Tag: Madeline Miller

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Five books worth the hype

Have you gotten caught up in the booktok or booktuber worlds?

Do you wonder which books are really worth the hype from the book influencers?

I’ve gotten back into reading a lot in the past few years. I’ve always loved reading, but haven’t always made it a priority. And I have to admit that book influencers have definitely helped me fall back in love with reading.

I love that so many people are reading more and starting conversations about books. I love how much more mainstream reading has become and that people are able to craft careers around talking about books. I think it’s a lovely gift that social media has given us.

But that being said, there are a lot of books that get hyped up but may not live up to the hype, or may not be our personal taste.

I’ve put together some of the big books that I believe are genuinely worth the hype.

Photo by Laura Kapfer on Unsplash

Five books worth the booktok hype

Here’s a list of five books from booktok that I believe are worth the hype.

  1. Babel by R.F. Kuang
  2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin\
  3. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
  4. Upstream by Mary Oliver
  5. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Keep reading to find out more about each one. I’ve order them from newest to oldest by publication date.

Babel (2022)

by R.F. Kuang

  • Year Published: 2022
  • Storygraph Categories: fiction, fantasy, historical, literary, challenging, dark, emotional, medium-paced
  • Talks about the difficulties and nuances of translating literature

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

Links:

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (2022)

by Gabrielle Zevin

  • Year Published: 2022
  • Storygraph Categories:
    fiction, contemporary, literary, emotional, reflective, sad, medium-paced
  • Important to note, there have been some criticisms of how the author portrays a physical disability and uses it during the story.

In this exhilarating novel by the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry two friends–often in love, but never lovers–come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.

Links:

Piranesi (2020)

by Susanna Clarke

  • Year Published: 2020
  • Storygraph Categories:
    fiction, fantasy, literary, adventurous, mysterious, reflective, medium-paced
  • Winner of the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

Links:

Upstream (2016)

by Mary Oliver

  • Year Published: 2016
  • Storygraph Categories:
    nonfiction, essays, literary, nature, inspiring, reflective, relaxing, slow-paced

Comprising a selection of essays, Upstream finds beloved poet Mary Oliver reflecting on her astonishment and admiration for the natural world and the craft of writing.

As she contemplates the pleasure of artistic labor, finding solace and safety within the woods, and the joyful and rhythmic beating of wings, Oliver intimately shares with her readers her quiet discoveries, boundless curiosity, and exuberance for the grandeur of our world.

This radiant collection of her work, with some pieces published here for the first time, reaffirms Oliver as a passionate and prolific observer whose thoughtful meditations on spiders, writing a poem, blue fin tuna, and Ralph Waldo Emerson inspire us all to discover wonder and awe in life’s smallest corners.

Links:

The Song of Achilles (2011)

by Madeline Miller

  • Year Published: 2011
  • Storygraph Categories:
    fiction, fantasy, lgbtqia+, literary, adventurous, emotional, sad, medium-paced
  • Winner of the 2012 Orange Prize (now The Women’s Prize for Fiction)

Achilles, “the best of all the Greeks,” son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods’ wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

Links:

Final thoughts

I hope you found something of interest in this list of books.

I’m always looking for more suggestions of books to read. I’d love to know which booktok/booktube books you think are worth the hype. Let me know in a comment below!

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of the book?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below.

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…and my life began

This is a quote from the book Circe by Madeline Miller.

Quote by Madeline Miller, “I stepped into those woods and my life began.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Circe – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child – not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power – the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

Copyright © 2018 by Madeline Miller.

More details on Goodreads can be found here.

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I will not be…

This is a quote from the book Circe by Madeline Miller.

Quote by Madeline Miller, “I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Circe – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child – not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power – the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

Copyright © 2018 by Madeline Miller.

More details on Goodreads can be found here.

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Achilles and Patroclus

Photo by Jocelyn Morales | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the book The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.

You must not go. I almost said it, a thousand times. Instead I held his hands fast between mine; they were cold, and very still.

‘I do not think I could bear it,’ he said, at last. His eyes were closed as if against horrors. I know he spoke not of his death, but of the nightmare Odysseus had spun, the loss of his brilliance, the withering of his grace. I had seen the joy he took in his own skill, the roaring vitality that was always just beneath the surface. Who was he if not miraculous, and radiant? Who was he if not destined for fame?

‘I would not care,’ I said. The words scrabbled from my mouth. ‘Whatever you became. It would not matter to me. We would be together.’

‘I know,’ he said quietly, but did not look at me.

He knew, but it was not enough. The sorrow was so large it threatened to tear through my skin. When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him. I opened my mouth, but it was too late.

‘I will go,’ he said. ‘I will go to Troy.’

The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered green of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or greying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious Death would drink his blood, and grow young again.

He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth.

‘Will you come with me?’ he asked.

The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. Yes, I whispered. Yes.

Relief broke in his face, and he reached for me. I let him hold me, let him press us length to length so close that nothing might fit between us.

Tears came, and fell. Above us, the constellations spun, and the moon paced her weary course. We lay stricken and sleepless as the hours passed.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

The Song of Achilles – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Achilles, “the best of all the Greeks,” son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods’ wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

Copyright © 2011 by Madeline Miller

More details on Goodreads can be found here.

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Conversation with Telemachus

Photo by Olga Tutunaru | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the book Circe by Madeline Miller.

‘And your mother? What did she think?’

’I do not claim to know what my mother thinks.’ His voices had stiffened. They had not spoken to each other all night, I remembered.

’She brought you up herself. You must have some idea.’

’There is no one who can guess what my mother is doing until it is done.’ There was not just stiffness in his voice now but bitterness. I waited. I had begun to see that silence prompted him better than words.

’There was a time we shared every confidence,’ he said. ‘We plotted each night’s strategy against the suitors together, if she should come down or not, speak haughtily or conciliate, if I should bring out the good wine, if we should stage for them some confrontation. When I was a child we were together every day. She would take me swimming, and afterwards we would sit beneath a tree and watch the people of Ithaca go about their business. Each man or woman who passed, she knew their history and would tell it to me, for she said that you must understand people if you would rule them.’

Telemachus’ gaze was fixed upon the air. The firelight picked out a crook in his nose I had not noticed before. An old break.

’Whenever I fretted for my father’s safety, she would shake her head. “Never fear for him. He is too clever to be killed, for he knows all the tricks of men’s hearts, and how to turn them to his advantage. He will survive the war and return home again.” And I was comforted, for what my mother said always came to pass.’

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Circe – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child – not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power – the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

Copyright © 2018 by Madeline Miller.

More details on Goodreads can be found here.

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