Skip to content

10 Book Reviews in 4 Minutes

2009-04-28 · review / recommendation · Hank · 3:32 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Advice & reviews · tags: self promotion, civic or action cta

With his camera battery dying, Hank speed-reviews ten books, from Les Misérables and Le Guin to The Bermudez Triangle, and ends by promoting John's riddle-told story This Is Not Tom and the forum he started for it.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Lost camera cord, ten quick reviews: Les Misérables, Hyperion, Le Guin's Powers trilogy

  • ★★ Hank has lost his camera's power cord and has little battery left, so he makes a quick video reviewing ten books. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank finally read Les Misérables, knowing only one song from the musical, and thinks it will be a classic for decades or centuries. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank warns people who like how they see the world not to read Hyperion, joking that it warped the minds of 37% of the warped people he knows. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ A self-declared Le Guin fan, Hank says her Powers trilogy makes us imagine worlds as they have been or could be and the people in them, showing amazing people come from all circumstances. (hedged) — 00:00:29

00:01:00 — A bad joke book, Interworld, Ringworld Throne vs Ringworld, Pratchett's The Truth, Sorcery and Cecilia

  • ★★ Hank says a joke book he bought while thinking of another jokes video sucks; the jokes Nerdfighters leave in comments are far better. (playful) — 00:01:00 · Nerdfighteria, Jokes in four minutes
  • ★★ Hank calls Neil Gaiman's Interworld less dark than typical Gaiman but fun and mysterious; it was originally meant to be a TV series. — 00:01:00
  • ★★ Hank says Ringworld Throne 'kind of sucked' but the first Ringworld was very good, with fascinating engineering and characters; he advises skipping the sequels. — 00:01:00
  • ★★ Hank calls Terry Pratchett one of the world's greatest gifts to him and The Truth a gift for journalists, with Moist von Lipwig (as he says) taking on journalism as a con man. — 00:01:29
  • ★★ Hank calls Sorcery and Cecilia adorable, like Harry Potter meets Pride and Prejudice: two young women in a dangerous magical mystery, really about infuriating boys in marvelous outfits. (playful) — 00:01:29 · Harry Potter (book series)

00:02:13 — Sorcery and Cecilia (cont.); Maureen Johnson's The Bermudez Triangle

  • ★★★ Hank, who only just read Maureen Johnson's The Bermudez Triangle, can't believe people wanted to ban it; it should be required high-school reading, the best portrayal of friendship and sexuality he has read. — 00:02:13 · Maureen Johnson

00:02:38 — This Is Not Tom: John's story told through weekly riddles; Hank's thisisnotforums.com; ask for short reviews; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank says John, bestselling author of Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines, is writing another book, This Is Not Tom, released through weekly riddles. — 00:02:38 · This Is Not Tom, John Green, Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska (novel), An Abundance of Katherines

    “books have riddles in them all the time, but riddles have never had books in them before.”

  • ★★ Hank says a new riddle is posted weekly at youtube.com/isthistom, telling of a young girl on the run, and he started thisisnotforums.com where people help each other with hard riddles. — 00:02:38 · This Is Not Tom

  • ★★ Hank asks anyone else who wants to give short book reviews to do so in the comments. — 00:03:20

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: The Bermudez Triangle · This Is Not Tom

Also: People: Maureen Johnson · Terry Pratchett · Ursula K. Le Guin

Works: An Abundance of Katherines · Annals of the Western Shore · Harry Potter (book series) · Hyperion · InterWorld · Les Misérables · Looking for Alaska (novel) · Paper Towns · Pride and Prejudice · Ringworld · Sorcery and Cecilia · The Ringworld Throne · The Truth

Organizations: The New York Times

Rituals: Jokes in four minutes

Concepts: book censorship

Characters: Moist von Lipwig

Only in the description or credits: Neil Gaiman

Also centred on The Bermudez Triangle: Brotherhood 2.0: May 2: Book Banning · Brotherhood 2.0: May 8th: House Hunters

Later videos replying to this one