something about the winter season gets me SO excited to read icy, colder, and/or darker novels, as if the snow blanketing everything in death and bleakness IRL is something i want reflected in my pages, so my ears instantly perked up when you described having wept at End of the Tether, the father-daughter relationship sounds resonant, definitely on my radar now as I savor all the beauty of winter, great video Bren!
Always love to hear your responses, Alexa. Thank you! End of the Tether is definitely emotive, but it takes place in a tropical setting (Malaysia)…so a bit less wintry. But I think you’ve just given me a wonderful topic for a video! Wintry classics for the cosy festive time of year. Thanks!
@@tylerbailey85 ah what a lovely comment! Thank you so much! Yes Steinbeck is terrific. I need to do some Steinbeck content soon! Thank you for the reminder!
I've only read 4 authors that you mentioned: Virginia Woolf, Cervantes, Lispector, and Homer, but I have only read one book that you mentioned: Don Quixote. I think Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, have influenced me the most. Thank you for the list!
Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan (translated by Heather Lloyd) lit up my brain. Sagan was a teenage genius. How could someone so young write like that?
It is an interesting and of course eclectic choice. I found that in the course of my reading the first books that got me really addicted to reading were books by Graham Greene and P.G. Wodehouse - like after eights I could not get enough of them. But immediately after leaving school around 16, I read many of the English classics in the Malvern Public Library. That was an education in itself. But, as with all lists, I found certain writers I can reread and enjoy very much and those are Zweig, Broch, Woolf, D.H. Lawrence and William Faulkner as well as Henry James, Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield. Since I lived in Japan, Paris, Denmark, Firenze I naturally read many books from writers from those places. When I lived/stayed in Shakespeare & Co Paris I read and loved Lorca and the American writers.
What an adventurous life (externally but also internally through your reading). We have very similar taste in writers I see! Also spent many dreamy hours in Shakespeare & Co in Paris! Halcyon days. Thanks for sharing.
Hello Bren, a very compelling and varied list! I'm glad to see two Spanish writers included, both extraordinary. "Jacob's Room" left me quite confused, it puzzled and irritated me with that "elusiveness" that you have mentioned, and remains my least favourite Virginia Woolf novel to date (it's still a solid book, just not comparable to her other masterworks, in my opinion). "Against Interpretation" is eye-opening and very insightful. "Heart of Darkness" is eerily beautiful and it grows more and more ambiguous and impactful every time I reread it (I have the Oxford World Classics edition which contains other short stories, but "The End of the Tether" is not, unfortunately, one of them). Cheers!
Nice to hear your responses! Thanks for sharing. The Oxford World Classics are great, aren’t they? About 6 months ago I made a Virginia Woolf video-I’m curious what you think of it :) you can find it in the “My Canon” playlist, if you’re interested. I agree about the power of rereading Heart of Darkness! I’ve read it twice but it feels like the kind of text that will always throw up new angles and unforeseen shadowy hauntings.
Students are often shocked by the violence-and of the particularity of that violence, with blades sinking deep into someone's shoulder and whatnot-of The Iliad, and yet it always contrasts perfectly with the sympathetic framing of some of those who die, such as of Hector in his home; then the cruelty that follows feels suddenly of worth since we were granted humanity first. Intriguing, too, how entertaining that violence is (though many hesitate to admit it). The Iliad is endlessly re-readable. Fagles' translation has an especially breathless flow to it; he doesn't abuse punctuation like some other translators. I realize as this video goes on that I have a lot to say about all of these books. Excellent, excellent selection, my friend. Among the classics you could have chosen you picked the most worthy of re-reads. Conrad is especially nice after reading a Homeric epic-suddenly the starkness feels grand.
So well articulated. And you’re right about that contrast: that orchestral resounding of high poetry tempering the violence. I found reading The Iliad illuminating but not particularly enjoyable. Although the quaintness of Pope’s translation is surprisingly fun to read. “Breathless” is apt. Fagles’s version really is relentless. I always appreciate your responses. Thank you for sharing your own journey with us!
@@ToReadersItMayConcern ah that would be a delight. But then again, any time you turn on the camera and talk to us about books is a delight. I actually have a list in my head of writers/books I’m excited to hear you speak about. DFW, to take one example!
Woolf was so tedious and silly. Evelyn Waugh is much better and more revelatory. If you want the real inventor of modernistic writing, eschew Woolf and Joyce and try Ronald Firbank, the first writer to understand how to write cinematically. He could take you through a room at a party catching all the conversation, just like a camera and microphone moving through the crowd. And this was before films had sound.
I can't really understand the titles as spoken. Please be a little clearer. I also can't read the text on the covers. I know some of these but many are new.
Which classics lit you up?
Ps. Here is the full Lorca poem:
allpoetry.com/Landscape-of-a-Vomiting-Multitude
Tokyo Express translated by Jesse Kirkwood, by the way! Forgot to mention that!
Great books mentioned. Best wishes and happy reading to you!
Thanks so much mate!
I love how you explain and use the words❤
Thank you for being here ❤️
Man, why are you majestic?❤
Ahah thank you!
something about the winter season gets me SO excited to read icy, colder, and/or darker novels, as if the snow blanketing everything in death and bleakness IRL is something i want reflected in my pages, so my ears instantly perked up when you described having wept at End of the Tether, the father-daughter relationship sounds resonant, definitely on my radar now as I savor all the beauty of winter, great video Bren!
War and Peace is a great read for winter.
Always love to hear your responses, Alexa. Thank you! End of the Tether is definitely emotive, but it takes place in a tropical setting (Malaysia)…so a bit less wintry. But I think you’ve just given me a wonderful topic for a video! Wintry classics for the cosy festive time of year. Thanks!
How many of these have you read? Did you love them or fling them across the room in disdain? Or something in between?
Bren, I'm always exposed to new (to me) writers because of you. Thank you. A classic that I thoroughly enjoyed was East of Eden.
@@tylerbailey85 ah what a lovely comment! Thank you so much! Yes Steinbeck is terrific. I need to do some Steinbeck content soon! Thank you for the reminder!
Like Ganesh in V. S.Naipaul's, 'the mystic masseur', we both seem to be committed collectors of penguins!
Great reference. I have a Naipaul book coming up in a video in the new year!
I've only read 4 authors that you mentioned: Virginia Woolf, Cervantes, Lispector, and Homer, but I have only read one book that you mentioned: Don Quixote. I think Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, have influenced me the most. Thank you for the list!
Thank you for sharing. And thanks for the reminder to talk about Dostoevsky. Been a while since I read him. Should make a video soon.
Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan (translated by Heather Lloyd) lit up my brain. Sagan was a teenage genius. How could someone so young write like that?
Good call! Have some Sagan books coming up in my ‘Reading the First 3000 Penguins’ series early next year.
It is an interesting and of course eclectic choice. I found that in the course of my reading the first books that got me really addicted to reading were books by Graham Greene and P.G. Wodehouse - like after eights I could not get enough of them. But immediately after leaving school around 16, I read many of the English classics in the Malvern Public Library. That was an education in itself. But, as with all lists, I found certain writers I can reread and enjoy very much and those are Zweig, Broch, Woolf, D.H. Lawrence and William Faulkner as well as Henry James, Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield. Since I lived in Japan, Paris, Denmark, Firenze I naturally read many books from writers from those places. When I lived/stayed in Shakespeare & Co Paris I read and loved Lorca and the American writers.
What an adventurous life (externally but also internally through your reading).
We have very similar taste in writers I see!
Also spent many dreamy hours in Shakespeare & Co in Paris! Halcyon days.
Thanks for sharing.
Hello Bren, a very compelling and varied list! I'm glad to see two Spanish writers included, both extraordinary. "Jacob's Room" left me quite confused, it puzzled and irritated me with that "elusiveness" that you have mentioned, and remains my least favourite Virginia Woolf novel to date (it's still a solid book, just not comparable to her other masterworks, in my opinion). "Against Interpretation" is eye-opening and very insightful. "Heart of Darkness" is eerily beautiful and it grows more and more ambiguous and impactful every time I reread it (I have the Oxford World Classics edition which contains other short stories, but "The End of the Tether" is not, unfortunately, one of them). Cheers!
Nice to hear your responses! Thanks for sharing.
The Oxford World Classics are great, aren’t they?
About 6 months ago I made a Virginia Woolf video-I’m curious what you think of it :) you can find it in the “My Canon” playlist, if you’re interested.
I agree about the power of rereading Heart of Darkness! I’ve read it twice but it feels like the kind of text that will always throw up new angles and unforeseen shadowy hauntings.
@@brenboothjones Will do!
“We live as we dream, alone.”
The horror, the horror.
Thanks
Students are often shocked by the violence-and of the particularity of that violence, with blades sinking deep into someone's shoulder and whatnot-of The Iliad, and yet it always contrasts perfectly with the sympathetic framing of some of those who die, such as of Hector in his home; then the cruelty that follows feels suddenly of worth since we were granted humanity first. Intriguing, too, how entertaining that violence is (though many hesitate to admit it). The Iliad is endlessly re-readable. Fagles' translation has an especially breathless flow to it; he doesn't abuse punctuation like some other translators.
I realize as this video goes on that I have a lot to say about all of these books. Excellent, excellent selection, my friend. Among the classics you could have chosen you picked the most worthy of re-reads. Conrad is especially nice after reading a Homeric epic-suddenly the starkness feels grand.
So well articulated. And you’re right about that contrast: that orchestral resounding of high poetry tempering the violence. I found reading The Iliad illuminating but not particularly enjoyable. Although the quaintness of Pope’s translation is surprisingly fun to read.
“Breathless” is apt. Fagles’s version really is relentless.
I always appreciate your responses. Thank you for sharing your own journey with us!
“I have a lot to say about all of these books.” Response video time? 🤔
@@davidnovakreadspoetry I guess I haven't done a video devoted to classics. Certainly an idea!
@@ToReadersItMayConcern ah that would be a delight. But then again, any time you turn on the camera and talk to us about books is a delight. I actually have a list in my head of writers/books I’m excited to hear you speak about. DFW, to take one example!
You should be an actor!
"Empathy machines" -- that's great. 👏
Thank you!
Woolf was so tedious and silly. Evelyn Waugh is much better and more revelatory. If you want the real inventor of modernistic writing, eschew Woolf and Joyce and try Ronald Firbank, the first writer to understand how to write cinematically. He could take you through a room at a party catching all the conversation, just like a camera and microphone moving through the crowd. And this was before films had sound.
I can't really understand the titles as spoken. Please be a little clearer. I also can't read the text on the covers. I know some of these but many are new.
Thanks for the feedback. I will write the full list out and pin it in the comments section.
Turn the captions on then