Hi, Lucy! I'm from Russia and I'd highly recommend you read "Laughter In The Dark" by Vladimir Nabokov. Not only is it a gripping psychological thriller and an exquisitely written book, it was also translated from Russian into English by the author himself, so you know the quality of translation is perfect!😊
Bonjour Lucy! I'm French and I just wanted to say that your choices for French literature are excellent: actually, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Les Trois Mousquetaires are some of my favorite classics ever! Everybody loves them and I really hope you will enjoy them too
I’m so pleased to hear that! It’s always so scary choosing new books you haven’t heard a lot about. Les Liaisons Dangereuses is the one I’m most excited to read at the moment. I shall have to let you know once I’ve read them! Thank you!
So surprised to see all these Norwegian classics! Kristin Lavransdatter is incredible (it's a trilogy), one of my all time favourite books. Also, since you loved Skam you should check out Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, which Skam was partly based on (high school students in Norway wrote exams comparing Skam and A Doll's House). Tarjei Vesaas was also mentioned in Skam and if you like the Ice Palace I would recommend The Birds. It sticks with your for life.
I am so excited to read The Three Muskateers, too! I was obssessed with the story as a child, and I have really been wanting to go back and read the full version.
Sorry ladies for interfering in your talk. Alexander Dumas' THE THREE MUSKETEERS was the first children's classic I ever read. I was awarded one copy by my school for coming second in some test. I read it. It was the first 'white man's literature' that I read and was really surprised to learn how different Europe and France was from my India during the 17th century.
As a Norwegian, I love that you love Norway! And your pronounciation was really great! I read parts of both Kristin Lavransdatter and Victoria at school, and thought they were really interesting. Victoria is intentionally written a bit artsy, at least according to my teacher. I think Sult (Hunger) by Knut Hamsun is like one of the most famous Norwegian classics, so maybe you want to check that one out 😊 And of course all the plays by Henrik Ibsen.
I’d like to recommend one of my favorite classics, Madame Bovary, if you haven’t read it yet. I love the one translated by Lydia Davis. I believe it’s from Penguin and I love the cover, too!
Hi, So glad you’re thinking of reading some Norwegian classics! Two of my favorites are Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel, and The district governor’s daughters by Camilla Collett. Greetings from Norway ☺️
I hope you bought the second and third volumes of Kristin Lavransdatter, too? You only held up The Wreath. You also need to get The Wife and The Cross. The three books, taken as a whole, are one of my top ten books of all-time. Those individual Kristin Lanvransdatter editions from Penguin have gorgeous covers; the three books are also available in a single Penguin Classics deluxe edition.
I have the Modern Classics too, working my way through them :) Classics from around the world - Tale of the Genji is an obvious one. First novel EVER. Japanese and written by a woman. Don Quixote is also pretty obvious, as it is considered the first contemporary novel. American classics including anything by Hawthorne, James, Twain and Faulkner and literally anything by them I would recommend. Russian literature is also an obvious but my favorite is actually The Master and Margarita which is an amazing romp about the Devil in St. Petersburg. I love Latin American literature so check out: House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Fictions by Juan Luis Borges and The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa, The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bollano, and The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo are all legit classics. Finally one of my favorite authors of all time is Herman Hesse who is a German author and really writes about self discovery in a very meaningful way, maybe check out Siddhartha or Narcissus and Goldmun. Hope you enjoy the recommendations, happy reading!
Sure, one the most famous Australian classics is called My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin. We have two literary prizes named after her. Stella for Women and Miles Franklin the most prestigious here. My Brilliant Career is like Jane Austen gone outback. The protagonist loves writing - so it's all about her path with that! She rejects a wealthy man in order to maintain independence. She's as strong and as harsh as the landscape!
I read a lot of French classics in high school cause my speciality was literature (and I’m French) but I read so much that I got a bit sick of it (you know how school can ruin perfect things 😅). But recently I decided to start getting back into it cause it’s been a while since I read in French actually! Last year I realised I had only read books in English, which is understandable since most popular books are from American/English authors, but a bit crazy I can’t believe I haven’t read my own language in so long 😂 Anyways I’m excited to hear your thoughts on these French classics, I really liked Liaisons Dangereuses!
I would totally recommend Emil Zola 's "Nana". I loved that book! Also, as far as my own country's classics, I could not find many translated but here are some that you can probably find easily and are considered true masterpieces: The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis or Report to Greco by the same author, The complete poems of Sappho, Complete poems of Cavafy (one of my favourite poets of all time) and Wildcat under glass by Alki Zei.
I’m looking forward to comparing it to North and South, which is also set in an industrial town. I wonder how they’ll differ! Glad you liked it, Elise! X
hello! Today is my birthday! Today i got a variety of classics , I got Charles dickens: David Copperfield , Charles dickens: Oliver Twist, And i also got Wuthering heights By: Emily Bronte! All of the books are beautiful editions! I love them so much! well... I have a lot of reading to do over the summer...
Don't know if you still see this, but I'm Norwegian and my favorite Norwegian classic author must be Amalie Skram. She's definitely writing happy books, but I love them. I also love Victoria, so happy you got that one! Some other recommendations: Amtmandens Daughters, Camilla Collett I reread Hunger by Knut Hamsun last year and while I didn't like it the first time I ended up loving it. It's a bit love hate I think. Ibsen plays if you like his style. But Hamsun and Skram must be my favorites. As well as Collett, but she only wrote this one novel. Kristin Lavransdatter is one of our most well known authors, you did well there ;) Hope you enjoy and find something you love :D
Read the Musketeers as a teenager and loved it, also read his The Man in the Iron Mask which I loved too. Since you're reading Norwegian literature I read as a Kid two volumes of Norwegian Fairy Tales which I really loved and could recommend. I read Christmas Carol I think when I was around 10 years old and hardly a christmas has gone by without me reading it - it's the perfect book to get you into to the Christmas spirit so I would wait until december for that one.
For Norwegian Classics I would also recommend Henrik Ibsen (he's even mentioned briefly in SKAM) who was a playwright in the 19thcentury. My personal favourites are "Hedda Gabler" and "Pollard of Society". Happy Reading:)
I need to thank you for inspiring me to get back into reading classic literature. Being academically involved in something, rather than reading for escapism. Thank you so much!
Three Musketeers put me off as a kiddo. But then I read Count of Monte Christo and fell in love with it. So: now I have to back and read Musketeers. I hope you love it! Omg, The Ice Palace! I read this a couple of years ago as part of a course. It’s fascinating; spare but oh so beautiful. And Dangerous Liaisons! Wow! You have some treats in store.
Good Morning from Italy, Lucy, it's nice to see that you added the "Decameron" in your library. When in school, this is quite a mandatory read for italian student, together with "The Divine Comedy" by Dante and others. Hope this book will give you a lot to think about, this is truly a classic, that requires a certain analysis. Thanks for your impressive enthusiasm, Lucy! I am always in awe to listen to young girls like you being into classic literature and into reading in general. Have a good day
Great video, Lucy! Could you please do an updated bookshelf tour? I have seen the bookshelf tour of your narrow one shelf but would classic love to see a full tour of every book you own. Also, notice you have a lot more Penguin Clothbound classics- would love to see those in a bookshelf tour :)
You could read Florante at Laura from the classic Filipino literary canon. It's studied in our 8th grade Filipino class syllabus, and it was written in the 1700's. Quite short, too, won't take a day.
hi Lucy!! I would recommend Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant, Antigone by Jean Anouilh, Therèse Raquin by Emile Zola and the Perfume by Patrick Süskind :) happy reading xxx
I always recommend James Baldwin to booktubers who are interested in classics as he’s so good! Giovanni’s Room is my favourite. And you might be interested in The Lady Of The Cammilias by Alexandre Dumas (fils) I.e. his son. So many films etc. take inspiration from it.
I'd recommend you try Noli Me Tángere and El Filibusterismo. They're Filipino books (high school students in the Philippines are required to read these) and I absolutely love them both. They were both written around the 1800s; a time when the Philippines was still under Spanish colonization. If you want some background on both of these novels, the author (José Rizal) was executed by the Spanish colonial government for exposing their abuses through these novels. They're available on Penguin Classics. Perfect if you want to read obscure classics. I have to warn you though, the first novel that I mentioned is EXTREMELY thematically heavy. Also, since it was written in the Victorian Era, I'd actually consider these to be Victorian Era literature despite the country where it was written in. I mean... There are some similarities such as descriptions of corruption and poverty but it's up to you whether you wanna read them or not. If you do, happy reading! 😊
Our Mutual Friend is my favourite Dickens (that I've read so far), would highly recommend but it is long so if you want a good short(er) one than A Tale of Two Cities is a good one to go for. I really want to buy some Persephone books, the bookshop is bea-u-ti-ful. This was a really interesting wrap-up, great to see some foreign classics. I'm working my way through the Penguin moderns and I have to say that so far 01 is my favourite, looking forward to hearing your thoughts in your wrap-up and congrats on reaching 20k you deserve it!
I wish you joy of Our Mutual Friend, which is my favourite Dickens - mostly because by that late stage in his career his worst faults (and there were many) were in abeyance, and his virtues (equally numerous) were to the fore. Little Dorrit might be worth saving for a while, but Hard Times is a digestible novel with plenty of social-historical content which appears to be to your taste. Once you've a feeling for him, it's well worth having a look at Smollett and Peacock to see where a lot of the Dickensian schtick originates. Other than that - can't go far wrong with Dumas; Boccacio's pretty much essential to any sort of understanding of secular medieval literature - and if you fancy a delectable modern follow up I can't recommend Italo Calvino's Our Ancestors too highly. Which might send you in the direction of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Borges - a literary Aladdin's cave. Sticking to the 19th century but moving away from Britain, Moby-Dick is The Book as far as I'm concerned, which might not sound like good news but you may be surprised - possibly even pleasantly. And Dostoyevsky ... yep, plenty of heavy courses on the menu. :-)
Nada by Carmen Laforet is my favorite book ever. It's set in post Spanish Civil War Barcelona and it was pretty outstanding when it was first published in Spain in 1945. The house of the spirits by Isabel Allende is also a great choice.
Nada sounds brilliant - thank you for the recommendation! I shall also have to try The House of Spirits because I’ve heard so much about it. Thank you!!
Musset! One of these days, I’ll get around to reading La Confession d’un enfant du siècle, en français. His poem “La Nuit de décembre” is one of my favorite poems.
I miss reading some classics. Watching your video make me want to read Maupassant or Flaubert. I also love French literature. You did pronounce right the name of Pierre Chaderlos de Laclos. :)
I do also need to read Flaubert! I have Madame Bovary too and have been wanting to read it for ages. Where would you recommend I start with Maupassant? And thank you - I was so worried I pronounced it wrong!
Such a nice video! Since you‘re so interested in norwegian literature, you should definetly read something written by Henrik Ibsen. My favorites written by him are Hedda Gabler, Nora and Dollhouse. And as a more modern author I can recommend you Bertold Brecht. He‘s a german author and his works from before, during and after WWII are very interesting 😌👍🏻
I've never seen anyone on booktube who has been interested in norwegian classics before, so this makes my little norwegian heart very excited! heheh. I'd recommend Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen too, it's pretty good. :)
Oh I really want to get to The Three Musketeers at some point and Little Dorrit! I read Our Mutual Friend for uni and, after not loving Great Expectations, I really enjoyed it. It's quite long but also really funny. It's a panoramic novel, so jumps around between characters, which I liked. I'm actually hoping Little Dorrit is as good because I love the BBC adaptation.
Another great video! You may enjoy the movie Impromptu, starting a young Hugh Grant and Judy Davis. It is about the relationship between Chopin And George Sand.
I love Alexandre Dumas, he's probably my favourite author and The Count of Monte Cristo is my favourite book. The Three Muskateers series is amazing as well :D
I recommend you read "Oliver Twist" soon! It was the first Dickens book I read, and I found it the easiest to follow along with the plot and characters.
Read brazilian classics! In this blue penguin box, it has a short storie from Clarice Lispector (a Brazilian author and poet) Check Machado de Assis, and José de Alencar books as well ❤️
Sigrid Undset was an amazing author. Kristin Lavransdatter is good place to start and please read all three books, enjoy! Hamsun I never understood. We read him in school and our teacher was so enthusiastic but I - not so much.
as someone coming from a Russian-speaking country I had to read all of the Russian classics in school, and oh boy, I don't think I'll ever not hate Dostoevsky, really. imo he's just so overrated, along with War and Peace and whatever Russian classics are popular in the non-Russian speaking world. however! A Hero of Our Time by Lermontov is my all-time favorite, and I think you might enjoy it too - it's probably as Victorian as Russian lit gets. also, The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov is probably the best piece of Soviet literature out there. it's ridiculously twisted and so, so good! I can't vouch for any translations, but the originals are brilliant, and as a fellow Victorian lit lover I think you might enjoy these books, our tastes are quite similar (I'm currently writing my BA thesis on Hardy, even though I'm an oriental studies major, so) :D honestly, there's so much to Russian classic literature apart from Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, it saddens me that only these two seem to be popular outside of Russia. sorry for my word vomit, I just get excited when it comes to classics (and very rant-y when it comes to Russian ones) :D
Dostoevsky was clearly a great writer, but his storytelling style of slowly drawing everything out in minute detail can become quite frustrating. Crime and Punishment is still to this day a brilliant study of an individual morality, and how a terrible choice made in desperation could actually lead to redemption through the power of conscience. If you wouldn't mind, could you give a rough outline of the plot in the Bulgakov book that you mentioned.
I would recommend Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali if you're looking for a non western translated classic. It's one of the most famous and beloved turkish classics and I'm sure you'd really enjoy it! I love your videos and your reading taste btw, keep up the good work. Love all the way from Istanbul xo
I got the Penguin Mini Moderns box set too! :D I've been slowly reviewing them on my channel haha, I'm up to about 12 or 13 in going through them in order. Kafka next, I think!
Orwell, but i'm a big Orwell fan anyway and his Penguin Mini was what made me notice the range in the first place! MLK was incredible, Ralph Ellison was a nice surprise for me as well. Ginsberg's disappointed me a little and I'm about as big a Ginsberg fan as an Orwell one, but it did also have one of his poems that I know off by heart in it so I can't complain too much ;D What about you?
I live in Sweden and yet haven't read many Swedish classics, BUT we had to read The Serious Game (Den Allvarsamma Leken) By Hjalmar Söderberg för uni last year, and I'm not sure if you'd like it, but I actually enjoyed it so I would recommend it as a translated work! It takes place in the early 1900s I believe
Hi! I know I’m late to the party, but I really wanted to recommend a classic from Chile. I read it earlier this year and I absolutely loved it. It’s called “Martin Rivas” by Alberto Blest Gana. It’s about love and class differences in the chilean capital. It follows the political climate at the time.
You should read some French plays. I personally love Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond de Rostand, and Phèdre by Racine. There are many incredible plays but that's a place to start I guess. I don't know what the translations are worth though, as they were written with rhymes and in alexandrine.
I am Norwegian! Uttalen din er vedlig god! I just wanted to say that Kristin Lavransdatter is an amazing book and you should look forward to reading it. I am not a huge Knut Hamsun fan, but Victoria is my favourite from his works.
I absolutely LOVED Our Mutual Friend. Check out Katie's videos over at Books and Things. They did a monthly read-along based on the serialized order of the sections of the book. Katie does a video a month about each section. You have to scroll back to her videos from a couple years ago, but she has lots of great stuff on Victoria authors. Great stuff. Love your videos!
If you want to get into Ukrainian literature, I highly recommend Kobzar by Taras Shevchnko. It has tons of poems and novellas and a lot of poems I have learned in school. As for Russian literature, I really liked Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin. By the way I've read Rebecca and I loved this book. Can't wait to watch your wrap-up.
Oops! My bad - that’ll teach me for not paying enough attention! I see what you mean by Faust and Emilia Galotti now. My apologies! I shall write them down and remember them when I next need a book to read. Thank you!
lucythereader I have not read it yet, but the sorrows of young Werther by Goethe should be great too. It is a tragic love story which had a great impact on the younger generation at the time it was written
Do you like French novels? I recommend you ' Les dieux ont soif' by Anatole France which loosely translated means 'The Gods Thirst'( a novel set during the Terror) and Hugo's 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' ( made famous by you know who).
The Reivers by William Faulkner; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, An American Slave; The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers; Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Much Ado About Nothing.
I've just finish Hard times and I really like it, althogh Great Expectations and David Copperfield are much more amazing. Also, I'll recomend some writers from Argentina like Julio Cortázar or Borges.
Hi! I'm excited for you to read Kristin Lavransdatter , it is an amazing trilogy. Sigrid Undsed received Nobel prize for literature in 1928 for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages. From The d'Artagnan Romances I have read only first two books (The Three Musketeers un Twenty Years Later) and they were the best. I am from Latvia and it is very hard to find Latvian clasics in english, but I can recomend Bearslayer by Andrejs Pumpurs (it is in Project Gutenberg for all to read).
Fyodor Dostoevsky is amazing, begin with Crime and Punishment, but it’s all good and if you want a more modern author Alexander(his first name gets spelled a bunch of different ways bc russian translation) Solzhenitsyn, he’s amazing too 😭
if you want to try out some books from other cultures, I highly reccommend latin-american literature, which there is a lot of and is actually very good. A modern classic I highly reccommend is "The Tunnel" by Ernesto Sábato
Thank you for the recommendation! This sounds so interesting and I’ve hardly read any Japanese literature, if any. So this is much welcomed! Thanks again!
I am trying to get into Dickens, but for my english lit class we had to read Hard Times which I couldnt get past a few chapters. Which other book by Dickens would you recommend?
Hi.you should read the knight in pantera's skin by Shota Rustaveli.its Georgia's national poem.it was written in 12-13th century . It's really good.its taught in Georgian schools .I think everyone in Georgia knows at least on line of the poem by hart.
Thank you for the recommendation! I’d never heard of this before but I just looked it up and it sounds fascinating. I’ve never read any Georgian literature before. I shall add it to my list!
If you decide to read it message me if you want as it has a lot of odd things that for us ,modern readears are quite strange ( it was for me and my classmates until teacher gave clarification) . By the way it has one of the eraliest feminst line in literature ( I think) The lion's whelps are equal (alike lions), be they male or female." P.s sorry for my poor English
Great haul. I love your channel. I recently read The Three Musketeers and though I'd enjoyed it for the most part, I found the misogyny within it utterly infuriating, and found myself cheering on Milady throughout the majority of the book. It's definitely worth reading though and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it at some point.
I would highly recommend the brilliant Time Regulation Institute by 20th century Turkish writer Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar. I think it is the only one of his books translated into English, but if you find any other, they are all great!
Or The Old Curiosity Shop. That's the book I started with and My Grandpa told me it was the best introduction to Dickens. Bleak House nearly finished me off!!😁😁
The two box sets - penguin moderns and little black classics , are the book same just the edition is different or both the box sets have different books?????? Can you pls tell really confused P.S i love your channel specially because you portrait great classics on your channel
No, both sets are different! The Little Black Classics are the small black ones, and the moderns are blue. Both feature different books! Hope that helps!
I’m loving my persephone books so far, I finished The Priory by Dorothy Whipple and I absolutely adored it!! Hope you gey to read it too. I’m currently reading Little Dorrit, I’m about a 100 pages in and I’m enjoying it so far.
Really glad to hear you adored The Priory! I definitely want to read more Dorothy Whipple now, so that might be a good place to go next! Also glad to hear you’re enjoying Little Dorrit!
Saw the Persephone Books at the Library . Had never heard of this Publisher before. Most of my Classics are the Penguin Black covers. I have a few Red Spine Vintage Books. You don't mention Les Miserables by Victor Hugo? Is it one that intimidates you?
Hi! I am from India, i think you should read a classic called Arthashastra. Its about administration. It was written in 4-3rd century BC. So i think you should give it a try. Hope you like it.
As much as I love Victorian literature I wish I could branch out a bit more especially from my own country Nothing comes to mind except for Arabian nights and shahnameh which is collection of epic tales about start of iran up until the middle ages. Saadat Hasan manto wrote some very good short stories set during the partition of india Hope that somewhat helps :)
Hi, Lucy! I'm from Russia and I'd highly recommend you read "Laughter In The Dark" by Vladimir Nabokov. Not only is it a gripping psychological thriller and an exquisitely written book, it was also translated from Russian into English by the author himself, so you know the quality of translation is perfect!😊
Laima That’s actually really interesting.
Hi,I want to read thish book but it is not available in India. Can you send me.....
Bonjour Lucy! I'm French and I just wanted to say that your choices for French literature are excellent: actually, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Les Trois Mousquetaires are some of my favorite classics ever! Everybody loves them and I really hope you will enjoy them too
I’m so pleased to hear that! It’s always so scary choosing new books you haven’t heard a lot about. Les Liaisons Dangereuses is the one I’m most excited to read at the moment. I shall have to let you know once I’ve read them! Thank you!
I really hope you'll do a tour of all the classics you have, would love to see them all in one place :)
I am planning a bookshelf tour in the next few weeks so there’ll definitely be lots of classics included!
So surprised to see all these Norwegian classics! Kristin Lavransdatter is incredible (it's a trilogy), one of my all time favourite books. Also, since you loved Skam you should check out Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, which Skam was partly based on (high school students in Norway wrote exams comparing Skam and A Doll's House). Tarjei Vesaas was also mentioned in Skam and if you like the Ice Palace I would recommend The Birds. It sticks with your for life.
Have you heard of Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis? It’s our most famous classic here in Brazil and it is amazing. It’s from the XIX century.
I am so excited to read The Three Muskateers, too! I was obssessed with the story as a child, and I have really been wanting to go back and read the full version.
Ah, did you read an abridged version or something like a children’s version? That’s so interesting! I hope you enjoy the full version!
Oh, I've recently read it and absolutely loved it.
Sorry ladies for interfering in your talk. Alexander Dumas' THE THREE MUSKETEERS was the first children's classic I ever read. I was awarded one copy by my school for coming second in some test. I read it. It was the first 'white man's literature' that I read and was really surprised to learn how different Europe and France was from my India during the 17th century.
As a Norwegian, I love that you love Norway! And your pronounciation was really great! I read parts of both Kristin Lavransdatter and Victoria at school, and thought they were really interesting. Victoria is intentionally written a bit artsy, at least according to my teacher. I think Sult (Hunger) by Knut Hamsun is like one of the most famous Norwegian classics, so maybe you want to check that one out 😊 And of course all the plays by Henrik Ibsen.
These all sound amazing! I love that you're interested in Norwegian classics, I haven't heard of any of them but they sound so interesting!
I’d like to recommend one of my favorite classics, Madame Bovary, if you haven’t read it yet. I love the one translated by Lydia Davis. I believe it’s from Penguin and I love the cover, too!
I agree. It's one of my favorite french classics as well. I'd also recommend Eugénie Grandet by Balzac.
Hi,
So glad you’re thinking of reading some Norwegian classics! Two of my favorites are Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel, and The district governor’s daughters by Camilla Collett.
Greetings from Norway ☺️
I hope you bought the second and third volumes of Kristin Lavransdatter, too? You only held up The Wreath. You also need to get The Wife and The Cross. The three books, taken as a whole, are one of my top ten books of all-time. Those individual Kristin Lanvransdatter editions from Penguin have gorgeous covers; the three books are also available in a single Penguin Classics deluxe edition.
I have the Modern Classics too, working my way through them :)
Classics from around the world - Tale of the Genji is an obvious one. First novel EVER. Japanese and written by a woman. Don Quixote is also pretty obvious, as it is considered the first contemporary novel. American classics including anything by Hawthorne, James, Twain and Faulkner and literally anything by them I would recommend. Russian literature is also an obvious but my favorite is actually The Master and Margarita which is an amazing romp about the Devil in St. Petersburg. I love Latin American literature so check out: House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Fictions by Juan Luis Borges and The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa, The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bollano, and The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo are all legit classics. Finally one of my favorite authors of all time is Herman Hesse who is a German author and really writes about self discovery in a very meaningful way, maybe check out Siddhartha or Narcissus and Goldmun. Hope you enjoy the recommendations, happy reading!
Sure, one the most famous Australian classics is called My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin. We have two literary prizes named after her. Stella for Women and Miles Franklin the most prestigious here. My Brilliant Career is like Jane Austen gone outback. The protagonist loves writing - so it's all about her path with that! She rejects a wealthy man in order to maintain independence. She's as strong and as harsh as the landscape!
I read a lot of French classics in high school cause my speciality was literature (and I’m French) but I read so much that I got a bit sick of it (you know how school can ruin perfect things 😅). But recently I decided to start getting back into it cause it’s been a while since I read in French actually! Last year I realised I had only read books in English, which is understandable since most popular books are from American/English authors, but a bit crazy I can’t believe I haven’t read my own language in so long 😂
Anyways I’m excited to hear your thoughts on these French classics, I really liked Liaisons Dangereuses!
I would totally recommend Emil Zola 's "Nana". I loved that book!
Also, as far as my own country's classics, I could not find many translated but here are some that you can probably find easily and are considered true masterpieces:
The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis or Report to Greco by the same author,
The complete poems of Sappho,
Complete poems of Cavafy (one of my favourite poets of all time) and
Wildcat under glass by Alki Zei.
Oh gosh I think you’re going to love Hard Times. The focus on the Industrial Revolution is fascinating. Another lovely video Lucy!
I’m looking forward to comparing it to North and South, which is also set in an industrial town. I wonder how they’ll differ!
Glad you liked it, Elise! X
hello! Today is my birthday! Today i got a variety of classics , I got Charles dickens: David Copperfield , Charles dickens: Oliver Twist, And i also got Wuthering heights By: Emily Bronte! All of the books are beautiful editions! I love them so much! well... I have a lot of reading to do over the summer...
Happy birthday!! You are in for such a treat! I especially hope you enjoy Wuthering Heights - it’s my favourite book. I hope you’ve had a lovely day!
Thank you so much! Hope you have a great day too! I mean in general...
Happy birthday, Your comment is amazing.
Thanks so much!
The Ice Palace is very gentle and very intense at once. I think you will like it.
Don't know if you still see this, but I'm Norwegian and my favorite Norwegian classic author must be Amalie Skram. She's definitely writing happy books, but I love them. I also love Victoria, so happy you got that one!
Some other recommendations:
Amtmandens Daughters, Camilla Collett
I reread Hunger by Knut Hamsun last year and while I didn't like it the first time I ended up loving it. It's a bit love hate I think.
Ibsen plays if you like his style.
But Hamsun and Skram must be my favorites. As well as Collett, but she only wrote this one novel.
Kristin Lavransdatter is one of our most well known authors, you did well there ;)
Hope you enjoy and find something you love :D
Read the Musketeers as a teenager and loved it, also read his The Man in the Iron Mask which I loved too.
Since you're reading Norwegian literature I read as a Kid two volumes of Norwegian Fairy Tales which I really loved and could recommend. I read Christmas Carol I think when I was around 10 years old and hardly a christmas has gone by without me reading it - it's the perfect book to get you into to the Christmas spirit so I would wait until december for that one.
For Norwegian Classics I would also recommend Henrik Ibsen (he's even mentioned briefly in SKAM) who was a playwright in the 19thcentury. My personal favourites are "Hedda Gabler" and "Pollard of Society". Happy Reading:)
I need to thank you for inspiring me to get back into reading classic literature. Being academically involved in something, rather than reading for escapism. Thank you so much!
Three Musketeers put me off as a kiddo. But then I read Count of Monte Christo and fell in love with it. So: now I have to back and read Musketeers. I hope you love it!
Omg, The Ice Palace! I read this a couple of years ago as part of a course. It’s fascinating; spare but oh so beautiful.
And Dangerous Liaisons! Wow! You have some treats in store.
Good Morning from Italy, Lucy, it's nice to see that you added the "Decameron" in your library. When in school, this is quite a mandatory read for italian student, together with "The Divine Comedy" by Dante and others.
Hope this book will give you a lot to think about, this is truly a classic, that requires a certain analysis.
Thanks for your impressive enthusiasm, Lucy!
I am always in awe to listen to young girls like you being into classic literature and into reading in general.
Have a good day
Great video, Lucy! Could you please do an updated bookshelf tour? I have seen the bookshelf tour of your narrow one shelf but would classic love to see a full tour of every book you own. Also, notice you have a lot more Penguin Clothbound classics- would love to see those in a bookshelf tour :)
You could read Florante at Laura from the classic Filipino literary canon. It's studied in our 8th grade Filipino class syllabus, and it was written in the 1700's. Quite short, too, won't take a day.
hi Lucy!! I would recommend Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant, Antigone by Jean Anouilh, Therèse Raquin by Emile Zola and the Perfume by Patrick Süskind :) happy reading xxx
I always recommend James Baldwin to booktubers who are interested in classics as he’s so good! Giovanni’s Room is my favourite. And you might be interested in The Lady Of The Cammilias by Alexandre Dumas (fils) I.e. his son. So many films etc. take inspiration from it.
I loved your book Haul! I loved some of the Norwegian and French books you got!
Happy reading 📖
I’m so pleased - I’m very excited to read them all. Happy reading to you too!
I'd recommend you try Noli Me Tángere and El Filibusterismo. They're Filipino books (high school students in the Philippines are required to read these) and I absolutely love them both. They were both written around the 1800s; a time when the Philippines was still under Spanish colonization. If you want some background on both of these novels, the author (José Rizal) was executed by the Spanish colonial government for exposing their abuses through these novels. They're available on Penguin Classics. Perfect if you want to read obscure classics. I have to warn you though, the first novel that I mentioned is EXTREMELY thematically heavy. Also, since it was written in the Victorian Era, I'd actually consider these to be Victorian Era literature despite the country where it was written in. I mean... There are some similarities such as descriptions of corruption and poverty but it's up to you whether you wanna read them or not. If you do, happy reading! 😊
Our Mutual Friend is my favourite Dickens (that I've read so far), would highly recommend but it is long so if you want a good short(er) one than A Tale of Two Cities is a good one to go for. I really want to buy some Persephone books, the bookshop is bea-u-ti-ful. This was a really interesting wrap-up, great to see some foreign classics. I'm working my way through the Penguin moderns and I have to say that so far 01 is my favourite, looking forward to hearing your thoughts in your wrap-up and congrats on reaching 20k you deserve it!
I wish you joy of Our Mutual Friend, which is my favourite Dickens - mostly because by that late stage in his career his worst faults (and there were many) were in abeyance, and his virtues (equally numerous) were to the fore. Little Dorrit might be worth saving for a while, but Hard Times is a digestible novel with plenty of social-historical content which appears to be to your taste. Once you've a feeling for him, it's well worth having a look at Smollett and Peacock to see where a lot of the Dickensian schtick originates.
Other than that - can't go far wrong with Dumas; Boccacio's pretty much essential to any sort of understanding of secular medieval literature - and if you fancy a delectable modern follow up I can't recommend Italo Calvino's Our Ancestors too highly. Which might send you in the direction of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Borges - a literary Aladdin's cave. Sticking to the 19th century but moving away from Britain, Moby-Dick is The Book as far as I'm concerned, which might not sound like good news but you may be surprised - possibly even pleasantly. And Dostoyevsky ... yep, plenty of heavy courses on the menu. :-)
The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches
by Gaétan Soucy
You NEED to read this ! It’s from Quebec, SUPER GOOD!
Hey I am from Norway.. I absolutely love your channel...ive read Pride and Prejudice because of you and I love it
Nada by Carmen Laforet is my favorite book ever. It's set in post Spanish Civil War Barcelona and it was pretty outstanding when it was first published in Spain in 1945. The house of the spirits by Isabel Allende is also a great choice.
Nada sounds brilliant - thank you for the recommendation! I shall also have to try The House of Spirits because I’ve heard so much about it. Thank you!!
Musset! One of these days, I’ll get around to reading La Confession d’un enfant du siècle, en français. His poem “La Nuit de décembre” is one of my favorite poems.
Hard Times is one of my favourite from Dickens. A lot of people I've talked to about it found it boring but I really loved it.
I miss reading some classics. Watching your video make me want to read Maupassant or Flaubert. I also love French literature. You did pronounce right the name of Pierre Chaderlos de Laclos. :)
I do also need to read Flaubert! I have Madame Bovary too and have been wanting to read it for ages. Where would you recommend I start with Maupassant? And thank you - I was so worried I pronounced it wrong!
Such a nice video! Since you‘re so interested in norwegian literature, you should definetly read something written by Henrik Ibsen. My favorites written by him are Hedda Gabler, Nora and Dollhouse. And as a more modern author I can recommend you Bertold Brecht. He‘s a german author and his works from before, during and after WWII are very interesting 😌👍🏻
I've never seen anyone on booktube who has been interested in norwegian classics before, so this makes my little norwegian heart very excited! heheh. I'd recommend Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen too, it's pretty good. :)
Oh I really want to get to The Three Musketeers at some point and Little Dorrit! I read Our Mutual Friend for uni and, after not loving Great Expectations, I really enjoyed it. It's quite long but also really funny. It's a panoramic novel, so jumps around between characters, which I liked. I'm actually hoping Little Dorrit is as good because I love the BBC adaptation.
Wonderful haul! I would love if you could at the end of the year, tell us how many of these classics you read and enjoy.
So excited for you to read Our Mutual Friend :D
Another great video! You may enjoy the movie Impromptu, starting a young Hugh Grant and Judy Davis. It is about the relationship between Chopin And George Sand.
I love Alexandre Dumas, he's probably my favourite author and The Count of Monte Cristo is my favourite book. The Three Muskateers series is amazing as well :D
I recommend you read "Oliver Twist" soon! It was the first Dickens book I read, and I found it the easiest to follow along with the plot and characters.
Thank you! I really do want to read it soon - definitely this year!
Read brazilian classics! In this blue penguin box, it has a short storie from Clarice Lispector (a Brazilian author and poet) Check Machado de Assis, and José de Alencar books as well ❤️
Sigrid Undset was an amazing author. Kristin Lavransdatter is good place to start and please read all three books, enjoy! Hamsun I never understood. We read him in school and our teacher was so enthusiastic but I - not so much.
as someone coming from a Russian-speaking country I had to read all of the Russian classics in school, and oh boy, I don't think I'll ever not hate Dostoevsky, really. imo he's just so overrated, along with War and Peace and whatever Russian classics are popular in the non-Russian speaking world. however! A Hero of Our Time by Lermontov is my all-time favorite, and I think you might enjoy it too - it's probably as Victorian as Russian lit gets. also, The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov is probably the best piece of Soviet literature out there. it's ridiculously twisted and so, so good! I can't vouch for any translations, but the originals are brilliant, and as a fellow Victorian lit lover I think you might enjoy these books, our tastes are quite similar (I'm currently writing my BA thesis on Hardy, even though I'm an oriental studies major, so) :D honestly, there's so much to Russian classic literature apart from Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, it saddens me that only these two seem to be popular outside of Russia. sorry for my word vomit, I just get excited when it comes to classics (and very rant-y when it comes to Russian ones) :D
Dostoevsky was clearly a great writer, but his storytelling style of slowly drawing everything out in minute detail can become quite frustrating. Crime and Punishment is still to this day a brilliant study of an individual morality, and how a terrible choice made in desperation could actually lead to redemption through the power of conscience. If you wouldn't mind, could you give a rough outline of the plot in the Bulgakov book that you mentioned.
I would recommend Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali if you're looking for a non western translated classic. It's one of the most famous and beloved turkish classics and I'm sure you'd really enjoy it! I love your videos and your reading taste btw, keep up the good work. Love all the way from Istanbul xo
You can try Indian classics, ranging from folklore to poems to novels to short stories :)
I got the Penguin Mini Moderns box set too! :D I've been slowly reviewing them on my channel haha, I'm up to about 12 or 13 in going through them in order. Kafka next, I think!
I’m going through them in order too! What’s been your favourite so far?
Orwell, but i'm a big Orwell fan anyway and his Penguin Mini was what made me notice the range in the first place! MLK was incredible, Ralph Ellison was a nice surprise for me as well. Ginsberg's disappointed me a little and I'm about as big a Ginsberg fan as an Orwell one, but it did also have one of his poems that I know off by heart in it so I can't complain too much ;D What about you?
I loved “Hard Times” when I read it I think you’ll love it too.
I live in Sweden and yet haven't read many Swedish classics, BUT we had to read The Serious Game (Den Allvarsamma Leken) By Hjalmar Söderberg för uni last year, and I'm not sure if you'd like it, but I actually enjoyed it so I would recommend it as a translated work! It takes place in the early 1900s I believe
Hi! I know I’m late to the party, but I really wanted to recommend a classic from Chile. I read it earlier this year and I absolutely loved it. It’s called “Martin Rivas” by Alberto Blest Gana. It’s about love and class differences in the chilean capital. It follows the political climate at the time.
Have you read A Thousand and One Night? The stories are amazing!!!
You should read some French plays. I personally love Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond de Rostand, and Phèdre by Racine. There are many incredible plays but that's a place to start I guess. I don't know what the translations are worth though, as they were written with rhymes and in alexandrine.
I am Norwegian! Uttalen din er vedlig god! I just wanted to say that Kristin Lavransdatter is an amazing book and you should look forward to reading it. I am not a huge Knut Hamsun fan, but Victoria is my favourite from his works.
I absolutely LOVED Our Mutual Friend. Check out Katie's videos over at Books and Things. They did a monthly read-along based on the serialized order of the sections of the book. Katie does a video a month about each section. You have to scroll back to her videos from a couple years ago, but she has lots of great stuff on Victoria authors. Great stuff. Love your videos!
on the topic of norwegian classics, i feel like you would really enjoy amalie skram's books! i myself have really enjoyed them!
Hi Lucy! I'm from Lebanon, there is The Prophet by Khalil Gibran.
If you want to get into Ukrainian literature, I highly recommend Kobzar by Taras Shevchnko. It has tons of poems and novellas and a lot of poems I have learned in school. As for Russian literature, I really liked Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin. By the way I've read Rebecca and I loved this book. Can't wait to watch your wrap-up.
Have you tried German authors like Goethe or Schiller? I love Faust and Emilia Galotti so much, they are some of my favourites
I haven’t, but thank you for the recommendation! Is there a best place to start with a particular book?
Oops! My bad - that’ll teach me for not paying enough attention! I see what you mean by Faust and Emilia Galotti now. My apologies! I shall write them down and remember them when I next need a book to read. Thank you!
lucythereader I have not read it yet, but the sorrows of young Werther by Goethe should be great too. It is a tragic love story which had a great impact on the younger generation at the time it was written
Do you like French novels? I recommend you ' Les dieux ont soif' by Anatole France which loosely translated means 'The Gods Thirst'( a novel set during the Terror) and Hugo's 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' ( made famous by you know who).
The Reivers by William Faulkner; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, An American Slave; The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers; Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Much Ado About Nothing.
I've just finish Hard times and I really like it, althogh Great Expectations and David Copperfield are much more amazing. Also, I'll recomend some writers from Argentina like Julio Cortázar or Borges.
Hi! I'm excited for you to read Kristin Lavransdatter , it is an amazing trilogy. Sigrid Undsed received Nobel prize for literature in 1928 for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages. From The d'Artagnan Romances I have read only first two books (The Three Musketeers un Twenty Years Later) and they were the best. I am from Latvia and it is very hard to find Latvian clasics in english, but I can recomend Bearslayer by Andrejs Pumpurs (it is in Project Gutenberg for all to read).
rincey reads is doing a read-a-long of the three musketeers in august, in case you're interested!
I just found a copy of Our Mutual Friend at a charity shop last month!
the ice palace sounds like the plot of frozen
Fyodor Dostoevsky is amazing, begin with Crime and Punishment, but it’s all good
and if you want a more modern author Alexander(his first name gets spelled a bunch of different ways bc russian translation) Solzhenitsyn, he’s amazing too 😭
if you want to try out some books from other cultures, I highly reccommend latin-american literature, which there is a lot of and is actually very good. A modern classic I highly reccommend is "The Tunnel" by Ernesto Sábato
This is an extremely psychological and great book, really highly reccomend
Thank you so much for the recommendation, Magda! I’ll definitely add it to my list!
20thC Japanese classic: Silence/S. endo. Lots to think about if you want to.
Thank you for the recommendation! This sounds so interesting and I’ve hardly read any Japanese literature, if any. So this is much welcomed! Thanks again!
You're welcome Lucy.
Penguin Moderns? Yes! Take my money now, please!
I love your pronunciation!
I adore this book haul! It's so huge and various! 🔝😃
P.S.: I love your accent so much! It's so elegant! I'd like to have it! 👍
I really wanna start read classics so Thank you for the video. You look pretty btw.
You’re welcome! Let me know if you need any help with the classics!
Awesome selection!!
David Copperfield by C. Dickens I found to be great. We had to compare it to Jane Eyre by seeing where similar links were.
Oh that’s interesting! What links did you find?
I am trying to get into Dickens, but for my english lit class we had to read Hard Times which I couldnt get past a few chapters. Which other book by Dickens would you recommend?
Hi.you should read the knight in pantera's skin by Shota Rustaveli.its Georgia's national poem.it was written in 12-13th century . It's really good.its taught in Georgian schools .I think everyone in Georgia knows at least on line of the poem by hart.
Thank you for the recommendation! I’d never heard of this before but I just looked it up and it sounds fascinating. I’ve never read any Georgian literature before. I shall add it to my list!
If you decide to read it message me if you want as it has a lot of odd things that for us ,modern readears are quite strange ( it was for me and my classmates until teacher gave clarification) . By the way it has one of the eraliest feminst line in literature ( I think) The lion's whelps are equal (alike lions), be they male or female."
P.s sorry for my poor English
my recommendation for a non European classic would be things fall apart by Chinua Achebe
Great haul. I love your channel. I recently read The Three Musketeers and though I'd enjoyed it for the most part, I found the misogyny within it utterly infuriating, and found myself cheering on Milady throughout the majority of the book. It's definitely worth reading though and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it at some point.
Have you read Thérèse Raquin by Zola? I don’t like classics that much, but I LOVE this one!
Would you recommend the boxset to someone who is quite new to classics?🤍
I would highly recommend the brilliant Time Regulation Institute by 20th century Turkish writer Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar. I think it is the only one of his books translated into English, but if you find any other, they are all great!
I would STRONGLY recommend putting Little Dorrit aside for now and read something like Tale of Two Cities or Oliver Twist first.
Or The Old Curiosity Shop. That's the book I started with and My Grandpa told me it was the best introduction to Dickens. Bleak House nearly finished me off!!😁😁
I can't wait for your video about same-sex relationships in classics!
The two box sets - penguin moderns and little black classics , are the book same just the edition is different or both the box sets have different books??????
Can you pls tell really confused
P.S i love your channel specially because you portrait great classics on your channel
No, both sets are different! The Little Black Classics are the small black ones, and the moderns are blue. Both feature different books! Hope that helps!
lucythereader ya it helped a lot. Thankyou sooooo much for taking out your time and replying me
I’m loving my persephone books so far, I finished The Priory by Dorothy Whipple and I absolutely adored it!! Hope you gey to read it too. I’m currently reading Little Dorrit, I’m about a 100 pages in and I’m enjoying it so far.
Really glad to hear you adored The Priory! I definitely want to read more Dorothy Whipple now, so that might be a good place to go next! Also glad to hear you’re enjoying Little Dorrit!
Saw the Persephone Books at the Library . Had never heard of this Publisher before. Most of my Classics are the Penguin Black covers. I have a few Red Spine Vintage Books. You don't mention Les Miserables by Victor Hugo? Is it one that intimidates you?
Hi! I am from India, i think you should read a classic called Arthashastra. Its about administration. It was written in 4-3rd century BC. So i think you should give it a try. Hope you like it.
Where do you watch skam? I watched a few episodes but I wanna watch the whole thing
As much as I love Victorian literature I wish I could branch out a bit more especially from my own country
Nothing comes to mind except for Arabian nights and shahnameh which is collection of epic tales about start of iran up until the middle ages. Saadat Hasan manto wrote some very good short stories set during the partition of india
Hope that somewhat helps :)
Madonna in a fur coat and the time regulation institute are also great Turkish classics
Great classics. Well done ☺
Thank you!
Green days by the river by michael anthony and eascape to last mans peak jean d'costa
In the miso soup is a great Japanese novel, very unnerving!
How on earth do you afford all these books?😁 I am feeling skint just looking at the Books behind you!!
Are they abridged?
Did you read Flaubert or Guy de Maupassant ?
I would recommend you Broken April by Ismail Kadare he is Albanian writer and has been nominated for Nobel prize a lot of times .