Ranking My Favorite classics 📚Classic Lit Recommendations
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2024
- Are you a fan of classic literature or looking to dive into some timeless reads? In this video, I rank my favorite classic books that have stood the test of time and continue to captivate readers across generations. From captivating novels to profound philosophical works, these classics are a must-read for any book lover.
Discover why these classics remain relevant and beloved, and find out which one tops my list! Don't forget to share your favorite classics in the comments below.
Books in this video:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
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To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
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The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
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Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
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The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
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Dracula by Bram Stoker
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Little Women by Louisa Alcott
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Ulysses by James Joyce
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:10 The Ideal Christmas Book
02:50 This Is Not Twilight
05:40 The Ultimate Revenge Story
07:17 We're All Monsters Here
09:58 We'll Always Have Paris
12:08 Not A Murder Mystery
14:23 A Childhood Destroyed
16:28 A Holiday By The Sea
18:41 Russian Roulette
21:58 The Wildcard
24:19 The Light at the Dock
What is your favorite classic of all times? What would you add to this list and what would you toss out? Let me know down below and we'll talk classics some more!
The count of monte Cristo will always be a five star for me , totally agree with you in this .
Frankenstein again something was very intriguing,such a well written book .
The list is acceptable for me as everyone has their own point of view and i personally feel no classic book is first or second or last it's just personal experience where one connects with the characters,their lives , to get most out of classics one have to be in correct mindset . By approaching classic books with curiosity and a desire to uncover thier layers of meaning , checking the background of authors by doing so one can often enhance appreciation and enjoyment. I remember when i first read the catcher in the rye I didn't like it at all but after re-reading i found it relatable he was coping with the death of his brother so much going on his life .
The background and the period they lived in: a book like Frankenstein had so much more meaning in the Victorian era when all of these new technologies and sciences were discovered and outright scared people, made them doubt what they believed in. Same goes for Virginia Woolf: everything was questioned: from politics to art to the classic family/marriage nucleus. No wonder she, a woman married to a man and in love with another woman, wrote the books she wrote.
I think this is a amazing list. I was so happy to see The Great Gatsby at number 1, because it is also my favorite book I have ever read. Fitzgerald does such an amazing job transporting us to a different period of American society, and using his characters to criticize the American dream. Even as someone who is still in high-school, I love the book so much because I feel that I can relate in some way to each of the characters in the book, and understand their motives and ambitions. It is truly a timeless masterpiece.
This ☝️a 100 times this 👌
Hello! Thanks for a great video - happy to see Virginia Woolf om your list. 😊
My top three classics are:
Orlando
Frankenstein
Wuthering Heights
I would like to recommend maybe an quite unknown classic: The Kristin Lavransdatter triology by Sigrid Undset. A powerful love story from Norway in the Middle Ages.
I could not make a list without Virginia on it 😋
my ten favorite classics, in no particular order:
THE DIVINE COMEDY Dante Alighieri
THE COUNT OF MONTECRISTO - Alexandre Dumas
DON QUIXOTE - Miguel de Cervantes
THE BETROTHED - Alessandro Manzoni
IF THIS IS A MAN - Primo Levi
THE ITALIAN - Ann Radcliffe
PINOCCHIO - Carlo Collodi
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME - Victor Hugo
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND - Fyodor Dostoevsky
HISTORY: A NOVEL - Elsa Morante
Yes 5 are Italian but since I started digging into Italian literature I have found many of my favorite books. I believe it is a work of literature that went unnoticed because the world was too dazzled by the wonder of the painting, sculpture, architecture and music of the Italian peninsula. Well Italy has magnificent literature too and I can't wait to continue discovering it and I hope that more and more people talk about it.
I’ll have to look some of these up, nice list!
My favourite classic is Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier❤❤ the gothic themes, the haunting presence of an enigmatic woman, romance, drama, thrills, this one has it all
I love Rebecca as well, but not enough to place her in a top 10, I’m afraid
@@cafeaulivre totally understandable! Your list, your rules 👍 I still love your recs though
I might disagree with them myself next week already 🤣
@@cafeaulivre 🤣🤣 make another video updating the list
🤣🤣🤣
Some of my favourite classics are: The Count Of Monte Cristo, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Dracula, The Pickwick Papers, Crime and Punishment, Frankenstein. T
Great video! I've read only two from your list but it is your no 1, The Great Gatsby (timeless masterpiece indeed) and my no 1, The Karamazov Brothers.😊 I will finally read soon Dracula and To kill a mockingbird. Today I finished Persuasion. Loved it! Impossible for me to rank classic books but nevertheless Dostoievski rules!🏆📚
It is impossible to truly rank them, I will probably disagree with my own list in a week or so 🤣
That's a great list , although I have not read any of Dostoevsky - shame on me? You already
know that I love To Kill a Mockingbird and it holds special importance to me for the time I read it. Mike is delighted that The Great Gatsby made your number one, a truly classic read. Love that Frankenstein and Dracula made the cut. I read Lolita in my twenties and have said before, I need to revisit it. I have seen the film with Jeremy Irons, so it's interesting that he narrates the audio book. I would find it very hard to list my top ten, but I will have a think. So many good books out there. Thanks for such a passionate and comprehensive review of your favourites.
Mike has a great taste in books 😉
Always loved Moby Dick. Hard on the 1st read, but when you reread it all comes together.
I like Moby Dick, but not enough to put in my top 10. Too much whale trivia for that 🤣
Ok! So I need to go back and try it again....
Ok, now I'm trying to think of my top 10. This is hard.
10: Little Women (kept)
9: Dracula (kept)
8: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (we gotta put some Brontë on the list and Anne is my personal favorite)
7: The Great Gatsby (moved down)
6: The Sorrows of Young Werther (it was so influential)
5: The Little Prince (yes, another children’s book, but I think children’s media can be just as good)
4: Pride and Prejudice (Austen is a must)
3: Frankenstein (moved up)
2: The Trial (because I like it)
1: Hamlet (self explanatory)
This is definitely more my own taste than universal, now that I thibk of it.
I deliberately did not include children’s books in my list…it was difficult enough already without The Little Prince and Wind in the Willows 😋
@@cafeaulivre But isn't Little Women a children’s book? I would say it seems geared towards the 10-13 crowd
I think today we would call it YA, but age ranges have gone a bit fluid these days.
I haven't read some of them. In my list, I would include the Book of 1001 Nights, Robinson Crusoe and Anna Karenina.
That’s the difficulty with such a list: you want to keep adding 😋
You have an excellent list. I have read several of them and actually all the others are on my TBR list - hopefully will complete them this year. Think my favorite book at least at this point is East of Eden -John Steinbeck. I love your excitement for the classics. Thank you for your video.
I love East of Eden too and that’s what is so difficult about making a list like this one: each choice means excluding another great book.
@RoadReads You say the same thing about The Great Gatsby! I am inspired to go and read it a few more times to make sure I love it as much as both of you do!!
I love your passion for each of these books! I love so many of these, and you may have given me some inspiration to try ones I've always shied away from (looking at you Lolita). My three that always MUST be my top 3 are: Rebecca, Anna Karenina, and my most beloved, must read every. single.year is Jane Eyre.
Love to have discussion about all of these books and love that everyone has their ultimate favorites!
In the end, it’s all about taste and all reading is valid. I might not agree with someone’s favorite books, but that doesn’t make them wrong. After all, we read for fun, so why should you spend time reading books you don’t enjoy?
@@cafeaulivre Amen! I am just loving all the discussion and passion from you and everyone in the comments about classics! It is SO fun to have so many people excited about their favorite classics. :)
Love Fitzgerald, love Gatsby!
You have excellent taste 😉
Lolita is one of my most favorite books, but I did not find myself empathizing with HH at any point, for any reason. I found every flowery attempt of his to gain my empathy pathetic and disturbing. He really is a monster.
Oh, he is, there’s no doubt about that!
This is an excellent list, and the number 1 choice is a justified one. I'm not sure if I agree with it, but I definitely see where you're coming from.
I would be remiss if I didn't say that I never empathized with Humbert Humbert, not even a little bit, when I was reading Lolita. He is pretentious to a fault and his fantasies and delusions could never be thoughts that pass through my head. That being said, Lolita is still one of my favorite novels, because Humbert is absolutely despicable. So despicable that it was highly entertaining to me that Nabokov could even conceive of such a character, and that I had no idea where the story would go next. The scenes where Dolores Haze meets Humbert after becoming pregnant by her husband are some of the most painful in literary history. A good choice for the top of the list.
And Nabokov knew this book would cause an absolute ruckus… I would have loved to hear his thoughts it when he first published it. 😋
Ulysses written as a prank! I had not considered such a thought until you said it. Now, it makes perfect sense to me. 😉
It does, doesn’t it? With everything I know about James Joyce, I would not be surprised
Dracula, Frankenstein, Lolita, and Ulysses. Neve read Virginia Wolf or the Russian authors. Ulysses is great at least for its humor, parts of which should be read out loud with as good an Irish accent oyour tongue allows. Thanks for the great suggestions!
I once did a modern language synopsis of Frankenstein chapter by chapter. That's an intense way to analyze that book. Most of the books on this list are some of my personal favorites. I'm sad there's no Nathaniel Hawthorne or Homer on the list but I get it. I can't argue with any of your choices or placements.
Now that sounds like a way to get to know Frankenstein really intimately 👌
@cafeaulivre It was. I wish I still had a copy of what I did but it belongs to the school district.
@@VTimmoni That's a shame...I still have copies of my thesis, only to just pick them up from time to time and simple shake my head at it 🤣
My top three is; 3. Jane Eyre, 2. The Time Machine and 1. The Great Gatsby. My favorite character in Gatsby is Nick, to me he is not just the narrator, he really is the star of the book. He is Fitsgerald. I have heard other readers set Nick aside as if he is not really part of the story. I have read it several times and I have to say, I don't agree with that at all.
He’s the one character I was talking about who’s not an entitled cliche 😉
I listened to Lolita on audio last year, read by Jeremy Irons. I was so torn between the awfulness of HH's actions and the beauty of the book. The writing could somehow transcend the subject matter and make me forget and almost feel compassion, and that is a little difficult for me to write. I wouldn't list it in my top 10 books, but I thought your summation was perfect.
Might have to do a reread sometime, just to hear it in Jeremy Irons’ voice.
Absolutely loved the count of monte cristo ! One of my favorite books. But honestly hated Frankstein
Sometimes a book is just not for you and that’s okay.
My thoughts as I go along:
10: Little Women deserves this place on the list. I would argue that it *is* a "girly" book (as far as books can be girly or boyish), but that doesn't make it any less appropriate for all audiences. It's pretty typical for 19th/20th century girl books, in that it revolves around home, family, relationships, every-day-life, and moral lessons. What does make it stand out from the typical girl book is the constant questioning of gender norms throughout, especially in the characters of Jo and Laurie. Laurie is a very feminized character, longing to be part of this family of women, playing piano, and having a greenhouse full of flowers. Meanwhile Jo is as close to an out trans boy as you can get without outright saying it. It's cosy on the face of it, but with a queer reading it has so many different levels! Just the fact that the narrative seems to disagre with the narrator on some points (such as the "Meg Goes to Vanity Fair chapter) and as such undermines the supposed moral lessons is just delicious.
9: Dracula is a great pick! I think this novel has so many levels. I especially like to analyse the fears that drive the plot. Also the whole old magic vs new tech angle. It must read very different now than it did at publication!
8: I like The Count of Monte Cristo, but I'm not sure if I would put it on a top 10 list. Top 50, yes. Still agree with what you said, and I'm not angry about it.
7: I actually expected to see Frankenstein higher on the list, but I'll wait and see if there's even better ones higher up. The descriptions in this is the best I've seen!
6: I haven't gotten around to reading Giovanni's Room yet.
5: I haven't read The Brothers Karamazov either.
4: I like To Kill a Mockingbird, but it's so very American that I struggle putting it so high up. Maybe switch it with Frankenstein. It just feels so specific compared to a lot of other classics.
3: To the Lighthouse. Man, I'm starting to feel bad for not having read the books on this list.
2: Lolita. I know that it's not meant as a romance, but I am scared to request it from the library. So I haven't read it.
Bonus: Ulysses. I'm not confident enough to start it.
1: The Great Gatsby was kind of boring to me, but I get why people would love it. So I'm fine with placing it here.
Ok, that was my reactions to watching this
I now realise this sounds overly critical. It's really not that seriously meant from my side. Creating a top 10 with so many options is super hard. I think you did pretty good
Don’t worry: I know this will create some debate, but all reading is valid and taste differ. That doesn’t make them less valuable ☺️
No good at lists ☹ Tried to read the Idiot but gave up a third of the way through as I thought "get to the point!" Just pages & pages where nothing happened, so I'm reluctant to try any more Dostoevsky. Also gave up on Kafka's Metamorphosis.
Had a school friend that read most of Wolfe, another after Ulysses went on to tackle Finnegan's Wake which is even more impenetrable.
Time to reread Dracula
If anything, it’s always time to reread Dracula
Maybe Stuart Gilbert with Ulysses.
True, but that book was written under Joyce's supervision. Who says Stuart Gilbert wasn't in on the prank? 😋
I like your list, have you ever read Les Miserables?
I have, and I will admit, I was never a big fan. Now, this is probably because it was required reading in high school and they also made us sit through several hours of musical and after that, I guess I just never went back to it.
I agree with all the books except Lolita. That book is just a big screaming no. I don't care how supposedly beautiful the prose is. I will never touch that book.
I absolutely adore The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald is one of my favorite American authors
My #1 classic is Fahrenheit 451❤