I am French and if you want to discover Zola, I can recommend The Assomoir, Germinal, Nana and La Bête Humaine (my favorite so far). In my opinion, The Assomoir and Germinal are the two most popular novels of the Rougons-Macquart cycle in France. Enjoy :)
Ahhhh just been watching some older videos of yours and then saw this video pop up. I’m excited to watch! 😄 Update after watching: I love your choices. There were some I’d read, some I’ve not read and some I’ve never heard of. My favourite classics: War and Peace - it is so addictive despite being so long, Black Beauty, The Railway Children, Anne of Green Gables and Hercule Poirot - not sure which one I’d pick. Honourable mentions to Jane Eyre which surprised me. I expected not to like it but was pleasantly surprised. Jane is such an endearing character! Oh and of course, Winnie the Pooh and Wind in the Willows. I am still trying to find books in the Classics genre that I love. So often I find them challenging or dull. Sometimes it is just that I read them at the wrong time and on a re-read I enjoy them more. Other times the book is just not for me, and that’s okay. Oooh the only Zola I’ve read is The Ladies’ Paradise which I really liked (probably because I loved the TV show so much which was called The Paradise, not sure how many people know of the show but I loved it!) so I’d recommend that. I’m now intrigued to read more of Zola.
I watch a lot of booktube (too much? hahah) and enjoyed this video so much - excited to see two books I hadn't heard of and your infectious enthusiasm! I also adore Frankenstein and your two Jane Austen picks. My favorites include Aurora Leigh, a novel in verse that shares themes with Jane Eyre, Arsene Lupin Gentleman-Thief, and most of Natsume Soseki's novels, especially Sanshiro and The Gate.
I read Daphnis and Chloe a few years ago from your recommendation and loved it. I'm due for a re-read for sure. And I love what you said about children's books that they are the "literature of everybody."
You said Winnie-the-Pooh and I immediately thought of this scene in Vicar of Dibley where their book club talks about Winnie-the-Pooh after they didn't read the actual book they were meant to. It's so funny!
My favorite classic novels are, Jane Eyre, Jude The Obscure,Wuthering Heights,Lady Chatterly's Lover,The Picture of Dorian Gray. My favorite Children's Classics are: The Wizard Of Oz,Dr. Doolittle, Alice In Wonderland, Heidi,Peter Pan, The Water Babies. Thank You for bringing these classics to the attention of others. Oh...I only can only picture Basil Rathbone,and Nigel Bruce as Holmes, and Watson....They were wonderful as a team !📚🫖💕
I totally agree with you on Jane Eyre, Frankenstein and Jane Austen (although my favourite would have to be Pride and Prejudice, but Persuasion is a close second!). I also love A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Dickens, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (if you haven't read this one, I think you would like it!), and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. I'm interested in all the ones you mentioned! I'm not sure if you're interested in classical music at all, but you should try listen to Daphnis and Chloe by Ravel, it's a really lovely piece of music. I sang it with my choir a few years ago.
Some of my favourites are Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Northanger Abbey, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Frankenstein, Dracula, Their Eyes Were Watching God & The Three Musketeers.
If you want to read more Zola, try Germinal. I read it decades ago and was very moved by it. Probably his one work that most deserves being called a classic.
Love all these! My favorite classics are Phantom of the Opera (in french), Far from the Madding Crowd, and definitely Jane Eyre, it's an annual reread for me. it just fits so well in the spooky mood of November I love your favorites videos! Do you have an Scottish recommendations?
I have a lot of favorite books that are modern classics but the ones that are classics pre-1930s (in no particular order) are: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Unknown, and Nutcracker & Mouse King/The Tale of the Nutcracker by ETA Hoffmann/Alexandre Dumas. Those are in my overall all-time favs list, and to name a few more to make it an even 10: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, aaaand...- okay 11- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and stories & poems by Edgar Allan Poe. If I had to choose one thing by Poe it would probably be The Cask of Amontillado. Honorable mentions that are childhood favorites are A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and, it's a little over the cutoff date but, Little House In The Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder was my favorite book when I was 8 and 9 years old. That was first published in 1934.
One of my favorite classics is All Quiet on the Western Front. (I cried when I finished it.) Another favorite is To Kill a Mockingbird, which made me interested in Southern Gothic literature.
I am beyond grateful that Pride & Prejudice didn't make your list - I love Persuasion and Northanger Abbey and think P&P overshadows both while not being (IMO) as good. With you on all the children's books except the Nesbit, although there others of her titles that I did love. I hesitate to say this but in terms of rereading I would say it's sometimes a mistake to go back to what gave us pleasure in our youth.
I haven’t read many classics, mostly sampled a few novels by the big names here and there, but among those I really loved _Moby-Dick_ and _Crime and Punishment_ .
Thank you for the content on classics. I have a question about language learning. Is it advisable to learn ancient Greek if I don’t have time to learn Latin as well? When we read the Greek writers, will I get comparable understanding as people who know both languages, or not?
I once had a dream to read all the penguin classics.. hah. I think there's like 3000 now. I haven't even heard of Emile Zola! I feel like I should read Jane Eyre now that I'm older, through a different lens than my teen years. If you like Sherlock-related books, I really enjoyed Anthony Horowitz' take.
Oh, I HATED Therese Raquin. Such grotty characters. I have ebooks of all of Zola's Rougon-Macquart series but Therese was such an unpleasant experience I've been loath to read any of them. Frankenstein-tremendous. Haven't read Study in Scarlet, nor indeed any of the Sherlock Holmes stuff, in decades. Must rectify that. Wasn't a mega-fan of Northanger Abbey when I read it recently, thought it felt too much like an early work (which, obviously, it was) and there wasn't enough gothicism in it. Need to get reqacquainted with Austen. Haven't read Argonautica, Jane Eyre, Lolly Willowes, Daphnis & Chloe or Winnie the Pooh. Should rectify all of those too (Lolly Willowes is the one I know least about), particularly the Milne. A bit late (I'm nearly 50) to be discovering those stories, perhaps, but I never read the Alice books until my mid-40s and I thought they were tremendous, so perhaps Pooh will be the same. Incidentally, and oddly, this is the *second* video I've watched tonight that mentions Milne's mystery novel... Crowley is an odd and difficult figure in so many ways, but so fascinating that no wonder Maugham wrote a book about him as early as 1908 before he was even at full notoriety. Haven't read the book but there's a 1926 film version which is really interesting (worth finding on YT).
I think the best part of Jane Eyre was her time at Lowood, and wish we had spent more time there. I also think the Brontes in general were better than any Austen book. I think Emma was the best Austen, which i know is an unpopular take.
