Classic Literature Book Haul ✏️ chinese classics, gothic lit & rilke 

Emmie, I love love that you're digging into Chinese classics now! As a Chinese myself, it's so sad to see people today are slowly forgetting about the gems of our literature because of the difficulties of reading older texts. Thank you so much for recommending these amazing books! The story of the stone is actually one of my all-time favorites, and you just inspired me to read the English version!

a thumbnail of Chinese classics: so basically there's the four most acclaimed novels(which is also proposed by a western scholar),Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Water Margin and Dream of the Red Chamber(The story of the stone's other name). Journey to the West is very imaginative and entertaining which makes it the easiest to start with. Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the water margin deal with heavy societal, political, and historical factors that make them more suitable for middle-age appetite. Dream of the Red Chamber have always been very popular among female readers, but it's probably the hardest to read since it is considered as the best Chinese classic novel. There are a lot of academics dedicating their careers for the study of this particular book. It will definitely be more interesting to read with more background knowledge in Chinese culture and poetry. You can also try the Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, a short collection of spooky stories. Corresponding tv series for the novels mentioned above can be found on youtube but sadly they don't come with subtitles...

i’d love a reading vlog of Chinese classics!

'To the Lighthouse' is from me! My favourite novel of all time, I think. Hope you have a good time reading it! :)

Oh, i love that you’re diving deeper into Chinese classics! It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a while, so if you have the intention to create a bookclub / a read along I would be so down!

I'm so excited about Emma starting. to read Chinese classics! Chinese classics are so beautifully written however they arent recognized or studied internationally.

THE OUTFIT!! Servin looks and quality content! 💫🔥

I’ve been living for all the hauls in my sub box lately. I’ve added so many good books to my wishlist. My bank account however…is not a fan. 😂😂

I’m so excited for you to read To the Lighthouse, I’m currently reading it and I’m floored by Woolf’s writing and genius. It’s truly life-changing and I’m only a 1/4 of the way through the book. I’m hanging on every word and savoring every sentence. I’ve had to stop myself from underlining everywhere and tagging every page.

I love that you described Anne Radcliffe as her own fog machine.

I am currently reading To The Lighthouse and my goodness!! Nothing can prepare anyone for what that book will do to your soul!!

OMG OMG OMG!! I just bought some Chinese classics myself a couple of days ago! I'm really happy that you're trying out Chinese classics, you could also try the other 3 Great Chinese classics like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, and Dream of the Red Chamber. Also, I really recommend you to try watching some Ancient Chinese dramas, it may actually get you to understand the settings of Ancient China and all that. I'm a Philippine-born Chinese, so I'm really happy that you're trying out Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and now Journey of the West.

Emma: Introduced some new books again My TBR list be like: Here she comes

I learn english with your videos and book recomendations (classics). 👏🏻🤗💖 Love from Portugal 😘🇵🇹

"Her own fog machine" ... I absolutely love that description haha

The Penguin Classics Book is fantastic, I love perusing my copy to find out more about the author and see different cover designs and adding books to my TBR.

WOW The journey to the west??!!! I'm so in love with this book!! We follow the four main characters and their Journeys (obviously) , the stories are so incredibly entertaining and fantastic and miracle!! Please make a review on this once you are finished!!!!!

Wow never has an outfit so perfectly fit a video title before 🔥

A journey to the west is a wonderful Chinese classic! It’s been remade in tv series, movies and games, and is one of my favorite stories. Enjoy your reading❤️

I can't believe I wasn't following you already! Been looking for booktubers who make videos about classics as everyone else that I watch mainly focus on contemporary novels. This is totally inspiring me to get into Chinese classics too, Journey to the West has been on my to read list for quite a while now so maybe this is my sign to go get a copy!

I just received “The Italian” from Amazon. I love the Gothic genre. I really love your sense of personal style.💜🙋🏻‍♀️👍🏻

So happy that you're getting into Chinese classics as a Chinese myself. I very hope that you can do a reading vlog about them ❤️

A Journey to the West is one of my childhood favourites. It has so many layers that a person at any age can enjoy it and learn tremendously from it. It is also one of the books that I rediscovered recently and amazed me deeply, reminding me of my previous ignorance to its deeper meanings and interpretations. Nonetheless, it is absolutely a wonderful journey to just read it at its face level, hope you enjoy it.

So glad I found your channel, its nice seeing somebody be open about different genres of books and speak of them with such admiration!! Really adore your videos

To the Lighthouse is a beautiful book! I feel it is important to approach it the same way that you would approach poetry. I believe many people read it and expect something that flows the way time flows (in the modern, industrial sense). But in order to love the way she writes, you have to get rid of your sense of time and adapt it to the pace in which she breathes her characters into being.

My challenge for 2021 is to read more classics. And because of you I already read amazing classics!!! Thank you for another overview of classics I can discover

That The Penguins Classics Book looks so fun! I could lose multiple afternoons wandering through those pages.

"If you've never read Emma by Jane Austen, we're following......Emma" 😭😭

Let me urge you to pick up Tennant of Wildfell Hall soon. I really think you’ll appreciate the themes it tackles- it was very forward thinking for its time xx

Oh my gosh your outfit totally reminds me of Lydia from Beetlejuice! We stan Emmie's fashion and literature taste 😤 Also, definitely gonna use "penguish" regularly from now on lol~ I would recommend Sun Tzu's Art of War! A quick read but it's really interesting how it considers the impact of war on the masses and how honour was an integral part on how they fought and made war tactics!

What a wonderful collection of books,and thank you for your graciousness!Can't wait to read Rilke.I even got the penguish classic version!😁❤️❤️❤️

13:25 I love Penguin Classics, I only wish they printed their books on acid-free paper to make them more durable. As is, their paperbacks often feel almost disposable in their quality.

Love your outfit Emma ✨✨

Discovering your videos here on RU-vid yesterday and I'm already marathoning them all, I'm loving it mainly because it's motivating me to read again after almost 2 months without being able to read anything.

I love your videos so much!! They give me motivation to read and have just a cozy calm vibe in general🥰

Youre taste in literature is actually stunning.I have a crush 🥰

The book haul of my dreams! So many great books! I've read Emma recently, and loved it! Hope you like To the Lighthouse and The tenant of Wildfell Hall, i think they're amazing. Oh! This catalogue of Penguin Classics is everything! Love this haul, Emma!!💖✨

i almost never comment on youtube but i have to let you know i love your channel so much ! i love your taste in books a lot, your voice is really comforting and all of your videos always make me feel happy and relaxed :) so yeah ! love youuu

Thank you for talking about all of these classics. You've given me so much to explore!

They all sound so interesting, loved that book haul! Thank you Emma🧡

I've been feeling pretty anxious today and just kind of had this gross energy hanging around me, then I turned this video on to watch while I was folding laundry and your voice and your vibe just filled me with this lovely calm feeling. Loved the video and hearing about all of these less well known classics 💕

to the lighthouse is amazing!! (and woolf's best imo) you're gonna love it!!

love how diverse your classics lists are ❤️ chinese lit and gothic lit are areas that i wanna know more about so this video was perfect for me! looking forward to seeing how you get on with them ~

Egils saga is one of dozens of the Icelandic sagas that span from 800-1250 A.D. which are about the travels of people that lived in Iceland, these books and characters are actually not fiction but real history :) These books are a very big part of our culture in Iceland and we read them in elementary school and we even have lineages that go as far back as to the people from these books! My lineage is from Snorri Sturluson the one who wrote Edda and some of these sagas. I can recommend an Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardottir and she writes the most incredible crime stories, I Remember You is her most famous one in case you want more Icelandic literature :)

i really really want to read zofloya too! pygmalion is a play that my favourite uni professor recommended us so i'm looking forward to reading it soon ! that penguin book with all the penguin books looks like a cool coffee table book!

Emmie you really speak to my heart! I'm diving into Chinese classics too!

I really like Pygmalion. I read it in my grade 11 English class. The musical/movie My Fair Lady is based on this play.

PLEASE. You have to read 'The tenant of Wildfell Hall'! One of my favourite book😍😍😍😍

The girl ,the look , the books , we love it all ♥️♥️

Ah I've wanted that set on Journey to the West, they look so good together. Story of the Stone (or Dream of the Red Chamber) has been on my TBR for a while. They are two of the four classic pieces of Chinese literature you always hear about. I love the Brontes, and Tenant is undersung. It's been a while since I read To the Lighthouse, but I did a Mrs. Dalloway reread recently and still loved it. Woolf is on my pantheon of greats.

I've just started reading One hundred years of solitude 💛

When I refresh the feed and you popped up! Need to charge for tmr Monday. Btw, I really love little free boxes vlog so much. Hope you'd do another very soon. Love u 😍

Emma you're spoiling us with all these wondeful videos, and thank you for cueing me into that beautiful edition of King's Solomon's Mines!

Will have a short break from reading The Shining by Stephen King because when i got to part 5, i started cursing as i flipped through the pages. It's getting tough. It's a good timing to see an update from you 😊

Egil’s saga! We have a module on epic and legend at my university, and we studied it for the Norse portion. It always amazes me how much emotion they put into their writing for something that’s so old - definitely beats some of the first novels (in my humble opinion). Look out for the poem Sonatorrek :) it’s one of my favourites ever. Hope you like it!

Thanks for the video! Interesting titles. I am definitely going to check out some of these.

ahhh zofloya is BRILLIANT !!!! one of my fave classics (i enjoyed it far more than udolpho)

I'm also waiting for October or fall to read the Italian I'm really looking forward to reading it!

Omg!!! Emma I love u! I’m a Chinese, and I can assure you the journey to the west is definitely a childhood memory to most of Chinese people. And i really hope that u could enjoy it, because this is definitely well written in Chinese version, and so many people enjoyed it a lot. It might be a little bit hard for non-Chinese to read and understand in the beginning, but when u do understand, u would find out that this is a very special reading experience.😻

Everytime u post it’s like a smile appears on my face... thank u! Your videos impacted me soo much and motivated me to read more❤️❤️❤️

to the lighthouse is one of my favorites! hope you like it too!

never heard of 'the moor' before, but it sounds so interesting omg!! definitely picking this up after i finish my current read :D

can't wait for you to read to the lighthouse, its my favourite book of all time

The journey to west is a classic and amazing story. I have watched 2 version of it's Chinese tv series adapted since i was in middle school and if im not wrong, netflix have its own version.

Pygmalion is one of the funniest plays I've ever read, you're in for a treat!

Aaah Pygmalion is my all time favorite play !! Can’t wait to hear your thoughts 💕💕

A tbr video, yesss please! Also, I hope you read Pygmalion soon. I want to know your thoughts about it

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is my favorite classic ever. I got so excited when you showed it. Can't wait to hear your opinion. Anne Brontë is so underrated, its a shame. This book deserves the hype of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

Hi Emma, great haul! I just finished Legendborn (I know I'm several months behind the bookclub lol) and I'm starting a bunch of new books so I'm really excited!!

Aaah I read Pygmalion this month for the first time and it was really good! It's the first play I've read (other than 10 years ago for school), and it's made me less wary of reading them

Oh my! I love your top/s!!!

Egil's Saga! It's pronounced "Ay-gils" :) . Also, hello from your biggest fan in Iceland

Emma, you should do a poetry for beginners video! I'd love to hear your suggestions on where to start. Love your videos!

I've never been more excited for a video haha!

That Penguin Classics Book looks SO cool! Great video, as always ;)

can't wait to hear what you think about The Story of the Stone, i really want to read it myself!! another recommendation i have for you is The Tale of Genji, an early Japanese classic that was actually written by a woman 🥰

I’m Chinese myself but I’ve never read any Chinese classics so it was interesting seeing the different books from China being recommended in the comments!

seeing a notification from u always makes my day! also u look so pretty in this video 🧡

You lookin classy.. Well more books to my tbr. 🙃

Beautiful video as always✨💕

there are 4 best known classics (四大名著) where everyone of chinese descent if haven't read, have definitely heard of, because a lot cultural cues/references are related to them 1. Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三国演义 2. Journey to the West 西游记 3. Water Margin (aka Outlaws of the Marsh) 水浒传 4. Dream of the Red Chamber 红楼梦 (The Story of the Stone is part 1 of this)

aaahhhh i watched the animated series of journey to the west as a child but have never thought of reading it lol. props to you. it would be useful to look into buddhism doctrines before reading it because it's a buddhist allegory for achieving enlightenment (i am told, as when i watched it i mostly just liked the fight scenes). chinese folklore is more like greek/norse mythology than any monotheistic religion, with many gods of various importance and supernatural creatures. i've been interested in zofloya for a while. mostly because i was looking into a trend in western european classics of portraying moors/roma/dark skinned races more generally as sex demons lmao. the tenant is a page-turner. it's amazing that charlotte suppressed it for fear of controversy, and when she did release it it was considered "coarse." from a modern perspective there's some really blatant double standards for male/female sexuality, especially considering anne's (then heretical) belief in universal salvation. i found helen kind of unrelatable because she's so consistently virtuous, but if anne had given her obvious faults readers would have used those as excuses to disregard anne's call for marriage reform. markham is fun. he feels like will ladislaw with more moral complexity.

I’m adding all of these books to my reading list, thanks for sharing! 💫 Keep rising to be who you want to be! 💫 #keeprising #risingtobe #aswerise #riser

After reading Journey to the West, I recommend watching the film Journey to the West which is a Chinese comedy film of the same name inspired (more of a reinterpretation) of the novel of the same name (its a REALLY good film). I also recommend The Forbidden Kingdom with Jet Li and Jackie Chan which is also inspired by the book. If you ever wondered who would win in a fight between Jet Li and Jackie Chan, then this is the film for you. Both films are REALLY good and REALLY funny.

just found out abt your channel a few days ago and i've been LOVING watching your vids!!

I had a very tiring day, I am going to wind down with this one and also take recommendations😇💙

Hi Emma, please read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Story of Stones, truly classics of Chinese literature. Sending lots of love from China, you have been an inspiration in my journey studying English lit.

My day just got a lot better :)

Penguinsh is my new favorite word, dear Emma!

Oh my god… r/e To The Lighthouse- my English Lit lecturer was obsessed with the notion that the lighthouse was a giant symbol of a phallus. Obsessed. I’ll never read it quite the same.

the penguin classic books... omg so beautiful

Hi, Emma. Cool video. Congrats! As a recommendation for Chinese literature, I would definitely go for contemporary author Mo Yan, but actually I do not know much about Chinese literature. Ironically, my wife is Chinese but knows much more about classic English literature than about any literature from her country. Best!

I love your hair!!!

im chinese and havent read journey to the west bcos of how im not used to reading such a long text in chinese and its filled with stuff that im just not familiar with. also in addition to many cheesy tv shows based on that show, i was never super keen nor interested in reading the book. but woahhh seeing you, a british(?) girl have a translation of the text makes me want to pick it up and read it properly

Quite a nice batch of books you acquired! I have not read any of these books, but these are great additions to your book collection and some that are crossing my mind for the first time. The premise of Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw is how a man makes a bet with another man to take a woman who is not so ladylike and make her become more ladylike. The Three Stooges used this premise a few times in which a man makes a bet on being able to make the Stooges more gentlemanly. I have yet to read this play, but would be inclined to do so. I have been intrigued to read To the Lighthouse as well and would like to read more by Virginia Woolf in general. So far, I am enjoying her short works more. I read Orlando and did not like it. The Chinese classics that you have acquired are mammoths! The Penguin Classics Book is definitely a grab for someone that is looking to have knowledge about everything on the topic at their fingertips, especially leading up to the time in which it was published. Letters to a Young Poet is quite a nice premise that I would be inclined to learn more about. Have you read Halldor Laxness? He is viewed as the quintessential Icelandic writer of the 20th century and is a Nobel Prize in Literature winner. I buddy read Independent People with another Booktuber and reviewed it on my channel. Thank you for sharing! -Josh

Love to see more on the channel I love to read again I love to see some more books I love Vampire ones and also Hunger Games too I love to see some more vlogs too

Speaking of gothic, you might like “Pedro Páramo” by Juan Rulfo. It’s gothic, magical realism, and Latin American literature.

hope you enjoy these two Chinese classics!!!!!!

Given that you love Rilke so much you should read Stefan Zweig’s “The World of Yesterday”. He was perhaps the ultimate Austro-Hungarian hanger-on in the literary culture of the time and he writes so beautifully about his friends (Rilke et al.) and the world at the time. It’s just a lovely description of his and Rilke’s world! Zweig also writes a whole eulogy to Rilke in “Encounters and Destinies” , not too dissimilar to Auguste Rodin but about Rilke.

I have letters to a young poet, Emma and the tenant of wildfell hall on my TBR 💜