection of short stories. I said short stories. Sure. I'll read the new author short stories. They're good They're really well written. Uh, she's a good writer Uh, I wouldn't call most of them science fiction Um, I don't know if I'd call any of them science fiction, but they're they're good I recommend her short stories. This is self published and there's a lot of typos In it, but that's self publishing Anyway, I recommend her writing Surprise surprise. I mean who would know unless you try Uh, here's another thing I showed when I got it. I bought this at a convention a couple years ago again in portland Lovecraftian micro fiction this group called um The uh Oh, I always uh the Lovecraft film festival. Yeah, it's the Lovecraft film festival Yeah, I've I've met these people in portland though. I've gotten to know them over the last couple years Every year they have this Lovecraftian micro fiction contest and it's um stories that are less than Let's see. What is it all stories have to be less than 500 words And I finally sat down and read this and they were all good They they were all good some good horror some good Lovecraftian stuff They sell these little collections on their website. It's the uh HP Lovecraft film festival If you're looking for you know stuff to read real quick on the bus they sell t-shirts by the way This is their uh Psyco.com. Yeah, see how they spelled Yeah, they they sell t-shirts that that's part of how they make their living in addition to the festival But this was good stuff um What next uh some? Excuse me uh some other Uh short stories that I read over the last two months how to talk to girls at parties by neil gayman Um, he published this on his website so you can find it at neilgayman.com. I saw people raving about this story um It was okay Neil gayman is a good writer. So it was you know, the writing was good I Wasn't crazy about it, but you can find it on his website. So go look for it Um a human stain by kelly uh kelly robson This was good. This was a good horror good new modern horror um Excuse me becky reviewed it. She gave it more of a review Um, then I'm going to give it here Uh, it was really well written. I'll say that much very vivid very Very visual very sensual it was um It was a pleasure to see a protagonist who was so smart and so who caught on Immediately and didn't was not willing to put up with being manipulated and lied to But of course, it's a horror story. So things don't go well um A toy for juliet. This is another by robert block. This is another story that I learned about from Becky reviewing it You can find this one online robert block bl och is the guy who wrote psycho you can find this one online Is a good little short story? um Definitely science fiction a little bit of horror Uh, go look for that one Mimic by donald a wall heim this is uh After reading this this is very short. It's only a few pages I learned about it because the guys who run the hppodcraft.com were trying to find A good copy of it online and I did um, it's um It's in a uh I found it immediately when I looked for it the other day, but now of course, uh, it's nowhere to be found But anyway, it was worth reading. It was clearly the uh inspiration for that shitty mirasor veno movie from 1997 Um, definitely lovecraftian definitely horror uh really gross It's it's about uh adaptive uh camouflage um And if you know anything about that movie from 97, you know what I'm talking about Uh, but look it up. I I recommend you find it. Okay now Let's talk about some books that I've read I just read uh All systems read By uh Damn it. There's another thing. I didn't I didn't write down All systems read by martha wells This is a novella a short novel Um, I've been I was able to download a free copy of it from a tour.com because they tour does this all the time A sequel to A book will come out and so they'll give away an ebook of the previous book. That's how I found this The the second book in the series came out and uh, so they gave away the first book in the series It's it's a series called the murder bot series and I read I read that name murder bot and I was like I Am I really interested in another? renegade robot story I don't know about that Becky read it and liked it again. Becky is influencing my My choices here. I didn't realize she was having that much of an influence on Anyway, um I read it and I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I strongly recommend all systems read by martha wells um uh It was very well written uh excellent world building in in the short The shortness of the novella. It's another example of some of a writer doing excellent world building in in a short span an excellent character building It was surprisingly Touching surprisingly emotional. That's not at all what I expect Expected from a series called murder bot um And excellent science fiction. I strongly recommend that you get all systems read One of my regulars on facebook saw me post that I was enjoying it and he Responded very negatively. He did not like it at all and he um And he made that clear Anyway, I loved it And I feel like I have good reason to have loved it Uh, what else is on my list here? Um, let's talk about the books that I bought I didn't do much book buying I took a trip to a local a resale shop not a not a good will But a similar kind of thing here in the In the atacoma area. It's called the desert uh Donation and uh a resale shop And I found a surprising number of good Science fiction mixed in with the religious books Those places are full of religious books um Lord of the flies by william golden. I've never actually read this I might have in high school or read Summaries of it because I remember discussing it in in class in high school I've I've read so many discussions of this book that I feel like I know it But actually I don't think I've I've actually read it so A 50 cent copy of Lord of the flies. Yeah Yeah, I'll pick that up A time of changes by robert silverberg um This is a collection of uh Wait a minute. Is it an anthology? No, it is not. No, it's a novel A novel by silverberg 50 cent silverberg novel. Yeah Yeah, I'll take that Something called we by samuel r delaney. I had to look at this Do a double take at it because there's been a lot of talk uh recently about The the book called we that was like a precursor to orwell's 1984. This is obviously not it. This is samuel r delaney um And It's something i've never heard of it's got the name delaney on it. So I bought it Um, even though I you know come to think of it. I strongly dislike that one delaney novel that I reviewed um And it's it's a double book with uh zealazny Home is the hangman zealazny is one of my least favorite authors But uh, I'll definitely try to read both of these. They're obviously short. Um The worlds of frank herbert now. This is an anthology. This is a collection of short stories again frank herbert not one of my favorite authors, but A collection of short stories. Yeah Yeah, I'll definitely Be interested in that Speaking of anthologies Here's a book that I had to walk past several times before Looking closely and seeing what it was. It's the 10th annual edition of the year's best science fiction Edited by judith meryl And this is from what year? Uh 1965 Yeah, this is exactly the kind of thing that I love Um, and again, this is the kind of thing you won't find unless you stop and look Carefully And then there's this Again, something I would have walked past And I did walk past it several times before looking more closely nightside A collection of 18 horror stories by joys carol oaths 18 short stories by joys carol oaths for a dollar Yeah There's no way I don't want this for a dollar I didn't know something like this even existed and there it is at the at the resale shop Practically giving in way Um, I took a lot of pictures of books at at the desert shop that I did not buy There was there was a lot that caught my attention though And I guess I'll end this video with a slideshow of Of that stuff. I am going to have to do some editing on this video as much as I don't want to okay now Wrapping things up the two books that I want to talk about at length um Number one is a book called girl in the golden atom I mentioned this I've mentioned this before I mentioned it while talking to Becky in our last video and I posted links to The authors Um The authors bibliography ray comings is his name But I'm looking at it myself here Uh This is an author who I was unaware of. Uh, his bibliography is gigantic How I've gone all these years Not having heard of him um He he wrote this book, uh Actually a short story called girl in the golden atom in 1920 or 1921 And it was so popular that he wrote Uh a novel to go with it using the short story as the first chapter Um, he was clearly trying to write the same kind of thing that edgar rice burrows and hg wells were writing In fact, it was patterned on hg wells. The short story was patterned on hg wells the time machine It's about a group of men who are not named Getting together in a gentleman's club hearing this one guy tell this tremendous story about how he invented this incredible machine and then At the end of the story, he leaves the group saying that he'll be back and then he's never heard from again That's where the short story ends and then the rest of the novel Um, the continuation novel picks up after that. His writing is not good He is not The quality of writer that burrows and wells are at all um But the the subject matter Um Interested me interested me Because it's about a scientist um Finding way to insert himself into the microverse to visit adams as if they were planets Uh, and anyone like myself who grew up reading marvel comics in the 1970s and 80s will recognize the title Because it was used As the inspiration for an incredible hulk a famous incredible hulk story arc called the girl in the emerald adam Where the hulk gets shrunk down in the microverse and He ends up on a planet full of people with green skin and he falls in love with a beautiful princess named girella and um And she meets a uh a grizzly fate and that's a motivation Motivation for the hulk to to do more fighting and punching um So, yeah, that's how I first heard of the title the girl in golden adam now. Here's the thing um Here's why I ended up finding an e-pub version an e-tex version of this Is because last year when I did a lot of driving I I listened to an audiobook of it But I didn't finish it the the story was so uninteresting. I didn't bother to finish listening to it But there were some interesting Aspects of it So I wanted to get the uh an e-text and reread parts of it and certainly read the end Um as and as I read the the first chapter I continued to read it and the the writing was so poor that I could skim through it The the writing doesn't contain A a large amount of information you could skip through it But as I was reading it I was thinking this doesn't His description of how they're descending into the microverse doesn't Seem the same as I remembered it. This doesn't sound like the same description so one of the things I liked about what I listened to was his description of What they were experiencing as they were shrinking into this Crack in in the surface of a of a gold ring or something And how it would expand into canyons and then tunnels and and they would follow the same path as they shrunk I thought that was fascinating And as I was reading this book, I'm like this doesn't This this description isn't the same as I remember it. Maybe I'm just wasn't Maybe I'm remembering it differently than I heard it, but then Halfway through the book. I came to the conclusion. This is not the same book at all this is not The these things that are happening are not what I remember happening. It's not the same story Uh, so it was kind of a mystery. Why was I Why did I experience two entirely different versions of this book? They're not variations On the same book. There were two different books Uh as it turned out, uh Ray Cummings Wrote uh wrote entire novels on the same subjects over and over Uh, and and I'm looking right now for the name of the uh The name of the book that it turned out Uh That I had actually listened to and it was an entirely different book Um, let me see if I can find it here All his books have uh the same kind of stories Um, the the same kind of titles the snow girl the man in the meteor Uh, the fire planet the sea girl Um Tomah princess of mercury The shadow girl the man who mastered time Princess of the atom that might be what I read Um Actually, no, I don't think that's what it was Princess of the atom. No, I don't think there's clearly the same kind of book as the girl in the golden atom Uh, no, there's uh, there was a short story. I remember reading on this seeing on this list called the girl from infinite smallness See it's the same title just with different With the synonyms Thesaurus title Anyway, I continued to read Uh I continued to read the book and I finished it and there were a couple of things about it That held my interest and were worth mentioning and that that's why I'm talking about it at length here Number one as I was saying before his description of People's experiences as they were changing size Uh He really hit on Some some some really sensual descriptive How how can I put this the way he was describing was surprisingly effective People were They were experiencing disorientation with the world around them seeming to grow and when they're reversing the process everything around them seeming to shrink the the Just straight up disorientation that people experience That people would experience at that but also a sense of movement a sense of either moving forward or backwards or like being on a On a fast moving train or in a fast moving cart because As their feet are changing size The ground underneath their feet is crunching and moving underneath their feet See, this is something that makes perfect sense, but I wouldn't have thought of Uh And and and yet there he was this guy who's not a very good writer at all pegging this one little thing and The the other book that I read I thought Describe that better. So he had obviously refined that um and When people would Emerge from the atom they would start the process of growth They would have to make sure that They were climbing out of the canyons and climbing out of these cracks in the floor Because if they didn't do it quickly enough they would get caught And would be crushed Between canyon walls Again really smart thinking There was a scene near the end of the book Where This guy and this girl they were trapped in An upper room in a castle turret on the on the golden atom planet And um So his plan was okay, we'll take we'll take the pills to grow It's uh the science doesn't make any sense. Of course by the way We'll we'll take the powder And we'll grow and we'll we'll just crash up through the ceiling. So they do that And they're they're growing and they're pushing up against the the ceiling and the ceiling doesn't give And Both of them are are growing and having having to hunch over and being curled over and um They're actually afraid for a moment that they're gonna die Because there's no room left and the the ceiling finally does give but I thought that was Uh, I thought that was very entertaining He thinks we're they're just gonna crash up through the roof like monsters and the ceiling doesn't give way um the other thing This book contains and again the fact that this is coming from such a poor writer is amazing This book contains the clearest Most easy to understand and most concise description Of the rise of fascism And why it's impossible to fight it I've never seen it it put Into such clear terms and I think It would be worth using it as an example to describe The problem and and how it's so impossible To to put it into it This book is easily found In an e-text form on um On a Gutenberg Gutenberg.org Um, and I recommend you look it up just for that reason. It's a fast read you can skim through it Uh, but again, it's description of how this that what the guy does is I forgot to mention is this guy He invents a microscope that has no limit to how small it can view anything I I described this when I was talking with Becky in our last video and she said she wishes she had a A machine that could do that But anyway, he looks at um a single atom in a scratch On his mother's wedding ring, I think So it's a gold atom And the the when you look closely enough the atom becomes a planet And he zooms down onto the surface of the planet and he sees a A peaceful lake with some wooded hills and everything and he sees a beautiful girl sitting On the edge of the lake So the most beautiful girl he's ever seen he immediately falls in love. See it's it's nonsense And he he decides that he needs to come up with a way of shrinking himself down to To to meet this girl And he does that that's where the whole thing starts But anyway, the people on this planet they have a small population They've never experienced war. They they don't know really anything about politics, but one guy Or violence or anything like this this this one guy He becomes unhappy with their king he he does some assassinations and He develops a following of people who have the same fears that he does about About being told what to do and it's It again, it's the simplest clearest most concise description of the rise of fascism I've ever seen Uh, and I recommend it for that reason Um and also for the descriptions of how of people experiencing shrinking and and growing Okay, the last book I'm going to talk about I've I was ranting about this before Uh, Jonathan Livingston Seagull I mentioned this book In a review I did years ago It was actually a book tag called 10 books that stuck with you You can find it Among my videos if you go to youtube and just search the phrase 10 books that stuck with you Mine comes up first at least it does for me. It's got a picture of a dr. Seuss character on it Anyway in that In that video I talked about a book Uh, I read as a child And I say child but I was in sixth grade Which means I was 12 or 13. I guess It was a book called in search of the save opatomous And I chose to do that as my Uh book review uh one week in class in english class and uh I don't know if you've had the same experience that I did in grade school, but uh, uh A a certain number of times every semester We would have to read a book And then stand up in front of the class and give an oral book report Uh, and it was really aggravating for me because I was doing plenty of reading But to to come up with novels that I could read that fast Anyway, I chose to do a book review on this uh a book report I always mix up the word report and review on this book called in search of the save opatomous Which was a picture book a children's picture book I thought the art was amazing And I felt like that was enough of Of a motivation to do a book report Well, my teacher didn't Agree She was furious She was so angry that she took me out in the hallway and chewed me out And gave me a bad grade. She kept calling it a picture book We don't we don't review picture books. We don't do reports on picture books and um So What I did was I knew that her favorite book was jonathan livings in seagull because she talked about it all the time She talked all the time about her favorite book is jonathan livings in seagull So I got a copy And for my next book report I did My oral report in front of the class on jonathan livings in seagull and got an a double plus She was so easy to figure out um Well, I felt at the time that it was one of the dumbest books I've ever read And I saw this copy On the shelf at a resale shop recently So I said i'm gonna pick this up and read it again. It's super short. It's not a novel at all It has three parts. It's hardly even a novella If I said this before it belongs in the greeting card section That's the kind of thing it is there's A book review online. I found It was written by heather haverleski The her review it was written in 2014 And her the title of her review is jonathan livings in seagull and the rise of simpleton wisdom She savages this book She says she starts off by saying there are the books that change your life Then there are the books that people tell you will change your life If those people are stoners you men in college then the books in question are either Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance the electric kool-aid acid test or jonathan livings in seagull Pray that you don't wind up with the seagull book because nothing is quite as bewildering um She goes on to say uh, let's see her description of the the book she says Having heard over and over again that it will totally blow your mind only to discover a story about a seagull who loves to fly very fast He rejects the flock He is eventually reincarnated as a seagull angel So by these discriminating standards one could argue that the very hungry caterpillar offers profound commentary on capitalist fancy Blah blah blah. She said the the goodnight moon presents a radical handbook for non-attachment to the material world by these standards Yeah, she's Yeah, she really lets this book have it and it deserves it. Um, she she says this is uh Um, this belongs with the the tau of poo crowd um He calls it super mystical Uh groovy promise of the murky unknown. It's really It has a quote here on the cover Uh from uh Ray Bradbury He says this book does two things. It gives me flight. It makes me young That's exactly the kind of thing that Ray Bradbury would say just just bullshit um, the book is indeed about a seagull who is uh interested in perfecting flight um People will will tell you you look for a book reviews of this book on youtube and again and again the people who review it will tell you that it Uh, it was very inspirational to them personally. It provided spiritual inspiration to them the word spiritual Actually being a meaningless word because it means something different to everybody else And all these people will tell you that it means one thing or the other And they all have different interpretations of what the book actually means and the reason is because there's really nothing in this book It's it's extremely simple. There's no world building. There's no character building um And one thing that the people will not tell you in these reviews is like like it said in uh In heverleski's view here review here Um much of the book the bulk of the book takes place after jonathan livington's seagull is dead It takes place in his afterlife The in the first part of the book. He's interested in perfecting Uh flight and speed of flight. The other seagulls are only interested in squabbling over food Uh, he is rejected from the flock. He spends the rest of his life as a hermit Out over the sea not even coming into land ever just occasionally eating and spending his days Uh flying super fast and then he dies he dies as a hermit Alone entirely alone. I think that's that's pretty Unpleasant I don't think that's a very Uh positive message at all and then in his afterlife He meets other seagull angels who are interested in perfect flight. Uh, he has a um Uh He has he finds an instructor in seagull heaven whose name is master chang a chinese seagull, I guess Um, he witnesses master chang ascending to another level Beyond seagull afterlife Um, and when it comes when he perfects teleportation himself he Chooses to come back to the the living world Um, and the his his seagull flock is horrified But he starts he collects followers among the Young seagulls who want to learn flight one of them smashes into a rock and dies and the entire flock witnesses jonathan Literally resurrecting this dead seagull So people have they have all these nonsense interpretations again based on their own views of Some will tell you that it's a jesus allegory. Some will tell you that it's a buddha allegory Um, they can interpret it any way they want. Um, it's just not good It um The most interesting thing to me about this book And it's it's the thing that prompted havereleksia to write her review in 2014 that in 2014 One of uh Richard box relatives his wife or his daughter. I don't remember Discovered the manuscript for part four That he had written Back in the day the same time he wrote parts one two and three. He just never submitted them to the publisher And in 2014 there was a new edition published with part four um I find that the the story of the writing and publishing of the book more interesting than the book And one other thing um as i'm as i'm looking through this book I have to I have to ask the question Okay Mrs. Freeland from sixth grade How is this not A picture book Here I am 40 years later, and I'm still mad about this All right. I guess that's it for For this month Uh reading wrap-up video Uh, I'll come back at the end of june and talk about what I've read and what I've bought uh in that time and As i'm going out enjoy the slideshow And uh see you in uh three weeks or so. Bye