Great list. Agree with Wuthering heights and B. Karamazov being great. But the latter is very challeging, I almost gave up. I waited half the book to see the father getting killed....
2 years ago I dicided I couldn't die without doing an in-dept reading of the Divine Comedy. It took me one year and a half to achieve this (reading other books at the same time). When I finished I was so happy I cried, and I felt a sense of relief for days. It was a great achievement for me, and it was so worth it, one of the most beautiful books I read in my life.
I read Dante’s Divine Comedy in about three days as a required reading assignment in college. As history I found it a fascinating contrast between the world view of the early Middle Ages and modernity. It was to that eras world view like the Periodic Table of Elements would be today.
War and Peace was amazing and surprisingly easy to read too. I decided to read 20 pages a day during 2020 as a distraction from studying for uni finals and it was one of the best decision I made tbh. Often found myself reading about 100 pages and even though it took time away studying, I found having W&P to look forward to actually helped me focus more when I did study. Highly recommend the Anthony Briggs translation (Penguin Classics) - it flowed so well and was very easy to understand.
1. Maude Translation was approved by Tolstoy and works well. 2. The key to reading war and peace is to have a printout of all the characters and their names. This is important since characters go by 2-3 names which can be confusing.
So happy to see Moby Dick get the love it deserves. It is my favorite book that I've ever read. Sad, epic, beautiful, biblical in scope, but progressive in some ways. Weird, funny, encyclopedic. Such an amazing work of art.
I was assigned that thing in high skrool and the football coach would go on and on and on about each chapter. It was brutal. Didn't fail class And didn't read it! Bombed every single quiz. On review fixed the answers. Memorized those and 70% of the final were quiz questions. Yay me!
@@neanderthalsnavel7411 Maybe try it again someday on you're own terms. I think it's a beautiful work. Although I certainly understand how some might not like it.
Here are 12 of the books that I've loved most in my 74 years of life, in no particular order. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Histories of Herodotus, Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, Essays of Montaigne, Shakespeare, Livy, Homer's Iliad, Virgil's Aeneid, Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit, Fielding's Tom Jones. In truth of course there are many more, how could I omit Tacitus, Dryden, Pope, George Eliot's Middlemarch, the works of Thomas Nashe, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Spenser's Faerie Queene, I love them all. They have been my closest friends in a long life.
#1 The Count Of Monte Cristo #2 Ivanhoe #3 Atlas Shrugged #4 Shane #5 Murder In The Rue Morgue #6 1984 #7 Bless Me Ultima #8 Carrie #9 The Octopus #10 The Pit #11 Moll Flanders #12 Call Of The Wild #13 Interview With A Vampire #14 Dracula #15 The Jungle #16 The Island Of Dr Moreau #17 Henry The 5th parts 1& 2 #18 The Good Earth #19 Don Juan (Lord Byron) #20 East Of Eden......................
Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, Tom Jones by Fielding, Essays of Michel du Montaigne. The Great Books are best read as a lifetime project, starting with Herodotus and Homer, reading forward through history, seeing how the great authors refer to and build upon previous ideas and movements.
1:51 *Gilgamesh* .. I've never read 3:59 *The Illiad by Homer* ✓ I read long ago, and the sequel The Odyssey 5:38 *The Complete Sherlock Holmes* never read it. 7:36 *Moby Dick* ✓ 10:00 Tolstoy's *War and Peace* I value Tolstoy 🙏, i have read Anna Karenina 11:30 *Les Miserables* ✓ by Viktor Hugo Incredibly valuable book! I have read and taught it several times. 12:54 *Frankenstein* by Mary Shelley ive never read. 19:57 *The History of the Peloponnesian* *War* by Thucydides 22:12 *Brothers Karamazov* by Dostoevsky My list of recommended reading would include: •The Bible •The Last Unicorn •Black Beauty •Pilgrims Progress •Watership Down •Anna Karenina •Dante's Inferno •The Little Prince •Jonathan Livingston Seagull •Hind's Feet on High Places
I found The Complete Sherlock Holmes in a 2-volume paperback set, in a used bookstore. It was an interesting read. ACD got tired of writing Holmes, so he had Moriarty kill him off. There was such a clamor, from the fans, that Doyle "resurrected" him, and the adventures continued.
To demonstrate where my mind and education comes from as regards reading and what it can bring to you, I can say that I read all the works on the original list save one *in their native languages* by my 16th birthday. Gilgamesh I read in English, after Smith. For the second list I have read them all, and for the list in total, I can put my hands on all save two of these without leaving my workroom! (for the other two, I must go into another room!)
I would highly recommend the Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky and crime and Punishment. Also Ayn Rand Anthem, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, we the living. C.S Lewis the space trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That hideous strength) all my favorite books perhaps the Screwtape Letters if you like that type of writing. Loved Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird. If you never read a financial book of have any desire to read the Richest man in Babylon. Its very short but is filled with ancient, and very sound advice, i wish I had read much earlier in life.
My 12: The Iliad - Homer The Odyssey - Homer The Divine Comedy - Dante Canterbury Tales - Chaucer Le Morte d'Arthur - Malory The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky Moby Dick - Melville Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman First Men in the Moon - H.G. Wells The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame Kim - Kipling Four Quartets - T.S. Eliot
Good list and good comments. I know it is so hard to have a perfect list, but I would also add: - Don Quixote by Cervantes - Ulysses by James Joyce - Anna Karenina by Tolstoy - The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald - Middlemarch by Marian Evans (George Eliot)
I too am a big fan of Dostoevsky…Thank you for mentioning The Brothers Karamazov…It’s such an underrated and under appreciated classic novel…This classic book needs more exposure so I appreciate that you brought it up in this video… Most know the big well known classics such as War and Peace, Moby Dick, Tale of Two Cities etc…The Brothers Karamazov is just as good as those books and in some ways better…More people should read The Brothers Karamazov… The only book I would have put on this list that you didn’t mention was The Count of Monte Cristo… It’s a great revenge and rags to riches story… A couple of modern movies basically steal the plot of this book such as Shawshank Redemption and V for Vendetta to name a few…It is a timeless classic and on top of that it’s an easy and delightful read…Without a doubt one of the best novels ever written…I recommend it to all who have not had the pleasure of yet reading this book… I agree in the encouraging of people to try and read more of the classics…There’s a reason why they are called classics…I enjoyed this video keep up the good works…
I second that opinion on Dostoevsky. But, I have to say, I did not first meet Dostoevsky with the Brothers. Honestly, I do not know if I would have persevered with Fydor if I started with Karamazov. My journey started with Crime and Punishment, then Notes from the Underground, then Demons, then, finally, Karamazov. The characters that Dostoevsky painted in Crime and Punishment really drew my heart to pursue him. When I finally did get to Karamazov I was able to really appreciate how Fydor refined so many of the themes present in his previous works and sculpted them into a true masterpiece. Read on my friend, read on.....
Maybe in popularity it isn't talked much about because it wasn't as successfully adapted to screen and it's too deep for lots of people to read today. But it is probably the most admired and appreciated work of literature ever. Definitely not underrated. Except by Harry Potter readers. So happy you love Dostoevsky!
V for Vendetta is no Count of Monte Cristo reskin, but you might have to read the original to get what’s unique about it. The movie simplified it greatly and even changed the core message fundamentally (I know, you’re shocked a Hollywood movie would do this 😄).
I recommend Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. And Goethe's Faust, at least the 1st volume and of course the Gretchen story. Thanks for the Gilgamesh recommendation ... I must look that up.
The Brothers Karamazov is the most incredible novel I ever read. David Cooperfield is my favorite Dickens novel, I have a few more of his to read. Crime and Punishment ought to be on this list
I did not care for the movie of the Brothers K.Never read the book. David C I have tried to get through twice, but didn't make it. Enjoyed the original movie.Moby Dick was a tedious read. Movie, not bad. while I have not read most of the these books, I have seen the movie. Other books I have read that became films are The Grapes of Wrath(3 times) Of Mice and Men, From Here to Eternity, The Blackboard Jungle, To Kill a Mockingbird. Have read McTeague 3 times, which was made into the silent Greed. I have a book that is the complete script of Greed as well. Also read The Invisible Man by HG Wells.Read Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Have seen all three movie versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And two early versions of Les Miz. Book/movie All Quiet on the Western Front was good. Also read Johnny Got his Gun, but never saw the film. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair was good. Magnificnt Ambersons was good as well as Orson Welles movie version.
I was telling someone recently that if you stated that "The Brother Karamazov" was the greatest novel ever written you'd get no argument from me. " Don Quixote" is a strong contender too in my opinion. Also " Bleak House" is my favorite by Dickens. Good job, thanks !!
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 why isn't he bible on the list? So many of the classic novels make better sense knowing the bible. If a person just wants to read it as mythology they will even understand our legal system a little more by reading it. Can you take the bible out of the Brothers Karamazov? I agree Don Quixote should be on the list. It's the classic that is the most fun as well, isn't it? Good recommendation of Wuthering Heights. I don't want to read a romance novel. Hearing you say it's not a romance novel helps. I have a really nice copy of the book.
absolutely love Frankenstien, Great Expectations and Moby Dick and already have several of the others on my increasingly crammed TBR shelf. Thanks for another great video Michael!
Here is an interesting take on War and Peace. After World War Two, the Russian journalist/author Vassily Grossman wrote a two-volume 'update' of War and Peace. They are now available in English translation as Stalingrad and Life and Fate. Grossman was an ardent admirer of Tolstoy and he unapologetically set out to write a twentieth-century novel in the same style as War and Peace and he has the literary chops to pull it off. The cast of characters is huge, there are many plot lines, some run through both of the volumes, some only last a chapter or two. The one big difference is that Grossman actually lived through the events he describes rather than hearing them second-hand. This is a large work -- two 800+ page novels not counting notes -- but it moves along and is well worth the effort. It is also not a 'fun' read. He tackles many difficult issues, and the 'good guys' don't always win. This is a book where the 'six-fingered man' often lives to be an old man.
Good list, there is 4 books on it I have not yet read. As a seaman I totally agree about Moby Dick- " Hand me yon topmaul Mr. Starbuck". When I first went to sea the there was no films, television or internet, one of the ways to pass the time was reading, so I decided I might as well read something worth reading as a load of rubbish and have been well rewarded everv since.
The real tragedy of Karamazov is that it's only the first volume of a projected two volume work. Dostoevsky died before he even began work on the second. I think you're absolutely right about Fagles translations. So beautifully written that they'll be considered classics in their own right.
I really enjoy the Fagles Iliad and Aeneid, but his translation of the Odyssey is deeply flawed. The orginal Greek and most of the English translations of the Odyssey are deeply ambiguous in a number of important places (such as when Penelope discovers that the begger is actual Odysseus). Fagles' trabslation lacks much of Homer's subtlety (and as a result, his Penelope is kind of an idiot and is not able to go head to head with her husband).
@@ethanclark4116 He did mention in his Introduction that Alyosha's status as the hero of the novel would be made much more clear in the second volume. I believe he also referenced a second volume several times in his notebooks.
@@lock67ca Alyosha is 20 years old, the second volume has to describe his life in 13 years (Dostoevsky mentioned that in the introduction). So it's a book about 33 years old "positively beautiful" man. I think we all know such a book. In "From the author" Chapter Dostoevsky talks only about Alyosha and calls him exclusively Alexei Fyodorovich (5 times), both names are Greek (Dostoevsky knew this language) and in translation mean "defender of the God's gift". In other chapters the author calls him mostly Alyosha. Also in the introduction he says "the main novel is the second one - about the activities of my hero". Activities (деяния) is very specific word in Russian which is mostly used in the context of holy deeds, like "Деяния святых апостолов" (The Acts of the Apostles).
So glad you are still making videos. Coziest youtuber out there! I've decided all of life can be fundamentally reduced to two states of being: cozy or anti-cozy. Winter and Autumn are cozy; summer is anti-cozy. Fireplaces are cozy; televisions are anti-cozy. 70s horror comics are cozy; manga is anti-cozy. Detective stories, gothic, pulp and vintage are all cozy; modern mass consumerist reboots and reimaginings are anti-cozy. Etcetera. This channel is cozy!
You should read Bleak House by Dickens. Spectacular. Also, you forgot to mention The Count of Monte Cristo. Your choices are excellent and I concur about Thucydides. Bravo for another great iteration of your channel.
12 recommendations from me: 1. Plato's Dialogues (especially Republic, Symposium, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo): Plato is the perfect entry-point for philosophy. He's both entertaining and utterly brilliant, touching on every deep question you can think of and examining it from many different angles through his dialectic method. 2. Lucretius' On the Nature of Things: Lucretius changed my life when I first read him. He's an Epicurean philosopher-poet whose work tries to explain life, the universe, and everything in the form of a beautiful epic poem. The Epicurean view of life remains persuasive all these centuries later. 3. Dante's The Divine Comedy: Here's another grand cosmic vision summed up in a sprawling epic poem. Dante takes the approach of expressing his worldview in a fragmented way: we build up a sense of what human life is about through the many and various stories Dante hears from the sinners and saints he encounters on his tour through the afterlife. 4. Michel de Montaigne's Essays: Montaigne's rambling essays are a joy to read; they are so full of his personality (as well as copious wit and wisdom) that you feel like you fully know him as a person after reading them, and he's a lovable guy. 5. William Shakespeare's Complete Works (especially the Sonnets, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, 1 & 2 Henry IV, Henry V, The Tempest, and The Winter's Tale): Like Montaigne's Essays and Plato's Dialogues, this is one to flip around in and come back to again and again rather than try to plow through in one go. Shakespeare's language is endlessly playful and inventive, and he's unrivaled as a dramatic artist and storyteller. 6. John Milton's Paradise Lost: This is THE great long poem in the English language. Milton introduces an astonishing amount of scope, depth, and complexity to the seemingly simple Garden of Eden story from Genesis (which takes up all of a dozen sentences in the Bible). 7. Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre: Jane has this inimitable voice and personality you can't help but fall in love with. A really captivating story of, yes, romance, but also a "poor, obscure, plain and little" woman's struggle to define herself and find her place in the world. 8. Emily Dickinson's Complete Poems: Another one to flip around in and come back to over many years. Dickinson rewrites the rules of poetry, paving the way for the experimental modernist poets of the next century while remaining totally accessible and plumbing the depths of topics like love, loss, faith, death, and the nature of art. 9. Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals: Nietzsche is a lot of things, but he certainly isn't boring. If you think philosophy is dull, check out Nietzsche: in this relatively short work he gleefully dynamites the entire Western tradition of moral philosophy. If you ask me, all of Freud's most interesting insights that he didn't plunder from Plato he nicked from Nietzsche. 10. James Joyce's Ulysses: The great work of literary modernism. It has all of that movement's restless experimentalism (there's a chapter in which the narration takes on all the prose styles in English literary history in sequence, and the last chapter is pure stream-of-consciousness), but also its attempt to form a new synthesis between tradition and the conditions of modern life: it tells the mundane story of a day in the life of a middle-class Dubliner through the lens of Odysseus' epic journey from Troy to Ithaca. 11. Samuel Beckett's Trilogy: Maybe the most challenging book on this list. Beckett represents postmodernism's utter disillusionment with the project of building on the traditions of the past. Somehow, in three novels in which Beckett does everything possible to strip away everything identifiable as part of a literary tradition (he wrote in French so as to write "in no style," and eventually does away with any semblance of characters or plot), he nonetheless creates a deeply moving work that embodies our need to "go on" in a possibly hostile and perhaps unknowable world. 12. Alex Haley and Malcolm X's The Autobiography of Malcolm X: In a lot of ways this one is similar to Jane Eyre: a journey of self-discovery and self-definition, but also of course one of political awakening as Malcolm goes from a gangster in Harlem to a fiery champion of Black solidarity as spokesman for the Nation of Islam to someone who's found his way to a more capacious sense of brotherhood (which, tragically, led to his assassination).
I agree with number 4 and I am happy to see it mentioned (I like most of your picks). His essays are briliant and interesting. When I studied literature in Sweden, we studied everything but of course more Swedish writers than you would elsewhere. Native English speakers tend to have half their canon by English writers. Imagine how much you have missed! There are so many good books out there which could qualify and I have yet to find a canon by someone that isn't biased by his or her own culture. On the other hand, your canon is your canon and you clearly say that it is your recommendation. That is a defined theme and I personally think that is the way to go about it. A general canon will always be coloured by the person putting it together so why pretend that it is "general"?
@@pierrenilsson6189 Yeah, my list is inevitably biased by what I've read. I'd be interested to hear which Swedish books you would put on such a list. I did once take a Scandinavian literature class, and could see adding Hjalmar Söderberg's Doctor Glas if I had a bit more room.
@@kennethconnally4356 I am not sure I would put any Swedish books on the list. Strindberg as an author maybe. My favorite book by Hjalmar Söderberg (He only wrote four novels) is "The Serious Game". But I think it is really hard to put together a canon. Some authors are great but it is hard to say that any of their books are important enough for a general audience. Take the Romanian 19th century poet Mihai Eminiscu for example. If you don't know Romanian, how could you ever understand his genious? I'd say it is close to impossible. He would be on my personal list though, as would Strindberg if I had to pick a Swedish author. I love the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges. When I first read them, I thought I was in heaven. I was studying litterature and I imediately got behind on the course because I couldn't get past him. A friend of mine got stuck on TS Eliot and that was worse because he never completed the course. I had a simular experience with Michel de Montaigne's Essays but I think I was studying Spanish or Romanian at the time so it did not hurt my studies. I found the Essays in my girlfriend's library and I lived in that world for a month. Just to give a recommendation: Sternstunden der Menschheit (Decisive Moments in History) by Stefan Zweig was the book that made me realise that highly personal selections is the way to go. He picks a number of important moments in history but, just as an example, instead of talking about the Russian revolution as an important moment, he narrows it down to "When Lenin boards a train to start the Russian revolution", that's the moment so the story will be about boarding the train (more or less).
- “The Buttoned Man” by S. Scott Fitzcarraldo - “Dr. Brody’s Rapprochement” by Corey Smorgasbord - “A Blue Day in the Chapel” by Mario J. Pennewell - “The Mystery of the Bored Enthusiast” by Mary Kelly - “Lord Dunsany’s Spiral” by Brockett Thorn - “All the Whales in the World” by Aiko Tam
I cried when I read The Brothers Karamazov. Our Mutual Friend is also great Dickens with one of the greatest plot twists ever. You left out Don Quixote!
My 12 in no order 12. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 11. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky 10. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 09. Ulysses by James Joyce 08. Moby Dick by Herman Melville 07. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes 06. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin 05. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 04. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky 03. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 02. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 01. The Trial by Franz Kafka
Currently reading the Brothers Karamasov and randomly stumbled upon this video!! What an awesome coincidence. Look forward to seeing where the story goes.. :)
I read Moby Dick, Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights and Les Miserables. I have read many other classica as well, especially Dickens. I have several on this list and many more on my shelves to be read and you gave me a couple more to think of adding to might shelves.
Good vid. The 54-volume "The Great Books of the Western World" series was my introduction to great literature when I was in high school almost 50 years ago.
The books are always better than the movie. Always interesting to see how Hollywood changes and or omits things for the big screen. Of course, somethings could not b filmed due to the era the film was shown. From Here to Eternity and The Grapes of Wrath are to that come immediately to mind.
Hey there, just found your channel. I love the book shelf collection in the background. And the video is great. I love some of your choices here. I'm a big Sherlock Holmes fan as well as of reading Dostoevsky and Dickens. Les Miserables was wonderful, and have always loved Frankenstein. I want to read War and Peace one of these days, but have read other Tolstoy novels.
Michael, thank you so much for these wonderful recommendations! I am now committed to reading these amazing classics. Although I have read the same Frankenstein as you. I found that book amazing. I recommend it highly to everyone!
I'm with you on TBRs. I need to just stop with them since I never stick to them anyway. And as long as you keep making comicbook content, I'll keep watching. Thanks, Michael! 👍
That loud noise you can hear is me cheering across the Atlantic at the inclusion of Wuthering Heights...... hoorah! 😁🇬🇧. A list of very solid classics, but I would swap Great Expectations for A Tale of Two Cities. That is a book (at least) on a par with Les Miserables.
Shocking that Crime and Punishment is not on the list, the way Michael describes The Brothers Karamazov is the way I feel about Crime. I would have also included Oscar Wilde's Portrait of Dorian Grey in the list; some have remarked that it's the most beautifully written book in English.
Conan Doyle is a superb writer. His mastery of English alone makes him worth reading if you're an aspiring writer. And his stories draw you in and are fun to read. I would say the same thing about the short stories of H.H. Munro ("Saki"). I have also enjoyed the following authors for similar reasons: The short stories and plays of W. Somerset Maugham, the novels "Scoop" and "Black Mischief" by Evelyn Waugh, "Time Must Have a Stop" by Aldous Huxley", "The Road to Wigan Pier" and essays by George Orwell, the mystery short stories of Dorothy Sayers, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain, the tales and poems of Edgar Allen Poe, the plays of Bernard Shaw, the plays of Noel Coward, the short stories of P.G. Wodehouse, "Stalky & Co" and "The Seven Seas" (poems) by Rudyard Kipling, a short story entitled "The Door in the Wall" by H.G. Wells, and travel writing (e.g., "Bitter Lemons") by Lawrence Durrell. As for works in translation, you can get a lot out of the shorter works of Dostoevsky ("White Nights", "Dream of a Ridiculous Man", "The Double", "Poor Folk") and Thomas Mann ("Death in Venice"). For Dostoevsky, I would use the Constance Garnett translations. I especially like Balzac, who creates a whole world for his readers ("Eugenie Grandet", "Old Goriot", "Lost Illusions", "A Harlot High and Low" -- which is a sequel to "Lost Illusions" -- and "Cousin Pons"). Moliere's plays are well worth reading ("The Misanthrope", "The Precious Damsels"). "At the Sign of the Reine Pedauque" and "The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard" by Anatole France are worth reading, as is "Nadja" by Andre Breton. I would also recommend "The Counterfeiters" and "Strait is the Gate" by Andre Gide. A good short story by Chekhov is "The Duel". Then there's "Sentimental Education" by Flaubert, who also wrote excellent short stories or novellas. Other works: "The Murder of my Aunt" by Richard Hull (possibly the most shocking novel ever written -- but in a good way), "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "Off on a Comet" by Jules Verne, "Dark Adventure" by Howard Pease, "The Blackboard Jungle" by Evan Hunter, "Murder in the Wind" and "The Only Girl in the Game" by John D. MacDonald, the essays of Schopenhauer, and (for campy, hardboiled fun) "Play Now...Kill Later" and "The Deadly Kitten" by Carter Brown. If you're a slacker and not quite up for The Big Twelve, consider my recommendations.
Hi, hurryandleave. Blimey, you're well-read! My fave Chekov short story is 'Heartache'. My fave H.G.Wells one is 'The Red Room' - terrifying; up there with Arthur Machen, Lovecraft, M.R.James. I'm surprised he didn't mention Joyce or Proust. Thanks for the recommendations, dude; I'll check some of those out 👍.
Why I LOVE my visits to the stately Vaughan manor. Informative. Humorous. Captivating. I cannot wait to read ALL of these. They are not classics for no reason. They capture our imagination and teach us about our humanity. I am so grateful that Michael reconsidered his presence as a book tuber. Bravo, good sir knight! Well done. I'd like to see what other great book tubers have to say about this topic. Book tubers????
I really got into reading at the start of the year. My grandma is an avid reader and I always admired just how much she read, and she read many classics so that’s what I decided to start getting into as well. I recently picked up The Illiad and Frankenstein (the 1818 text too actually) and I was happy to see them in the video. I think I’ll pick up War and Peace next after I’m done with them, and Homer’s Odyssey too. Thanks for the video !
I wouldn't leave Don Quixote off a list of necessary reads. It's considered to be the first modern novel, and the first work of metafiction. It's absolutely brilliant
@@johncooper8537 Metafiction is when the literary layers (Writer/ narrator/character) overlap. In part two of DQ, for example, Quixote meets a student from Salamanca University who has somehow found and read part one of Don Quixote, and is very excited to meet him. The student idolizes Quixote. Another example, and my favorite actually, is from an early 19th century Spanish novel, Niebla (Fog) by Miguel de Unamuno. In this novel, a character from the story finds out that he is going to get killed off, so he travels to Unamuno's house and begs the writer not to kill him.
Amazing recommendations. I am just getting started with reading and finally I find a video that recommended books I m genuinely interested in. Starting with the epic of Gilgamesh.
The back story, my father gave me 2 thinks 25 years ago, his Colt 357 and a paperback copy of the Brothers Karamazof with instructions you must read this book! The 357 is in my night stand and the paperback is in my library, I will deliver a full book report soon
I read War and Peace a few years ago, after watching the wonderful BBC miniseries of 2015. Took me about 6 months, but what a great novel! I highly recommend watching the BBC miniseries first. You will know who everyone is. Those long Russian names can be a challenge!
It’s also important to know that books back then were longer mostly because many of the authors especially the more well known ones who wrote back in those days were actually paid by the word hence the 800-1500 page tomes…this is just an FYI for those who were not aware of that fact…Doesn’t bother me I Like Big Books…The bigger the better…Thank You Michael you certainly hit on most of the legendary classics and there are so many more it’s hard to narrow a list to just 12 but this was an excellent list…Love the channel keep up the good works…
Anthony Trollope was no fool, since he was paid by the word his novels are long, verbose, digressive, and never ending. But you must read his chatty stories just to get Trollope under your belt. As with most classics you read them to develop a base.
True, and there was no competition for entertainment. No radio even. Pretty sure they didn’t have streaming services with thousands of options in every genre conceivable.
@@Kormac80 Yes but what was the same was the need for money…it ruled the day then and rules the day now…and it was absolutely the main reason for 800-1500 page book tomes back in those days…if the same principle was applied today you would have nothing but 800+ page books today…So yes they had less distractions back then but they also had less ideas to steal from so their imaginations, personal experiences and the real world events happening around them is all they had to write from…unlike today’s authors who steal every idea and every style that these authors set for them…That’s why these books will always be deemed the best books ever written period!!! Hence the term Classic!!! Making a living and making money will always be the first and foremost motivation for everything everybody does… Whether it’s 2000 years ago or the year 2022 it’s all about money…Money rules the day and when you are contracted back in those days to be paid by the word and you want to write books and be an author and you want to live and survive then you write 800-1500 page books…Period!!!
@@UncleMonk23 You seem to misunderstand the economics at play. If there were any kind of competition in the entertainment space the publishers wouldn't pay by the word bc they wouldn't be able to sell long rambling books bc people would be inclined to opt out of that option. Competition forces adjustments. You also misunderstand how to use exclamation marks. But you do you man.
Thanks for this selection. I've read some of these (and have just started Wuthering Heights, in fact), but as someone who always has a book on the go, I've tended to steer clear of classics. Not out of dislike, it's just that other subjects interest me more. I'm trying to make up for that in my later years.
As a teenager, one of my guides into literature really urged me to read the short stories of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and I think this is not only sound advice for those daunted by the larger projects, but also deserve to be on "can't miss" literature series. And so I wanted to share a short list as a kind of introduction or corollary to yours: 1. Two or three letters or essays of Seneca, whichever catch your eye. 2. Two poems by Alexander Pope: An Essay on Criticism, and An Essay on Man 3. Odes of John Keats: Nightingale, Autumn, Grecian Urn, Melancholy 4. Shakespeare's Sonnets (60, 62-68, 71, 73) A deep dive into Shakespeare contending with Time. 5. If it doesn't offend, the short epistle of the New Testament, 1 John, to see the devotion, highest aspiration and seeming contradiction of Christianity crystallized.
I haven't read all of those, but I've read several. And you're right. They ARE all classics! I wish more people would look back to the classics. A lot of times on UA-cam I see people talking about how they don't want to read classics because anything over ten years old isn't "pertinent." If anything, it's the opposite. A fantasy author everyone is gaga over today may be never thought about after tomorrow. But classics are "classic" because the stories have universal themes. They're not about which characters in the love triangle hook up or how the big bad of the trilogy is thwarted. They're about emotions and experiences that have been so well explored that they're still just as powerful today as when they were written. Not to say that a new book won't become a classic. They regularly do. And some will involve love triangles and Big Bads. But those old books that are loved are so for a reason. I'm glad to see younger people reading again, but it may be time some took a deep dive and don't just read fun books that will be fodder for future Garbaugusts. Pretty much everything I HAVE read this month falls right in that category, but I always look forward to reading a classic. Especially one I haven't gotten around to yet.
Wonderful selections ~~ I would add (in the time of Ovid) Vergil's Aeneid, Some modern historians muse that if it were not for these 2 epoch poems affirming Roman culture at the time of 1st Emperor Augustus, Rome would have never flourished in the manner it did for the next 200 years. . . . I would add just about anything by Jane Austen. Written at the time of a growing and prospering middle class that emulated the culture of aristocrats, the challenges to young women fitting in to a new social order.
Some very good selections. I would have included Crime and Punishment--but then I haven't read Karamozov--yet. My fav hefty Dickens novel is A Tale of Two Cities. Perhaps it's the historical setting of the French Revolution, a period which has always intrigued me. Maybe it was being forced to read Great Expectations in 9yh or 10th grade that made me stray from that one. My fav choice of yours is Les Miserables. Master art work.
Moby Dick is a spectacular book. I've read it many times and plan to read it again. I agree, the digressions are some of the best parts! It is like reading a war story that includes all the parts between battles.
I have read Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. I didn't have a theatrical background, so it was a daunting task. What helped was listening to an audio dramatization of each play, so I could "hear" in my mind what the words on the page should sound like. It worked!
@@ethanclark4116 That’s a good question. It’s been a few years since I read them, and thinking upon that I’m half inclined to reverse that. When I finished BK I was patting myself on the back for doing it, and I admired the audacity of the undertaking. But even at the time there were more things about it that I _didn’t_ like, and I can’t recall any from C&P.
The Idiot is probably my favorite so far. I do hold Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov in high regards, and in that order. I didn't think I could find anything to compare with Crime and Punishment as i had read that first but I do believe that I hold the Idiot above Crime and Punishment. @@davidnovakreadspoetry
The Brothers Karamasov is my favorite book. I would have added Dante's Inferno and East of Eden. (Although non fiction) *Man's Search For Meaning* by Victor Frankl is one of the greatest books ever written.
I like the sense of an inner barometer underneath your choices, your intimacy w this subject - there's this sense that we're listening first to you as a person making your contribution to this question, as opposed to recycling some other package - this is one reason we peruse such lists - I'd still be curious to hear your thoughts on Shakespeare - or does he count here? since there's a good argument that w a play the real text is the production?
Excellent suggestions! I was moved by the Epic of Gilgamesh. How extraordinary that four thousand year old literature could speak to us so powerfully today. If you are a fan of the Bronte sisters, I would have recommended Jane Eyre, just for the beauty of the language. Every paragraph is a work of art. I tried Crime and Punishment, but could not make it through due to the depressing nature of the subject matter. I'll take your suggestion and try the Brothers Karamazov.
Happily, I have read _The Complete Sherlock Holmes_ and _Frankenstein._ The only other of the twelve that I have at home is _The Metamorphoses,_ but that is not the next classic I will read. I want to get to _The Two Towers,_ as I have read _The Fellowship of the Ring_ earlier this year. It is not as old as those other classics, but I have got to get to it.
Suggestions: Nordhoff and Hall's Bounty Trilogy, Joseph Conrad's The *black guy* of the Narcissus, Bernal Diaz' Conquest of Mexico, The Heimskringla, The Once and Future King (White), and of course Cervantes (Don Quixote) and Grimmelshausen (Simplicissimus) to fill your picaresque needs. My dad would add Wodehouse in here, too.
Don Quixote and Brothers Karamazov are, by far, the two best novels I’ve ever read.
I like batman.
Great list. Agree with Wuthering heights and B. Karamazov being great. But the latter is very challeging, I almost gave up. I waited half the book to see the father getting killed....
You have a good taste sir
@@casterofnotas the only verse I read is Snyderverse
@@casterofnotasBatmans my fav comic character
2 years ago I dicided I couldn't die without doing an in-dept reading of the Divine Comedy. It took me one year and a half to achieve this (reading other books at the same time). When I finished I was so happy I cried, and I felt a sense of relief for days. It was a great achievement for me, and it was so worth it, one of the most beautiful books I read in my life.
I was fascinated when a scholar said it was a political comment of the times.
That's so wonderful! Thanks for sharing this because I feel encouraged to read it myself now.
I read Dante’s Divine Comedy in about three days as a required reading assignment in college. As history I found it a fascinating contrast between the world view of the early Middle Ages and modernity. It was to that eras world view like the Periodic Table of Elements would be today.
Congratulations on your achievement in scaling this mountain - it's a truly beautiful work, one of the center-pieces of Western culture -
@@cyirvine6300 weird
War and Peace was amazing and surprisingly easy to read too. I decided to read 20 pages a day during 2020 as a distraction from studying for uni finals and it was one of the best decision I made tbh. Often found myself reading about 100 pages and even though it took time away studying, I found having W&P to look forward to actually helped me focus more when I did study. Highly recommend the Anthony Briggs translation (Penguin Classics) - it flowed so well and was very easy to understand.
The right translation can be a big help to reading a book not written in english
1. Maude Translation was approved by Tolstoy and works well. 2. The key to reading war and peace is to have a printout of all the characters and their names. This is important since characters go by 2-3 names which can be confusing.
I did a similar thing. I wish I'd read it earlier. Amazing work. Loved it. My number 1, even if people believe I'm lying/bragging.
A last-minute shout-out for Thucydides! How delightful!
A Great List! Life is short, read meaningfully!!!
So happy to see Moby Dick get the love it deserves. It is my favorite book that I've ever read. Sad, epic, beautiful, biblical in scope, but progressive in some ways. Weird, funny, encyclopedic. Such an amazing work of art.
I was assigned that thing in high skrool and the football coach would go on and on and on about each chapter. It was brutal. Didn't fail class And didn't read it! Bombed every single quiz. On review fixed the answers. Memorized those and 70% of the final were quiz questions. Yay me!
@@neanderthalsnavel7411 Maybe try it again someday on you're own terms. I think it's a beautiful work. Although I certainly understand how some might not like it.
Dear sir, thank you so much for your endeavors to make us familiar with the world of classics.I enjoyed a great deal.
Fantastic video. I discovered your channel only today, and I'm very happy that I did.
I am most enthusiastic for Heart of a Darkness. Brilliant ! What superb prose !
That book bored me and all I can say is: "The horror,the horror" !😅
Here are 12 of the books that I've loved most in my 74 years of life, in no particular order. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Histories of Herodotus, Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, Essays of Montaigne, Shakespeare, Livy, Homer's Iliad, Virgil's Aeneid, Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit, Fielding's Tom Jones. In truth of course there are many more, how could I omit Tacitus, Dryden, Pope, George Eliot's Middlemarch, the works of Thomas Nashe, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Spenser's Faerie Queene, I love them all. They have been my closest friends in a long life.
Same age. Great list-- read most of them. Would recommend Churchill's 6 volume series on WWII.
Who doesn't love a Homeric codpiece?
You have described these classics eloquently and with fashionable attire! Thanks.
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky also did wonderful translations of War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
#1 The Count Of Monte Cristo
#2 Ivanhoe
#3 Atlas Shrugged
#4 Shane
#5 Murder In The Rue Morgue
#6 1984
#7 Bless Me Ultima
#8 Carrie
#9 The Octopus
#10 The Pit
#11 Moll Flanders
#12 Call Of The Wild
#13 Interview With A Vampire
#14 Dracula
#15 The Jungle
#16 The Island Of Dr Moreau
#17 Henry The 5th parts 1& 2
#18 The Good Earth
#19 Don Juan (Lord Byron)
#20 East Of Eden......................
Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, Tom Jones by Fielding, Essays of Michel du Montaigne. The Great Books are best read as a lifetime project, starting with Herodotus and Homer, reading forward through history, seeing how the great authors refer to and build upon previous ideas and movements.
1:51 *Gilgamesh*
.. I've never read
3:59 *The Illiad by Homer* ✓
I read long ago, and the sequel
The Odyssey
5:38 *The Complete Sherlock Holmes*
never read it.
7:36 *Moby Dick* ✓
10:00 Tolstoy's *War and Peace*
I value Tolstoy 🙏, i have read
Anna Karenina
11:30 *Les Miserables* ✓
by Viktor Hugo
Incredibly valuable book! I have read
and taught it several times.
12:54 *Frankenstein* by Mary Shelley
ive never read.
19:57 *The History of the Peloponnesian*
*War* by Thucydides
22:12 *Brothers Karamazov*
by Dostoevsky
My list of recommended reading would include:
•The Bible
•The Last Unicorn
•Black Beauty
•Pilgrims Progress
•Watership Down
•Anna Karenina
•Dante's Inferno
•The Little Prince
•Jonathan Livingston Seagull
•Hind's Feet on High Places
I found The Complete Sherlock Holmes in a 2-volume paperback set, in a used bookstore. It was an interesting read.
ACD got tired of writing Holmes, so he had Moriarty kill him off. There was such a clamor, from the fans, that Doyle "resurrected" him, and the adventures continued.
To demonstrate where my mind and education comes from as regards reading and what it can bring to you, I can say that I read all the works on the original list save one *in their native languages* by my 16th birthday. Gilgamesh I read in English, after Smith. For the second list I have read them all, and for the list in total, I can put my hands on all save two of these without leaving my workroom! (for the other two, I must go into another room!)
It seems you have great taste in literature. Can you please recommend more novels?
I would highly recommend the Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky and crime and Punishment. Also Ayn Rand Anthem, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, we the living. C.S Lewis the space trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That hideous strength) all my favorite books perhaps the Screwtape Letters if you like that type of writing. Loved Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird. If you never read a financial book of have any desire to read the Richest man in Babylon. Its very short but is filled with ancient, and very sound advice, i wish I had read much earlier in life.
My 12:
The Iliad - Homer
The Odyssey - Homer
The Divine Comedy - Dante
Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
Le Morte d'Arthur - Malory
The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
Moby Dick - Melville
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
First Men in the Moon - H.G. Wells
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Kim - Kipling
Four Quartets - T.S. Eliot
I absolutely love Wind invthe Willows and Kim. Greetings from Njombe Tanzania.
Good list and good comments.
I know it is so hard to have a perfect list, but I would also add:
- Don Quixote by Cervantes
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
- The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald
- Middlemarch by Marian Evans (George Eliot)
Anyone who mentions Ulysses by James Joyce is an enemy to literature. Sorry.
@@jeremydrake332 So T. S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, E. Hemingway, J. L. Borges, V. Nabokov, A. Burgess, S. Fry are all enemies of literature?
@@DATo_DATonian We don't agree then.
@@jeremydrake332 I totally agree. Joyce is WAY overrated in my opinion.
@@czgibson3086 I'm sorry you were inconvenienced by the notification. My reply was meant for Jeremy Drake. I have corrected the error as you can see.
Some great choices. Just found Turgenev. Sportsman's Sketches is fantastic. Best wishes.
I too am a big fan of Dostoevsky…Thank you for mentioning The Brothers Karamazov…It’s such an underrated and under appreciated classic novel…This classic book needs more exposure so I appreciate that you brought it up in this video…
Most know the big well known classics such as
War and Peace, Moby Dick, Tale of Two Cities etc…The Brothers Karamazov is just as good as those books and in some ways better…More people should read The Brothers Karamazov…
The only book I would have put on this list that you didn’t mention was The Count of Monte Cristo…
It’s a great revenge and rags to riches story…
A couple of modern movies basically steal the plot of this book such as Shawshank Redemption and
V for Vendetta to name a few…It is a timeless classic and on top of that it’s an easy and delightful read…Without a doubt one of the best novels ever written…I recommend it to all who have not had the pleasure of yet reading this book…
I agree in the encouraging of people to try and read more of the classics…There’s a reason why they are called classics…I enjoyed this video keep up the good works…
I second that opinion on Dostoevsky. But, I have to say, I did not first meet Dostoevsky with the Brothers. Honestly, I do not know if I would have persevered with Fydor if I started with Karamazov. My journey started with Crime and Punishment, then Notes from the Underground, then Demons, then, finally, Karamazov. The characters that Dostoevsky painted in Crime and Punishment really drew my heart to pursue him. When I finally did get to Karamazov I was able to really appreciate how Fydor refined so many of the themes present in his previous works and sculpted them into a true masterpiece. Read on my friend, read on.....
Maybe in popularity it isn't talked much about because it wasn't as successfully adapted to screen and it's too deep for lots of people to read today. But it is probably the most admired and appreciated work of literature ever. Definitely not underrated. Except by Harry Potter readers. So happy you love Dostoevsky!
I gotta agree with Ibrahim. BK is not underrated. Many many consider it the greatest book ever
Underrated? Never!Though I prefer his Devils.
V for Vendetta is no Count of Monte Cristo reskin, but you might have to read the original to get what’s unique about it. The movie simplified it greatly and even changed the core message fundamentally (I know, you’re shocked a Hollywood movie would do this 😄).
"It's not like you were going to miss out on your favorite television show". I love it!
I recommend Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. And Goethe's Faust, at least the 1st volume and of course the Gretchen story. Thanks for the Gilgamesh recommendation ... I must look that up.
The Brothers Karamazov is the most incredible novel I ever read. David Cooperfield is my favorite Dickens novel, I have a few more of his to read. Crime and Punishment ought to be on this list
No Dostoievsky, no party. 😄
I did not care for the movie of the Brothers K.Never read the book. David C I have tried to get through twice, but didn't make it. Enjoyed the original movie.Moby Dick was a tedious read. Movie, not bad. while I have not read most of the these books, I have seen the movie. Other books I have read that became films are The Grapes of Wrath(3 times) Of Mice and Men, From Here to Eternity, The Blackboard Jungle, To Kill a Mockingbird. Have read McTeague 3 times, which was made into the silent Greed. I have a book that is the complete script of Greed as well. Also read The Invisible Man by HG Wells.Read Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Have seen all three movie versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And two early versions of Les Miz. Book/movie All Quiet on the Western Front was good. Also read Johnny Got his Gun, but never saw the film. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair was good. Magnificnt Ambersons was good as well as Orson Welles movie version.
Ever read the idiot?
Copperfield is amazing
I was telling someone recently that if you stated that "The Brother Karamazov" was the greatest novel ever written you'd get no argument from me. " Don Quixote" is a strong contender too in my opinion. Also " Bleak House" is my favorite by Dickens. Good job, thanks !!
Don Quixote probably should have been on this list. I should have made it 13!
Don Quixote for SURE
Dickens never disappoints.
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 why isn't he bible on the list? So many of the classic novels make better sense knowing the bible. If a person just wants to read it as mythology they will even understand our legal system a little more by reading it. Can you take the bible out of the Brothers Karamazov?
I agree Don Quixote should be on the list. It's the classic that is the most fun as well, isn't it?
Good recommendation of Wuthering Heights. I don't want to read a romance novel. Hearing you say it's not a romance novel helps. I have a really nice copy of the book.
I found don quixote impenetrable but read it all, brothers karamazov is probably best book ever, crime and punishment not far behind
absolutely love Frankenstien, Great Expectations and Moby Dick and already have several of the others on my increasingly crammed TBR shelf. Thanks for another great video Michael!
I subscribed to this chanel a year ago because The Karamazovs were on top of your list of 20 greatest novels ever written!
The battle of Waterloo in "les misérables" is one of the greatest pieces of writing I've ever read.
Here is an interesting take on War and Peace. After World War Two, the Russian journalist/author Vassily Grossman wrote a two-volume 'update' of War and Peace. They are now available in English translation as Stalingrad and Life and Fate. Grossman was an ardent admirer of Tolstoy and he unapologetically set out to write a twentieth-century novel in the same style as War and Peace and he has the literary chops to pull it off. The cast of characters is huge, there are many plot lines, some run through both of the volumes, some only last a chapter or two. The one big difference is that Grossman actually lived through the events he describes rather than hearing them second-hand. This is a large work -- two 800+ page novels not counting notes -- but it moves along and is well worth the effort. It is also not a 'fun' read. He tackles many difficult issues, and the 'good guys' don't always win. This is a book where the 'six-fingered man' often lives to be an old man.
Im in! i Hope there Is a spanish version
Got 3/4ths though the brothers karamazov and lost the book and never had time to re-read it. Great list, reading Frankenstein now !
Good list, there is 4 books on it I have not yet read. As a seaman I totally agree about Moby Dick- " Hand me yon topmaul Mr. Starbuck".
When I first went to sea the there was no films, television or internet, one of the ways to pass the time was reading, so I decided I might as well read something worth reading as a load of rubbish and have been well rewarded everv since.
Am so glad you didn't quit, love these lists.
Me too. What a loss it might have been had he left us all alone on book tube!
The real tragedy of Karamazov is that it's only the first volume of a projected two volume work. Dostoevsky died before he even began work on the second. I think you're absolutely right about Fagles translations. So beautifully written that they'll be considered classics in their own right.
I really enjoy the Fagles Iliad and Aeneid, but his translation of the Odyssey is deeply flawed. The orginal Greek and most of the English translations of the Odyssey are deeply ambiguous in a number of important places (such as when Penelope discovers that the begger is actual Odysseus). Fagles' trabslation lacks much of Homer's subtlety (and as a result, his Penelope is kind of an idiot and is not able to go head to head with her husband).
How do we know he was planning to write second volume? I know he kind of eluded to it in the book but
@@ethanclark4116 He did mention in his Introduction that Alyosha's status as the hero of the novel would be made much more clear in the second volume. I believe he also referenced a second volume several times in his notebooks.
@@lock67ca Alyosha is 20 years old, the second volume has to describe his life in 13 years (Dostoevsky mentioned that in the introduction). So it's a book about 33 years old "positively beautiful" man. I think we all know such a book.
In "From the author" Chapter Dostoevsky talks only about Alyosha and calls him exclusively Alexei Fyodorovich (5 times), both names are Greek (Dostoevsky knew this language) and in translation mean "defender of the God's gift". In other chapters the author calls him mostly Alyosha.
Also in the introduction he says "the main novel is the second one - about the activities of my hero". Activities (деяния) is very specific word in Russian which is mostly used in the context of holy deeds, like "Деяния святых апостолов" (The Acts of the Apostles).
Which is the best translation of Brothers Karmazov...? Appreciate if you can let me know...
I love that you've kindly avoided spoilers. Nothing worse. Nice vid.
So glad you are still making videos. Coziest youtuber out there! I've decided all of life can be fundamentally reduced to two states of being: cozy or anti-cozy. Winter and Autumn are cozy; summer is anti-cozy. Fireplaces are cozy; televisions are anti-cozy. 70s horror comics are cozy; manga is anti-cozy. Detective stories, gothic, pulp and vintage are all cozy; modern mass consumerist reboots and reimaginings are anti-cozy. Etcetera. This channel is cozy!
What’s the best detective/pulp/noir books, in your opinion?
I’m also a believer in cozy!
Well put Ficheetah…
I have been following your channel for a few weeks and this is my favorite video thus far! Thanks!
You should read Bleak House by Dickens. Spectacular. Also, you forgot to mention The Count of Monte Cristo. Your choices are excellent and I concur about Thucydides. Bravo for another great iteration of your channel.
Bleak House👍
I agree. Bleak House is fantastic and my favorite Dickens novel ( so far )
12 recommendations from me:
1. Plato's Dialogues (especially Republic, Symposium, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo): Plato is the perfect entry-point for philosophy. He's both entertaining and utterly brilliant, touching on every deep question you can think of and examining it from many different angles through his dialectic method.
2. Lucretius' On the Nature of Things: Lucretius changed my life when I first read him. He's an Epicurean philosopher-poet whose work tries to explain life, the universe, and everything in the form of a beautiful epic poem. The Epicurean view of life remains persuasive all these centuries later.
3. Dante's The Divine Comedy: Here's another grand cosmic vision summed up in a sprawling epic poem. Dante takes the approach of expressing his worldview in a fragmented way: we build up a sense of what human life is about through the many and various stories Dante hears from the sinners and saints he encounters on his tour through the afterlife.
4. Michel de Montaigne's Essays: Montaigne's rambling essays are a joy to read; they are so full of his personality (as well as copious wit and wisdom) that you feel like you fully know him as a person after reading them, and he's a lovable guy.
5. William Shakespeare's Complete Works (especially the Sonnets, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, 1 & 2 Henry IV, Henry V, The Tempest, and The Winter's Tale): Like Montaigne's Essays and Plato's Dialogues, this is one to flip around in and come back to again and again rather than try to plow through in one go. Shakespeare's language is endlessly playful and inventive, and he's unrivaled as a dramatic artist and storyteller.
6. John Milton's Paradise Lost: This is THE great long poem in the English language. Milton introduces an astonishing amount of scope, depth, and complexity to the seemingly simple Garden of Eden story from Genesis (which takes up all of a dozen sentences in the Bible).
7. Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre: Jane has this inimitable voice and personality you can't help but fall in love with. A really captivating story of, yes, romance, but also a "poor, obscure, plain and little" woman's struggle to define herself and find her place in the world.
8. Emily Dickinson's Complete Poems: Another one to flip around in and come back to over many years. Dickinson rewrites the rules of poetry, paving the way for the experimental modernist poets of the next century while remaining totally accessible and plumbing the depths of topics like love, loss, faith, death, and the nature of art.
9. Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals: Nietzsche is a lot of things, but he certainly isn't boring. If you think philosophy is dull, check out Nietzsche: in this relatively short work he gleefully dynamites the entire Western tradition of moral philosophy. If you ask me, all of Freud's most interesting insights that he didn't plunder from Plato he nicked from Nietzsche.
10. James Joyce's Ulysses: The great work of literary modernism. It has all of that movement's restless experimentalism (there's a chapter in which the narration takes on all the prose styles in English literary history in sequence, and the last chapter is pure stream-of-consciousness), but also its attempt to form a new synthesis between tradition and the conditions of modern life: it tells the mundane story of a day in the life of a middle-class Dubliner through the lens of Odysseus' epic journey from Troy to Ithaca.
11. Samuel Beckett's Trilogy: Maybe the most challenging book on this list. Beckett represents postmodernism's utter disillusionment with the project of building on the traditions of the past. Somehow, in three novels in which Beckett does everything possible to strip away everything identifiable as part of a literary tradition (he wrote in French so as to write "in no style," and eventually does away with any semblance of characters or plot), he nonetheless creates a deeply moving work that embodies our need to "go on" in a possibly hostile and perhaps unknowable world.
12. Alex Haley and Malcolm X's The Autobiography of Malcolm X: In a lot of ways this one is similar to Jane Eyre: a journey of self-discovery and self-definition, but also of course one of political awakening as Malcolm goes from a gangster in Harlem to a fiery champion of Black solidarity as spokesman for the Nation of Islam to someone who's found his way to a more capacious sense of brotherhood (which, tragically, led to his assassination).
I agree with number 4 and I am happy to see it mentioned (I like most of your picks). His essays are briliant and interesting. When I studied literature in Sweden, we studied everything but of course more Swedish writers than you would elsewhere. Native English speakers tend to have half their canon by English writers. Imagine how much you have missed! There are so many good books out there which could qualify and I have yet to find a canon by someone that isn't biased by his or her own culture. On the other hand, your canon is your canon and you clearly say that it is your recommendation. That is a defined theme and I personally think that is the way to go about it. A general canon will always be coloured by the person putting it together so why pretend that it is "general"?
I am proud to say I've read about four on your list. That's a good 👍 list.
@@pierrenilsson6189 Yeah, my list is inevitably biased by what I've read. I'd be interested to hear which Swedish books you would put on such a list. I did once take a Scandinavian literature class, and could see adding Hjalmar Söderberg's Doctor Glas if I had a bit more room.
@@kennethconnally4356 I am not sure I would put any Swedish books on the list. Strindberg as an author maybe. My favorite book by Hjalmar Söderberg (He only wrote four novels) is "The Serious Game". But I think it is really hard to put together a canon. Some authors are great but it is hard to say that any of their books are important enough for a general audience. Take the Romanian 19th century poet Mihai Eminiscu for example. If you don't know Romanian, how could you ever understand his genious? I'd say it is close to impossible. He would be on my personal list though, as would Strindberg if I had to pick a Swedish author. I love the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges. When I first read them, I thought I was in heaven. I was studying litterature and I imediately got behind on the course because I couldn't get past him. A friend of mine got stuck on TS Eliot and that was worse because he never completed the course. I had a simular experience with Michel de Montaigne's Essays but I think I was studying Spanish or Romanian at the time so it did not hurt my studies. I found the Essays in my girlfriend's library and I lived in that world for a month. Just to give a recommendation: Sternstunden der Menschheit (Decisive Moments in History) by Stefan Zweig was the book that made me realise that highly personal selections is the way to go. He picks a number of important moments in history but, just as an example, instead of talking about the Russian revolution as an important moment, he narrows it down to "When Lenin boards a train to start the Russian revolution", that's the moment so the story will be about boarding the train (more or less).
- “The Buttoned Man” by S. Scott Fitzcarraldo
- “Dr. Brody’s Rapprochement” by Corey Smorgasbord
- “A Blue Day in the Chapel” by Mario J. Pennewell
- “The Mystery of the Bored Enthusiast” by Mary Kelly
- “Lord Dunsany’s Spiral” by Brockett Thorn
- “All the Whales in the World” by Aiko Tam
I'm always so impressed with the ability to condense all of literature into a small list. I love the reasoning behind the Illiad vs the Odyssey.
I cried when I read The Brothers Karamazov. Our Mutual Friend is also great Dickens with one of the greatest plot twists ever. You left out Don Quixote!
My 12 in no order
12. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
11. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
10. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
09. Ulysses by James Joyce
08. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
07. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
06. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
05. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
04. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
03. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
02. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
01. The Trial by Franz Kafka
That is a great list for classics. Love that...can't stand to read Hugo, but love that list. I will have to reread many of those. Thank you.
Brothers karamazov changed my life. It's a criminally underrated novel
Lol it’s not underrated - it’s considered the greatest novel ever written. Why is everyone saying it’s underrated?
@@Vgallo that's a very good question
How did it change your life?
Currently reading the Brothers Karamasov and randomly stumbled upon this video!! What an awesome coincidence. Look forward to seeing where the story goes.. :)
Thanks Alexa!
This inspires me to read some classics that I haven't yet read and re-read some that I have read. Excellent!
Wuthering Heights rocks!
Have read them all while young. Outstanding list, thank you.
I read Moby Dick, Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights and
Les Miserables.
I have read many other classica as well, especially Dickens. I have several on this list and many more on my shelves to be read and you gave me a couple more to think of adding to might shelves.
Good vid. The 54-volume "The Great Books of the Western World" series was my introduction to great literature when I was in high school almost 50 years ago.
Still my favorite book tuber
Love your content
Keep em coming
Interesting list! I must get to Brothers Karamazov!
This was great……….my first time here. Classics are my favorite…….and occupy a lot of space on my bookshelves! Thanks!
Thanks for watching!
The ending of Les Miserables is one of VERY few novels that brought me to tears. This book is much better than the musical or the movie; believe me.
The books are always better than the movie.
Always interesting to see how Hollywood changes and or omits things for the big screen. Of course, somethings could not b filmed due to the era the film was shown. From Here to Eternity and The Grapes of Wrath are to that come immediately to mind.
Sir! What a wonderful and fascinating presentation! I will begin to tackle the series. Thank you so much! Truly, I am excited to read these!
Hey there, just found your channel. I love the book shelf collection in the background. And the video is great. I love some of your choices here. I'm a big Sherlock Holmes fan as well as of reading Dostoevsky and Dickens. Les Miserables was wonderful, and have always loved Frankenstein. I want to read War and Peace one of these days, but have read other Tolstoy novels.
Michael, thank you so much for these wonderful recommendations! I am now committed to reading these amazing classics. Although I have read the same Frankenstein as you. I found that book amazing. I recommend it highly to everyone!
I am now reading my third novel from Larry McMurtry. I never expected to enjoy Lonesome Dove so much.
I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed Lonesome Dove. I shouldn’t have been. Everyone told me how great it was.
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 I am now keen to find the 1818 Frankenstein. Thanks.
I'm with you on TBRs. I need to just stop with them since I never stick to them anyway. And as long as you keep making comicbook content, I'll keep watching. Thanks, Michael! 👍
That loud noise you can hear is me cheering across the Atlantic at the inclusion of Wuthering Heights...... hoorah! 😁🇬🇧. A list of very solid classics, but I would swap Great Expectations for A Tale of Two Cities. That is a book (at least) on a par with Les Miserables.
Shocking that Crime and Punishment is not on the list, the way Michael describes The Brothers Karamazov is the way I feel about Crime. I would have also included Oscar Wilde's Portrait of Dorian Grey in the list; some have remarked that it's the most beautifully written book in English.
Conan Doyle is a superb writer. His mastery of English alone makes him worth reading if you're an aspiring writer. And his stories draw you in and are fun to read. I would say the same thing about the short stories of H.H. Munro ("Saki"). I have also enjoyed the following authors for similar reasons: The short stories and plays of W. Somerset Maugham, the novels "Scoop" and "Black Mischief" by Evelyn Waugh, "Time Must Have a Stop" by Aldous Huxley", "The Road to Wigan Pier" and essays by George Orwell, the mystery short stories of Dorothy Sayers, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain, the tales and poems of Edgar Allen Poe, the plays of Bernard Shaw, the plays of Noel Coward, the short stories of P.G. Wodehouse, "Stalky & Co" and "The Seven Seas" (poems) by Rudyard Kipling, a short story entitled "The Door in the Wall" by H.G. Wells, and travel writing (e.g., "Bitter Lemons") by Lawrence Durrell.
As for works in translation, you can get a lot out of the shorter works of Dostoevsky ("White Nights", "Dream of a Ridiculous Man", "The Double", "Poor Folk") and Thomas Mann ("Death in Venice"). For Dostoevsky, I would use the Constance Garnett translations. I especially like Balzac, who creates a whole world for his readers ("Eugenie Grandet", "Old Goriot", "Lost Illusions", "A Harlot High and Low" -- which is a sequel to "Lost Illusions" -- and "Cousin Pons"). Moliere's plays are well worth reading ("The Misanthrope", "The Precious Damsels"). "At the Sign of the Reine Pedauque" and "The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard" by Anatole France are worth reading, as is "Nadja" by Andre Breton.
I would also recommend "The Counterfeiters" and "Strait is the Gate" by Andre Gide. A good short story by Chekhov is "The Duel". Then there's "Sentimental Education" by Flaubert, who also wrote excellent short stories or novellas. Other works: "The Murder of my Aunt" by Richard Hull (possibly the most shocking novel ever written -- but in a good way), "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "Off on a Comet" by Jules Verne, "Dark Adventure" by Howard Pease, "The Blackboard Jungle" by Evan Hunter, "Murder in the Wind" and "The Only Girl in the Game" by John D. MacDonald, the essays of Schopenhauer, and (for campy, hardboiled fun) "Play Now...Kill Later" and "The Deadly Kitten" by Carter Brown.
If you're a slacker and not quite up for The Big Twelve, consider my recommendations.
Hi, hurryandleave. Blimey, you're well-read! My fave Chekov short story is 'Heartache'. My fave H.G.Wells one is 'The Red Room' - terrifying; up there with Arthur Machen, Lovecraft, M.R.James. I'm surprised he didn't mention Joyce or Proust. Thanks for the recommendations, dude; I'll check some of those out 👍.
@@Sr19769p Thanks. They're from a lifetime of reading (60 years), mostly for pleasure.
@@hurryandleave9680 ❤👍
Thanks Michael for the recommendations! I have read most of these books.
I like your presentations.
Thanks! I try.
Why I LOVE my visits to the stately Vaughan manor. Informative. Humorous. Captivating. I cannot wait to read ALL of these. They are not classics for no reason. They capture our imagination and teach us about our humanity. I am so grateful that Michael reconsidered his presence as a book tuber. Bravo, good sir knight! Well done. I'd like to see what other great book tubers have to say about this topic. Book tubers????
I really got into reading at the start of the year. My grandma is an avid reader and I always admired just how much she read, and she read many classics so that’s what I decided to start getting into as well.
I recently picked up The Illiad and Frankenstein (the 1818 text too actually) and I was happy to see them in the video. I think I’ll pick up War and Peace next after I’m done with them, and Homer’s Odyssey too. Thanks for the video !
I have read 'The Complete Sherlock Holmes' years ago. Took me a year to read it all.
As for Dickens, this may be an eccentric opinion, but I found Pickwick Papers the most enjoyable out of the ones I’ve read.
I wouldn't leave Don Quixote off a list of necessary reads. It's considered to be the first modern novel, and the first work of metafiction. It's absolutely brilliant
What the heck is metafiction. Not mocking you, just curious what meta means.
@@johncooper8537 Metafiction is when the literary layers (Writer/ narrator/character) overlap. In part two of DQ, for example, Quixote meets a student from Salamanca University who has somehow found and read part one of Don Quixote, and is very excited to meet him. The student idolizes Quixote. Another example, and my favorite actually, is from an early 19th century Spanish novel, Niebla (Fog) by Miguel de Unamuno. In this novel, a character from the story finds out that he is going to get killed off, so he travels to Unamuno's house and begs the writer not to kill him.
So glad I found your channel! Interesting, I look forward to catching up with some of your older videos.
Thanks!
Amazing recommendations. I am just getting started with reading and finally I find a video that recommended books I m genuinely interested in. Starting with the epic of Gilgamesh.
I agree with The Brothers Karamazov. You could also put The Idiot on the same list.
Love this video and love ALL these classics! I need to plug my gaps because I haven’t read them all - so THANKS for the great reminder!
You talked me into it, I will read Brother's Karamazov
The back story, my father gave me 2 thinks 25 years ago, his Colt 357 and a paperback copy of the Brothers Karamazof with instructions you must read this book! The 357 is in my night stand and the paperback is in my library, I will deliver a full book report soon
Auto spell; Thing's right
No two of us would have the same list of 12 "must read" books on our list. Thanks for your bravery in presenting yours.
Great list Michael. War and Peace is probably something I’ll never read lol. I do want to read more Dickens.
I read War and Peace a few years ago, after watching the wonderful BBC miniseries of 2015. Took me about 6 months, but what a great novel!
I highly recommend watching the BBC miniseries first. You will know who everyone is. Those long Russian names can be a challenge!
Love the list and your reviews, great work!
It’s also important to know that books back then were longer mostly because many of the authors especially the more well known ones who wrote back in those days were actually paid by the word hence the 800-1500 page tomes…this is just an FYI for those who were not aware of that fact…Doesn’t bother me I Like Big Books…The bigger the better…Thank You Michael you certainly hit on most of the legendary classics and there are so many more it’s hard to narrow a list to just 12 but this was an excellent list…Love the channel keep up the good works…
Anthony Trollope was no fool, since he was paid by the word his novels are long, verbose, digressive, and never ending. But you must read his chatty stories just to get Trollope under your belt. As with most classics you read them to develop a base.
True, and there was no competition for entertainment. No radio even. Pretty sure they didn’t have streaming services with thousands of options in every genre conceivable.
@@Kormac80 Yes but what was the same was the need for money…it ruled the day then and rules the day now…and it was absolutely the main reason for 800-1500 page book tomes back in those days…if the same principle was applied today you would have nothing but 800+ page books today…So yes they had less distractions back then but they also had less ideas to steal from so their imaginations, personal experiences and the real world events happening around them is all they had to write from…unlike today’s authors who steal every idea and every style that these authors set for them…That’s why these books will always be deemed the best books ever written period!!! Hence the term Classic!!! Making a living and making money will always be the first and foremost motivation for everything everybody does…
Whether it’s 2000 years ago or the year 2022 it’s all about money…Money rules the day and when you are contracted back in those days to be paid by the word and you want to write books and be an author and you want to live and survive then you write 800-1500 page books…Period!!!
@@UncleMonk23 You seem to misunderstand the economics at play. If there were any kind of competition in the entertainment space the publishers wouldn't pay by the word bc they wouldn't be able to sell long rambling books bc people would be inclined to opt out of that option. Competition forces adjustments. You also misunderstand how to use exclamation marks. But you do you man.
I love this. Very good recommendations that I will check out.
Great list, and very eloquently expressed. Wish I'd have watched this before my classics one, I would have just said, 'hi, please see Michael' 😂
Thanks for this selection. I've read some of these (and have just started Wuthering Heights, in fact), but as someone who always has a book on the go, I've tended to steer clear of classics. Not out of dislike, it's just that other subjects interest me more. I'm trying to make up for that in my later years.
As a teenager, one of my guides into literature really urged me to read the short stories of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and I think this is not only sound advice for those daunted by the larger projects, but also deserve to be on "can't miss" literature series. And so I wanted to share a short list as a kind of introduction or corollary to yours:
1. Two or three letters or essays of Seneca, whichever catch your eye.
2. Two poems by Alexander Pope: An Essay on Criticism, and An Essay on Man
3. Odes of John Keats: Nightingale, Autumn, Grecian Urn, Melancholy
4. Shakespeare's Sonnets (60, 62-68, 71, 73) A deep dive into Shakespeare contending with Time.
5. If it doesn't offend, the short epistle of the New Testament, 1 John, to see the devotion, highest aspiration and seeming contradiction of Christianity crystallized.
Only read 3 on your list. Your takeaway on Thucydides is spot on.
Thanks!
Great list! Shout out for Darkness at Noon and Dubliners too...Thank you!
thank you, I shall follow your suggestions . I have read Frankenstien, Sherlock Holmes , and Moby Dick.
I haven't read all of those, but I've read several. And you're right. They ARE all classics! I wish more people would look back to the classics. A lot of times on UA-cam I see people talking about how they don't want to read classics because anything over ten years old isn't "pertinent." If anything, it's the opposite. A fantasy author everyone is gaga over today may be never thought about after tomorrow. But classics are "classic" because the stories have universal themes. They're not about which characters in the love triangle hook up or how the big bad of the trilogy is thwarted. They're about emotions and experiences that have been so well explored that they're still just as powerful today as when they were written. Not to say that a new book won't become a classic. They regularly do. And some will involve love triangles and Big Bads. But those old books that are loved are so for a reason. I'm glad to see younger people reading again, but it may be time some took a deep dive and don't just read fun books that will be fodder for future Garbaugusts. Pretty much everything I HAVE read this month falls right in that category, but I always look forward to reading a classic. Especially one I haven't gotten around to yet.
Wonderful selections ~~ I would add (in the time of Ovid) Vergil's Aeneid, Some modern historians muse that if it were not for these 2 epoch poems affirming Roman culture at the time of 1st Emperor Augustus, Rome would have never flourished in the manner it did for the next 200 years. . . . I would add just about anything by Jane Austen. Written at the time of a growing and prospering middle class that emulated the culture of aristocrats, the challenges to young women fitting in to a new social order.
I only got into literature fairly recently so I haven't read the majority of these but they have all been added to my TBR. Awesome stuff!
Some very good selections. I would have included Crime and Punishment--but then I haven't read Karamozov--yet.
My fav hefty Dickens novel is A Tale of Two Cities. Perhaps it's the historical setting of the French Revolution, a period which has always intrigued me. Maybe it was being forced to read Great Expectations in 9yh or 10th grade that made me stray from that one. My fav choice of yours is Les Miserables. Master art work.
Moby Dick is a spectacular book. I've read it many times and plan to read it again. I agree, the digressions are some of the best parts! It is like reading a war story that includes all the parts between battles.
I have read Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. I didn't have a theatrical background, so it was a daunting task.
What helped was listening to an audio dramatization of each play, so I could "hear" in my mind what the words on the page should sound like. It worked!
Some solid choices Michael and perfectly understandable you went for Thucydides over Herodotus. Very enjoyable 😀👍
“he’s written some good stuff, charles dickens” is such a funny thing to say
Frankenstein was required reading in one of my grad school classes, Ethics and Technology. Excellent book!
Of the two novels that I’ve finished by Dostoevsky, I prefer BK; but I’d consider _Crime and Punishment_ the indispensable work.
Yeah those are the only two I've read as well (just finished BK), can I ask what about BK made you like it more than crime and punishment?
@@ethanclark4116 That’s a good question. It’s been a few years since I read them, and thinking upon that I’m half inclined to reverse that. When I finished BK I was patting myself on the back for doing it, and I admired the audacity of the undertaking. But even at the time there were more things about it that I _didn’t_ like, and I can’t recall any from C&P.
BK = Burger King!
The Idiot is probably my favorite so far. I do hold Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov in high regards, and in that order. I didn't think I could find anything to compare with Crime and Punishment as i had read that first but I do believe that I hold the Idiot above Crime and Punishment. @@davidnovakreadspoetry
The Brothers Karamasov is my favorite book.
I would have added Dante's Inferno and East of Eden.
(Although non fiction) *Man's Search For Meaning* by Victor Frankl is one of the greatest books ever written.
You have gone on... but it was worth it! Great video.
Well, you included War and Peace and the Brothers...so you are OK in my book.
The Brothers Karamazov is a great read.
I like the sense of an inner barometer underneath your choices, your intimacy w this subject - there's this sense that we're listening first to you as a person making your contribution to this question, as opposed to recycling some other package - this is one reason we peruse such lists - I'd still be curious to hear your thoughts on Shakespeare - or does he count here? since there's a good argument that w a play the real text is the production?
Excellent suggestions! I was moved by the Epic of Gilgamesh. How extraordinary that four thousand year old literature could speak to us so powerfully today. If you are a fan of the Bronte sisters, I would have recommended Jane Eyre, just for the beauty of the language. Every paragraph is a work of art. I tried Crime and Punishment, but could not make it through due to the depressing nature of the subject matter. I'll take your suggestion and try the Brothers Karamazov.
Happily, I have read _The Complete Sherlock Holmes_ and _Frankenstein._ The only other of the twelve that I have at home is _The Metamorphoses,_ but that is not the next classic I will read. I want to get to _The Two Towers,_ as I have read _The Fellowship of the Ring_ earlier this year. It is not as old as those other classics, but I have got to get to it.
Suggestions: Nordhoff and Hall's Bounty Trilogy, Joseph Conrad's The *black guy* of the Narcissus, Bernal Diaz' Conquest of Mexico, The Heimskringla, The Once and Future King (White), and of course Cervantes (Don Quixote) and Grimmelshausen (Simplicissimus) to fill your picaresque needs. My dad would add Wodehouse in here, too.