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TheBookchemist

The Bookchemist

Literary Booktuber releasing book reviews, literary tops & charts and a variety of literary extravaganza. Especially fond of contemporary American fiction (read Infinite Jest, people!)
Anthony and Cleopatra - Michael Neill, William Shakespeare An incredible take on the power of politics and the many ways it can change a man, and on the definition of love, and of the actual existence of a definition for love.

Featured in my Top 5 Shakespearean Tragedies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX6rxhK4s2o
Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare Featuring the right amount of action, love, laughter and doom to create timeless perfection in the genre of popular tragedy. Few other books have been (and still are) so influential in Western culture. I know you already know it, you might as well read it and find out how actually awesome it is.

Featuring in my Top 5 Shakespearean Tragedies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX6rxhK4s2o
The Tempest - William Shakespeare Possibly the most "contemporary" of Shekaspeare's plays, guaranteed to entertain you as few other plays, to inspire great reflections and to make you think about, or rethink, the way you view conquest, justice and progress.

Featured in my Top 5 Shakespearean Comedies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8VombfcaD8
The Twenty-Seventh City - Jonathan Franzen An incredible debut novel, a wonderfully Pynchonian work, and the demonstration that Franzen can be awesome even with something different from a Midwestern family saga.
Video-review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68qnEsK3mpQ
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson, Laura Miller As innocuous as it may appear at first, The Haunting is a masterfully crafted book that builds its horror structure one drop at a time, to eventually shock you in the most delicately brutal way.
Video-review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQhF9xVOqOI
A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway A Moveable Feast is a rich and vivid picture of Paris in the 1920's and a golden occasion to know Hemingway, the man, a little better. Be aware that he's a bit of an a-hole.
VideoReview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofv3Zgue_ak
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis One of the most disturbing, masterfully-crafted and striking achievements of the last decades. An thought-inspiring masterpiece in both contents and form.
Video-review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythQ0OGfKRo
I Am Legend - Richard Matheson Considering its extremely simple basic-context, I Am Legend manages to achieve an incredible level of entertainment, offers a wonderfully psychological characterization - and deals a bit with the value of the human race. Quite impressive for a vampire novel.

Featured in my Top 7 Apocalyptic/Post-apocalyptic Novels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFZjpbhDAGw&feature=c4-overview&list=UUWE-DhzTZqCGu_uZmVBOgig
The Road - Cormac McCarthy Differing in setting, but not in vibe and quality, from the rest of McCarthy's production, this slender yet thick novel - possibly the best in the whole apocalyptic genre - develops further the analysis of the sharp contrast between the beautiful and gruesome sides of life that's the leitmotiv of the whole McCartyh's bibliography.

Featured in my Top 7 Apocalyptic/Post-apocalyptic Novels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFZjpbhDAGw&feature=c4-overview&list=UUWE-DhzTZqCGu_uZmVBOgig
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway Mirroring in its very form war's typical alternation between stressful calm and violent, sudden action, For Whom the Bell Tolls is the most entertaining and captivating of Hemingways's books, a vivid and complete reflection upon war, and a masterfully crafted story covered by a thick, bittersweet layer of lyricism.

Video-review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rFnOTGGEzo&feature=c4-overview&list=UUWE-DhzTZqCGu_uZmVBOgig

La Guerre Des Mouches

La Guerre Des Mouches - Jacques Spitz A masterfully crafted apocalyptic novella that reads like a history book, guaranteed to keep you on the page for its whole length. It's main strength lies in the extremely funny, always clever way it satirize on the different countries at war - a satire made extremely tragic by the outburst of a way too real war - World War II - just a few years after the book's publishing.

Featured in my Top 7 Apocalyptic/Post-apocalyptic Novels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFZjpbhDAGw&feature=youtu.be
The Swarm - Sally-Ann Spencer, Frank Schätzing Though crippled in its second half by some cheap pop-literature plot twists, The Swarm is an highly addictive novel that starts from a fascinating scientific base to explore a vast, unknown and massively terrifying world - that lies a few miles off our costs.

Featured in my Top 7 Apocalyptic/Post-apocalyptic Novels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFZjpbhDAGw&feature=youtu.be
The Broom of the System - David Foster Wallace Dealing with contemporary entertainment, modern-days Western society, linguistic philosophy, interpersonal relationships and religious birds, The Broom of the System is one of those books you'll never forget, a novel that will stay in the back of your mind forever - going on teaching its lesson in so many ways, about so many things.
VideoReview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIG-z6lNs3c
The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon Simply, the most seminal work in Postmodern fiction.
Video-review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jssATVtVULo
A Hologram for the King - Dave Eggers Eggers' last novel is an interesting take on America's spirit in the contemporary world crisis, though it lacks any strong opinion and generally is a little too open.
VideoReview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMzM86NL_iQ
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson Obviously the work of an incredibly crafted author, Gilead avoids any ambition to deliver an extremely quiet and delicate reflection on life, history and religion - all, ironically, quite ambitious topics to deal with.
Video review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx-NlAa5pp8