Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
I'm Mike - this is Riff Raff's Reading Renaissance. Welcome!
In today’s May Reading Wrap-Up, I discuss the best books I read this month — from To Kill a Mockingbird to the Gothic horror of Edgar Allan Poe, the darkly comic short stories of Roald Dahl, and the subtle brilliance of Graham Greene.
I also share:
📖 A massive book haul featuring history, biography, literature, fantasy, politics, music, and poetry
📖 New additions include Anne Applebaum, Salman Rushdie, Alan Rickman, Kenneth Branagh, Bob Dylan, & more
📖 My plans for June on the Range and reading Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
📖 Thoughts on fantasy literature, classic fiction, genre reading, and literary storytelling
There's something for everyone! If you love classic literature, literary fiction, BookTube discussions, reading wrap-ups, book hauls, poetry, history, or thoughtful conversations about books and reading culture, I hope you’ll enjoy this video. Please consider liking, subscribing, and leaving a comment — it genuinely helps the channel grow and reach more readers.
Timestamps / Chapters
00:00 Intro – Killing Mockingbirds
05:07 Reading The Beloved Country (Down 2nd Avenue)
05:55 Graham Greene Short Stories
09:36 Roald Dahl’s Adult Stories (Horror May-hem)
13:49 Edgar Allan Poe (Music & Gothic Tales)
20:15 Gathering Books in May! (Poetry & Boswell’s Johnson)
21:45 Ben Elton’s amazing WW2 true story
22:50 Rushdie’s Quichotte & Zola’s Naughty Nana!
23:25 From Rebecca to Cousin Rachel (Daphne du Maurier Omnibus)
24:12 Elizabeth the Great (Booktube made me do it)
24:51 Warnings from History & Lessons from North Korea
26:07 Anne Applebaum’s Pulitzer Prize Winning Gulag
27:16 Moral Economists & Messy Battles of the Sexes
30:25 Books from the Stars – Rickman, Branagh & Burton
32:41 Music & Travel Books
33:46 Keeping Options Open! (The Lord of the Rings & Fantasy)
36:04 Lonesome Dove for June On The Range
37:50 I Cheat on Historathon with 24 Caesars!
39:40 Lighter reading - Wodehouse & Bob Dylan
41:59 Final Thoughts
Books discussed in the video:
To Kill a Mockingbird — Harper Lee
Down Second Avenue — Ezekiel Mphahlele
The Quiet American — Graham Greene
The Complete Short Stories — Graham Greene, including:
1.May We Borrow Your Husband?
2.Awful When You Think of It
3.Beauty
4.The Blue Film
The Collected Short Stories Collection — Roald Dahl, including:
1.The Landlady
2.An African Story
3.Lamb to the Slaughter
4.The Bookseller
5.Georgy Porgy
The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, including:
1.The Fall of the House of Usher
2.The Cask of Amontillado
3.The Raven
4.Lenore
5.Annabel Lee
6.Ulalume
7.To One in Paradise
The Norton Anthology of Poetry — edited anthology
The Oxford Book of English Verse — edited anthology
The Life of Samuel Johnson — James Boswell
The Two Brothers — Ben Elton
Gone Girl — Gillian Flynn
Nana — Émile Zola
Quichotte — Salman Rushdie
Don Quixote — Miguel de Cervantes
Daphne du Maurier Omnibus — Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca — Daphne du Maurier
Jamaica Inn — Daphne du Maurier
Frenchman’s Creek — Daphne du Maurier
My Cousin Rachel — Daphne du Maurier
Elizabeth the Great — Elizabeth Jenkins
The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History — Odd Arne Westad
Dear Leader: From Trusted Insider to Enemy of the State — Jang Jin-sung
Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea — Barbara Demick
Autocracy, Inc. — Anne Applebaum
Gulag: A History — Anne Applebaum
The Trading Game — Gary Stevenson
Are Men Necessary? — Maureen Dowd
The Norton Book of Women’s Lives — edited anthology
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings / works referenced — Maya Angelou
Works referenced — Virginia Woolf
Messy: How to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy-Minded World — Tim Harford
A Perfect Mess — Eric Abrahamson & David H. Freedman
Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries — Alan Rickman
Alan Rickman: The Unauthorized Biography — Maureen Paton
Hamlet (film script edition) — William Shakespeare / adapted by Kenneth Branagh
Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century — Sam Kashner & Nancy Schoenberger
Cowboys and Indies: The Epic History of the Record Industry — Gareth Murphy
A Book of Lands and Peoples — Eric Newby (editor)
The Lord of the Rings — J.R.R. Tolkien
In Defense of Fantasy — Farah Mendlesohn & Edward James
The Left Hand of Darkness — Ursula K. Le Guin
Lonesome Dove — Larry McMurtry
The Twelve Caesars — Suetonius
Woodhouse on Wodehouse — P.G. Wodehouse
Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biography in Seven Songs — Greil Marcus
Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine — Mark Davidson & Parker Fishel (editors)
And for the almighty algorithm:
#BookTube #ReadingWrapUp #BookHaul #ClassicLiterature
#ToKillAMockingbird #HarperLee #EdgarAllanPoe #RoaldDahl
#GrahamGreene #LiteraryFiction #Books #ReadingCommunity
#LonesomeDove #LarryMcMurtry #HorrorMayhem
#TheRaven #GothicLiterature #BookRecommendations
#FantasyBooks #LordOfTheRings #BobDylan #AnneApplebaum
#AlanRickman #Poetry #ReadingRenaissance
I'm Mike - this is Riff Raff's Reading Renaissance. Welcome!
In today’s May Reading Wrap-Up, I discuss the best books I read this month — from To Kill a Mockingbird to the Gothic horror of Edgar Allan Poe, the darkly comic short stories of Roald Dahl, and the subtle brilliance of Graham Greene.
I also share:
📖 A massive book haul featuring history, biography, literature, fantasy, politics, music, and poetry
📖 New additions include Anne Applebaum, Salman Rushdie, Alan Rickman, Kenneth Branagh, Bob Dylan, & more
📖 My plans for June on the Range and reading Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
📖 Thoughts on fantasy literature, classic fiction, genre reading, and literary storytelling
There's something for everyone! If you love classic literature, literary fiction, BookTube discussions, reading wrap-ups, book hauls, poetry, history, or thoughtful conversations about books and reading culture, I hope you’ll enjoy this video. Please consider liking, subscribing, and leaving a comment — it genuinely helps the channel grow and reach more readers.
Timestamps / Chapters
00:00 Intro – Killing Mockingbirds
05:07 Reading The Beloved Country (Down 2nd Avenue)
05:55 Graham Greene Short Stories
09:36 Roald Dahl’s Adult Stories (Horror May-hem)
13:49 Edgar Allan Poe (Music & Gothic Tales)
20:15 Gathering Books in May! (Poetry & Boswell’s Johnson)
21:45 Ben Elton’s amazing WW2 true story
22:50 Rushdie’s Quichotte & Zola’s Naughty Nana!
23:25 From Rebecca to Cousin Rachel (Daphne du Maurier Omnibus)
24:12 Elizabeth the Great (Booktube made me do it)
24:51 Warnings from History & Lessons from North Korea
26:07 Anne Applebaum’s Pulitzer Prize Winning Gulag
27:16 Moral Economists & Messy Battles of the Sexes
30:25 Books from the Stars – Rickman, Branagh & Burton
32:41 Music & Travel Books
33:46 Keeping Options Open! (The Lord of the Rings & Fantasy)
36:04 Lonesome Dove for June On The Range
37:50 I Cheat on Historathon with 24 Caesars!
39:40 Lighter reading - Wodehouse & Bob Dylan
41:59 Final Thoughts
Books discussed in the video:
To Kill a Mockingbird — Harper Lee
Down Second Avenue — Ezekiel Mphahlele
The Quiet American — Graham Greene
The Complete Short Stories — Graham Greene, including:
1.May We Borrow Your Husband?
2.Awful When You Think of It
3.Beauty
4.The Blue Film
The Collected Short Stories Collection — Roald Dahl, including:
1.The Landlady
2.An African Story
3.Lamb to the Slaughter
4.The Bookseller
5.Georgy Porgy
The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, including:
1.The Fall of the House of Usher
2.The Cask of Amontillado
3.The Raven
4.Lenore
5.Annabel Lee
6.Ulalume
7.To One in Paradise
The Norton Anthology of Poetry — edited anthology
The Oxford Book of English Verse — edited anthology
The Life of Samuel Johnson — James Boswell
The Two Brothers — Ben Elton
Gone Girl — Gillian Flynn
Nana — Émile Zola
Quichotte — Salman Rushdie
Don Quixote — Miguel de Cervantes
Daphne du Maurier Omnibus — Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca — Daphne du Maurier
Jamaica Inn — Daphne du Maurier
Frenchman’s Creek — Daphne du Maurier
My Cousin Rachel — Daphne du Maurier
Elizabeth the Great — Elizabeth Jenkins
The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History — Odd Arne Westad
Dear Leader: From Trusted Insider to Enemy of the State — Jang Jin-sung
Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea — Barbara Demick
Autocracy, Inc. — Anne Applebaum
Gulag: A History — Anne Applebaum
The Trading Game — Gary Stevenson
Are Men Necessary? — Maureen Dowd
The Norton Book of Women’s Lives — edited anthology
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings / works referenced — Maya Angelou
Works referenced — Virginia Woolf
Messy: How to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy-Minded World — Tim Harford
A Perfect Mess — Eric Abrahamson & David H. Freedman
Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries — Alan Rickman
Alan Rickman: The Unauthorized Biography — Maureen Paton
Hamlet (film script edition) — William Shakespeare / adapted by Kenneth Branagh
Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century — Sam Kashner & Nancy Schoenberger
Cowboys and Indies: The Epic History of the Record Industry — Gareth Murphy
A Book of Lands and Peoples — Eric Newby (editor)
The Lord of the Rings — J.R.R. Tolkien
In Defense of Fantasy — Farah Mendlesohn & Edward James
The Left Hand of Darkness — Ursula K. Le Guin
Lonesome Dove — Larry McMurtry
The Twelve Caesars — Suetonius
Woodhouse on Wodehouse — P.G. Wodehouse
Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biography in Seven Songs — Greil Marcus
Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine — Mark Davidson & Parker Fishel (editors)
And for the almighty algorithm:
#BookTube #ReadingWrapUp #BookHaul #ClassicLiterature
#ToKillAMockingbird #HarperLee #EdgarAllanPoe #RoaldDahl
#GrahamGreene #LiteraryFiction #Books #ReadingCommunity
#LonesomeDove #LarryMcMurtry #HorrorMayhem
#TheRaven #GothicLiterature #BookRecommendations
#FantasyBooks #LordOfTheRings #BobDylan #AnneApplebaum
#AlanRickman #Poetry #ReadingRenaissance
