 Welcome to Church of the Chair, where it's been a whole day for you, but only a matter of minutes for me. I'm your host, E, and today we're finishing up by showing casing my top five books of all time. Yesterday's video, I did numbers 20 through six, and today we're doing my top five books of all time. Are you excited? I'm excited. Most of you know what the top two are, so I'm just going to go ahead and jump right into it and explain more along the lines of why these books are stuck in the top five for me. The first one I have is Betty by Tiffany McDaniel. This, this book is painful. Seen after seen after seen of tragedy, a brutality of beauty and wonder and even a little dash of magic. And I don't mean magic as in, you know, wizards or stuff like that. It's just the writing is so magical. The way Tiffany describes certain things, she always has a certain story within a story element going on. The reason why this one stands out the most to me out of all of her books is because of that story within a story. All the tales that Betty's father tells her, those were easily my favorite parts of the book. And the more I think about it, the more that's what I remember. I don't remember the horrific stuff happening. And yes, I've called this a horror novel in the past. It is full of dread. It is full of brutal scenes. It is full of triggers also. Definitely for sexual assault, for incest, things like that. It is a hard hitting novel and I've never read anything like it. Yes, I'm back on that bullshit saying that I've never read anything like it. But that's a theme for this list. These are books that I have never found the comparison for. And Betty is one of those, the closest I could possibly get to even beginning to compare this to something would be John Irving. The way John Irving treats his characters with the utmost respect, but he will also do them completely dirty by the end. I have read all of Tiffany McDaniel's stuff to this point. The summer that melted everything was absolutely fantastic. And so was on the savage side. But I gotta go with this one for my favorite and it's gotta be number five on my list of top 20 books of all time. I remember reading this. It took me so long to read it I had to keep putting it down because the book was affecting me and upsetting me so much that I took well over a month to read this book. And it's not that long of a book. Don't get me wrong. It's over 400 pages. Yeah, it's 460 some odd pages. But at the same time, I didn't feel like I was there long enough. I wanted more time with these characters. I wanted more time in this world. And I wanted more time with Betty and her family and her especially, especially her father and I wish I had a dad like that growing up. And I didn't. And I always wanted that father figure in my life, another man that I could look up to and I never got it. So I had to become the man I am today by just failing. So one of the things I will add on here has nothing to do with this list. Failure is not a bad thing. The only true failure is quitting. So just keep going. Next up is a book that I recommend to everyone that I meet and talk about when they're like, okay, so what's the most disturbing thing you've ever read? So on and so forth. Disturbing for me, this is completely subjective. Disturbing for me is probably not gonna be disturbing for you. I like stuff that gets underneath my skin subtly, things that haunt me. And every single time, and I've said this numerous time on live streams and other videos about this book, every time someone asks me what's the scariest scene you've ever read, what's the most disturbing scene you've ever read, I always point to the same book and that's Night Film by Marissa Pessel. There's a scene in here and it's a scene on the bridge after she gets out of the studio, I guess is the best way to put it. It's on Stanislas Cordova's property. There is a scene where the main character, he sees something on a bridge. It is so well drawn out. The visual is so striking. But sometimes I will lay down at night to go to bed and this image will be the last thing in my head before I fall asleep, if I can get to sleep with that image in my head. I remember every single little minute detail about this book, how they went to one character. I don't remember all the character's name. I do remember that the main character's name, Scott, I believe it is, but they went to this one character's house and he had all these boxes, almost like he was a hoarder, all these boxes and it was like a labyrinth to get through the boxes. The scene where Scott's going through the studio and through all the worlds of this director. The book is absolutely magical and I refuse to accept what some people have said. And that's this, that the book is never as good as some of the ideas regarding Stanislas Cordova and his movies. They wanted that as the book, but not me. I think that would have been too much. Everything we got was given out perfectly. Just little pieces here and there. Some people didn't like the ending. I absolutely love the ending because it is more mystery. It is more, and it also opens up the floodgates for a possible maybe kind of sequel. I doubt she'll ever do it, but I do know she is working on another adult novel. I wasn't a fan of Neverworld Wake, which was her YA debut, but I did love Special Topics in Calamity Physics, which was the book before this one. That was her debut, but Night Film, all time favorite and it's because of the mood and the atmosphere and everything. Now, going back to what I said about how certain ideas are better than the book itself, that's how I felt with Neverworld Wake. I feel that she never reached a true potential because I wanted the house. The only thing I remember about that is there's a book about a house, a nowhere house, an elsewhere bend or something like that. Great premise. We end up there for like one or two pages and then the whole thing starts over again. It's like Groundhog Day, but yeah. Anyways, not a great book, but I'm here to talk about what I love. Night Film, amazing book, loved it, every single page of it. And I highly recommend if you have either started it and given up on it or if you've never even started it, if you've never even heard of it, pick it up and give it a chance. Please, it's an amazing novel and deserves your undivided attention. Next up is a book that constantly, constantly saying that this is the best book of its kind, period, hands down. And that is Geek Love, which is the best circus, carnival, amusement park, any of that stuff book ever written. We lost Catherine Dunn way too early. She died very young and I just, there's so much potential for the amazing stuff that she could have done after this. And I do, there was, there is a book that was just released called Toad, that is, that was an unpublished manuscript that someone finally put together and published. And also there's another book called Attic. I am in the rare position to say that I'm almost not interested in anything else that she writes. I know that's contradictory to me saying we lost her too early and what she could have done, but this is a masterpiece. There is not a single flaw in this book. There are, here's the best way I can describe it. It's as if John Irving and Stephen King collaborated on a book. That's what you're dealing with here. The ending is epic, so much fun. So many cool things happen in this book, but it's also tragic. It's full of heart, it's full of dread and mystery and everything that I look for in a book. Whenever someone asks me, hey, what's a shorter book that you like, that you can't live without, it would be Geek Love, a tremendous piece of fiction. And if you haven't read it, what the hell are you doing with your life? The next two are gonna be obvious to anybody who's been a fan of the channel more than I would say, well, I took a long time off and changed the name of the channel and all that stuff, but anyone who remembers the old name is going to remember these two books. I'm not gonna harp on about them too long. I have reviews up, I have the other top 20 list and these two books have not changed since 2019, 2018, something like that. One of them has been my number one book ever since I read it for the first time when I was 13. But anyways, number two is The Gold Finch by Donna Tartt. This is a massive tome, 700 some odd pages and the story between the two boys is it Theo and Boris? I wanna say it, yeah, it's Theo Decker and his friend Boris. Every scene with them is amazing. There's a little bit of maybe, they're in love with each other and it's a little more than a friendship. There's a whole bunch of subtext and mystery and wonder and everything. My favorite parts of the book are them, those two boys together. I don't like the end as much as the rest of the book but I still love it and I appreciate the fact that she went back and filled in those blanks so that we knew what happened to these characters afterwards even if it did go on for 200, 300 pages more. It is starting to rain. I don't have any other time to shoot this video so hopefully you guys don't mind. Maybe it'll relax you, calm you down. So my number one is without a doubt, it's Stephen King's It, you know what it is but I'm gonna show off my favorite cover, my favorite version of the book. My friend Wayne Finland sent me this and this is the first UK, the UK first edition of the book. It's my favorite cover of the book. I don't care too much for any of the other ones. The American first edition is fine. The one with the eyes peeking out of the grate is fine but this one is my favorite one and I feel like I've talked about why it is so amazing so much over the years and I'm not gonna bother you with it but just know that my number one spot and my number two spot are near and dear to my heart and I doubt they will ever be replaced. It would have to be something exceptional and perfect and something I've never seen before for it to come even close and I doubt it would even hit number one. Something might beat the goldfinch but I doubt it'll ever beat it because the goldfinch was very close to beating it but then I went back and read it again and it was right back up there. So if you don't know, I have read it 18 times. I might read it a total of 20 before I die. I plan on reading it again here soon because I'm starting to forget stuff. With the goldfinch, I've read that seven times so far. I've listened to the audiobook twice and read the text five times and it just keeps getting better and better and better. So that is my top five favorite books of all time. My top 20 if you include yesterday's video. I just wanna end this by saying I appreciate all the love and support that you guys have given me since I returned to the channel and I am having an absolute blast. I have done 60 days in a row, not as of today but videos. I have scheduled out 60 days since I started filming with the Carrie Redux video and I'm still having fun posting every single day but let me know I have seen some things falling off, some subs, some comments, some likes, kind of falling off even though the money's great, don't get me wrong. But it seems like anytime I make more money, I get less engagement. So you guys let me know if you want me to keep on going with the daily videos. If it's not working for you and I get an overwhelming, hey, slow down, I'll take that into consideration. I listen to you guys. I read every single comment I get no matter how bad or absurd they are. For the vast majority though, you guys are amazing. You guys are always supportive and I appreciate you. But yeah, I'm having fun. I'm having a blast. I'm glad to be back and I hope you guys are enjoying the new content as well but until next time, I'll hail the chair.