Old Blues Chapter and Verse | Judging the Booktube Prize Quarterfinals: Group C @OldBluesChapterandVerse | Uploaded June 2019 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
The Booktube Prize (#BooktubePrize) was founded by the wonderful Robert from Barter Hordes. His channel can be found here:
youtube.com/user/rsheard
My experience judging the Booktube Prize quarterfinals was...frustrating, to put it tactfully. I was tremendously disappointed in a third of the books I read in my group, mildly disappointed in another third. I do a bit of venting in this video, and say a few things that cut against the grain of received popular opinion, particularly re: Tayari Jones's recently Women's Prize-crowned novel An American Marriage, but it is what it is. In this video, I share my ranking of the six books and discuss, to some extent, my reasoning.
There are certainly spoilers re: An American Marriage, and there are possible spoilers re: Freshwater and Washington Black. Timestamps on the different book discussions can be found below for those looking to skip around so as not to have books spoiled for them. Apologies for the length of this video; trust me, I had a lot more to say than I actually said...
- Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi: 00:56
- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: 05:01
- Transcription by Kate Atkinson: 14:42
- Washington Black by Esi Edugyan: 16:03
- Warlight by Michael Ondaatje: 18:52
- Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro: 22:02
Thank you, Claudia, from Spinster's Library, for the nudge to do timestamps on my videos. This is the first. May it not be the last. Here is the video in which she encourages doing so and explains why (she also brilliantly argues against thumbnails featuring books without their spines):
youtube.com/watch?v=XavNeV0DdS4
The Booktube Prize (#BooktubePrize) was founded by the wonderful Robert from Barter Hordes. His channel can be found here:
youtube.com/user/rsheard
My experience judging the Booktube Prize quarterfinals was...frustrating, to put it tactfully. I was tremendously disappointed in a third of the books I read in my group, mildly disappointed in another third. I do a bit of venting in this video, and say a few things that cut against the grain of received popular opinion, particularly re: Tayari Jones's recently Women's Prize-crowned novel An American Marriage, but it is what it is. In this video, I share my ranking of the six books and discuss, to some extent, my reasoning.
There are certainly spoilers re: An American Marriage, and there are possible spoilers re: Freshwater and Washington Black. Timestamps on the different book discussions can be found below for those looking to skip around so as not to have books spoiled for them. Apologies for the length of this video; trust me, I had a lot more to say than I actually said...
- Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi: 00:56
- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: 05:01
- Transcription by Kate Atkinson: 14:42
- Washington Black by Esi Edugyan: 16:03
- Warlight by Michael Ondaatje: 18:52
- Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro: 22:02
Thank you, Claudia, from Spinster's Library, for the nudge to do timestamps on my videos. This is the first. May it not be the last. Here is the video in which she encourages doing so and explains why (she also brilliantly argues against thumbnails featuring books without their spines):
youtube.com/watch?v=XavNeV0DdS4
