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I read Genji last month. I'll be interested in your comments. I have tge same volumes of Plato, isn't it great?

Found your channel yesterday through this video as I am currently reading the aubreyad and wanted to find out if anyone has shared thoughts about them. I am so happy I did! I love your analysis here, I really agree, I think the characters and their complex humanity are really what make the books work. (Plus I would love to know your thoughts on the rest of the aubreyad books at some point too! ). I immediately binged many of your other videos as well and I just have to express how much I appreciate your analysis, knowledge and enthusiasm. I have added so many books on my to be read pile and I am now a subscriber. Thank you so much for these videos!

Unfortunately Ferit Edgu passed away yesterday RIP

Thank you for these videos! I used them as I read through the book. I appreciated your insightful thoughts. Did you make a video about Berenice by Racine? I was looking for it. If you didn't, I sure would appreciate your thoughts on Racine.

Thanx for your analysis of this poem. I am expecting a copy of The Metamorphoses this week and now look forward to a great read.

Really liked this video! I’d like to recommend the eternally under-appreciated Lucius Shepard.

There is a janitor named Ludwig who has a bad habit of showing up late to work each day. Yesterday, he arrived late and said to his boss, “What happens when a duck flies upside down? It quacks up!” “Early again,” muttered his boss.

DFW is of my generation exactly. In college I took a short story writing class, and that excess of detail was exactly what the teacher was pushing, and my finished piece strove for that - something about dental floss as I recall. It sounds like you are saying that DFW’s insights into language and communication are those typical of what you would expect a 25 year old to have.

I read this decades ago. My memory is that it was a very smirky novel.

Jack, I have a question and a comment. First , I did what you did only I found that there were so darn many of the books on that list that I not only didn't like, they either bored me silly or I just was not interested, so I stopped reading the list! However, I do have another question for you: Have you ever seen a Classics List? A true Greek, Roman, Mary Beards, Mary Renault, Homer, the guys in the 12 Caesars books. Those books on ancient history and the ones the 'classist" folks read? Those are the ones I can craving at the moment. Even Google hasn't helped me. Thoughts please!! I have my notebook and pen out (yep, I have read 90% of the Penguin books on the subject. THANK YOU SO MUCH !!!! Oh there is one person "Goldsworthy" who does history of a particular time period and mine is on its way. Really appreciate any ideas and suggestions. Lee

Reading Ulysses on an airplane sounds like having a root canal on an off-road safari. Although I remember spending a long flight reading Absalom, Absalom!, which has become my favorite Faulkner novel. Maybe modernism works best in transit. I remember being very influenced by that previous list as well. Although now that I've read more widely, I think it's an unforgivable oversight that Pynchon's Mason & Dixon was not included. That might be my vote for the greatest American novel.

Uncanny how parallel our reading paths were. I too read almost exclusively nonfiction until high school, naively thinking at the time that fiction was a waste of time and it was better to learn from nonfiction. Then in 11th grade a particular literature class and teacher had a big influence on me, and soon thereafter I discovered Clifton Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan. For a couple of decades I gorged on the classics (I'm 65 so quite a bit older than you) and read almost no contemporary literature until I saw that same NYT list from 2006 and began reading from that list as an intro to good quality contemporary lit. Weird to come across your video and someone who did the same things in about the same way. Today I read a good blend of things and I'm glad for the new NYT list. Thank you for this video. I'll be sure to check out some of your others.

My wife wants me to read Chabon too. Keep pushing it back. Starting JR next month.

Really enjoyed your thoughts on the list and on particular books you mentioned! I'm looking forward to reading Gaddis for the first time next year

This was such a joy. I loved hearing about your early reading. My own early reading was all over the place, and I could have probably benefited from a similar list. 😅

Another great video, thanks for sharing! I was wondering, do you have any plans to film a collection video for your Library of America editions?

Man, that NYRB collection is amazing. I recently read their editions of The Vet’s Daughter, My Death and A Month in the Country. All were fantastic.

Great ramble, Jack.

The thought of creating this arbitrary list of checkpoints and groundwork to read other books and unlock other parts of the canon is *so* real. "Can't read X until I read Y and probably Z too for context, and maybe W to make sure I might like X"-- and so on. This strategy has dominated the last three years of my life-- and even when I try and shrug it off and just read what I want to, I wake up from a daze and realize my little mini tbr's are just don't the same thing. But even as you illustrate in this video-- it's not usually a waste of time. And yet it always feels like a diversion (to me at least). I wish I understood why this is so engrained in my decision-making making and that lists like the NYT (and even the one The Atlantic just put out for the Great American Novels a few months ago) "notable books" didn't drive so much of my reading. Side note-- I don't think any author saw more backlash on my side of Twitter from the list than Richard Powers. Everyone seemed to universally clown The Overstory as a "Pulitzer for stupid people". Never heard a word of negativity before this list and now all of a sudden he's like a Malcolm Gladwell-level pseudointellectual. No idea if that's just my niche or if I didn't get the memo that Powers is out.

On a sentence by sentence basis, Updike is one of the greatest talents in our recent national literature. But man some of his novels are just bad despite being stylistically so good. I wrestle with the question: Is Updikes recycling of themes (religion/adultery) for 50 years a demonstration of his lack of ingenuity or is it noble that he stays true to what he knows? I've read a dozen of his novels, poetry collections, non-fiction, etc. and it remains a love/hate relationship.

I conflated Gaddis and Gass as well though I’ve never read either. Great discussion Jack.

Great library behind you. Plenty to keep you busy there. Best wishes.

I love this discussion

I never was enough of a reader to be shaped by such a list (or even notice one). You were already a strong reader when you came upon that list. I found new authors either in an anthology or a mention, probably in an introduction (which already indicates “classic” as opposed to contemporary category). You as a BookTuber are in a position to create your own list, and I might trust your 100 before the motley crew that developed the New York Times list. I’m still deficient on contemporary authors, but I’m short on pressing reasons to try improve myself.

I would recommend Clandestine as a good book to start with. Not as dense as later books, but all the themes are there.

After reading all of the novel series, I didn’t understand JE (his signature in “signed copy” books) until I read “My Dark Places” about the disappearance of his mother. I’m not sure if I would recommend starting with this, but I didn’t really understand where he was coming from until I read his memoir.

Completely by accident i satarted my Moorcock journey with Erkose. I found it when looking through the fantasy section in my local library after school when i was about 14 (in the mid 80's). I'd just made the mistake of trying to read the Silmarillion as my introduction to Tolkien & gave up fairly quickly so Erkose was a nice change of pace lol.

I've only read Cosmopolis and loved it.

yeah i know ursula explained defaulting to the he pronoun in the book, still she later regretted it in interviews. also, i would add that if you liked the take on sort of 'resolving' sexuality/gender issues in this story you might also read read the elementary particles by michel houellebecq, which is a very, very different book and has another take on the topic.

Hello there! Well… thank you for your emotional thoughtful insights! Let me just digest them all, it actually means lots to me, by the way, because I’m a Vallejo. Very close to the author but also to another parallel very interesting authors like Fernando and Mejia Vallejo. Good bless you brilliant guy. 🎉

I read A Time of Gifts a few months before making my own walk across Europe (I'm from California, I walked from Utrecht to Berlin after being on tour in Europe for three months) at 20 years old. Right now I am so nostalgic for this time period that I never lived in, the only time in history that was Modern, but still before the cynicism of the War. I feel like European art got considerably worse after the early 1930s (with like a million asterisks of course), I'm just so curious about what it would have been like to be person living in Europe at this time.

Read the republic twice…couldn’t enjoy or absorb any of the concepts…it was sooooo draining…and a boring read to be honest….is it my fault ??.?…thought I must start with something different first….anyways thanks for the advice 🤍🤍

It's a good book although it's had to understand it I will it was movie

White jazz is best. 'he talked spook to the spook' etc.

I’ve always enjoyed this dialogue myself. I like its strong emphasis on non-attachment to this ever fleeting world

Where do you gain the introspective knowledge on these books and about the author's themselves? For example how do you know Woolf was particularly proud of the dinner party scene (through her letters?) Is it through biographies, or do you do research on the internet or something? Genuinely curious. Thanks for the insightful video.

As a long time reader of Plato, I would say that the order that you read him is not very important. If you really want to understand Plato, you are going to have to read and re-read all of his works. I would say that one should start by focusing on whichever dialogues seem the most interesting. One is never truly ready to tackle a platonic dialogue, so oftentimes just jumping in is the way to go. Republic Timeaus

I love the environment this book creates it brings a mellow, stagnant, nostalgic, melancholic kinda night atmosphere. Do you think you could recommend some similar books

you might be interrested in Ken Kesey´s books: one flew over the cuckoo´s nest and sometimes a great notion. they have great characters and they are funny. it is also has some psychedelic influences since he wrote alot of the things on LSD in the 1960s. I have a copy of Mrs. Dalloway in my norton anthology of litterature so I´ll get to reading it sometime in the future. now you mentioned: the sea the sea by Murdoch, would you recommend starting by reading that book first over some of her other books? (assuming you have read other by her) i have a : a Severed head and it is alot shorter. by the way, the end sections of these videos is a very nice edition.

I have To the Lighthouse on my shelf, I have only read Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, now I'm more curious to read To the Lighthouse.

My favourite part of the book was the beginning of part two. I remember being taken aback and not wanting that part to end (ironic I guess given its title). Really liked the ending as well. Great review!

This was my first Woolf and I need to reread it. Mrs Dalloway is more reader friendly. That second section is beautiful and ominous. As I have gotten older I have come to think that Woolf is better than Joyce

Very enjoyable video, Jack. More library memories, please. 😊

After reading the book, I didn't understand whether he passed as white? Most of his encounters were with black folks in his travels. Nobody called him out for passing which I feel was not genuine. Unlike they did to me growing up in the eighties sellout, pretending to be white or Spanish.

I much enjoy your presentation as I’ve long read Julian and wrote about him for The Guardian… he calls me Tom LeMot

What a fun experience to see your daughter exploring her reading tastes! I love that it brought back this memory for you. Your descriptions of having to search for books using those computers at the libraries to find authors/books brought back memories for me as well! This reminds me of the experience of seeing a book somewhere and having interest in it but not picking it up then and there and then never being able to find it again because I couldn't remember the exact title or author name! That's probably part of the reason why I'm a list maker now and my Goodreads TBR has thousands of books. I now document any book I'm remotely interested in!

I’m loving your 1950s style lounge shirt.

I’m glad, I guess, that your daughter liked it better than you. I find that the most hyped books (DemonCopperhead for example) are most likely to be a disappointment to me

I discovered your channel through this video. Happy Reading! 😎📚👍

Like you I read this a long time ago but I seem to still remember a melancholy running through the book and lots of food - especially the bowls of soup! Maybe I’m wrong though. This and Hard-boiled Wonderland are probably my favourites of his books.