Frankenstein is so much more than you think it is. Beautiful, haunting and thought-provoking. Instead of shaming you, I'm jealous that you get to read Frankenstein, Dracula and Misery for the first time. You will love them all
Frankenstein is a philosophical text disguised as SciFi. I’ve Ben trying for years to get my book club to read it but they have wrong preconceptions about it. Lovely book.
I'd rather think of books I've been saving than a list of shame :) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy Romeo & Juliet - you know who Frankenstein (me too) - Mary Shelley Les Miserables - Victor Hugo Brave New World - Auldous Huxley Stephen King - you think 20 is low, I've just read one short story Great channel by the way!
I have read over half of Stephen Kings work and recommend: Carrie, The Shinning, Pet Sematary, The Dead Zone, Mr Mercedes trilogy, (aka Hodges Trilogy) Needful Things, Cujo, Christine, Delores Claiborne, Thinner, etc. His long books IT, The Stand, 11/22/63 I’d reserve for later. (They slowed to a crawl in the middle.)
I'm taking part in a year long slow read of Anna Karenina with r/yearofannakarenina. We're starting Jan 1 and the goal is to read 5 chapters a week until we finished. If you or anyone else is interested!
Your videos are interesting. You should not be ashamed of what you haven't read. You are reading and sharing and that is what is a wonderful thing to do. Carry on.
Frankenstein is an incredible piece of work, some of the best prose I've ever read! Only made more impressive by the fact shelley was only 18 when she started writing it.
As a big PKD fan, I love your shirt! And given that shirt, can I interest you in some Karel Čapek? His play R.U.R, published about 100 years ago, is where we get the word "robot" from (although the robots in the play are more like what we call androids today) and it's actually quite an interesting and surprisingly humorous read. HG Wells was the first SF author I read as a kid. I saw the old 1950s War of the World movie on TV and then immediately read the book, and then read everything by him I could get. I won't say you'll love him as much as I do but I hope you give him a shot. The Time Machine might be a good first Wells book to start with. I read Dracula for the first time this past year and loved it, and Frankenstein is an old favorite of mine as well. We is another classic that's definitely worth reading but it doesn't always hit with contemporary readers. Happy reading in 2025!
This was a fun watch! I finally read Dracula years ago, and it is so good that I bought a special edition as we'll. I want to re-read it, but there is just not enough time. I own Frankenstein and tried to start it, but I don't think it's my style of book. Maybe one day I'll try again. I have read Misery and Gerald's game more recently, and both are stellar. And yes, finish The Dark Tower series, please, it is so good! I haven't read HG Wells but I did read Isaac Asimov I-Robot short stories recently, and it's an amazing place to start. There are too many books, so little time, 1st world problems 😆!!
The Lord of the Rings: tried it twice and the furthest I got was the Hobbitses walking out of the Shire. But dear god, it’s was so annoying. The way they they talk to each other, and the plodding bore of it all, I simply couldn’t continue. Maybe one day I guess.
Completely with you on the Lord of the Rings "thing"....I've read the first book a couple of times now, with every intention of finishing the series, and never quite manage to get myself over the hurdle of the first. It's one of those, "dang, I SHOULD be enjoying this way more because of how epic it is and how many people adore it"....perhaps the movies are enough for me :D
Dracula is a good one, it's one of the few I've re read. I will say the amount of blood transfusions in the book made me roll my eyes to the back of my head, no chance anyone's surviving that 😂 a classic nonetheless.
Mistborn is the entry point for Sanderson. You can get a real sense of his skill as a storyteller without investing the extensive time required for Stormlight.
Haha! I feel the same about Sanderson. Frankenstein vs. Dracula, both great reads but Frankenstein is the far superior work of literature and most tend to agree. You mentioned Gerald's Game. That is one freaky book, so underrated imo. The horrors of people, nothing supernatural. Trigger warning checks are necessary for some readers.
Frankenstein is both exciting and thought-provoking. We is short, prescient and, like all good dystopian novels, points the way to go to avoid dystopia.
I make a year long tbr and I aim for it but it gets changed as my moods change through the months and it also depends how the book I just finished made me feel or if one slows me down into a slump. Making a year long tbr…it’s not crazy, I am. 🤘😂 good reading to you sir.
It's hilarious how similar your list is to mine. I am actually in the middle of Dracula, and recently bought Frankenstein, a Lovecraft boxed set, and a beautiful edition of LOTR as I have read none of them. LOTR is the most embarrassing because I have loved the stories since the cartoon movies came out in the late 70s and have seen every version of the films dozens of times. With King I'm in a similar boat. He is my favorite author as well, and I have not read Salem's Lot, Misery, or the Stand, but have them all, and have for years. I have read the first two books of The Divine Comedy, and think you will love them...especially Inferno. If I had a list of favorite poems Inferno would be number 1. 90% of what we consider hell and the devil to be comes from Inferno...so good.
Immediately subscribed when you mentioned Stephen King. He’s my all time favorite author, I have all his books. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Misery! It’s one of my favorites. The movie is also incredible, if you haven’t watched it then I highly recommend it! But how dare you not have read Lord Of The Rings! /s Frodo Baggins is my favorite character out of anything I’ve ever read. I’m interested to see how you enjoy the series in full when you get around to it. I too have some of these other ones you mentioned on my list as well (and just recently acquired physical copies of). Namely Dracula, Frankenstein, We, Handmaids Tale. I did a huge book haul these last couple months for my birthday/Christmas so I have so many new things to get to. Mostly classics / modern classics that are often on banned book lists so I snatched a good chunk of them up before the new hell..I mean year starts. Anyways happy reading!
When I clicked on the video i was speculating, "what books could he mention" and Lotr was the last thing. Gotta read that, and silmarillion if you like the books! Great video as always!
Great list of books that you are going to read! I only had one book on your list I haven’t read, The Divine Comedy. Funny enough I just bought a copy a few weeks ago. Hopefully, I take it off my list of shame.
dantes inforno is amazing, but you should know its the type of book you’ll be reading the same page multiple times to understand what its going on, its a complex book.
Frankenstein always have been in the top 3 of my favourite books. Published in 1818. And still ever since the first Frankenstein movie in 1910, there still isn't a single movie that follows the book, in both the story and the look of the monster.
I’m in the same boat with Frankenstein and Dracula. I hope to read them in 2025. I got into Lovecraft this year and gothic fiction and finally read Jekyll & Hyde.
Ok, here is the best recommendation I can make for 'We'. Its fast. Like, its good, its foundational, etc. But, its also pretty short. You will finish it in a weekend no problem.
Two of those books on your list of shame, were some of my patreon pick. Them being The divine comedy and Dracula, which is ironic because I was thinking of picking divine comedy again for next year January. Cool video by the way, I always enjoy these types of video.
@@rammelbroadcastingI don't know if you like audiobooks but Phil Dragash's narration of Lord of the Rings is some of the best I have ever heard. He uses the soundtrack from the films and there are other sound effects too. It's completely free too.
I’m 74, lifelong reader, got into SciFi as a preteen, Lit major in college. I kept trying and failing to read Lovecraft for years until I realized that I just don’t like horror. So, also very little Steven King. I am going to give The Dark Tower one more shot though.
Yeah, advanced TBRs puzzle me a bit too - surely the books you read can (even _should_ ?) change the books you _want_ to read, right ? So a planned TBR feels a bit, I dunno, inorganic ? "Dracula" took me a while to get to as well (usually not _crazy_ about epistolary novels), though I enjoyed it when I did. Not as good as "Frankenstein" IMO, which I really dug (1831 edition, can't vouch for the 1818 though I know fans that prefer it). And Wells is one of my faves (I wouldn't start with "...Moreau" personally, for me not his best but TWotW, "The Time Machine" etc. all great). And who knows, maybe _i'll_ finally get to LotR next year too :).
@anonymes2884 Yeah, I had to rearrange my reading schedule just last month because Murakami dropped a new book, lol. And what I read definitely affects what I want to read.
I'm with you on Dracula/Frankenstein. I thought Dracula was good but I was a bit disappointed with the ending if I'm honest whilst Frankenstein was amazing, one of my all time favs and more than worthy of it's place on all the must read classic lists.
As avid readers, I imagine we all have such lists. I think shame might be harsh however; at least we intend to read them... From this list if I had to pick 1 to put to the top it would be Frankenstein. I had to read it in University and it utterly surprised me. It's simply brilliant on multiple levels. I'm in a similar boat with King. I've read 20ish of his books and though I tried Misery, I found it to be boring. Somehow he's lost his touch with me over the past 20 years or so. The only exceptions being his 'hard case crime' books; those are great. As for Atwood, as a Canadian I had no choice in school but to read her. Though I can't say i would again...
Oryx and Crake is very different. Sounds like you may be getting ready to give it a try. I would suggest perseverance with it. At times it feels like it may be going nowhere but it is going somewhere and I think you will enjoy it.
Maybe it's a memory thing but I definitely wouldn't call 'We' post-apocalyptic. Its more dystopian in the realm of Orwell. I also had Dracula and Frankenstein on my list of shame but I read and enjoyed them both this year. Great stuff and they have aged incredibly.
I was in the exact same spot as you for all of these books(except Misery) There is a big difference in I “should have” and “want to” read a book. If you haven’t read it yet after all these years, you probably really don’t care and don’t want to read it. And if you don’t care or want to read it and you try to read it, you’ll probably hate it. Just read what you want
I asked Jonathan Koan to pick out the first book of the year, from a few choices of what I should read, he picked Insomnia. Then I just use the Wheel of Choice to find out what I'm reading next. I hate picking out read after I get done with one.
I read some of those classics in my youth (early to late teens), especially HG Wells (along with Jules Verne), and Lord of the Rings which I bought on impulse once not knowing what it was. I remember that Fellowship took me about a month to read, then Towers about ten days and Return of the King I gobbled it down in just four days. I alse read Dracula and Frankenstein back then, as well as many of HP Lovecraft's books. From your list I have not read "We", nor Dante Alighieri. And I DNF Handmaid's Tale but that was a long time ago, so I think I should take it up and read it again (I recently finished "1984" which I had DNF too).
There are many, many books I could put on such a list. But this past year I managed to check off two big names: Cordwainer Smith with his short stores and Norstrillia. Did not like. He's got good ideas but he can't put those ideas in a story worth reading. Maybe back in the 60s he deserved to be hot, not today. Octavia Butler with her Kindred and Parable of the Sower. These were excellent, probably he best novels I read this year. Grim with ugly events, but still good. I wonder how she will be perceived 30, 50 or 100 years from now. Also finally read Friday by Robert Heinlein. A good idea, not well done. Squandered potential.
Lord of the Rings is great. Read it all two times or so. Recently read The Hobbit again. Give it a try. Oh, Misery is one of my fav King books. Gerald’s Game, also great.
I’m in a similar spot with _The Lord of the Rings._ After reading _The Fellowship of the Ring_ in 2022, I took a break and never got back to the second book. I’m in a different spot with Isaac Asimov, though. I have more than 100 of his books, both fiction and nonfiction, and have read more than half of those.
I've read both Dracula and Frankenstein. I enjoyed Dracula more while reading it, but when the ending hit, Frankenstein made me think more. I'll reread Frankenstein, maybe not Dracula.
Dracula and Frankenstein are both on my list of shame too. I read LOTR when I was 12 in between when the 1st and 2nd movies came out so I didn't know the plot beyond the first book. And let me know tell you, I still think about the cliffhanger at the end of Two Towers to this day as one of the best cliffhangers I've ever read. I then went on to write my 11th grade British literature final paper on the trilogy. 😀 I hope you get to LOTR in the new year and I really hope you like it!
Lord of the Rings, Dante and H.P. Lovecraft is on my TBR list for 2025. Misery is better than Gerald's game. I've never heard of We. Love Margaret Atwood, haven't read LeGuin either. Read H.G. Wells as a kid and I wasn't a SciFi affectionato. Yes my list includes The Hobbit and the rest of the saga.
My year was good: Finally read: War & Peace(👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼) The Woman in White(👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼!!!!) The Stranger(👍🏼) The Great Gatsby (👍🏼) A Room with a View (👎🏼) Cold Comfort Farm (👍🏼👍🏼) A Study in Scarlett(👍🏼👍🏼) Great Expectations (👍🏼) The Master & Margarita(👍🏼) A Tale of Two Cities (👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼) Turn of the Screw(👍🏼) Wizard of Earthsea(👍🏼👍🏼) Tomb of Atuan (👍🏼) Plus a bunch of fantasy series and classic rereads I’m finally reading David Copperfield (on it now but sincerely my favorite Dickens so far) What I was supposed to read was most of my list of shame left: Middlemarch Les Miserable Don Quixote Song of Solomon Lonesome Dove Crime & Punishment Bros Karamazov Portrait of a Young Man… Ulysses Anna Karenina Bleak House Divine Comedy Far From the Madding Crowd Adding Dracula because I just picked up the Penguin Deluxe edition. And I’m exactly where you are in LoTR so I’m hoping to get to it. I read It and probably one other King for sure but no idea which one 😂 20 years ago. Now my tbr list is the Cosmere, finish the Riyria Chronicles and Revelations. Memory Sorrow and Thorn series. And hit that list of shame!! I go between Fantasy and Classics. Just got back to reading Nov ‘23 and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. 🙌🏼✌🏼
Also, having just attended Dragonsteel Nexus for the Stormlight Archive 5 release, I think that Brandon Sanderson would be okay with you wanting to read Frankenstein, Dracula, and anything by Margaret Atwood before getting to him.
I too haven’t read Dracula or Call of Cthulhu yet. Those along with the Haunting of Hill House are probably my three greatest horror shames. In terms of sci fi I also haven’t read any HG Wells unless you count the Puffin Junior Classics editions that are changed to be read by younger readers. I haven’t read Ursula K Laguin either. For fantasy I haven’t read Disk World yet which as a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fan makes it doubly shameful. In terms of mysteries I still haven’t finished Sherlock Holmes despite starting the series over a month ago. I’ve only gotten through the first two books and a short story collection. I also haven’t read House of Leaves, but that’s probably too new for this list. For Stephen King I still haven’t read Pet Symetary. Hopefully I will get to these soon.
Having read all the original Dune series and thinking that was the best of sci fi I read the Foundation series and enjoyed it even more. Many things in the Foundation series that later science fiction “borrowed” for inspiration.
I’ve read 6 books by Sanderson now and I feel he’s… alright. He’s a good meat-and-potatoes fantasy author, this generation’s Terry Brooks or David Eddings. His novels are fun and I liked them, Especially the first 3 Mistborns, but he’s pushed SO hard by book-social media that it almost puts me off his stuff. If I hear the words “magic system” again I just might scream.
I will go further than book/author that I haven't read. Top of my list is that I've never read a Japanese novel. I've got some interesting suggestions from your videos that I will buy soon 😊
If you want to read something by Brandon Sanderson without getting into a series, I suggest Warbreaker. It was the first one I read and it gives you a good feel for his style, so you can know if you like it or not without having to get into a whole trilogy or more. Dracula and Frankenstein, despite being written a while ago, still hold up today imo. The writing doesn't feel archaic like even something more "recent" like Lovecraft does. There's more of a focus on the philosophical nature of man (at least in Frankenstein) than on horror from what I can remember. I did the same with LotR when I read it as a kid, but instead of stop reading, I skipped large portion of the middle of Two Towers. It picked back up after that (if I remember right, Frodo, Sam, and Gollum were travelling through a forest or something and talking a lot about the history of Middle Earth; whatever it was, I got really bored lol). Curious to see what happens when you get to that part again. Also, I am the other huge Stephen King fan that hasn't read Misery.
The Frankenstein edition with Bernie Wrightson's illustrations is still gettable, so don't miss your chance. (I had to wait years before it was back in print.)
I agree. Wrightson also got the look of the monster almost exactly as it is in the book. (Although the missing nose is pure typically Wrightson). The drawings are really breath taking. Even something simple as clouds or waves, is art on itself.
Sanderson has a scifi superhero series that i read in high school. it's definitely more for teenagers from what i remember but it's called the Reckoners if it's of any interest
I've not finished The Lord of the Rings, either. The Hobbit was fine. I've read Fellowship of the Ring twice, and just found it so slow both times. I did finish The Two Towers, and found that so much more readable than Fellowship. I stalled about a fifth of the way through the Return of the King about twenty years ago, and have just never gotten back to it, and might not ever do so. Dracula I've read three times, and liked all three.
There are 2 books on this list that are also on my list. Misery being the first. I've done the same thing with Divine Comedy as you have done with the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. I made it halfway through it and stopped. Maybe next year that will change. At least for one of the books.
Do read Dracula I think you'll like it. I am shocked King made the list if you've read twenty of his. My brain will explode probably if I look up how many he's written. I looked it up 65 novellas/novels and 200 short stories wow.
Im reading mostborn right now, be aware that there are VERY heavy YA elements. A romance starts in book one that becomes a major focal point of book 2 for literally two thirds of the book. I pushed through for the lore but GEEZ it was hard to get through and made me almost DNF.
Not sure of you have read these but - The Dunwich Horror and The Shadow over Innsmouth are just as good as Call of Cthulhu. So if you enjoy Cthulhu, which I'm sure you will, then give those other titles a try.
I've been a Stephen King fan for 45 years and only read Misery last summer. I just don't find torture frightening, just terrible. But the book is a great insight to King's theories of writing. The Handmaid's Tail is an easy and excellent read. I loved it, and it is WAY better than the woke, nonsensical tv show.
I don't know your feelings on audiobooks, but there is a version of Bram Stoker's Dracula on Audible which is narrated by Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, and 6 other crazy talented voice actors. Last October I listened to the audiobook while reading a physical copy simultaneously and enjoyed it thoroughly.
I love Lord of the Rings; it's one of the books I always mention in when I have to introduce myself to an English lit class (the other being Les Misérables). That said, I do recognise that it can be hard to get into. A classmate of mine once described Tolkien as a "self-indulgent" writer, and as much as I love his books, I can see that (although, Victor Hugo makes him look absolutely terse). Frankenstein, on the other hand, is a rather short read and there's no excuse for not having read it.
This is totally subjective, but in my opinion Frankenstein is so much better than Dracula as a novel that I don’t think they are even really peers. Dracula did a lot to popularize vampire stories (though certainly didn’t invent them) obviously and so deserves its place in the classics, but as a work of literature I would put it on par with like… a second tier Wilkie Collins novel. Frankenstein is a masterpiece.
I don’t know why Misery would be the King that causes shame. I haven’t read it, and have no particular desire to. In general, I don’t like his books where the main character is an author (The Shining excepted). Also haven’t read The Inferno, but after Paradise Lost I decided I was done with fan fiction. Maybe someday, but again no shame. When you get around to HG Wells, you will likely discover that you had nothing to be ashamed of. Mostly great ideas turned into lousy books (which makes him a fine progenitor of SciFi generally). Dracula, LoTR and Frankenstein however are another matter. If shame gets you to read those, then perhaps shame is a good thing.
I love The Lord of the Rings but I couldn't finish it the first three or four times I tried to read it. Same with Dune. I just couldn't get through either until I was older and a better reader, had different tastes.
If you ever get around to reading H G Wells, before you read his fiction, check out his Outline of History. It's an incredible read, very entertaining.
I get the sci fi leaning. Way too much fantasy is "main character is the most special person who ever lived and now they have to save the world" and doesn't make the world or the main character special enough to be memorable. For me fantasy is my pulp genre and I love reading whatever random books are on Kindle Unlimited because you get a lot of variety and reads are generally quick.
Paradise Lost - mainly because it is referenced in so many other places. Similar feelings on Dracula and Frankenstein. But experience might be tainted due to all the movies and stories out there I read a lot of fantasy, and have zero interest in Sanderson. Regarding Foundation, the entire trilogy is about the length of a modern book.
I am a huge Steven King, Tom Clancy, John Grisham and Clive Cussler fan. Yet, I got tired of all the later three because they are all so formulaic. However, Stephen King is definitely not formulaic. I have read about 75% of all the pages of Stephen Kings books but cannot get myself around to read THE STAND. Its just too BIG. also, have watched both TV series and liked both so much, that I find it hard to get motivated to read the book. Also, I have only read about half of the Dark Tower series, as its too WEIRD, even for me. Many of Kings bigger books get way too drawn out. His 700 + page books could have been reduced to less than 500 pages. Surprised nobody mentioned THE SHINING. Now this is classic Stephen King! Geralds Game, ive tried a couple of times to start it, but, its opening premise is too disturbing.
Hey, I'm one of those people that recommended We. 🙌 Its not the greatest book in the world, but it is an absolute must read for fans of dystopian sci-fi. However... I very rarely "hard DNF" a book, but Oryx and Crake is one of those hard DNFs... The child pornography was way too much for me... Not interested.
For me, the shame is what I was doing instead of reading these books. Not that I can remember. Pointless stuff. Lots of time wasted. Especially since computers went handheld. Anyway, you've got some great reads in your future. Enjoy!
I like dystopian fiction and was all hyped up when i started reading we - Zamyatin. It was a big dissapointment for me, maybe because my expectations where too high. Oryx and crake is definatly more interesting then the handmaidens tail even if you should read them both.
LOTR? Seriously?! 😁 Joking aside, I think it's a great great book...even if I like the Silmarillion more (despite having struggled a bit at the beginning) Our lists of shame have lots on common: Frankenstein, Dracula, Misery (but also IT in my case), Chtulhu cycle and HG wells. 😅 There are too many books that deserve attention and life is often in the way. Unfortunately sometimes we need to give priorities to other things
I still have to read Misery, too. Shame on me. BTW, I ended up reading Joyland. Meh. It's like Stephen King authoring a Scooby Doo episode. And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for that meddling kid!
What? What do I feel ashamed not to have read yet? Do you have a month to read the full list? Let’s simplify: I genuinely love science fiction, but I almost didn’t read it. Let’s start with that in 2025. That should be enough reading… 😅
READ WELLS NOW HE'S SO FUCKING GOOD. like not just a classic and foundational and blah blah. he's just so so good. he reads like he wrote it yesterday not a century ago.
I sure do have a list of shame. I have not read Frankenstein either, or anything by Joyce Carol Oates, Douglas Adams, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Carlos Casteneda, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Tolstoy, not all the SK books by any means, Asimov, Lovecraft, or even Larry McMurtry.
you arent missing much with Dracula, the parts with Jonathan Harker are good, but the part with the fiance were very boring. Misery was real good though! way better than the movie imo
Frankenstein is so much more than you think it is. Beautiful, haunting and thought-provoking. Instead of shaming you, I'm jealous that you get to read Frankenstein, Dracula and Misery for the first time. You will love them all
Frankenstein is a philosophical text disguised as SciFi. I’ve Ben trying for years to get my book club to read it but they have wrong preconceptions about it. Lovely book.
Can't recommend Frankenstein enough, I don't think any movie of it has ever done it justice.
Agreed. I wonder why it seems to be so hard for Hollywood to stick to the book.
I'd rather think of books I've been saving than a list of shame :)
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Romeo & Juliet - you know who
Frankenstein (me too) - Mary Shelley
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Brave New World - Auldous Huxley
Stephen King - you think 20 is low, I've just read one short story
Great channel by the way!
@carnub Thank you! I have almost no desire to read Les Miserables maybe one day 🤷♂️ Brave new word is good 👍
Which short story?
I have read over half of Stephen Kings work and recommend: Carrie, The Shinning, Pet Sematary, The Dead Zone, Mr Mercedes trilogy, (aka Hodges Trilogy) Needful Things, Cujo, Christine, Delores Claiborne, Thinner, etc. His long books IT, The Stand, 11/22/63 I’d reserve for later. (They slowed to a crawl in the middle.)
Frankenstein is a masterpiece. And easily readable still today.
I'm taking part in a year long slow read of Anna Karenina with r/yearofannakarenina. We're starting Jan 1 and the goal is to read 5 chapters a week until we finished. If you or anyone else is interested!
Your videos are interesting. You should not be ashamed of what you haven't read. You are reading and sharing and that is what is a wonderful thing to do. Carry on.
Frankenstein is an incredible piece of work, some of the best prose I've ever read! Only made more impressive by the fact shelley was only 18 when she started writing it.
Your t-shirts are great!
I would highly recommend adding Ursula Le Guin to the list!
As a big PKD fan, I love your shirt! And given that shirt, can I interest you in some Karel Čapek? His play R.U.R, published about 100 years ago, is where we get the word "robot" from (although the robots in the play are more like what we call androids today) and it's actually quite an interesting and surprisingly humorous read.
HG Wells was the first SF author I read as a kid. I saw the old 1950s War of the World movie on TV and then immediately read the book, and then read everything by him I could get. I won't say you'll love him as much as I do but I hope you give him a shot. The Time Machine might be a good first Wells book to start with. I read Dracula for the first time this past year and loved it, and Frankenstein is an old favorite of mine as well. We is another classic that's definitely worth reading but it doesn't always hit with contemporary readers. Happy reading in 2025!
This was a fun watch! I finally read Dracula years ago, and it is so good that I bought a special edition as we'll. I want to re-read it, but there is just not enough time. I own Frankenstein and tried to start it, but I don't think it's my style of book. Maybe one day I'll try again. I have read Misery and Gerald's game more recently, and both are stellar. And yes, finish The Dark Tower series, please, it is so good! I haven't read HG Wells but I did read Isaac Asimov I-Robot short stories recently, and it's an amazing place to start. There are too many books, so little time, 1st world problems 😆!!
No shame. We are only human. I am also a reader and got so much on my shelf to make me ashamed :) Take it easy my brother :D
The Lord of the Rings: tried it twice and the furthest I got was the Hobbitses walking out of the Shire. But dear god, it’s was so annoying. The way they they talk to each other, and the plodding bore of it all, I simply couldn’t continue.
Maybe one day I guess.
Completely with you on the Lord of the Rings "thing"....I've read the first book a couple of times now, with every intention of finishing the series, and never quite manage to get myself over the hurdle of the first. It's one of those, "dang, I SHOULD be enjoying this way more because of how epic it is and how many people adore it"....perhaps the movies are enough for me :D
Dracula is a good one, it's one of the few I've re read. I will say the amount of blood transfusions in the book made me roll my eyes to the back of my head, no chance anyone's surviving that 😂 a classic nonetheless.
Just the first 5 chapters or so of Dracula make a PHENOMENAL short story.
Poor Harker
Read Dracula for the first time in October. Blown away at how much it still holds up. So stoked for Nosferatu
Mistborn is the entry point for Sanderson. You can get a real sense of his skill as a storyteller without investing the extensive time required for Stormlight.
Your book collection isquite impressive and it just keeps getting better and better.
@@sylas9762 Thank you
Haha! I feel the same about Sanderson.
Frankenstein vs. Dracula, both great reads but Frankenstein is the far superior work of literature and most tend to agree.
You mentioned Gerald's Game. That is one freaky book, so underrated imo. The horrors of people, nothing supernatural. Trigger warning checks are necessary for some readers.
Im a Dracula fan who could not get into Frankenstein because it was super annoying. Mwah.
Frankenstein is both exciting and thought-provoking. We is short, prescient and, like all good dystopian novels, points the way to go to avoid dystopia.
I make a year long tbr and I aim for it but it gets changed as my moods change through the months and it also depends how the book I just finished made me feel or if one slows me down into a slump. Making a year long tbr…it’s not crazy, I am. 🤘😂 good reading to you sir.
It's hilarious how similar your list is to mine. I am actually in the middle of Dracula, and recently bought Frankenstein, a Lovecraft boxed set, and a beautiful edition of LOTR as I have read none of them. LOTR is the most embarrassing because I have loved the stories since the cartoon movies came out in the late 70s and have seen every version of the films dozens of times. With King I'm in a similar boat. He is my favorite author as well, and I have not read Salem's Lot, Misery, or the Stand, but have them all, and have for years. I have read the first two books of The Divine Comedy, and think you will love them...especially Inferno. If I had a list of favorite poems Inferno would be number 1. 90% of what we consider hell and the devil to be comes from Inferno...so good.
You have some great reads ahead of you :)
Immediately subscribed when you mentioned Stephen King. He’s my all time favorite author, I have all his books. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Misery! It’s one of my favorites. The movie is also incredible, if you haven’t watched it then I highly recommend it!
But how dare you not have read Lord Of The Rings! /s
Frodo Baggins is my favorite character out of anything I’ve ever read. I’m interested to see how you enjoy the series in full when you get around to it.
I too have some of these other ones you mentioned on my list as well (and just recently acquired physical copies of). Namely Dracula, Frankenstein, We, Handmaids Tale.
I did a huge book haul these last couple months for my birthday/Christmas so I have so many new things to get to. Mostly classics / modern classics that are often on banned book lists so I snatched a good chunk of them up before the new hell..I mean year starts.
Anyways happy reading!
When it comes to fantasy, if you finish the Malazan Book of the Fallen, that'll be enough to call it a good year.
@stevieroach That'll be next year then. At least it will be next year by time I actually finish it 🤷♂️
Another series on my tbr. Wrapping up a few books before I get to Sanderson but Malazan will be following up afterward. I can’t wait!
When I clicked on the video i was speculating, "what books could he mention" and Lotr was the last thing.
Gotta read that, and silmarillion if you like the books!
Great video as always!
Great list of books that you are going to read! I only had one book on your list I haven’t read, The Divine Comedy. Funny enough I just bought a copy a few weeks ago. Hopefully, I take it off my list of shame.
dantes inforno is amazing, but you should know its the type of book you’ll be reading the same page multiple times to understand what its going on, its a complex book.
I'm pretty excited for that one
Frankenstein always have been in the top 3 of my favourite books. Published in 1818. And still ever since the first Frankenstein movie in 1910, there still isn't a single movie that follows the book, in both the story and the look of the monster.
I’m in the same boat with Frankenstein and Dracula. I hope to read them in 2025. I got into Lovecraft this year and gothic fiction and finally read Jekyll & Hyde.
I would more highly recommend Mary Shelley's second novel, "The Last Man." It starts slow but once it kicks into overdrive it is fantastic!
I love that shirt!
Misery was recently my first King experience, I could not put that sucker down. It’s so good.
I think you’ll enjoy if not love all these. No shame , reading is a journey.
Ok, here is the best recommendation I can make for 'We'.
Its fast. Like, its good, its foundational, etc. But, its also pretty short. You will finish it in a weekend no problem.
Two of those books on your list of shame, were some of my patreon pick.
Them being The divine comedy and Dracula, which is ironic because I was thinking of picking divine comedy again for next year January.
Cool video by the way, I always enjoy these types of video.
Just keep putting them in as suggestions. All that does is get them off the list of shame faster, lol
@@rammelbroadcastingI don't know if you like audiobooks but Phil Dragash's narration of Lord of the Rings is some of the best I have ever heard. He uses the soundtrack from the films and there are other sound effects too. It's completely free too.
I’m 74, lifelong reader, got into SciFi as a preteen, Lit major in college. I kept trying and failing to read Lovecraft for years until I realized that I just don’t like horror. So, also very little Steven King. I am going to give The Dark Tower one more shot though.
We all have these gaps, that's compeletemy fine! That said: the ones I've read from this list are all very, very good. Get reading :p
@@BobJacobs10 There's just too many books lol
@@rammelbroadcasting Exactly, haha, my own growing TBR is shameful haha!
Yeah, advanced TBRs puzzle me a bit too - surely the books you read can (even _should_ ?) change the books you _want_ to read, right ? So a planned TBR feels a bit, I dunno, inorganic ?
"Dracula" took me a while to get to as well (usually not _crazy_ about epistolary novels), though I enjoyed it when I did. Not as good as "Frankenstein" IMO, which I really dug (1831 edition, can't vouch for the 1818 though I know fans that prefer it). And Wells is one of my faves (I wouldn't start with "...Moreau" personally, for me not his best but TWotW, "The Time Machine" etc. all great).
And who knows, maybe _i'll_ finally get to LotR next year too :).
@anonymes2884 Yeah, I had to rearrange my reading schedule just last month because Murakami dropped a new book, lol. And what I read definitely affects what I want to read.
I'm with you on Dracula/Frankenstein. I thought Dracula was good but I was a bit disappointed with the ending if I'm honest whilst Frankenstein was amazing, one of my all time favs and more than worthy of it's place on all the must read classic lists.
As avid readers, I imagine we all have such lists. I think shame might be harsh however; at least we intend to read them... From this list if I had to pick 1 to put to the top it would be Frankenstein. I had to read it in University and it utterly surprised me. It's simply brilliant on multiple levels. I'm in a similar boat with King. I've read 20ish of his books and though I tried Misery, I found it to be boring. Somehow he's lost his touch with me over the past 20 years or so. The only exceptions being his 'hard case crime' books; those are great. As for Atwood, as a Canadian I had no choice in school but to read her. Though I can't say i would again...
The Lord of The Rings is perfect to read during the Holidays because the fellowship leaves Rivendell on Christmas Day !!!
Oryx and Crake is very different. Sounds like you may be getting ready to give it a try. I would suggest perseverance with it. At times it feels like it may be going nowhere but it is going somewhere and I think you will enjoy it.
Maybe it's a memory thing but I definitely wouldn't call 'We' post-apocalyptic. Its more dystopian in the realm of Orwell. I also had Dracula and Frankenstein on my list of shame but I read and enjoyed them both this year. Great stuff and they have aged incredibly.
I was in the exact same spot as you for all of these books(except Misery) There is a big difference in I “should have” and “want to” read a book. If you haven’t read it yet after all these years, you probably really don’t care and don’t want to read it. And if you don’t care or want to read it and you try to read it, you’ll probably hate it. Just read what you want
Three of these books are also on my list of "why haven't I read these yet!?" I guess I'll have to join you for part of the ride in 2025.
I asked Jonathan Koan to pick out the first book of the year, from a few choices of what I should read, he picked Insomnia. Then I just use the Wheel of Choice to find out what I'm reading next. I hate picking out read after I get done with one.
I read some of those classics in my youth (early to late teens), especially HG Wells (along with Jules Verne), and Lord of the Rings which I bought on impulse once not knowing what it was. I remember that Fellowship took me about a month to read, then Towers about ten days and Return of the King I gobbled it down in just four days.
I alse read Dracula and Frankenstein back then, as well as many of HP Lovecraft's books.
From your list I have not read "We", nor Dante Alighieri. And I DNF Handmaid's Tale but that was a long time ago, so I think I should take it up and read it again (I recently finished "1984" which I had DNF too).
There's a nice hardcover h.g. wells classics that has 4 or maybe 5 of his science fiction books encapsulated in one copy.
There are many, many books I could put on such a list.
But this past year I managed to check off two big names:
Cordwainer Smith with his short stores and Norstrillia. Did not like. He's got good ideas but he can't put those ideas in a story worth reading. Maybe back in the 60s he deserved to be hot, not today.
Octavia Butler with her Kindred and Parable of the Sower. These were excellent, probably he best novels I read this year. Grim with ugly events, but still good. I wonder how she will be perceived 30, 50 or 100 years from now.
Also finally read Friday by Robert Heinlein. A good idea, not well done. Squandered potential.
Lord of the Rings is great. Read it all two times or so. Recently read The Hobbit again. Give it a try. Oh, Misery is one of my fav King books. Gerald’s Game, also great.
I’m in a similar spot with _The Lord of the Rings._ After reading _The Fellowship of the Ring_ in 2022, I took a break and never got back to the second book.
I’m in a different spot with Isaac Asimov, though. I have more than 100 of his books, both fiction and nonfiction, and have read more than half of those.
I just bought a new translation for Divine Comedy actually by Michael Palma that retains the original rhyming scheme so ill be reading that soon!
I've read both Dracula and Frankenstein. I enjoyed Dracula more while reading it, but when the ending hit, Frankenstein made me think more. I'll reread Frankenstein, maybe not Dracula.
Dracula and Frankenstein are both on my list of shame too.
I read LOTR when I was 12 in between when the 1st and 2nd movies came out so I didn't know the plot beyond the first book. And let me know tell you, I still think about the cliffhanger at the end of Two Towers to this day as one of the best cliffhangers I've ever read. I then went on to write my 11th grade British literature final paper on the trilogy. 😀 I hope you get to LOTR in the new year and I really hope you like it!
Lord of the Rings, Dante and H.P. Lovecraft is on my TBR list for 2025.
Misery is better than Gerald's game.
I've never heard of We.
Love Margaret Atwood, haven't read LeGuin either. Read H.G. Wells as a kid and I wasn't a SciFi affectionato.
Yes my list includes The Hobbit and the rest of the saga.
My year was good:
Finally read:
War & Peace(👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼)
The Woman in White(👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼!!!!)
The Stranger(👍🏼)
The Great Gatsby (👍🏼)
A Room with a View (👎🏼)
Cold Comfort Farm (👍🏼👍🏼)
A Study in Scarlett(👍🏼👍🏼)
Great Expectations (👍🏼)
The Master & Margarita(👍🏼)
A Tale of Two Cities (👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼)
Turn of the Screw(👍🏼)
Wizard of Earthsea(👍🏼👍🏼)
Tomb of Atuan (👍🏼)
Plus a bunch of fantasy series and classic rereads
I’m finally reading David Copperfield (on it now but sincerely my favorite Dickens so far)
What I was supposed to read was most of my list of shame left:
Middlemarch
Les Miserable
Don Quixote
Song of Solomon
Lonesome Dove
Crime & Punishment
Bros Karamazov
Portrait of a Young Man…
Ulysses
Anna Karenina
Bleak House
Divine Comedy
Far From the Madding Crowd
Adding Dracula because I just picked up the Penguin Deluxe edition.
And I’m exactly where you are in LoTR so I’m hoping to get to it.
I read It and probably one other King for sure but no idea which one 😂 20 years ago.
Now my tbr list is the Cosmere, finish the Riyria Chronicles and Revelations.
Memory Sorrow and Thorn series.
And hit that list of shame!!
I go between Fantasy and Classics. Just got back to reading Nov ‘23 and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. 🙌🏼✌🏼
Also, having just attended Dragonsteel Nexus for the Stormlight Archive 5 release, I think that Brandon Sanderson would be okay with you wanting to read Frankenstein, Dracula, and anything by Margaret Atwood before getting to him.
👍 for the t-shirt
I too haven’t read Dracula or Call of Cthulhu yet. Those along with the Haunting of Hill House are probably my three greatest horror shames. In terms of sci fi I also haven’t read any HG Wells unless you count the Puffin Junior Classics editions that are changed to be read by younger readers. I haven’t read Ursula K Laguin either. For fantasy I haven’t read Disk World yet which as a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fan makes it doubly shameful. In terms of mysteries I still haven’t finished Sherlock Holmes despite starting the series over a month ago. I’ve only gotten through the first two books and a short story collection. I also haven’t read House of Leaves, but that’s probably too new for this list. For Stephen King I still haven’t read Pet Symetary. Hopefully I will get to these soon.
Having read all the original Dune series and thinking that was the best of sci fi I read the Foundation series and enjoyed it even more. Many things in the Foundation series that later science fiction “borrowed” for inspiration.
I’ve read 6 books by Sanderson now and I feel he’s… alright. He’s a good meat-and-potatoes fantasy author, this generation’s Terry Brooks or David Eddings.
His novels are fun and I liked them, Especially the first 3 Mistborns, but he’s pushed SO hard by book-social media that it almost puts me off his stuff. If I hear the words “magic system” again I just might scream.
Based on your taste, Oryx & Crake may be the place to start? Both are intense and great, but O&C lines up with what gets you excited
That was the one I originally planned on.
I will go further than book/author that I haven't read. Top of my list is that I've never read a Japanese novel. I've got some interesting suggestions from your videos that I will buy soon 😊
Im assuming Murakami is high on that list?
@@justinhearin8616 Yes!
If you want to read something by Brandon Sanderson without getting into a series, I suggest Warbreaker. It was the first one I read and it gives you a good feel for his style, so you can know if you like it or not without having to get into a whole trilogy or more.
Dracula and Frankenstein, despite being written a while ago, still hold up today imo. The writing doesn't feel archaic like even something more "recent" like Lovecraft does. There's more of a focus on the philosophical nature of man (at least in Frankenstein) than on horror from what I can remember.
I did the same with LotR when I read it as a kid, but instead of stop reading, I skipped large portion of the middle of Two Towers. It picked back up after that (if I remember right, Frodo, Sam, and Gollum were travelling through a forest or something and talking a lot about the history of Middle Earth; whatever it was, I got really bored lol). Curious to see what happens when you get to that part again.
Also, I am the other huge Stephen King fan that hasn't read Misery.
I'll look into warbreaker. That one hasn't been recommended to me before.
The Frankenstein edition with Bernie Wrightson's illustrations is still gettable, so don't miss your chance. (I had to wait years before it was back in print.)
I agree. Wrightson also got the look of the monster almost exactly as it is in the book. (Although the missing nose is pure typically Wrightson). The drawings are really breath taking. Even something simple as clouds or waves, is art on itself.
Sanderson has a scifi superhero series that i read in high school. it's definitely more for teenagers from what i remember but it's called the Reckoners if it's of any interest
I've not finished The Lord of the Rings, either. The Hobbit was fine. I've read Fellowship of the Ring twice, and just found it so slow both times. I did finish The Two Towers, and found that so much more readable than Fellowship. I stalled about a fifth of the way through the Return of the King about twenty years ago, and have just never gotten back to it, and might not ever do so.
Dracula I've read three times, and liked all three.
There are 2 books on this list that are also on my list. Misery being the first. I've done the same thing with Divine Comedy as you have done with the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. I made it halfway through it and stopped. Maybe next year that will change. At least for one of the books.
The War of The Worlds by H.G. Wells and Dracula by Bram Stoker should have been taught to us in high school
Do read Dracula I think you'll like it. I am shocked King made the list if you've read twenty of his. My brain will explode probably if I look up how many he's written. I looked it up 65 novellas/novels and 200 short stories wow.
Im reading mostborn right now, be aware that there are VERY heavy YA elements. A romance starts in book one that becomes a major focal point of book 2 for literally two thirds of the book. I pushed through for the lore but GEEZ it was hard to get through and made me almost DNF.
You can NOT go wrong with checking out Robert Asprin books (I'm sure you probably have)
Not sure of you have read these but - The Dunwich Horror and The Shadow over Innsmouth are just as good as Call of Cthulhu. So if you enjoy Cthulhu, which I'm sure you will, then give those other titles a try.
I've been a Stephen King fan for 45 years and only read Misery last summer. I just don't find torture frightening, just terrible. But the book is a great insight to King's theories of writing. The Handmaid's Tail is an easy and excellent read. I loved it, and it is WAY better than the woke, nonsensical tv show.
I just started reading LOTR trilogy. I recently read Dracula and Frankenstein. I'll be curious to hear your thoughts about the last two lol
I don't know your feelings on audiobooks, but there is a version of Bram Stoker's Dracula on Audible which is narrated by Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, and 6 other crazy talented voice actors. Last October I listened to the audiobook while reading a physical copy simultaneously and enjoyed it thoroughly.
That sounds wonderful
I love Lord of the Rings; it's one of the books I always mention in when I have to introduce myself to an English lit class (the other being Les Misérables). That said, I do recognise that it can be hard to get into. A classmate of mine once described Tolkien as a "self-indulgent" writer, and as much as I love his books, I can see that (although, Victor Hugo makes him look absolutely terse).
Frankenstein, on the other hand, is a rather short read and there's no excuse for not having read it.
For me its Something Wicked This Way Comes
I can not recommend that book enough
Have you read Carmilla? Before dracula, you should totally read that! It is super short :)
Well this seems like a channel worthy of a sub.
Not having read anything by Lovecraft is something I feel i should remedy, where should I start?
The first one I read was color out of space, and it's still my favorite.
@rammelbroadcasting Thank you, I'll pick myself up a copy while I'm doing my Xmas shopping.
This is totally subjective, but in my opinion Frankenstein is so much better than Dracula as a novel that I don’t think they are even really peers. Dracula did a lot to popularize vampire stories (though certainly didn’t invent them) obviously and so deserves its place in the classics, but as a work of literature I would put it on par with like… a second tier Wilkie Collins novel.
Frankenstein is a masterpiece.
I don’t know why Misery would be the King that causes shame. I haven’t read it, and have no particular desire to. In general, I don’t like his books where the main character is an author (The Shining excepted).
Also haven’t read The Inferno, but after Paradise Lost I decided I was done with fan fiction. Maybe someday, but again no shame.
When you get around to HG Wells, you will likely discover that you had nothing to be ashamed of. Mostly great ideas turned into lousy books (which makes him a fine progenitor of SciFi generally).
Dracula, LoTR and Frankenstein however are another matter. If shame gets you to read those, then perhaps shame is a good thing.
I came from the dystopian video, so my cent of suggestion/recommendation is heavily influenced by it: "Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner.
I love The Lord of the Rings but I couldn't finish it the first three or four times I tried to read it. Same with Dune. I just couldn't get through either until I was older and a better reader, had different tastes.
If you ever get around to reading H G Wells, before you read his fiction, check out his Outline of History. It's an incredible read, very entertaining.
I get the sci fi leaning. Way too much fantasy is "main character is the most special person who ever lived and now they have to save the world" and doesn't make the world or the main character special enough to be memorable. For me fantasy is my pulp genre and I love reading whatever random books are on Kindle Unlimited because you get a lot of variety and reads are generally quick.
Paradise Lost - mainly because it is referenced in so many other places.
Similar feelings on Dracula and Frankenstein. But experience might be tainted due to all the movies and stories out there
I read a lot of fantasy, and have zero interest in Sanderson.
Regarding Foundation, the entire trilogy is about the length of a modern book.
I read Dante years ago, Herodotus, and plenty of other classics, but only this week have I started reading Ubik.....
@@careypridgeon I hope you like it!
I am a huge Steven King, Tom Clancy, John Grisham and Clive Cussler fan. Yet, I got tired of all the later three because they are all so formulaic. However, Stephen King is definitely not formulaic. I have read about 75% of all the pages of Stephen Kings books but cannot get myself around to read THE STAND. Its just too BIG. also, have watched both TV series and liked both so much, that I find it hard to get motivated to read the book. Also, I have only read about half of the Dark Tower series, as its too WEIRD, even for me. Many of Kings bigger books get way too drawn out. His 700 + page books could have been reduced to less than 500 pages. Surprised nobody mentioned THE SHINING. Now this is classic Stephen King! Geralds Game, ive tried a couple of times to start it, but, its opening premise is too disturbing.
Hey, I'm one of those people that recommended We. 🙌 Its not the greatest book in the world, but it is an absolute must read for fans of dystopian sci-fi. However... I very rarely "hard DNF" a book, but Oryx and Crake is one of those hard DNFs... The child pornography was way too much for me... Not interested.
For me, the shame is what I was doing instead of reading these books. Not that I can remember. Pointless stuff. Lots of time wasted. Especially since computers went handheld. Anyway, you've got some great reads in your future. Enjoy!
I like dystopian fiction and was all hyped up when i started reading we - Zamyatin. It was a big dissapointment for me, maybe because my expectations where too high.
Oryx and crake is definatly more interesting then the handmaidens tail even if you should read them both.
I hear very different opinions on We. Some people absolutely love it and then some really don't.
LOTR? Seriously?! 😁 Joking aside, I think it's a great great book...even if I like the Silmarillion more (despite having struggled a bit at the beginning)
Our lists of shame have lots on common: Frankenstein, Dracula, Misery (but also IT in my case), Chtulhu cycle and HG wells. 😅
There are too many books that deserve attention and life is often in the way.
Unfortunately sometimes we need to give priorities to other things
Agreed 👍 Too many books too little time
I still have to read Misery, too. Shame on me. BTW, I ended up reading Joyland. Meh. It's like Stephen King authoring a Scooby Doo episode. And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for that meddling kid!
@JackManhire lol. I haven't read that one yet either.
What? What do I feel ashamed not to have read yet? Do you have a month to read the full list? Let’s simplify: I genuinely love science fiction, but I almost didn’t read it. Let’s start with that in 2025. That should be enough reading… 😅
I haven’t read Agatha Christie yet
READ WELLS NOW HE'S SO FUCKING GOOD. like not just a classic and foundational and blah blah. he's just so so good. he reads like he wrote it yesterday not a century ago.
That's one heck of a sales pitch
@@rammelbroadcasting i try, my king
I sure do have a list of shame. I have not read Frankenstein either, or anything by Joyce Carol Oates, Douglas Adams, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Carlos Casteneda, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Tolstoy, not all the SK books by any means, Asimov, Lovecraft, or even Larry McMurtry.
There’s too many damn books and movies. I lost my shame when I found out Ulysses has like three books you need to read before hand.
I’m in the minority but I listened to the book Frankenstein while walking trails. It could be my least favorite book of all time.
you arent missing much with Dracula, the parts with Jonathan Harker are good, but the part with the fiance were very boring. Misery was real good though! way better than the movie imo
Start with The Way of Kings for sure. Mistbotne seems way too young adult and I’m far past that!