 I'm going to look here, I'm going to look here, look in the lens, this is going to be a comedy show and they're going to want more afterwards, they'll be like, why is Cameron every time? Can we start? Being my guest. Hi everyone. Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. Today we have a very special guest with us. This is Cameron, my boyfriend for those of you who don't know, so Cameron has been on my channel a couple of times before in a couple of vlogs that I did last year and people seem to like him. I'm a very likeable man. More importantly I like him. Who knows why? So here we are. Would you like to tell him what we're going to be doing today? No, you can. Okay, today we're going to be talking about Cameron's favourite books. We thought it'd be really nice to sit down and do a sit down video together and talk about his favourite era books to give them an idea of the reading taste so they can get to know you a little bit. I guess we should start by saying that you are actually a big reader. A lot of people's partners on Booktube aren't, you are a big reader. I read more than most people. I do not read as much as you, but I read more than most. We are both big readers and he actually works in Waterstones. I do, yeah. Books. Good job. It's going to be a long video. In terms of our reading tastes, do we have quite similar reading tastes? Yeah, definitely now. We didn't use to as much. I used to read a lot more fantasy and sci-fi type stuff in the past what, two, three years? A bit of a pivot towards high-brow, pretentious literary fiction, because I'm a pretentious motherfucker. Yeah, we do read a lot of the same books. Yeah, I still read more fantasy than you do. I read more nonfiction than you do. But yeah, generally I think by most people's standards we have the same reading taste. I'm doing so well. So we're going to be talking about Cameron's top five favourite books. We have some fantasy, we have some literary fiction, and I have read all five of Cameron's favourite books. Yeah. Very good girlfriend. I've read all of your favourite books now as well. Have you? Yeah. Name the favourite book of yours I haven't read. Like a favourite favourite. Howard's End. Fuck. Well played, little woman. Or Mockingbird. It's nowhere near in the same category. Your favourite favourites I've read all of? Like the top top. The pinnacle. Yes. Exactly. Very good boyfriend. Congratulations to self. Doesn't congratulate me. The first book of Cameron's favourites is... That's over my face. What is what we doing this? Why am I even here? The first book of Cameron's favourites that he's going to be telling you about is... You say it. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Yes. I like this book very much. The Name of the Wind, without all five stars. So, what type of book is it? It's a High Fantasy. I know what High Fantasy and High Fantasy are. So, High Fantasy. What's it about? It's about... So it's very hard to describe it in a way that isn't going to sound just like any other fantasy book, but it's not. Any other fantasy book. It is better. It follows a young boy who- Calledửvoth? life and you know learns a little bit of magic has some people he doesn't really like wants to fight them have some kind of love little difficulties but it is very different from other fantasy to be high fantasy in its pacing in it as you can see it is quite a fat book I think it's like 600 something pages and the second one's like 7 800 something pages the first in a trilogy the third one of which is not out yet so I think it's important to say that we're trying to figure out what's happened to this man so the beginning we know that he's not powerful he's going by a different name and then we learn about his life through kind of an autobiography yeah him telling his story to the chronicle and we're trying to figure out why he's got where he's got yes so you are kind of speculating the entire way what has happened to the boy that you're reading about to make him into the man that you also reading about Cameron's read it a couple of times read it twice yeah yeah and our housemate has read it a bunch of times like it's his all-time day we're a book yes yeah and they were both telling me to read it for ages as well and then I read it and it's very good it's better than other fantasy in that it's character developments better it's writings better and the slow pacing gives more room for development and the world feels bigger than other fantasy books the kind of storytelling is so good and so well thought through that there's loads of kind of hints and ideas and possibilities that are open for the next book we can spend and I have done with our housemate like hours hours discussing kind of different theories and possibilities so you're like trying to figure out what bits of the book relate to that what's happened already what hasn't happened and then what it means when they will happen loads of stuff very well thought through yes a huge world yeah very very clever incredibly clever yeah and the magic system is really cool it's kind of underpinned by scientific principles it's not just as airy-fairy oh okay like made up scientific principles sure magic principles but it feels quite academic you know I quite like it it seems is more logic behind it than the magic system one of the magic systems is like that the other one is not at all but they're both cool is that it for this one the next book that is in Cameron's top five is Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe by Benjamin alia science so what's it about chop cut oh you did so it is about two boys in the 1980s who become best friends over the course of the summer yeah and that's basically it you just kind of follow their own personal growth and their relationship with each other you need to know bit of a coming-age story coming of age self-identity yeah a large part of what I enjoy is that kind of coming out of age figuring things out portrayal I feel like it does it really really nicely in a really kind of beautiful and simple way and allows you to kind of learn about the character but doesn't kind of try and oversell it or get a bit too complicated because you know that I think that can kind of confuse in muddy books sometimes and it has kind of three main relationships and aspects that I really like so it's our relationship with Dante and the figuring out of that and then his relationship with himself and particularly his masculinity and he's trying to figure that out and where he stands kind of on himself and who he wants to be versus who he is and his relationship with Dante plays into that a lot because Dante's kind of a quite a different man than he is and that's quite interesting kind of to see that play off each other those two play off each other and then his relationship with his parents in particular his mother which I think is really really beautiful and the way his mother kind of treats him and respects his autonomy and other things it's been a while since I read it so I'm kind of struggling to remember but I really liked it yeah at some point yeah I reread it and it was really really good it's just as good yeah the characters those are the main the relationships definitely and those three relationships in particular what I enjoyed about it most but the writing was really good and it's like anybody can read it like we both love it and we thrust this upon people don't we like always given it to family yes good book the next book that we're going to be talking about is a little life by Hania Yanigahara which I understand is controversial on YouTube which it shouldn't be because it's amazing it's a bit of a controversial booktube book as we all know else is wrong okay so this one is about four men and their relationships from university kind of through the rest of their lives it's mainly about their interplay between each other rather than kind of like kind of the other aspects of their lives character focus literary fiction book did just follows them and their lives that was very close to my toes some of the best writing I've ever read which is one of the biggest reasons you'll probably notice in this video there are kind of several themes that are like I like good writing and I like good characters more than anything else I think those are what make a great book for me all of these books have amazing writing like better writing than anything else I read which why they make it in here very central dune probably has the least good characters spoilers dune's on the list you see one of the characters you kind of learn about that backstory and I that bit's really nice kind of an eloquently done very delicately handled I think for a very difficult subject I really enjoyed that even if it made me cry a hell of a lot yeah I remember when Cameron was reading this book you read this one before me did you know after it was in the first year of uni and we read it around a similar time I remember Cameron's sitting on my bed lying on my bed sitting on my bed pacing around my room in my uni halls yeah he gets very into books when he's reading if he loves the book very emotional he just feels so much emotion and he'll have to like read a bit and I'll have to walk around a bit then I'll have to lie down a bit then I'll have to move a bit and then sit up a bit very active reader positions yeah and I remember when he was reading this and he just kept looking up and going so good the writing so good yeah I remember like just folding down pages on passages so I could go back and just read that paragraph again so it introduces kind of a fifth kind of main character at one point which becomes somewhat of a father figure for one of the other characters and that's a really beautiful interaction to watch absolutely kind of stunning and so emotional and incredible the slow portrayal of their lives I think is just excellent in this I really enjoy watching them slowly live their lives through a massive you know hefty book I just think that's great this one I've got the least to say about so I'll be quicker fourth book on Cameron's list is do you doon by Frank Herbert just the one we disagree on the most that would be fair to say yeah for sure you give it three stars yeah just very unfair but because I haven't read it in a while I don't know why it's very unfair and I can't really argue case for it right now it's sci-fi for those of you who don't know yep sci-fi it is kind of one of the original founders of sci-fi so it's kind of almost like Lord of the Rings was to fantasy this is to sci-fi and it reads more like that so if you've ever read Lord of the Rings and it's quite slow pacing wise it doesn't really read like you know Game of Thrones or kind of any other modern fantasy this reads less like modern sci-fi it's very slow paced and kind of less very slow paced it's more world-building driven than event-driven like modern sci-fi is so it's about a far future yeah interstellar Empire feudal interstellar Empire yeah different noble houses own different planets yeah and you kind of follow one of these noble houses who has a rival with a different noble house and you follow that conflict so I really love the philosophical elements of this book I remember several times kind of you just stop when you're reading it and just go oh that's a really beautiful concept really beautiful thought really beautiful idea presented quite nicely and then enjoy that relation it and then keep the characters are really good a little bit one-dimensional but very good and interesting and each sub a very unique purpose in the book and kind of convey the story onwards really nicely there isn't a huge amount of development I will admit in them but I still really enjoy them as characters it's the first in like a massive series and he definitely lays down some good it wasn't gonna be the first in the massive series it was gonna be the one I think that's my understanding I could make it worse yeah this one is great Cameron loves yeah and he tries to get people to read it and we do read it and we do not like it as much his mom his mom likes a lot ready ready the final book and one of the best maybe most recent definitely up there in terms of the best yeah that is I'm very glad to say normal people normal people by Sally really yeah I read this last month and this book kind of emotionally resonated with me potentially more than anything else ever has absolutely incredible but you guys should have read always they're very good oh very bright yeah I'm just not gonna hold up that book for the rest of this because I think it's too bright and you can't really see the cover anyway so we all know what we're talking about it's about two teenagers that meet and then it follows them and their relationship through university it's a relationship study it's a character and relationship study of these two people and how they interact yeah like I said it hit me emotionally more than I think anything else has probably because I saw a lot of myself and you in it to some extent so like when I was reading a little life that made me cry a lot but I didn't really see much of us in any of the characters like you see elements of yourself in any character obviously but yeah not to a large extent this felt a lot more like us we've been together since we were 17 yep since we're quite young we're 23 now so it's pretty similar in that I think that they get together they get together at 17 and then it follows their relationship from that and it's not at all similar to our relationship in the way that they kind of interact and stuff like that but you can I feel like I mean when I finished it hit me so emotionally hard that I like lay in bed and just kind of thought about it for like 45 minutes just like overwhelmed so good I got a text at work telling me how much he loved me and I texted back saying what's brought this on and he said normal people and I said okay I get it because I read it in January and kept on count you'll love it you'll love it and then he read it yeah no it's very good so I really like the characters in it the side characters are a little bit weak similar to her first book where that was an issue more of an issue of her first book she definitely improved on it in this I felt but it's a little bit weak but that wasn't the point of the book so I can forgive it the point of the book is the interplay between these two main characters the main two are really interesting really deep and their interplay is really interesting really deep and it swaps perspective and that's really interesting and that you can see how one of them is misreading the other and then when you're reading the next chapter you know something from the prior chapter that the character you're reading from doesn't and it gives you a really nice insight from the other person's perspective even when you're reading from the opposite perspective and I really enjoy that so yeah in terms of the fact that she makes some characters like one-dimensional I feel like part of the nature of the book is that she's doing that on purpose especially in relationship between Connell and his mother it's kind of intentionally she's left a little bit flat I think and it's reflected in the book that he doesn't see that and he kind of sees her as a flat one-dimensional she's just my mother thing you can read it is that all the main characters are looking at all the side characters in their lives as side characters and failing to acknowledge their kind of fullness as characters as people I think we all do that to some extent they're focused on themselves themselves and their relationship and I feel like that's part of the point of the book and it's some extent that is a deliberate choice that she's made sure it is so again the writing is absolutely beautiful in all of these books are beautiful right this one's very different so a little life's beautiful in kind of long explosive brilliant kind of paragraphs this is beautiful in its sparsity but I really like this in that it trusts you to kind of add things and it trusts you to figure things out so she kind of makes room and permits you to fill in the spaces that she's left and I feel like that probably enabled me to have that connection I was talking about earlier because I put in a lot of probably my own life into it and I feel like a lot of people would be able to do that because she yeah but especially the way she's written it is left room for that and it's like your own experience and her use of punctuation as well she doesn't use speech marks I think allows you to do that as well because you kind of really get into the head and the flow and then you by getting into it put more of yourself into it yeah basically that's it yeah all done smashed it out true time out true time so that's it done we are done go we were laughing so much more at the start and then it got really serious when you started focusing didn't you trying to make a good video for you guys thank you he is actually really good at talking about books we talk about books a lot through her we spend a lot of our time talking about books so yes yeah this was really nice I hope you all enjoyed it if you'd like to see more videos with Cameron then you can comment down below and say so say hi be nice and if you don't you can comment down below as well you know that'd be fair democracy of course he's done we're done we're gonna go now thank you very much for watching being a pleasure I will see you next week with another video Cameron probably won't but we'll probably see you another time I might be back yeah we could see how this goes if anyone has any ideas for videos that we could film we're open to suggestions bye for now everyone hope you doing well and I'll see you soon bye it's fine get on with it hi every no let me do it let me do it come the pressure's on she's cracking maybe this is what you're like every video is this how much you have to redo everything you like laughing all the time I just never see it which has my good side we should have sat on that side I think my left the left mark break me in the comments YouTube which one's better the less my best I couldn't do oh stop it'll see like I'm controlling you are that would be enough if you'd be an obstinate in the video on my team big word try to show the Duke don't you don't you don't