Great selection! The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite books! And Northanger Abbey is my second favorite Jane Austen book. Also, I read Their Eyes Were Watching God in December and loved it. David Copperfield is really good, too. I have a list of classics that I want to read this year as well. I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov right now and am really enjoying it.
Ooo, yes, Karamazov is a delight! I think it's got a very "readable" quality that not all books from that era have, though of course I'm sure that also depends on having a good translation
i know Im randomly asking but does someone know a method to log back into an Instagram account? I was stupid forgot my login password. I would appreciate any tricks you can give me!
@Elliot Jordy I really appreciate your reply. I got to the site through google and I'm trying it out atm. I see it takes quite some time so I will get back to you later with my results.
Dracula is my favorite book ever in the world! I would love to read more classics this year, but am also a mood reader. The challenges I'm working on this year are specific enough to guide my reading while being open enough to allow my mood to have a lot of freedom
Yes, that's my thinking as well! I'm trying to guide my mood thru lots of options & suggestions-- I find my reading mood is very susceptible to the power of suggestion
Bravo! Dracula is in the running for my favorite novel, ever. Most people hearing the word Dracula think of the movies. NO!!! The novel has a hypnotic, haunted, quality that is at times almost a hallucination. The world of academia has looked at the novel Dracula with scorn, especially the idea of it being thought of as literature or art. If you love the novel, you might want to investigate the non-fiction "Dracula: The Novel and the Legend" by Clive Leatherdale that looks at it with the mind of a scholar. The last 5 chapters examines it, a chapter apiece, from the views of feminism, Marxism, Freudian psychology, and religion. Leatherdale takes the novel Dracula seriously, and not as popular trash. David J Skal is another scholar whose book Hollywood Gothic approaches anthropology and fills his book with literary allusions and a dry wit to make a reader marvel.
I have the same goal of returning to my first love (classics) this year, and I am currently reading Shirley and loving it. But it is hard as a mood reader to try and decide ahead of time what we want to read, so I haven't done that, just set the general goal of 12 classics for the year. Good luck with your reading goal and I hope you get to all the books you hoped to.
I'm so excited to hear your reviews on these books, I love classics. I also have the David Copperfield audiobook by Richard Armitage on my TBR list this year as well. I don't think he narrates North and South, but he's in the mini-series. Can we please do a read-along for The Count of Monte Cristo? I've been meaning to read it for years.
Yeah, I'm maxed out on readalongs for the year (Mission Marple is going to be 8 months), but I'm def excited to get to Monte Cristo soon! I remember really liking it as a kid
The Good Soldier is in my top 10 of all-time favorites. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone on booktube talk about it. Howard’s End, The Moonstone, and Northanger Abbey are also fantastic reads.
At least 6 classics is one of my reading goals for this year too. Ideally I want to read classics I haven't read before but you've reminded me how much I enjoyed reading an abridged version of Monte Cristo as a teen so I might add the full length novel to my list for the year
I'm with you on wanting to focus more on quality books this year. I got so wrapped up in making my numbers go up on Goodreads last year that I kinda burned myself out. This year, I didn't even set a "goal". I was going to read The Moonstone last October and for whatever reason (I'm also a goldfish!), never got to it, so that's one I definitely want to read. I read Dracula for the first time last year (as well as Frankenstein) and will be re-reading it (Dracula) as a buddy read, next month via audiobook. From the other books that you mentioned/listed, I want to read: North and South, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Howard's End.
I’m literally reading Dracula and A Room of Ones Own right now and I just finished Northanger Abbey about a week ago. 🤣 our TBRs are weirdly in sync. The Richard Armitage audiobooks sound amazing. I listened to him narrate Dr Jekyl and it was so good, so that may be how I take on a Dickens. I have a classics TBR for 2019 out as well 🙂
I just came across this video a few days ago. You mentioned David Copperfield which I've read twice. It was the book that turned me into a reader when I was in elementary grade school. We had a hardbound edition of it in our classroom. I am sure it was unabridged because the book was three or four inches thick. Seeing you mention the book followed by someone else that was going to do a March read-a-long of the book made me look up my e-book version of it. I had no anticipation of reading it whatsoever. Curiosity drew me to look it it? Synchronicity making itself know? At any rate, I am 81% through the book. This is my third read through. I was enthralled by it as a child. It was like entering a whole other world. I read it in my twenties and it was a bit of a slog. Now that I am almost seventy, I have been so impressed by how extremely wonderful the writing is. These days it is so easy to refer to Dickens as nothing more than a sentimental author. There are emotional truths and nuances sprinkled in this book that amaze me at just how gifted an author Dickens was. I expect to finish it in a couple of days and my reading experience has been fantastic! Pat yourself on the back. If I had not seen your video and the other person's video, I would never have opened this book on my Kindle.
Ive read all of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte.This year want to read all of Emily Bronte and Anne Bronte.Also volume one and two of the complete Novels and Stories of Sherlock Holmes.This should get me to the end of the year hopefully! Maybe Ill read a romance or two in between.
The Count is one of my favorite books of all time, as is Jane Eyre (any Bronte really) And anything by Jane Austen. I also have the Armitage version of David Copperfield. I’m currently listening to Bleak House, for the first time. Shirley is on my TBR for very soon.
The Count of Monte Cristo and The Hunchback of Notre Dame were on my list. I wrote that I wanted to read 10 in my bullet journal, but I might change it.
Wow! Some fantastic choices here! Two of my favorite books of all time are Brideshead and The Good Soldier. Both are almost unbelievably good. Monte Christo is just a fun romp of adventure, love, betrayal, and revenge. You’ll love it, I’m sure. I’ll be looking forward to your thoughts on whatever you decide to read.
Brideshead Revisited is one of my favorite classics! I may have to re-read that one this year, too. I have a goal of re-reading things on my shelf and one classic a month, so that would fulfill both in one!
I love your idea of reading 12 books in a year & doing a more meaning reading.💕 A practical & realistic goal for some of us. The job definitely leaves little time but on a less busy month 2 books is definitely possible. I can read one book a month during the time I teach- mid August through May & in the summer I can certainly read 2 or 3 a month. Many classics I want to read & some reread now as an adult. I am definitely encouraged.😀
Yes, with a little planning & deliberation, it's not so hard to get to meatier books like classics. It's more that I feel like I have to psych myself up for it a bit :)
I really liked your list. I guess I've already told you that I study English like whoa 😉 . I love English... I mean really love it. Listening to you speaking English is so good. The way you speak is beautiful .🤗
I am aiming to read more classics for the first time this year. For the last two years I was rereading all the Jane Austen novels and didn't really read any other classic classics. I'm starting with Dickens because it's been a long time since I've read any Dickens! I think Thomas Hardy is worth persevering with. Far From the Madding Crowd is one of the less depressing ones (and probably my favourite of his that I've read) and I think you'd like Under the Greenwood Tree for the slice of country life aspect. I've not read the Mayor of Casterbridge so can't comment on that one.
Based on the comments from this video, I'm 97% sure I'll go with Far from the Madding Crowd if I do a Thomas Hardy this year-- the love for it has been unanimous!
I have just recently found your channel and really enjoy your literature chat. I wonder if you have read "Shuggie Bain" by Douglas Stuart? It was the worthy winner of The Booker Prize last year. It is a future classic. I'm not biased but I am Scottish!!!!
Delighted to see you've got Anne Bronte on your list! I read 'The tenant' some years after seeing a late 1990s BBC adaptation with Tara Fitzgerald and Toby Stephens and found it superb: despite some faults, it's a key work of feminist literature and an astounding second novel. If only it hadn't been her last ...
My classic TBR includes: "Master and Margarita", "A Room with a View", "To the Lighthouse", "The Name of the Rose", "Far from the Madding Crowd", "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen", "1984" (I KNOW) and maybe I'll manage "Middlemarch." My husband read Middlemarch and Far From the Madding Crowd last year, he recommends both.
Definitely cosign on Middlemarch! I found it really readable and rather funny in its own way :). I may switch my Hardy to Far from the Madding Crowd based on the comments here... sounds like it's a fan fav
asentzio -That is so interesting! I did not like N & S at all. I loved Wives and Daughters though. Isn’t it interesting how diff everybody’s tastes in books are?
The comments on this video are getting me so hype to reread Monte Cristo-- I remember really enjoying it, and legit everyone on here is reminding me why :)
I have a similar goal this year. It's been almost 4 years since I read a classic (my 20-something english major self just shuddered at the horror) and so I've dived into The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. And wow! I liked it immediately and have scolded myself for staying away so long. Good luck on your quest and I look forward to all your thoughts.
Oh I am reading 'Night and Day' by Virgina Woolf which will be my first book from her. I plan to read it in December as a "cozy read". It looks like a lighthearted read too. I am "planning out" my reading schedule right now. Lol
Brideshead Revisited and The Count of Monte Cristo are both fantastic! I'm currently reading Les Misérables. Really enjoying it so far but it's long, heh.
My goal is to read at least 5 classics this year. I'm not big into classics so for me, 5 is pretty good cause usually I read 0. I'm planning on buddy reading Frankenstein next month with a friend of mine. I also want to read Dracula as well. Good luck with your classics.
That's a great goal for a genre that's not normally in your wheelhouse! I read Frankenstein last year and quite enjoyed it - especially considering it was written by a teenage girl more than 200 years ago, it really holds up!
For North ansd south I'd recomment the Juliet Stevenson narration. Currently rereading a Jane Austen with her narration. Armitage's David Copperfield is waiting for me as well! Everyone has so good things to say about it! (even though, to be fair. it probably has many good narrations ). Good luck!!
All interesting choices. I'm presently about a third of the way through Hunchback, which is pretty heavy going. I think I may actually leave it aside and pick up something lighter for a while. Talking of heavy going, that's pretty much what Mayor of Casterbridge is too. Really good but inordinately crushing. I need to read more Hardy (that's the only one of his I've read) The only Waugh I've read so far is The Loved One, which is terrific and also fairly short (I think my old Penguin edition weighs in at under 130 pages). Dracula is one I kind of gave up on a very long time ago (like, the early 90s or so). I really should give it another go. Stoker made a somewhat abridged version of it for paperback publication a few years later which some people think is an improvement but it seems to be awfully hard to find.
In all the end of the year hooplah I noticed that I read Anna Karenina in 2017 and finished the Brothers Karamzov in 2018. Then I went into a charity shop and found a cop of War and Peace for 2 pounds. So I guess I'm now reading one Russian classic a year.
BTW, Yesterday I learned Lew Tolstoy was a pretty horrible person. In his thirties he decided to marry an 18-year-old girl (that, in itself, is pretty normal) and before the marriage he gave her his diary to read so that she would know about his sexual exploits. For the next 20 years she was his manager and secretary, she rewrote his novels for the publishers. They had 13 children because Tolstoy couldn't rein in his "excrutiating need" for sex. Of course, all the while he was cheating on her with servants, Gypsies etc. He gave her STDs. And then, toward the end of his life he decided his wife was the source of his moral corruption because she demanded that he provide for the family. He wrote a will in which he divested her of any rights to income from his novels. Then he ran away from home and died of pneumonia. THE END.
@@kinczyta So because someone' a bad person I shouldn't even consider anything they have to say? Does that mean we can't use any of the math that Karl Gauss discovered? He was a womanizer who frequented brothels, and by pretty much all accounts an enormous jerk. But he was also a mathematical genius. I understand the argument of not reading a new book from someone that you disagree with. Tolstoy died over 100 years ago, so my buying a used edition of one of his books isn't supporting him or condoning his choices. If he's such a terrible person, then I can learn that from his own words, and then I'll understand why I might disagree with him. Truth be told, I didn't particularly care for Anna Karenina, and maybe that trend will continue and I'll stop reading his books. It's good to know where ideas are coming from, so sincerely thank you for the information. Ideas are not isolated from the people who have them, but I think it's very dangerous to refuse to even consider ideas just because you don't like their source.
@@rebeccamccreary8530 Well..I'm genuinely shocked at your reaction because I never suggested boycotting Tolstoy. That comment was meant to be an interesting story and maybe grounds for reflection that a person full of vices is perhaps best equipped to write about human folly.
@@kinczyta No you didn't suggest boycotting Tolstoy, but you didn't make any other suggestions either. It was just an informative comment. Which does inform reading his work. I assumed it was an argument (not a fight, just that you were using Tolstoy's life to support a suggestion). My response was not supposed to be an attack, though I could see how you would think that. I can certainly be blunt sometimes. I was just trying to figure out what argument you were making, but you weren't making one. You were just putting information out there. I'm sorry to have jumped to conclusions. If I haven't made you think that I have a similar moral character to Tolstoy, or at least Gauss, I would be interested to hear more of your thoughts on the book now that we're on the same page.
@@rebeccamccreary8530 I understand, we're cool :) I have only read War and Peace, but comparing my reading experience to my husband's (who has only read Anna Karenina) War and Peace seems to be more enjoyable. As for how his life informed his novels...I think Tolstoy wrote of folly without judgement? I feel his books are also informative rather than trying to make a moral point. He seems to be saying ' FYI the world is full of wretched people, vice and suffering.' I wonder if his growing discontent with his wife informed the thematic concerns of Anna Karenina?
I'm a new subscriber to your channel and am really enjoying your videos. I'm so happy to come across a booktuber whose taste is similar to my own. Just out of curiosity, what is your Hogwarts House? It's weird, but I always want to know what houses my favorite booktubers belong to, lol. I'm a Ravenclaw.
I want to read more classics this year too but I'm not going to set a specific goal since my main goal this year is to reduced my physical TBR. Which, consequently does include some classics. Still, I don't want to overwhelm myself with too many classics but I would really like to read the ones I already own at the least. I would be very interested to hear what you think about Les Mis!! I been a Les Mis fan for a really long time though I haven't read the whole thing (I have read several chapters/parts of it but not cover to cover) I try reading it along with some people online as part of a read-along type club last year but I fell behind so I gave up :/ Maybe I will try again this year.
Super late in watching this I know, but if you’re hesitant about Thomas Hardy, I would totally recommend Far From the Madding Crowd! I read that first from him and absolutely loved it. I then tried to read Tess, and it just didn’t compare in my opinion.
I love reading but classics is not necessarily my go-to genre. That said, I want to try and get out of my comfort zone and read some classics. I've set a goal to at least read Moonstone this year. :D
I know this is an older video but I am really curious about your penguin cloth bound books. Do you actually read those copies ? If so do they get dirty and beat up?
I don't tend to take these editions out & about, so I've never had a problem with them being damaged in the process of reading them. That said, I do know that other people have had a bad experience with these editions being somewhat fragile, so I think if you're looking for a sturdier line of classics, I'd steer you more towards the Everyman's Library editions
@@chelsealovingbooks5961 How is it going? Do you like it so far? I have bought a collection of Bronte books and am rather curious as to how Shirley fares in comparison to Jane Eyre (which i have read)...
I am @@buchdrache1409oving it so far. It has a very different tone than Jane Eyre, and no gothic feel, but is still so beautifully written. The only trouble is that there is a fair amount of French dialouge in the beginning of the book and looking up the definitions slowed me down, but that stopped after the first few chapters (at least up to midway where I am now).If you can get past that, the story is very interesting.
I love A Room of One’s Own! Based on the videos I’ve watched, I think it feels like your reading taste. :) I really want to read The Picture Of Dorian Gray this year. For modern classics, I’d like to give Beloved a second try as I HATED it when it read it in college; I think I was too young/immature to appreciate it. I’m so bad about picking up classics...What are your favorite shorter classics?
@bookslikewhoa Thanks so much! Is there a particular place you’d recommend starting Holmes or a particular collection? I’ve never read any Holmes. Also, have you read The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? If not, I highly recommend it; it’s one of my favorite classics.
Last year I finally got round to reading Thomas Hardys Tess of the d'Urbervilles and to my utter surprise, I hated it. Yet I`d loved all his other novels. I`m currently reading Brideshead Revisited which I`d put off reading because it sounded dull and to my surprise, I`m loving it. You must read Decline and Fall, seriously funny.
I just finished Northanger Abbey on Librivox. I can highly recommend version 2 read by Elizabeth Klett. She is about the only way I can get through Austen.
Haha it will probably be a thing where I wake up one morning and decide to read it! But I'll try to remember to post to Instagram or Goodreads when the mood strikes :)
I would like to read several of these too but reading count of Monte Cristo right now and it is super good so far- like it way more than thought I would already knowing story (on page like 300 of 1200 so far) OH ps I strongly dislike Tess of d’uberville (maybe my least favorite classic ever) but I read Far from the Madding Crowd and really really liked it! Now I want to read more
Rachel Demain - That book is so funny!!! I keep reading big chunks but putting it aside to read other stuff. Will this be the year I finally finish it?!
North and South - 😬! It’s definitely not Cranford or Wives and Daughters. It’s rare for me to dnf a classic but that one went to goodwill. I found the characters rather dull and the romance angle really a leap. “Oh, my darling...” 🙄. See what you think. If you haven’t read Wives and Daughters I highly, highly recommend it!!! Mayor of Cast - good one! Like all Hardys it ain’t Disney but beautifully written, thought provoking and quite moving. There’s a great film version too starring Ciarin Hines. Agnes Grey!!!! ❤️ Read it last summer and loved it. As a teacher, I could totally relate to her frustrations. Not a fan of Tenant - I like the plot, just don’t think the letter angle works. The movie was great though! 😉 Moonstone! Not my very fav Collins but it was just a little slow for me. I’m otherwise a huge fan. If you like Woman in White and Moonstone, you might next want to try No Name, Basil, Law and the Lady, or Armadale. Rogue’s Life is laugh out loud funny at times. Howard’s End - beautiful book! It literally reads like a Merchant Ivory film :)) Have you read Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day? You have some good reads to look forward to!
Richard Armitage does audio books? How did I not know this??? I also finally want to read North and South and Shirley this year. I did read Agnes Grey in November and I am sorry to say I did not like it at all. I detested the main character and was basically hate reading it by the end. That's just my opinion though and I would still really like to hear what you think about it.
How interesting. I really liked it. I’m a teacher, and could totally understand her frustrations over those pupils! I liked the romance too and her relationship with her mom.
I read Dracula and didn't like it at all. It was sexist, but even w orst, it was so so boring. Virginia Wool makes really interesting point in her book! You'll like it. I'm pretty sure I already mention that I loved Brideshead revisited. It was slow and I had put it down a few times, but by the end I was really sad to leave those characters behind. Cold comfort farm was excellent, and I'm planning to re-read it en 2020. I never heard of Henry Green before! I love hearing about new author :D
I'm interested to see how I do with Dracula, cuz I hear very polarized opinions! We'll see how it goes :) . And Henry Green is someone I've meant to get to forever, but "The Remains of the Day" is compared to his stuff often, so I'm excited to try him!
I just reread Emma after reading it for the first time in high school. It was my least favourite Jane Austen then, and unfortunately it still is. She's such an annoying protagonist.
Wait. Evelyn Waugh is a man? How did I not know that? Of course, this isn't as bad as me thinking Daphne du Maurier was a man. Or maybe it excuses it? LOL You have some great books on your list! And Richard Armitage? Yes! I hope to read Les Miserables this year. I've been afraid of it for years, so that's my only classic goal for this year. I do plan on participating in your Miss Marple reading, but in a low-key way.
