Hi guys it's Sophie.
So I'm going to be doing a tag video today. I have a fair few things I've been tagged in recently so
I'm going to have to try and get through those so just be aware there is going to
be a few of these. I really like them
hopefully you guys do to. So the one I'm going to be doing today is the Summer Reading Tag
because I'm very aware that summer is petty in the UK and if I don't talk
about it when it's here it will just
disappear and this will no longer be
appropriate so I'm just going to catch it whilst it's still sunny and hopefully get in there before
the rain starts. I was tagged by Jen, as in Jen Campbell, whose channel I'm sure all of you have heard of.
If you haven't for some reason then please check it out. She's one of those
Queen's of booktube. So yeah, go
check that channel out.
And we'll jump into the tag.
So the first question is what three books do you want to read this summer. Now as we'll learn as we
go through this tag summer's kind of
long book season for me and these
are no exception.
The first one you guys already aware
of that's Infinite Jest which I am working
my way through. Look at that. Look at that, that's progress. I'm just a little over 25
percent of the way through at the moment. I'm trying to do a hundred pages a week
so probably this will slip into
September somewhat but yeah I'm liking
it so far. More tennis than I imagined.
The next one I want to get to is Suttree by Cormac
McCarthy. Adam at Memento Mori just  keeps telling me how good this is
and every time I feel this this deep
sense of guilt that I haven't yet picked
it up and because I know I'm gonna love
it so yeah I'm gonna get this one soon
but I'm going to have to wait just
because it's very large until Infinite
Jest is wrapped up I think.
And the last one I'm considering reading
alongside Infinite Jest but I don't know
if I want to do that my brain. It's
The Gene by Siddhartha Murkerjee and you
guys know I loved The Emperor of All Maladies and I just really badly want to read this and I
don't know that I'll be able to wait until I finish Infinite Jest to jump in. And who knows,
given the way Infinite Jest works this
might actually help me understand what's going on
in there. And the next question is what
character do you think embodies the
traits of summer. So it's going to be a YA
book. I don't we talk about YA on here
anymore.  It's gonna be Alaska from Looking For Alaska.
I don't like Alaska but I think she
really reminds me of summer. She comes in,
you think you want her and she seems
to have our own plan and life goals and
but she just kind of messes everything up. That's kind of what summer does to me. I've
just got the temperature now where I don't think I'm functioning anymore.
I'm a winter creature. I'm destined for
powered snow and woodland. I'm not made for this.
Then the next question is what book do
you think embodies the physicality of
summer. I've chosen Mislaid by Nell Zink
which you guys know I read fairly
recently and this isn't sort of straight
up a really summery read but for me
it's that sort of school feeling. So I'll just kind of explain a little bit. I was at
a boarding school for my secondary school. I didn't board, I was a day student, but
we had boarding houses where people did. One of my best friends when I was in
school, her dad
ran one of the boarding houses. So
quite often in my summer I would be back
at school but in a completely kind of
different school than the one I
knew in term time. It would be really quiet and empty and all the fields would be empty and we just would
go around on roller skates and go and sit on the top of buildings that we weren't supposed to.
And get told off by the groundsman and so that's sort of element in this book of
being at school or being at a college in
a slightly different manner to being a
student
really reminds me of my summers. The next one is what books do you like to take with you on
holiday or what kind of books do you tend to read in the summer.  We talked about
that I really read longer books in the summer but mostly it's fantasy.
So I don't read a lot of fantasy. It's a fairly
rare occurrence on this channel but I
actually do quite like having a fantasy
series to jump into, Game of Thrones is the one I'm
holding up, I think I read five of the
Game of Thrones books last summer and
then the summer before I did Trudy Cavanan's the Priestess of White series and there is three of
these. Then before that I did, I think, 
The Kushiel's Dart series, which is six books.
So yeah, I don't know, I think it's
tended to be that I had a bit more freedom
to be reading longer things and I
got used to it when I was a kid,
when I was at school, when I was at University. I had a lot of time off from school and
that was the time to dive into big things.
I'm not gone for fantasy this time. I've still gone for  really long stuff I think it tends to be
fantasy for me.
The next question is if you had to take an author on holiday, and I say have because
I agree with people in that I don't think I'd want to go on holiday with authors but yeah if you
have to take an author on holiday, who would you take and where would you go and what would you do. I would take
Mark Z Danielewski on a road trip and I
would
someone learn how to drive because I can't drive but I
would make sure that he couldn't
get up and run away and be all
enigmatic and sneaky and I would try to
convince him to take me to the house
with the door that shouldn't be there
because I'm still not entirely convinced
that this isn't a factual account.
I mean I know it's fiction but I think
I want it to be real so badly that I
would take him around and probably scare him half to death
trying to make him tell me where this house is. And the next question is what is your book
of the year so far.
No. No, no spoilers. I'm not doing that. You're going to have to wait for the end of the year.
Question seven is how did you spend your
summer holidays as a child. So I've
already spoken about the fact that I
spent quite a lot of it at school but when I
wasn't at school my family used to do
these epically long holidays like
camping holidays in France. So
because I was one of the kids I had five weeks
in a go in France. Basically my mom would come out, sorry my grandparents would come out for two weeks and
look after us. Then mom and dad would come out for two weeks and look after us and then my grandma and grandad would come back for
the last week and we would stay there the
whole time.  They're one of the best
memories I have of my childhood, is those summers. It's just freedom and beaches
and kids from all over the world. And
yeah it was just really lovely. I
don't know like another version of yourself when you get to be free and away from
all the stuff that's that's normal and
homely for such a length of time.
It was absolutely incredible. I'm so thankful to my family that
they thought to give us those summers. And the last question is what are you
plans for the summer. So, not much.
I'm got to be honest. My work is kind of mad at the moment so I do my role, which is an HR
role but unfortunately there are two
people who have left the business whose
roles I've had to take on as well. So
mostly my summer has been at work. I've had to do
Saturdays for the last month or so and I'm
not doing one this weekend but will be
doing at least until September. So not all that much that's too exciting.
I don't mind too much. I'm more of a
winter holiday person because I do city
breaks rather than sitting on a beach.
So I think I'm going to try and go to
Rome in November which
more than makes up for not having gone anywhere in the summer.
I'm going to tag a couple people. I'm going to tag Nicola from Robotnic,
I'm going to tag Vanessa from Chboskyy. I'm going to tag Adam from Memento Mori because
doesn't like to be missed out and
I'll tag Philippa from The Garden of Readin'
as well.
All of those channels I just mentioned
are brilliant by the way so if you aren't
subscribed to all of them please go to do
so. I hope you're all well. I hope you've liked
hearing me chat a little bit about what summer is me- mostly irritation and sweating us and
and just waiting for autumn and that's
just who I am a human is not the fault
of the weather.
I will see you soon in my next
video and which is going to be a book review
Bye bye.
