That's very true. Personally, I don't use them because I either end up going through so many that it feels wasteful (I may have a slight problem when it comes to annotating), or when I'm not annotating in a book it's often because it's a library book, and so I can't leave the stickies in the book anyway. However, for anyone whose only issue is they don't want to deface their books, stickies are a great option! As always, thanks for watching :)
Yes! Or even the larger ones that have lines on them. But if you do mark up your books, be careful with highlighting. It can fade after some years, especially in those cheapie paperbacks. I learned that the hard way. You don't know how much time I spent highlighting favorite portions of The Lord of the Rings. I came back for a reread a year or a couple of years later and IT WAS ALL GONE. For a minute I thought I was losing my mind. I KNOW I highlighted stuff! I finally realized it soaked into the paper and faded away.
Michael! Small world! I recently just discovered YOUR channel and could say the exact same thing. I’ve got about half a dozen of your videos saved in my watch later queue! Thanks so much for watching!
Ha ha, there are no nerds like Star Wars nerds. (Except maybe the Star Trek nerds.) Gotta love it! This was great fun and also helpful. I'd love to have a time machine to experience a world where books were published a chapter at a time. It must have made reading more of a communal event, with people looking forward to the same thing. There wasn't the internet and all the other distractions of modern life. Reading was pretty much the only entertainment. I love your Tip 3. It's why I watch so much Booktube. There's no one in my real life with whom I can enjoy/discuss books. I appreciate all of you so very much. No one else understands. You try to talk about a book and you get that blank stare. Benjamin's channel is amazing. I can only aspire to love reading as much as that man does. Also, Tristan and the Classics is a great channel. Thanks for the gift! This will be helpful. I've only read a few of these and I really need to step it up. I'm not getting any younger.
Thanks so much for watching and for the comment! I agree, both Benjamin and Tristan are great, and they're doing a great service by making the Classics more accessible. And yes, Booktube has been a great way for me interact with people who love reading. I've had more bookish conversations in the last month than I've ever had.
I have such an inner conflict about introducing students to the classics. On the one hand, forcing kids (or anyone!) to read something is a great way to make them hate it. On the other hand, it's often the first or only way they may be introduced to something wonderful. I remember getting to Hamlet in high school. Even though I was already a reader at that age, I struggled with the language and style. I was not having a good time. I was starting to see it as torture. But somehow or other, at some point, the language "clicked" for me and I ended up loving it. I don't think I've reread it since high school. But I still remember bits and it will come back to mind here and there. I would never have had that experience if I hadn't been required to read it because I likely would never have picked it up on my own. As I said, I am totally conflicted on this.
I hear ya, completely. I think there are ways to present literature to students so that they won't hate it, but it requires a special teacher, and those are rare indeed. I also think there are SOME pieces of literature that most young students just CAN'T possibly grasp. You need a certain amount of life experience and a certain worldview to understand some works. Like you, I was a reader from a young age, but something like Hamlet was taught in the 8th grade at my school. There's no way at the age of 13 that I had the maturity to grasp the themes, the history and the pathos of Hamlet!
Good advice. It took me a long time to get into The Scarlet Letter. Then someone said don't start with the opening chapter, The Custom-house. It defeats people right off. So I went ahead to the actual novel and now it's one of my favorites. Another suggestion is to watch a tv/movie adaptation. That's how I navigated Jane Austen. Now I need to get going on Moby Dick, To the Lighthouse and Middlemarch. All 3 novels have defeated me so far. You have a great speaking voice. I wish you had been my literature teacher many years ago.
Moby Dick is a great novel, and truly innovative literature, which you'll notice more and more as it goes on. To The Lighthouse and Middlemarch are poorly written, pretentious and don't have enough real substance to be worth it. These are some of the original 'books for the MFA crowd' that have lead to so much crap these days. I would pick up A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith or something by Willa Cather instead, if you're looking for classic female authors.
Thanks for the kind words, Jeff! I wish I'd been a literature teacher many years ago, too ;) With regards to YOUR white whales, I'm actually planning on reading Moby Dick next year (and Middlemarch some time after that...), so if there's interest, maybe we can do a buddy-read / read-along to make it a bit more social. If you don't feel like waiting, I know for a fact that there are plenty of other groups online that read Moby Dick (not seen many for Middlemarch and To the Lighthouse though). Thanks again!
@@jeffbowman8972 Cool. I'll definitely announce it on the channel, but if you want, shoot me an email and I'll reach out to you directly when I'm getting started.
I have had fairly good luck with classics consuming them as audiobooks while I drive. I am not likely to "put the book down and walk away" in this setting. For me, usually the toughest part with a classic is getting through the first few chapters, after which I am acclimated to the author's writing style and usually interested in the plot etc. Being a "captive audience" in a vehicle lends itself to sticking it out through this portion of the reading process. Of course, this does not lend itself to annotating, (which I don't do anyway, but I do actually like the thought of revisiting your earlier impressions at a later date, as you described). At any rate, I enjoyed the video & your book list. Thanks!
Thanks for the note! I've heard many people who have used audiobooks with great success to consume the Classics, so you're in good company. Personally, I don't feel like I get as much out of a book when I listen to it, versus when I read, so for something like classic literature I prefer print, whereas for "lighter" reading, I'll turn to audio. As you say though, that might be directly related to my almost compulsive need to annotate. Thanks so much for watching and commenting! :)
Who ISN’T a Star Wars fan!? I don’t care if you’re not a sci-fi geek, Star Wars is just good storytelling. I even converted my wife despite the fact that she had managed to go her entire life without ever watching any Star Wars until last year! Thanks for watching and for the kind words 🙂
I have a tab on my reading log spreadsheet that is also a compilation of a few different big lists, though I might update it to include newer lists I like a bit more, and books and series I want to get to that are not usually included on published lists.
Right on. So this list is one of the many tabs in my big reading spreadsheet. I tend to have separate tabs with lists of books I want to read by genre. So I have a tab for contemporary literary fiction, for nonfiction, for fantasy series, etc. Then I have one master TBR that pulls from all the other tabs… yes, I know, I have a problem 🤷♂️. Thanks so much for watching and sharing!
Not really into the older classics, not enough patience. However, I have read several of the modern classics on your list and would add East of Eden by John Steinbeck and anything by Somerset Maugham, especially The Razor’s Edge. And if you haven’t read them, any collection of his short stories. Also, The Crucible by Arthur Miller.
I'm a big fan of Steinbeck. I've read East of Eden. I've also read The Crucible, but there's something about reading plays that has never quite hooked me the way novels do. I have not read any Somerset Maugham though, so I'll need to look into adding him to my list (my original intention was to keep the list to 100... given that that ship has sailed, what's a few more books?). Thanks so much for watching and for the recommendations! :)
I love the idea of a _Book-et_ list! 👏🏻 Thank you for sharing your list, there were at least 25 on there that I would like to read, too! I just read Macbeth (my first ever Shakespeare) last week, but I kinda cheated and used the No Fear Shakespeare edition. 😬 I LOVED it and I'm looking forward to trying more from The Bard. I only started reading Classics 5 or 6 years ago and now I just can't get enough! Thank you for sharing your tips! 📚
There's no such thing as cheating! If it helps you get a better appreciation for the work, use it. Then, maybe one day you'll go back and read it without the translation and see if there's anything you missed. This whole idea that you "cheated" is left over brainwashing from your school days. And let's be honest, if there's one thing school is good for, it's for scaring people AWAY from the Classics (PS: I'm a college professor, and I stand by that statement). Thanks so much for watching, and I'm happy if you were able to get some use out of the Booket list!
Great ideas Adam! I picked up your recommendation of Gilgamesh. I’ve read parts of it along with the Ennuma Elish, but based on your review, felt it was time to do a deep dive. A nice amber ale is a great way to begin a classic! I’ll check out your list. Mike
That's awesome. Also, funny you should mention an amber ale. When I was originally thinking of names for this channel, I strongly considered "Books and Beers" and thought about including a beer pairing with every book I recommended. Ultimately, I didn't go through with it, because I was trying to drink LESS and that definitely would have caused me to drink MORE, but SOMEONE should definitely do that! Thanks for watching and commenting, Mike.
@@ADudeWhoReads LOL! I’ll dedicate my next amber to you! I was going to mention Alberto Manguel’s A History of Reading blew my socks off. It’s probably one of the most engaging books on reading I’ve found. It’s kind of ironic because I was a teacher education professor who taught pre-service teachers how to teach reading and writing. Unlike my dry academic and research references, his book dealt with the whys and hows of reading. Stay f-k-n awesome my friend!
Great video! A couple of my own thoughts: 1. When reading books that were serials and reading them as such, that gives me time to not feel compelled to finish a book whole. I can digest the thoughts of the author. 2. For me, sometimes reading a summary can help me understand what is happening in difficult books (Tolstoy, for example). 3. This one was important for me... I give myself grace to stop reading something that is just too complicated or blech to keep going. I can't slog through something just because others have. I have tried to read _The Iliad_ several times and it is just too much over my head. It was with that book I said to myself, "Why suffer through a book when there are so many more I will love out there?" That helped me with _Moby Dick_ , too. Just don't get it and stopped. Onward ho to a new classic! Thanks for this! Really great.
These are all fantastic tips! As you say, life’s too short to get stuck on one book. There’s too much else out there. Thanks as always for watching and commenting! 🙂
@@Yesica1993 Sounds like at least a couple of us will be doing a buddy-read / read-along of Moby Dick next year, so if you're interested, drop me a line!
I just searched the Serial reader app and I’m shocked I didn’t know this existed! Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. I’m going to need to give this a try. Thanks again 🙏
Great ideas. I like doing a deep dive. I’ve just read Richard III alongside a history book called Shakespeare’s Restless World and another called Black Tudors and found that beneficial 😊
Reading Shakespeare along with history is HUGELY beneficial because there’s a ton of nuances that you pick up once you know the era. I reread Macbeth after learning about that era of Scottish history and it completely changed my feelings about that play! Thanks for watching and commenting :)
Thank you for your excellent tips and the wonderful list - yes, I've been meaning to make a classics list! Why don't you revise the title of this podcast such as "- plus gift at the end." It'd be the best kind of click bait since sharing this list will be encouraging others to persevere and reach more people since we all want a gift!
Thanks for the comment and the suggestion. I debated putting the “gift” in the title or leaving it as a fun surprise for those who got to the end of the video. Perhaps I’ll make that change so more people can get access.
Great tips!!
For annotations. You can use those small sticky notes and write on those.
That's very true. Personally, I don't use them because I either end up going through so many that it feels wasteful (I may have a slight problem when it comes to annotating), or when I'm not annotating in a book it's often because it's a library book, and so I can't leave the stickies in the book anyway. However, for anyone whose only issue is they don't want to deface their books, stickies are a great option! As always, thanks for watching :)
Yes! Or even the larger ones that have lines on them. But if you do mark up your books, be careful with highlighting. It can fade after some years, especially in those cheapie paperbacks. I learned that the hard way. You don't know how much time I spent highlighting favorite portions of The Lord of the Rings. I came back for a reread a year or a couple of years later and IT WAS ALL GONE. For a minute I thought I was losing my mind. I KNOW I highlighted stuff! I finally realized it soaked into the paper and faded away.
@@Yesica1993 I had no idea this was a thing...
Neither did I! Happy to warn others.
This is a wonderful video. So glad I found this channel.
Michael! Small world! I recently just discovered YOUR channel and could say the exact same thing. I’ve got about half a dozen of your videos saved in my watch later queue! Thanks so much for watching!
Thank you so much for the gift! Really enjoying your channel!
You’re very welcome and thank you so much for the kind comment!
Ha ha, there are no nerds like Star Wars nerds. (Except maybe the Star Trek nerds.) Gotta love it!
This was great fun and also helpful. I'd love to have a time machine to experience a world where books were published a chapter at a time. It must have made reading more of a communal event, with people looking forward to the same thing. There wasn't the internet and all the other distractions of modern life. Reading was pretty much the only entertainment.
I love your Tip 3. It's why I watch so much Booktube. There's no one in my real life with whom I can enjoy/discuss books. I appreciate all of you so very much. No one else understands. You try to talk about a book and you get that blank stare.
Benjamin's channel is amazing. I can only aspire to love reading as much as that man does. Also, Tristan and the Classics is a great channel.
Thanks for the gift! This will be helpful. I've only read a few of these and I really need to step it up. I'm not getting any younger.
Thanks so much for watching and for the comment! I agree, both Benjamin and Tristan are great, and they're doing a great service by making the Classics more accessible. And yes, Booktube has been a great way for me interact with people who love reading. I've had more bookish conversations in the last month than I've ever had.
I have such an inner conflict about introducing students to the classics. On the one hand, forcing kids (or anyone!) to read something is a great way to make them hate it. On the other hand, it's often the first or only way they may be introduced to something wonderful. I remember getting to Hamlet in high school. Even though I was already a reader at that age, I struggled with the language and style. I was not having a good time. I was starting to see it as torture. But somehow or other, at some point, the language "clicked" for me and I ended up loving it. I don't think I've reread it since high school. But I still remember bits and it will come back to mind here and there. I would never have had that experience if I hadn't been required to read it because I likely would never have picked it up on my own. As I said, I am totally conflicted on this.
I hear ya, completely. I think there are ways to present literature to students so that they won't hate it, but it requires a special teacher, and those are rare indeed. I also think there are SOME pieces of literature that most young students just CAN'T possibly grasp. You need a certain amount of life experience and a certain worldview to understand some works. Like you, I was a reader from a young age, but something like Hamlet was taught in the 8th grade at my school. There's no way at the age of 13 that I had the maturity to grasp the themes, the history and the pathos of Hamlet!
Good advice. It took me a long time to get into The Scarlet Letter. Then someone said don't start with the opening chapter, The Custom-house. It defeats people right off. So I went ahead to the actual novel and now it's one of my favorites. Another suggestion is to watch a tv/movie adaptation. That's how I navigated Jane Austen. Now I need to get going on Moby Dick, To the Lighthouse and Middlemarch. All 3 novels have defeated me so far. You have a great speaking voice. I wish you had been my literature teacher many years ago.
Moby Dick is a great novel, and truly innovative literature, which you'll notice more and more as it goes on. To The Lighthouse and Middlemarch are poorly written, pretentious and don't have enough real substance to be worth it. These are some of the original 'books for the MFA crowd' that have lead to so much crap these days. I would pick up A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith or something by Willa Cather instead, if you're looking for classic female authors.
Thanks for the kind words, Jeff! I wish I'd been a literature teacher many years ago, too ;)
With regards to YOUR white whales, I'm actually planning on reading Moby Dick next year (and Middlemarch some time after that...), so if there's interest, maybe we can do a buddy-read / read-along to make it a bit more social. If you don't feel like waiting, I know for a fact that there are plenty of other groups online that read Moby Dick (not seen many for Middlemarch and To the Lighthouse though).
Thanks again!
Yes I would love to read it with you.
@@jeffbowman8972 Cool. I'll definitely announce it on the channel, but if you want, shoot me an email and I'll reach out to you directly when I'm getting started.
I have had fairly good luck with classics consuming them as audiobooks while I drive. I am not likely to "put the book down and walk away" in this setting. For me, usually the toughest part with a classic is getting through the first few chapters, after which I am acclimated to the author's writing style and usually interested in the plot etc. Being a "captive audience" in a vehicle lends itself to sticking it out through this portion of the reading process. Of course, this does not lend itself to annotating, (which I don't do anyway, but I do actually like the thought of revisiting your earlier impressions at a later date, as you described). At any rate, I enjoyed the video & your book list. Thanks!
Thanks for the note! I've heard many people who have used audiobooks with great success to consume the Classics, so you're in good company. Personally, I don't feel like I get as much out of a book when I listen to it, versus when I read, so for something like classic literature I prefer print, whereas for "lighter" reading, I'll turn to audio. As you say though, that might be directly related to my almost compulsive need to annotate. Thanks so much for watching and commenting! :)
Great video. I checked the list, the picture of Dorian Gray is on my TBR, not on my book-et list, though the idea of having one sounds fun
Okay, Dude. You get extra cool points for being a Star Wars fan.
All kidding aside, thank you for sharing. I appreciate your perspective.
Who ISN’T a Star Wars fan!? I don’t care if you’re not a sci-fi geek, Star Wars is just good storytelling. I even converted my wife despite the fact that she had managed to go her entire life without ever watching any Star Wars until last year! Thanks for watching and for the kind words 🙂
Now that's a great husband!@@ADudeWhoReads
@@Yesica1993 Screen grabbed this and sent it to my wife ;)
Finally updated 😊
Was something not updating?
I have a tab on my reading log spreadsheet that is also a compilation of a few different big lists, though I might update it to include newer lists I like a bit more, and books and series I want to get to that are not usually included on published lists.
Right on. So this list is one of the many tabs in my big reading spreadsheet. I tend to have separate tabs with lists of books I want to read by genre. So I have a tab for contemporary literary fiction, for nonfiction, for fantasy series, etc. Then I have one master TBR that pulls from all the other tabs… yes, I know, I have a problem 🤷♂️. Thanks so much for watching and sharing!
Not really into the older classics, not enough patience. However, I have read several of the modern classics on your list and would add East of Eden by John Steinbeck and anything by Somerset Maugham, especially The Razor’s Edge. And if you haven’t read them, any collection of his short stories. Also, The Crucible by Arthur Miller.
I'm a big fan of Steinbeck. I've read East of Eden. I've also read The Crucible, but there's something about reading plays that has never quite hooked me the way novels do. I have not read any Somerset Maugham though, so I'll need to look into adding him to my list (my original intention was to keep the list to 100... given that that ship has sailed, what's a few more books?). Thanks so much for watching and for the recommendations! :)
I love the idea of a _Book-et_ list! 👏🏻 Thank you for sharing your list, there were at least 25 on there that I would like to read, too! I just read Macbeth (my first ever Shakespeare) last week, but I kinda cheated and used the No Fear Shakespeare edition. 😬 I LOVED it and I'm looking forward to trying more from The Bard. I only started reading Classics 5 or 6 years ago and now I just can't get enough! Thank you for sharing your tips! 📚
There's no such thing as cheating! If it helps you get a better appreciation for the work, use it. Then, maybe one day you'll go back and read it without the translation and see if there's anything you missed. This whole idea that you "cheated" is left over brainwashing from your school days. And let's be honest, if there's one thing school is good for, it's for scaring people AWAY from the Classics (PS: I'm a college professor, and I stand by that statement).
Thanks so much for watching, and I'm happy if you were able to get some use out of the Booket list!
Great ideas Adam! I picked up your recommendation of Gilgamesh. I’ve read parts of it along with the Ennuma Elish, but based on your review, felt it was time to do a deep dive. A nice amber ale is a great way to begin a classic! I’ll check out your list. Mike
That's awesome. Also, funny you should mention an amber ale. When I was originally thinking of names for this channel, I strongly considered "Books and Beers" and thought about including a beer pairing with every book I recommended. Ultimately, I didn't go through with it, because I was trying to drink LESS and that definitely would have caused me to drink MORE, but SOMEONE should definitely do that! Thanks for watching and commenting, Mike.
@@ADudeWhoReads LOL! I’ll dedicate my next amber to you! I was going to mention Alberto Manguel’s A History of Reading blew my socks off. It’s probably one of the most engaging books on reading I’ve found. It’s kind of ironic because I was a teacher education professor who taught pre-service teachers how to teach reading and writing. Unlike my dry academic and research references, his book dealt with the whys and hows of reading. Stay f-k-n awesome my friend!
I'm in the process of binging a bunch of books on "How to Read" (research for a future video), so this is a timely recommendation. Thank you so much!
Great video! A couple of my own thoughts: 1. When reading books that were serials and reading them as such, that gives me time to not feel compelled to finish a book whole. I can digest the thoughts of the author. 2. For me, sometimes reading a summary can help me understand what is happening in difficult books (Tolstoy, for example). 3. This one was important for me... I give myself grace to stop reading something that is just too complicated or blech to keep going. I can't slog through something just because others have. I have tried to read _The Iliad_ several times and it is just too much over my head. It was with that book I said to myself, "Why suffer through a book when there are so many more I will love out there?" That helped me with _Moby Dick_ , too. Just don't get it and stopped. Onward ho to a new classic! Thanks for this! Really great.
These are all fantastic tips! As you say, life’s too short to get stuck on one book. There’s too much else out there. Thanks as always for watching and commenting! 🙂
Moby Dick has defeated me time and again. I have got to conquer that thing before I die, if only out of spite. LOL!
@@Yesica1993 Sounds like at least a couple of us will be doing a buddy-read / read-along of Moby Dick next year, so if you're interested, drop me a line!
I'll keep that in mind!
I love my Serial app... great video!
I just searched the Serial reader app and I’m shocked I didn’t know this existed! Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. I’m going to need to give this a try. Thanks again 🙏
@@ADudeWhoReads yes! It's a great app for taking your time with classics 🙌🏽🤓
@@books_and_bocadillos I’m all for taking my time!
@@ADudeWhoReads ditto!
Great ideas. I like doing a deep dive. I’ve just read Richard III alongside a history book called Shakespeare’s Restless World and another called Black Tudors and found that beneficial 😊
Reading Shakespeare along with history is HUGELY beneficial because there’s a ton of nuances that you pick up once you know the era. I reread Macbeth after learning about that era of Scottish history and it completely changed my feelings about that play! Thanks for watching and commenting :)
Thank you for your excellent tips and the wonderful list - yes, I've been meaning to make a classics list! Why don't you revise the title of this podcast such as "- plus gift at the end." It'd be the best kind of click bait since sharing this list will be encouraging others to persevere and reach more people since we all want a gift!
Thanks for the comment and the suggestion. I debated putting the “gift” in the title or leaving it as a fun surprise for those who got to the end of the video. Perhaps I’ll make that change so more people can get access.