10 books that changed my life 

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I'm so used to see Jack with beard that watching his old videos without it is kind of weird

Jack makes me want to read book, even though I was already into reading books before I came across his videos... now, he makes me feel like I "damn, I need to read even more books!"

1. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes, 2. Virginia Wolff - To the Lighthouse, 3. Graham Greene - Brighton Brock, 4. George Orwell - Animal Farm, 5. Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tail, 6. Chelsea Kwakye - Taking up Space, 7. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Americana, 8. Amitav Ghosh - The Hungry Tide, 9. P. Ouidii - Metamorphosis, 10. Evelyn Waugh - Vile Bodies Here you go :)

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is my favourite book of all time (so far). Honestly opens your eyes to the struggles of inequality in other cultures

the book thief changed my life. I love historical books and this being from a child point of view changed my view of the world. it is also beautifully written

Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. That book really opened my eyes to how trauma manifests itself within someone and how it can lead to severe depression. While it also being a story of growing up and being who you are no matter how weird other people think you are. And that was just for the main character because each character faces so many different struggles whether it’s a guy dating a guy who hasn’t come out of the closet or an 18 yr. old girl being taken advantage of by older men. The main character Charlie writes it in letters so you really feel all of his struggles and emotions. You feel like you’re right there with them and can relate even if you didn’t have to go through so many terrible events because all they want to be is happy.

Both of Sally Ronney's novels changed my life because they made me consider the difficulty of preserving feminist ideals when in relationships with men. She also explores ideas like whether sexual submissiveness is inherent to feminity, the process of writing and the way in which technogoly has come to both facilitate conversations and change the way we communicate.

Mine is Anne of Green Gables. I've just read it recently, to be honest and what a shame I didn't read it when I was a child. I love how it assures me that somehow my life would be okay. After I finished reading it, I feel more positive in a way? I can't describe the feeling but I can feel Anne's happy vibes is radiating into my life hahaha

Lolita. It was an entirely new style for me. The author walked such a fine line, expressing through a heavily flawed protagonist, it made me realise how human the monsters are, which was terrifying. And it made me really appreciate the skill that the author must possess.

You randomly popped up in my recommendations a month or so ago, and I think it's my favorite channel now.

I recently read ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’!! such an amazing book, I can’t recommend it enough! really opens your eyes to different religions and culture

when I didn't get my Hogwarts acceptance letter on my 11th birthday my dad was so sweet and convinced me I had another chance because in the Netherlands we go to secondary school after our 12th birthday instead of our 11th. I will never forget that he got me another year of convincing myself I would get my letter.

I don’t need more books to read when I have books to read already but then I decide to re-read Harry Potter every time oop

1 book that is going to change my life: The Uni-verse (by the best author ever; ;) )

You HAVE to read James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room”! It’s a beautiful story.

i think the cool thing about being a literature student in a country like south africa is the fact that i 1. have multiple black lecturers 2. we have read so many books that aren't eurocentric. brilliant works, like "purple hibiscus" (also by adichie), "kindred" - octavia butler, "who fears death" - nnedi okorafor. and we also study black modernism, the harlem renaissance ect.

anyone else still obsessing over his intro!!??

Everyone else: Percy Jackson got me into greek mythology. Jack: goes straight for Ovid :):):) (Also, love your content)

I’m trying to get back into reading - I fell out of the habit of being a bookworm during my 4 years at uni :( the first book I read after this break was The Humans by Matt Haig, it made me remember why I loved reading 😊

My favorite books that have changed my life are the perks of being a wallflower, inkheart, the handmaid's tale, love Simon, talking as fast as i can

The fact that the video's time is 11:11 .. is so attractive !

I really love and appreciate that The Handmaid’s Tale is on this list as I’m currently reading it! I’m also an A-Level English Lit student so of course love this video and Jack in general 🙌🏼❤️

I love it when you post videos where you can see the passion you have for what you are talking about. Makes me smile every time. Xx

hi jack! i found your channel when i attended durham uni a few years back and was looking up stuff about the town/school before i got there. i've graduated a while ago but it's so great to see you doing well. also thank you for listing books that are not the typical types of books you'd see on this type of list. love your videos. wishing you the best in the future!!!

"You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them." --Michael Jordan. While starting my study and meditation music RU-vid channel, I have learned that attitude is vital. If you have something you want to do, then believe in yourself. You can make it happen.

This video was amazing. I need book recommendations for my EE as I am doing the IB program. Congrats on writing your book!

Every time you do videos about book or reading book, I got inspired to read more. Thank you!

I've recommended these already on another one of your videos, but two of the books that have moved me deeply on an essential level are Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. But ... also other books by those authors. They both have wonderful voices, and they're introspective as well as intriguing.

you remind me how much I cherish reading, thankyou for your channel & everything you do!

"A new earth" and "The perks of being a wallflower" changed my perspective on life. On a more literature level; "If we were villains."

I'm REALLY excited about your book! I cant wait to get it

I just discovered your channel Jack, I love your content please keep up and continuing great videos. Love from the Philippines!

oi oi legend, wearing Jade's am/pm collection

So excited for your new book! Wish I had that before starting Uni

I would mention two distinct books 'Metamorphosis' and 'Voyagers of hell'. Though they belong to two different generes they both tell the tale of humans fall into disgrace and struggle to rise from there. Both the books changed my perspective towards life.

Unjaded jade merch I see

Brilliant work, thank you. I'll definitely put Vile Bodies on my reading list. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell was a very significant book for me. I read it when I was 16 and spending a semester in a boarding school in France. I was very quiet and not very good at French... I found myself in a strange mix of sadness and contentment, and this book really spoke to me. That was 21 years ago and I still remember how special it felt to find this story at a time when I felt alone. All the best, Maeve in Ireland

makes me so happy to see a south asian author on this list 😢 ngl sometimes it feels like us south asians don't exist for the rest of the world.

I feel like this video is gonna change MY life!! I gotta buy most of these books! Thank you so much for making this video🙏🏾🙏🏾

I always find lists like this so interesting, hearing about what has influenced someone else's life/reading habits - for instance, I totally get Jack's reasons for loving Brighton Rock, but I just read it and really hated it! On the other hand, the metamorphoses would absolutely be on my list as well (my degree is classics and English and Ovid is 100% a big reason for that!)

1. Into the Wild (Krakauer) 2. The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) 3. As I Lay Dying (Faulkner) 4. Beloved (Morrison) 5. Mere Christianity (Lewis) 6. The Hiding Place (Ten Boom) 7. Light in August (Faulkner) 8. The Shipping News (Proulx) 9. To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee) 10. Nights Below Station Street (Richards)

there's not a video that jack hasn't said at least once "I'm an English lit student" and I love it 😂 😂

The books that changed my life - A Room Of One’s Own (Virginia woolf), The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath) Ariel (Sylvia Plath, basically anything by Sylvia Plath, The Collected Dorothy Parker, the Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess) and Lolita (Nabokov) :))

The Hungry Tide is such a beautiful book ❤️ as a fellow English Lit student, I’d also recommend The God of Small Things - we had to read both for class and they both impacted and moved me so much :)

currently binging jack edward’s videos to study for my new barnes and noble job hahaha

It's been many years since I was a student, but I agree with you about "To the Lighthouse." I felt such a clear, heightened sense of the world - persons and landscape - at first it seems "ordinary" but Woolf's every choice of word builds the feeling she means to convey.

Beloved by Toni Morrison is definitely up on my list of books that’s changed by life. I chose to study it alongside my given play of Medea for my A-Level coursework and enjoyed it from the moment I started reading it.

Great choices. I also love Virginia Woolf since I studied Mrs Dalloway for my A levels. I’m now an English teacher ☺️ I teach Animal Farm, of course! Not a huge fan of The Handmaid’s Tale, but enjoyed re-reading it last year along with The Testaments. You’ve inspired me to read Brighton Rock. Currently reading American Pastoral and Moby Dick.

binging your videos. I’m obsessed!

I recently became so interested in Greek mythology too! I would HIGHLY recommend reading The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. Circe by Madeline Miller is also really good too! 💜

Could you do a mythology video? I’d love to hear any recs you have eg podcast, books etc and just to hear some of your opinions

Would love an updated version of this video!!!!

Awesome video. I haven't read taking up space, but I'm waiting for the paperback version to be released since it has an added chapter.

The book thief! I read it while at school and since, my perspective towards the world and others has been broadened - I also loved the idea that it was narrated by death himself

Nikita Gill’s ’Fierce Fairytales’ collection is what made me enjoy and want to write poetry. Also, ’The Perks of Being a Wallflower’

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara impacted me more than any book I’ve ever read. I cannot recommend it enough.

*The 10PM Question by Kate De Goldi* is a book that moves me every time I read it, and always in a different way. I grew up wth it, it feels like a part of me

Donna Tarrt’s novels changed my life as they were the first books I had read at the time which really made me think and enjoy fine literature!

Read Coming Up for Air by Orwell, too...and also his Down and Out in Paris and London. He is wonderful..

Can't wait to start reading these books. Thank you!

I so agree with the Animal Farm one. I was going to have to read it my freshman year of high school if covid didn't hit but my teacher still gave it to us anyways and I read it during quarantine while I was also doing online school. Let me just say, that book made my jaw absolutely drop. I can't describe how it made me feel but it was incredibly ruthless.

i like how it's sherlock holmes at the first time, the series is absolutely great! really inspired me to become genius like sherlock holmes. I re-read it several times and never got bored. gotta read the comic!!

I love the way you say things, keep it up man! hugs from Argentina :)

If you‘re interested in books with a lot of identity struggles and get education on racism in the past, I would highly recommend Trevor Noahs „Born a Crime“! It‘s kind of a biography about his life as a colored child in times of Apartheid in South Africa! It‘s incredibly informative and gives you such a great inside view. It‘s also full of humour and easy to read, but definitely has a ton of emotional moments and strong characters. I loved this book and can only recommend it!

Let's just appreciate the intro... so simple, but impactful at the same time! I'm really a big fan of it!

Catcher in the rye is my favourite book ever still to this day

Loved your choices and explanations for each. Two books that are definitely on my list are 100 women I know and The Five by Hallie Rubenhold they totally changed my life forever.

The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon - I only read it a few months ago, but oh my gosh, it’s massively altered my perception of migration. It’s written in Creole, which although being difficult to get into at first, offered a completely new way of learning about another culture. I have since really reconsidered my TBR, and what the rule of literature actually is x

1000th like, the best milestone I could have on such an amazing channel!!

Yay another book video🥺

'Stiff ' by Mary Roach is one of my favourites. It's about what happens to bodies left to science and it's funny, touching, eye-opening, a really easy read and I promise that it will make you look at your body and what happens after death in ways you have probably not thought about before.

I‘m really look forward to reading your book！

I highly recommend everything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (but especially Love in a Time of Cholera, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and One Hundred Years of Solitude)

I just finished reading the handmaid's tale about 30 min ago and i was so impressed by the introduction where atwood says that she grew up in the ddr and since I'm german i found that really interesting and also i found it really great that everything has happened at some point in history as you said😁its just such a god book. Do you have recommendations for any other books by her

I read animal farm in my first year of my degree and I loved it so much. I read it when I was younger and never really understood it and so when I reread it while also studying it I just feel in love with Orwell!

tbh the first book i could think of when u posed the question was to the lighthouse, that book made me cry bc it's written so well

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Human Acts by Han Kang & The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho are my (current) top 3 :) Special mention to Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes 💚

'This is Going to Hurt' by Adam Kay had a huge impact on me. I spend quite a bit of my time in hospital and without the NHS I just wouldn't have the care I need. But the NHS and its system is broken, every week something will go wrong with my care, a med isn't available, a consultant won't write a letter, a scan is 2 months away rather than 2 weeks, or a referral bounces because I live at least 2 hours away from any of the tertiary care hospitals. This book reminded me that the doctors and nurses that care for me are doing what they can with what they have, they just don't have the support they need from the government to be able to do anything more which made the GE result in December even more heartbreaking.

Love to hear people talking about Evelyn Waugh (and pronouncing his name properly!), there is a film version of Vile Bodies called Bright Young Things directed by Stephen Fry - he does actually change the ending so it doesn’t just finish, which ties things up a bit too tidily, but worth watching anyway

I recently subscribed to your channel as an English Lit student myself and I love and relate to your enthusiasm about literature! You have certainly extended my ‘to read’ list! I completely agree with you whereby we all need books to change our perception of the world! Some of my favourite books / books which have stuck with me are: Poor Things by Alasdair Gray The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark The Pillowman (a play) by Martin McDonagh Geek Love by Katherine Dunn The Trick is to Keep Breaking by Janice Galloway Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engles Candyfloss by Jaqueline Wilson That’s me for now 🤣 Congratulations on your book though, that’s an amazing achievement!

my first ever book was invisible man by hg wells (it was a part of my exams syllabus, but was okay), than i read the sir arthur conan doyle's sherlock, and i loved reading it, and have since loved reading. so yes its my life changing book.

Hey Jack! 3rd year here... The books which have made an impact on me: Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman about a dystopian world where the races are swapped seen through a love story, Persopolis by Marjane Satrapi (more of a comic book) autobiographical about growing up during the Iranian Revolution. These have stayed with me 💭 Thanks

I'm intrigued by the last one...may read that. I think David Copperfield is my number 1, it shows the full range of human experience and gives us delightful dickensian quotes that are still relevant over a century later. My other love is LM Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series, for much the same reasons (with the added bonus of Canada!❤) I read the first 2 when I was young and could relate to the 11 year old dreamer, but as an adult I read the full set about her going to college, being a teacher and marrying and having children... I have all of those shared experiences, but there are deeper lessons about courage and not losing a sense of humour and community. I'm still in love almost 30 years after reading the first one.

I thought Animal Farm was a weird book when I read it in middle school. I'll have to check out some of the other books you mentioned. I would list all the books that changed my life, but there are to many to list. Love your channel btw ❤️

Congratulations on your book, I wish you well with it 👍

loveee your channel

I really like Animal Farm as well! A professor introduced it to me and was really thankful for it as it was really good to read!

1. Ομήρου Ιλιάς (Iliad) 2. Bram Stoker's Dracula 3. 葉隠 (Hagakure) 4. Sunzi Bingfa (Sun Tzu's art of war) 5. Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles

I am defo going to read Taking Up Space and To the Lighthouse

My mood IMMEDIATELY soured as soon as you mentioned Animal Farm lol. The ending screwed with me so badly🤣🤣

When I was in my early high school year, “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” helped me understand my recently diagnosed depression, which truly changed my life. Now in college, “Fear and Trembling” and “Works of Love” by Soren Kierkegaard have changed my life and have become a blue print to how I view serving and loving other and God.

love videos like this! i'm always searching for the next great read. one of my favourite books ever is Sapiens by Noah Yuval Harari. it covers such a vast variety of topics and gives such an insightful view on the past, present and future of human society.

Fahrenheit 451 has just been my favourite since I was 11 - it was so sad but in one of the strangest ways I've experienced.

Hearing that you read Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies, I'm curious if you have read Brideshead Revisited. I absolutely adore the way Evelyn Waugh writes and I thought the relationships between Charles and Sebastian was so interesting.

Because of the pandemic I've been away from Brighton for almost a year now and you made me sort of homesick for that city even tho I stayed there only for eleven months

Currently reading Americanah for one of my first year modules, it’s AMAZING! I am so invested in it, and now I need to read more of Adichie’s work. Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North would be on my list, it looks at colonial education and effects young individuals lives after being in that system

Charlotte's Web by E.B White. It was the very first book that got me into reading. I was a freshman and it's lunch and suddenly thought of going to the library. What enticed me to read it was, of course, the cover. Haha. I brought it home and read it for five days and found myself teary eyed. Like my family was in the dining room eating supper and I was on the sofa crying because Charlotte died. 😆 from then, I would buy books of any sort. And I'm glad to have found this channel! Brilliant! And like what Jack says, compliments to the chef. 😁

I gotta read all of these books now

Lots of good recommendations there! I'll add some to my TBR 😅 The Alchemist definitely changed my vision of the world and my spirituality. I don't believe in God, but I do believe in faith and that when we really want something the universe conspires to give it to us. That does not mean that just by thinking we are going to get richer or clever, but I think that thinking that we are able to achieve something or be able to imagine it opens more opportunities or at least we see them more clearly, so yes definitely The Alchemist!! :)