Authors and titles of this list: 1. Proust, Marcel - In Search of Lost Time 2. Joyce, James - Ulysses 3. Cervantes, Miguel de - Don Quixote 4. García Márquez, Gabriel - One Hundred Years of Solitude 5. Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby 6. Melville, Herman - Moby Dick 7. Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace 8. Shakespeare, William - Hamlet 9. Homer - The Odyssey 10. Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary 11. Alighieri, Dante - The Divine Comedy 12. Nabokov, Vladimir - Lolita 13. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - The Brothers Karamazov 14. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment 15. Bronte, Emily - Wuthering Heights 16. Salinger, J. D. - The Catcher in the Rye 17. Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice 18. Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 19. Tolstoy, Leo - Anna Karenina 20. Carroll, Lewis - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 21. Homer - The Iliad 22. Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse 23. Heller, Joseph - Catch-22 24. Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness 25. Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury 26. Orwell, George - 1984 27. Dickens, Charles - Great Expectations 28. India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt - One Thousand and One Nights 29. Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath 30. Faulkner, William - Absalom, Absalom! 31. Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man 32. Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird 33. Kafka, Franz - The Trial 34. Stendhal - The Red and the Black 35. Eliot, George - Middlemarch 36. Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver’s Travels 37. Morrison, Toni - Beloved 38. Woolf, Virginia - Mrs. Dalloway 39. Chekhov, Anton - The Stories of Anton Chekhov 40. Camus, Albert - The Stranger 41. Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre 42. Virgil - The Aeneid 43. Borges, Jorge Luis - Collected Fiction 44. Hemmingway, Ernest - The Sun Also Rises 45. Dickens, Charles - David Copperfield 46. Sterne, Laurence - Tristram Shandy 47. Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass 48. Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain 49. Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 50. Rushdie, Salmon - Midnight’s Children
Thank you! But boring books... one looks for tasty cult like cool, a little offbeat, rare, forbidden or crazy or even decadent... something a little off-center always! And also volumes of fiction prose can be beaten by a sonnet or a poem... poetry, poetry, poetry!!
I don’t think Leaves of Grass should be on this list because it is poetry. And Hamlet is a play as great as it is. The rest of the list is narrative fiction. Also, for Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls, is his superlative novel. And definitely, To the Lighthouse for Woolf. There’s not one novel by Balzac or Zola.
I have always been a big reader. Since I retired ten years ago I have read many, many books that I had been putting off. Don't do that! My favorite book is "Anna Karinina" by Tolstoy. Anything by Hemingway, Steinbeck and the Russian authors. What a wonderful retirement I have reading 3 to 5 books each week. Read, my friends!
Yes so many add madam bovary, crime and punishment, in cold blood, east of eden, the red pony, novels of Thomas Hardy and for a laugh The Diary of Adrian Mole☘greetings from the emerald isle☘
When I was a kid, my dad took me to the library every Wednesday night. I could only take out kids books but my dad would take out anything I wanted. My dad and I would discuss whatever I had read.
What a cool legacy he helped nurture. My kids are great readers but I’m going to follow suit and make it a more special and bonding activity. Thanks for sharing. 🫡
I'm always bothered by not seeing Alexandre Dumas getting the recognition he deserves. I really cannot understand how "The Count of Monte Cristo" doesn't make it to this list... I strongly feel I have never read a better novel than that.
As an 80 year-old I was delightfully surprised at how many of these books I have actually read, many a long time ago. Your video prompted me to discover if there is a top 50 list of great classical music. Thanks again for the excellent review. Yes, reading great literature does make you a better person.
@@stevelivingstone4616 I believe that exposure to greatness gives you a better frame of reference in evaluating what you experience in life. If truth and beauty are your goals in life then you need to know when you have found them. Can you truly appreciate cuisine if you have only eaten at Burger King your whole life?
@@marygarrapa3537 Albeniz Suite Espanola Bach Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring Barber Adagio for Strings Bartok The Miraculous Mandarin Beethoven Symphony 5 Berg Violin Concerto Berio Rendering Berlioz Symphonie fantastique Bernstein On the Waterfront Bizet L'Arlesienne Suites Borodin Polovetsian Dances Brahms Intermezzo Op. 118, No. 2 Chopin Mazurka Op. 17, No.4 Copland Billy the Kid Debussy La Mer Delius Prelude to Irmelin Dukas La Peri Dvorak New World Symphony Falla Nights in the Gardens of Spain Franck Symphony in D minor Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue Gorecki Totus Tuus Grieg Piano Concerto Handel Water Music Haydn Trumpet Concerto Hindemith Mathis Der Maler Ives Three Places in New England Kodaly Hary Janos Mahler Symphony 1 Mendelssohn Violin Concerto Mozart Piano Concerto 23 Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition Prokiev Alexander Nevsky Rachmaninov Piano Concerto 2 Ravel Daphnis and Chloe Reich Variations for Winds, Strings, and Keyboards Respighi Pines of Rome Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade Satie Gnossienne No 1 Schoenberg Verklaerte Nacht Schubert Symphony 8 Scrabin Piano Concerto Shostakovitch Symphony 5 Sibelius Symphony 5 Strauss Ein Heldenleben Stravinsky Petrushka Takemitsu A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings Vivaldi The Four Seasons Wagner Tristan Prelude & Liebestod Webern Six Pieces for Orchestra
Some books mentioned in the video: 26. 1984 25. The Sound and the Fury 24. Heart of Darkness (short) 23. Catch-22 22. To the Lighthouse 21. The Iliad 20. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 19. Anna Karenina 18. The Adventures of Huckeberry Finn 17. Pride and Prejudice 16. The Catcher in the Rye 15. Wuthering Heights 14. Crime and punishment 13. The brothers karamazov 12. Lolita 11. The Divine comedi 10. Madame Bovary 9. The Odyssey 8. Hamlet 7. War and Peace 6. Moby Dick 5. The Great Gatsby 4. One Hundred Years of Solitude 3. Don Quixote 2. Ulysses 1. In Search of Lost Time
@@debcollins8231 I love to read a paragraph or page of Proust, the same thing usually, and savour how he expands on minute sensations. I wish I could read the French!
@@smkh2890 Good morning. I just ordered, "In Search of Lost Time," and am eager to begin. I often savor small sections of writing too, and there can never be enough detail for me. This channel showing up in my feed yesterday, is so timely because due to cataracts, reading is torturous. My second removal surgery is Monday, and as a gift to myself, I am going to read every title listed and reread several others. Have a lovely weekend.
This channel has changed my life. I enrolled in my first literature at college ( Survey of Russian Literature), and I love it! I’m sincerely considering pursuing a Ph.D. in Literature. Thank you!
@@BenjaminMcEvoy Alexander Pushkin’s “ The Bronze Horseman,” Mikhail Lermontov’s “ A Hero of Our Time,” Nikolai Gogol’s Table of Ranks, and “ The Nose,” Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov, Mikhail Shishkin’s “ afterword,” Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, “ A Man in the Case,” “Gooseberries,” “About Love,” Valentina Dmitrieva’s memoir, Mikhail Zoshchenko’s “ Skaza,” Mikhail Bulgakov’s “ Fatal Eggs,” Lyudmila Petushevskaya’s “ Words” and “Medea,” Dunya Smirnova’s “Anyway”
A good English teacher can turn you onto good books and turn you into an avid reader. The really good English teachers are the ones who not only point you to some great books but inspire you to write your own. 11th grade English teacher turned me onto Dante and all of 2005 I read through "Inferno", "Purgatorio,", and "Paradiso" and the following year I started writing my own stories and poetry. Now, I've got a channel on RUclips full of crazy stories. Thanks, Mr. D'Agostino! You put the writer's spark in me and I haven't stopped since! You're the Fourth Bushwacker.
We had this high school teacher in the '60s who had us read nine or more, In Selected Readings. He was the only teacher in my life, before college, who challenged students' ideas and made us think. He was an oddball because he wore a colored shirt with his tie and sport coat. He spent lots of time deriding the establishment and telling we young rebels that we were all part of it. We read fabulous things, like the Brothers K and The Red and the Black. What worlds. What a gift he gave us, a taste for timeless delicacies when our palates were still forming.
That happens to a lot of us. When you’re a teenager you think you’re clever - maybe you are - but you lack the experience to deal with such stuff. Dostoevsky, Joyce, Thomas Mann, even Flaubert, need an adult perspective.
I loved Dostoyevsky is college but my Cooperative lit prof said that he was more suited to young people and that one gets to appreciate Tolstoy as one gets older. He was right and if you haven't checked out War and Peace and Anna K, I'd recommend it.
@@Scottlp2 I read war and peace. Maybe your professor was referring to the pace of the action and depth of description? I wonder. Anyway, bouncing along with Tristram Shandy and ducking devils in Paradise lost right now.
@@buddharuci2701 Dostoyevsky is a very psychological book. Tolstoy eg War and Peace is concerned with things that you can appreciate more as you get older eg SPOILERS Andrei’s spiritual flowering and Tolstoy’s theory of history (where he breaks 4th wall and speaks directly to reader late in book).
Ann Karenina is just about my absolute favorite piece of literature. I read it about 30ish years ago and it changed my life. Besides the fact that it was beautifully written…I would stop whilst reading it and just stop and ponder the beauty of the configuration of the words before me…
Anna Karenina changed my life too! It sounds like we had a very similar experience :) I would get to the end of some passages and just stare off in silence for long gaps of time. Profound work!
I loved Anna K. as well. It totally convinced me that Tolstoy was one of the greats. I just finished War and Peace, and didn't like it nearly so much. Yes, certainly a great novel, but didn't have the emotional appeal of Anna, and had a lot of distractions like battlefield scenes, and philosophy (at the end).
Agree about it's beauty. I wondered at times if it was even more beautiful in Russian. The story itself is pretty much a soap opera; it was the beauty that kept me hooked.
I read _Jane Eyre_ in a storm tossed bunk aboard a small trawler many years ago. The memory of bracing myself with one hand and holding the book with the other will always be with me, along with her parting words, "We are born to strive and endure."
@@davecorley5514 My father took my sister and I to see the movie " Two years before the mast" when we were little girls. My sister jumped up onto her seat and shouted at the screen "You can't do that" when the man was keel hauled. My father often recounted that about my sister My mother berated my father for taking two little girls to see such a movie My father took us to see war and cowboy movies Maybe he wanted boys He used to read poetry to us at bedtime and his favourite was The rhyme of the ancient Mariner My father died long ago and my sister five years ago. How stories bind us in magical ways ...
@@cherylmoss3632 Great story. My dad (reportedly) wanted a girl, as boys seem to be a drug on the market on his side of the aisle. Four children later, all intended to be named "Virginia", all male. The middle name of the girl I married is Virginia. We have one child....a boy. Fortunately, none of us were put into dresses, named Sue, or coerced into playing with dolls. I always considered myself the least favorite of my mother, but the most like her, and the only one that could sing (as she could). The stories and memories that bind us all, indeed, although the parents are long gone and we are now old ourselves.
The library was my babysitter in the summer. My mom would leave us at the library all day to read and browse. I wouldn’t go near the Russian author’s section. I always assumed I would not understand the plot. I thought Russians were smarter than Americans-especially smarter than a black kid in Texas. I never outgrew my fear of Russian literature. Watching your videos has given me courage to read a book by a Russian author.
I was the same as you as far as being intimidated. I read "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" recently by Tolstoy and recommend it if you're looking to try something by a Russian author without committing too much time (it's a fairly short book). Good luck!
I recommend Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - A Day in the Life of Ivan Denesovich. Anna Karenina is 800 pages. Ivan is about 250 and he had quite a day. If you like that maybe consider taking a bigger bite.
In Search of Lost Time is a dazzling combination of experiences, impressions, ideas and gorgeous writing that you could probably literally spend a lifetime reading and studying. I agree that it's generally not a book for younger folks. I've read through it, all 6 volumes, 2 times since I turned 45. Both times took about 6 months and it was like taking a trip around the world. It's really in a class by itself.
@@almada1113I’ve read it countless times. First in my native Portuguese, later I dared to approach it in the original. Magical, obsessive, at times painful, so many deep hidden personal feelings it awakes in us.
As a Frenchman and a Proust lover, may I suggest that the next step would be to try to read La Recherche (as we often say) in the original French. Even in part if reading the entire book in the original is too daunting. I’m fairly fluent in English and Spanish and I can (somewhat) read Italian. I also know some German and Russian, but not enough, unfortunately, to read directly in these two languages… However, when I read German or Russian books in translation, I try to also have the original with me, so that when I particularly like a page, or a dialogue, or a descrIption, etc., I can read the original next to the French translation and open a window on what words, nuance, construction, the author actually used. I love to do it this way…
As an Irishman I think this guy is really brilliant given the very short time he has to review these books, makes me want to go back and re read, and read for the first time a lot of these great books, thank you sir!
The Irish are masters of language and literature. He only mentioned four. There are countless others...including Canadian and American authors with Irish ancestry (Cormac McCarthy). What's with that?
Recently I was reflecting on how books literally saved my life. They provided an escape during my challenging childhood. They also provided the voices of sane adults. David Copperfield was very comforting. Our fourth grade teacher read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn aloud to the class. I picked up Tom Sawyer again, now in my sixties. So good to hear voices of sanity again. The world has changed too quickly for me. I agree completely with your thoughts about satire.
That's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that, Mary Lou. I used to escape into great literature because these books felt like the voices of sanity too. And the world has definitely changed far too quickly. Even 5-10 years ago, it was a very different world! Thank you for being here :)
I’ve only gotten about 1/4 of the way through Les Mis and I’ve been blown away The priest might be my favorite character in all literature and I’m not religious or morally cheesy at all but I’m constantly in awe of his human grace. It’s just so good, very hard to put down
I totally agree....It should be in the 50 most read book. When you think of all the adaptations made of it in musicals and movies and the incredible life lessons contained in it.
Your channel recently appeared in my RUclips feed and I was immediately intrigued. I am currently moving through a difficult period in my life, your enthusiasm and rich content has renewed my love and appreciation for great works of literature. Yes, I will revisit those beloved friends. It feels so wonderful to be stirred back toward life. Thank you from a new subscriber.
. After the Longest Night Caught in each golden sunrise there is more than just the daily quickening of light. More like a universal knowing beckons sight, a burst of comprehension on a shore Where not one staying shadow cuts the line of blooming truth. Brighter than trumpets, white as new drifts under dazzling sun. In spite of night, even the longest one, design returns, erasing doubt and fear; The rich aroma life wraps round the eager heart Breaks like a burst of promise; pulses start that logic labeled dead. The dawning pitch of hope that grief or anger had concealed In every sunrise, is again revealed.
Oh my! You touched my heart and my eyes welled up when you said, “It is almost like spending time with that teacher.” I, too, had such a teacher and he inspired me to become a teacher myself. My heart swelled with my own memories of Mr. Dlouhy and with pride of profession. Thank you for sharing this heartfelt sentiment.
Me, as well. Mine was my sixth grade literature teacher. She gave me the gift bound edition of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Sigh. My father took me to the library about the same time and introduced me to his favorite fiction authors, but alas, he had a fifth grade (country) education. I read historical fiction by Edison Marshall and other books by John Mason, and the few in school such as Scarlet Letter and Tale of two cities, but missed out on most of the classics. Just retired and am going to get through as many of these as I can. I did read Siddhartha, Catch 22 and loved Shakespeare (hamlet, midsummer night's dream) and some Dante and Faulkner in college. I have a long way to go, but I'm looking forward to it, now that I know the list! Thanks you Benjamin McEvoy. I, too, am enlivened by your passion and eloquence.
Bravo! It has been a while since I listened to someone speak with such enthusiasm and personal refection about literature. You hooked me as a great admirer when you spoke what was on my heart about Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass." I found myself joining in, out loud, with my comments and some different perspectives regarding these works and their authors, as if you were across the room from me, drinking Scotch neat. It brought me back to conversations my ex-wife and I had. You're the best RUclips creator. Thank you.
1. Bulgakov - Master and Margarita 2. Dostojevski - Crime and Punishment 3. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings Smth like that if I write them down quite quickly. If I'd think longer, I'd certainly think of many others as well. Actually I can't really put my favourites in any particular order and I also love the works of many Estonian authors, who unfortunately aren't internationally that known, but are amazing writers. Btw, I'm Estonian. :) Thank you for this video, it was very interesting! I just found your channel.
I tried reading 1, but stopped. Boring. I feel sorry for the poor Russians being made to read evil books like C+P, even as children. What en evil book that is!
Reading Ulysses while reading The Odyssey at the same time as an undergraduate was incredibly difficult, but wow! So many parallels and reimagining. Loved it!
I think someone who could write, among many other things, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Henry 1V parts 1 and 2, Henry Vth, Richard 3rd, Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like it, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Julius Cesar, Troilus and Cressida, Romeo and Juliet, The Sonnets.... is rather greater than Tolstoy, especially since Tolstoy considered Shakespeare to be rubbish.
I agree.. Tolstoy can be rather long winded in English translation ( I don't know how it is in Russian)... in addition to being having imperialist attitudes. @@DiogenesNephew
@@daydays12 It seems to me you are hating on Tolstoy just because he is Russian. Who are you to judge his personal opinions? I bet you are the same type of guy who supports wokeism and preach about how everyone is entitled to have their own opinions while being a prejudiced hyprocrite yourself.... No one said Tolstoy is better than Shakespeare but he is much better than many upstart American authors and is undeneiably one of the best authors of all time. Everyone in those days was imperialist........ What about Daniel Defoe, who was clearly racist. Is being imperialist worse than being racist?
Two comments--I've started "The Brothers Karamazav" (only at the beginning of Book 4-TheStrains. I have NEVER been so in love with a book and it's author in my life!! When you mentioned that you would soon be doing a video around the book, I smiled for about a minute! I have been wanting to talk about this book to someone, anyone! And I'm not even 1/4 way through. Second comment--"The Count of Monte Cristo" most definitely should be on this list. I know that this is subjective, but holy moly!! Everyone adores this book--and rightfully so. I really enjoyed your video (just found you here on youtube). You have a new fan. Thanks very much.
I absolutely fell in love with Brothers Karamazov also. Made a huge impact on me and it was very enjoyable to read although I only managed to read one chapter per day in the evenings. Great for people interested in people’s physics
Thank you! When you spoke of A Christmas Carol, the lovely memories, a month before Christmas, every year, my father would begin reading this aloud, every night. My sisters and I knew every word, but he did all the voices and would stop to let us fill in the gaps, or finish a sentence The rest of the year, it would be Dickens, Bronte, all the classics. We all grew up to be voracious readers, for which I am forever grateful. What a gift!
Where have you been all my life? I have been in a reading slump for years. This is a great, unpretentious breakdown by someone who loves literature, and who has the maturity to know that one's affinity to a book is also influenced by life's experiences. I like how you break down each book with just enough for me to know if this is something I want to delve into, and there are many in the list that I've added to my list. Thank you!
Hi Benjamin - just wanted to say a huge thank you for reigniting my love of literature (not just the classics, but in general). I came across your channel a week ago, by chance, and it was this presentation of 50 greatest books which drew me in. Now I listen to your channel in the car going to and from work (I am a college lecturer) and it inspires me to pick up my books again. I still have plenty of your channel to work through so I am excited as to what else I shall discover! Once again, thank you and keep up this brilliant work 👏
Hi, Ben! I love what you do here. 😊 I'm a reader who just got out of a slump, and one of the encouraging videos I watched was one of yours -- on Crime and Punishment. I read that classic and It's one of my favorites now. I loved it. Thanks and I hope you continue what you do! God bless you!
So overrated! Gatsby should not have been included in the top 50, let alone the top five novels of all time, especially considering the masterpieces of the great Victor Hugo, Gulliver's Travels by Swift, The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, Hunger by Hamsun, Memoirs of Hadrian by Yourcenar, and others that did not make the list!
@@michaelurosevic8225You wouldn’t be saying this if it wasn’t the most popular American book ever. It wouldn’t make you feel smart for bashing it and you would actually see how great it is
Dante invented a language, literary world-building (and with that how we even now imagine hell, purgatory and paradise), the genre of encyclopedic epic, and probably many more things. There is no greater book as the Divine Comedy.
My attempts to read the Divine Comedy didn't go well. It took forever to get to anything interesting. Maybe you have to be fluent in medieval Italian to really understand it. In translation, verse version are terrible and the prose version ate still boring and long winded, as Dante himself seems to have been.
Celine "Journey to the end of the night". Mindblowing and the most sincere book I have ever read. Also very very funny at times. I read it in German translation and enjoyed the hell out of the language.
Great list! I was so hoping to see some Thomas Hardy on it along with D. H. Lawrence. I fell in love with Hardy's work as an undergraduate, so much so that I ended up writing my MA thesis on the theme of the grotesque in three specific novels of his. Glad to have discovered your channel!
Agree that both are superb writers, and yes, better than Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald is kind of a one horse pony: obsession with money and status and the corruption it fosters. At his best, though, he does write beautifully as well.
I love your passion of books!! You’re so enjoyable to watch and listen to … you have an incredibly rich knowledge on a diversity of literature. I’m impressed. 😊
Really interesting point you made about satire and our current reality. I had not thought about it that way but now that you've mentioned it, I completely agree. Also, I am very grateful for this channel. I have also gone through periods where I felt that I did not really have anyone to share my love of literature with. Your channel is such a breath of fresh air and in my opinion, a much-needed balance to current popular media options.
Aw, thank you so much, Kelly. I really appreciate that. I've gone through the same thing myself. These videos are definitely born out of wanting to discuss these great books with like-minded lovers of literature like yourself :) I'm grateful for you being here!
My god yes! How could one possibly carry something such as our current wildly satiric-like experiences to any greater extreme! Where did all this ridiculousness explode from? Is it all due to social media?
100 years of solitude are the cause of my most interesting subconscious experience. Just after finishing the book I finished in the hospital with horrible fever for one week. During that time I was hallucinating that I am all of the Buendias at once. I was not a person, but a family ,observing parts of me as a sum of my other parts, worried about the families reproduction.
I TOTALLY agree with Proust being number 1. I have spent almost a year reading everything he wrote and what is in my local library system about him. I miss Siddhartha being on your list. For me THAT was the most memorable book I have read and I am 78.
Proud to have read them all but reread at my age is down to British narrated audiobooks due to aged eyes. Thank you for enjoyable narrative of memory lane reminding me of these journeys I’ve taken. Sometimes to rekindle does brighten a memory loss to reemerge. Thanks. Yours K Tate
I love that Moby Dick starts with, "Call Me Ishmael." It puts into question everything that follows. He does not say my name is Ishmael. He says the reader should call him that. He is the sole survivor, and a first person narrator. Both are questionable storytellers. Fantastic book.
@@BillSikes. Apart from the witty use of humour of which there are several examples, Captain Ahab's quest in and of itself is rather absurd. Revenge on a whale is certainly absurd. It was only Starbuck who showed signs of doubt. Ahab gained favour in his endeavour through his passionate oratory skills, the promise of money and his power as Captain.
You are absolutely amazing. I'm currently doing a Masters in English and enjoying every minute of it. It's wonderful to see someone who shares the passion that I have for literature.
Thank you so much. That's very kind of you to say. And how wonderful to hear you're doing your MA in English! I wish you all the best with your studies :)
Catch 22 is one of my all-time favorites. Have read it twice. Several of these books are ones I read clear back, many, many years ago, in high school. You have inspired me to go back and re-read a few and delve into some I have only heard about. I read Crime and Punishment aloud to two of my friends in college. I must read it again!
I came across your channel by chance. I must tell you, l am an avid reader as well as a composer and author of mostly children's stories. Not only did l enjoy listening to your video, having read a great many of the books you mentioned but your articulation, enthusiasm and passion enthralled me and as the sunlight crept through the slits on my shaded windows early in my morning, l felt a great need to reread many of the books in your top 50 list. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and unbounded joy discussing such wonderful.literature. Books and music fill my life and will continue to do so. l shall subscribe to your channel now as l down my well earned toast and marmalade, much later this morning, all due to the thirst acquired to listening twice to your lecture. Thank you once again
My mother and grandfather taught me to read when I was 4 years old. I started with the comic strips in the daily newspaper, Now as I approach my 80th birthday, I watched this list with some curiosity. How many have I read? A conservative estimate: perhaps 40 of the 50. Your commentary has made me add some to my reading queue, so thanks for that. To be honest, today I read for escapism and entertainment. I'm not looking for a life changing experience any more, so I am not sure how many of these books I will actually finish. Time will tell (or run out unexpectedly.) As for the order of the books, it is a list. Probably nothing like a list I would make. Of course my list today would be very different than my list from just 3 months ago. I recently read Pride and Prejudice for the first time. It shot into my top 10 immediately. Everything evolves. Thanks again.
I was a bit surprised and disappointed that my all-time favorite novel, Les Miserables, did not crack the top 50. It has been a positively life changing book for me.
I think the focus is mainly on English works and kind of best of the rest. French, Russian, Italian or German books are heavily underrepresented in this list
My mother was a university librarian during the 70s and 80s. The collection was reviewed and renewed about 1980. She saved an almost complete set of “Great Books of the Western World” for me. I’ve kept them but haven’t read many of them … until I retired six years ago. I’m an engineer by training and career. I was especially surprised by the depth of meaning of the ancient Greek epics, tragedies and comedies. And it opened my eyes and mind to a realization that humans have dealt with the great ideas for millennia. Joyce, Sterne, Steinbeck, Hemingway stand on the shoulders of the ancients. Missing from the list of fifty are the histories of (edit) Thucydides (/edit), Herodotus and Gibbon; the philosophical treatises of Plato, Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius; the political treatises of Plato, Locke, Hobbes, Spinoza, Nietzsche and the US Federalist papers; the economic treatises of Adam Smith; and the great biographies - Plutarch’s Lives and Boswell’s Samuel Johnson; and the scientific works of Euclid, Newton, and Faraday. But, IMHO the greatest absence in the list is Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Dave, Because my major was the General Program of Liberal Studies, I was lucky enough to read in college all the other titles you mentioned. We had a six-credit great books seminar every semester where we did about a book a week. We also had a four-credit history of science course every semester, reading Newton, the astronomers like Brahe, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, etc. I mention all this because there are a lot of sympathetic souls in this forum that might like such an opportunity for themselves or their kids. My school, Notre Dame, still has a robust GP major. A couple St. John's Universities also teach the classic curriculum. They all derive from the U. of Chicago and Adler, Hutchinson and ??. And ultimately from the trivium and quadrivium in the first European universities. But the point is there's a heaven on earth for lovers of knowledge and the history of knowledge: the General Program. (aka a Humanities major). Maybe some such courses are available to audit. Thanks to all the fans of Benjamin and copious thanks to Benjamin himself for creating the most interesting comments page I've ever seen.
Mike Smyth, I got my BS in engineering at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. I avoided every “bull” (English, philosophy, history, poli sci, etc) class I could while there. I was and am a “nuke” through and through. I must’ve walked past the St John’s campus a thousand times then. A year after I retired I started reading the Great Books. I researched and applied to St John’s just before COVID hit. Even reserved a tiny Apt just off-campus. COVID hit, St John’s shut down. “…best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men…”
I loved your story about your teacher. My 7th grade literature teacher would walk around the class as he dramatically read Shakespeare to us and even though I was an 11 year old girl, I admired him. He gave me such a love of books. He changed my life. Thank you to Mr. Pitkin!
I've started rereading the books that first turned me onto literature when I was in high school: Crime and Punishment, Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, Metamorphosis, The Hound of the Baskerville, and Watership Down. These books have a special place in my heart.
Part one of Don Quixote is absolutely both hilarious ( the "adventures" ) and fascinating ( the conversations and wisdom of Don Quixote and Sancho ). Makes you wish you could have met Cervantes, the great mind that created such an immortal litterary couple. Céline, the french writer, should be there somewhere, with one of his first two books, Journey to the end of the night or Death on credit. Both game changers in the XXth century litterature.
As I biologist I've always enjoyed Melville's inclusion of so much natural lore in Moby Dick. I recently picked up Ahab's Rolling Sea by Richard J. King which delves into and elaborates on this aspect of the novel. Worth a read as a companion piece or to spur you to reread Moby Dick.
Please make the time to watch the movie Heart of the Sea (starring Chris Helmsworth and Cillian Murphy). For those who found/find reading Moby Dick as something of a Tylenol situation, The Heart of the Sea provides a profound and heart-wrenching foundation for the future enjoyment of Melville’s tale. Blessings! 🙏🏻 Jess.🌹
I have a really hard time believing Tolkien didn’t crack the Top 50. I think the fact that it’s fantasy worked against it, but in terms of sheer influence and creativity I think it certainly deserves a Top 50 (although this is an aggregated list).
Thank you! This Yank raised amidst vast Indiana cornfields in the late 1950's, a child of pastor - historian and historian - author who laid books all about upside down and open, in homes of books for walls, finds your treasure! 57 years on, a small summer grant reading history at Hertford/Oxford was pure bliss. Encouraging deep draught of books again, you offer a life of the mind akin to arduous athletic training with a fine payoff. Thank you, Mr. McEvoy.
I think Conan Doyle and Sherlock should be there. I would also include Ishiguro's "The remains of the day". Actually there needs to be more Japanese writers included.
Haha! You'd think if he has read the book or even just seen the film he would be able to figure that out. But I guess not. Although I do think the books subject matter could almost have had a Japanese setting due to the peculiar similarity between certain traditional British and Japanese behaviours.
I just loved listening to this. It makes me want to re- read so many books and try the few on the list that I haven't got to yet. Being Irish I may be biased and would have swapped the order of the first two.
Thank you, Tony. My Irish bias would also move Ulysses up - plus I can appreciate the lyricism and inventiveness in the original, without mediation, which is always a nice bonus :)
I read Quixote in high school and 7 years later after i had learned Spanish I read Cervantes in Spanish-Castilian dialect in fact and it was so much deeper, so I admire you for pursuing Dante in Italian. I appreciated your comment on Irish authors and satire that is interesting. Next please do short stories.
Speaking of wonderful Irish writers, J.G. Farrell's trilogy (loosely thematically connected about the British Empire): Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur, and The Singapore Grip. Hilarious black comedy, great characterization, and gorgeous writing. The Siege of Krishnapur won the Booker, and many years later, Troubles won the Lost Booker.
I am so glad to have found this channel. I have recently started reading books again after years of stopping completely. I went through a traumatic period in life and could not bring myself to open the cover of a book at all. I lost reading but still loved books. So, I always kept some close, just like always, Just their presence was comforting. I didn't know if I'd ever read again. And this year, I've found that I can read again. I wasn't sure until I had actually been able to finish at least a few books that I read together with my sister. Now, I want to read selectively, choosing great books, or at least significant ones, ones that expand my human experience that cause me to explore with thought and feeling, books that stick with me and provoke me to grow and connect to what is meaningful. So, I've been watching book review channels, and this channel came up in my feed. It really fits me now. I'm following the podcast on Spotify now too. I've got Blood Meridian on my near to-be-read list.
I love Dante too, but not just for the literature. My first love is history and the Comedy almost requires a knowledge of that period of Italian history to really appreciate some of the work and the characters. A lot of people fixate on Inferno; some don't even know it's one of three. I've read it over and over and then fell in love with Purgatory, flipping back and forth with Inferno for the parallels.
Thank you very much for this informative and extremely Anglo-Saxon perspective, even though I miss Walden. I´m still endlessly waiting for the "The 50 Greatest Books of All Time"! My top ten: 1. Njals saga. 2. The Karamazov Brothers. 3. Walden. 4. The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes. 5. A Doll's House by Ibsen. 6. King Lear. 7. The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa. 8. Out of Africa by Karen Blixen. 9. The Trial by Kafka. 10. The Plague by Camus.
Ben, I love your channel and have become a member. I have so much to say, but to keep things short here's a suggestion: what if you did a special course focused on world literature from places like China, Japan, Brazil, India and Persia? People below are making so many exciting suggestions of writing traditions to explore. As an American I have never been exposed to such works at university, or even on local library shelves. I love your thoughtful and well-informed analysis. It would be so much fun to accompany you through what is, for many of us, an as-yet untramelled reading arena. Just a thought.
I agree with you... brazilian liteature is extremelly rich and I do not doubt that the same occurs with China, Japan and India literature. These are not "the 50 greatest books of all time", but instead they are for sure 50 great, superb books of all time. We have astonishing literature from Brazil that could be into this list as well...
This is the first video I've seen from your channel, and I will be back for more. This was a delight and highly engaging. I am impressed by your ease of expression. While this looks to be an impromptu discussion, your sophisticated thoughts, cadence and crafting of language came across as a polished text. I feel smarter just for listening.
Great list. I was a bit gutted, though, to see that Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' was not on it, considering its influence on art and literature, its sheer innovativeness, and the pleasure it gives the reader, on so many levels. You're right about the experience of reading epic poetry. It is a transcendent experience.
I am not sure why you are gutted ? A house wife might consider this list authoritative , while a specialist in Eastern religion might think it’s a bad joke.
Most of the World’s greatest literary achievements aggregated a bad joke? Why don’t you do me a favor and tell me a good joke, or better yet, expose me to the wonderment of the Eastern Canon?
If you've ever heard The Iliad spoken, it is thrilling. I think it was on a C-Span books show that a panel discussed this classic piece. Christopher Hitchens was on it. As usual, he knew as much, or more, than the other guests who specialised in Greek llterature. One panelist, a professor of Greek literature, read excerpts from it, while beating a traditional drum and - although it sounds the height of nerdness - it was moving.
My father a professor told me with "Ulysses," to read this with eight explanatory books- this is what I did, I read ten pages out loud at night during the Pandemic, in an Irish accent.
I think you should make a list of your own picks. As algorithmic lists go, this one is fine, but I'm more curious how you would rank novels. Personally I think lumping novels, plays and poems together is a little too Apples and Oranges. But, I would love to see a video of your favourite novel picks.
Thank you, Nick. I'd definitely be happy to talk through my personal choices and the reasons for them in the future. I completely agree that lumping in novels, plays, and poems is apples and oranges. Nice to see Hamlet there, of course, but kind of strange given the company it sits among!
I’ve been waiting eagerly for more content and to give me my daily fix I rewatch a lot of your content. I’ve also stumbled across a plethora of lovely comments that other lovers of literature have left and replies from yourself and I thought I’d show my appreciation once more- this time for both you and the commenters. Only 2 months ago you were 20k and even prior to that when I fell in love with your content and subscribed you were around 14k I believe and now you have surpassed 40k! I’m so happy this video blew up and your content is getting the recognition it deserves. I hope the mass of newcomers doesn’t overwhelm you as I know it does many RUclipsrs. Simply, I hope you keep well! Can’t wait for more content :)
The book I remember that I couldn’t put down (I don’t know if I finished it in one sitting or not) is ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Canadian author, Margaret Atwood. It was very suspenseful, a real page turner. I was surprised Agatha Christie wasn’t on the list. Is she not high-tone enough? I recently read ‘Endless Night’. Haunting, beautifully written.
Have you read “A Farewell to Arms”? I guess I am a hopeless romantic as I never tire of this masterpiece. I feel like I am right there with Frederick and Catherine. The drinking, the guilt, the love, and the heartbreak.
I agree completely! A Farewell to Arms and even For Whom the Bell Tolls is far superior to The Sun also Rises, which was written in great haste after EH participated in the Running of the Bulls at Pamplona.
Hemingway was far more talented than Scott Fitzgerald. A Farewell to Arms is infinitely superior to the Great Gatsby. I don’t think the Great Gatsby would be where it is but for the film. I suspect this is a list of books that people have heard of rather than books people have read.
I can’t believe my incredible good fortune to have the opportunity to benefit and learn from your experience, your imagination, your challenges and suggestions, and especially your enthusiasm for great literature. I am about to retire, and one of my main goals in retirement is to read, study and experience the literature and history I was not interested in when I was younger. Thank you for your work!
I marvel that in 4th grade, we read- and understood- The Red Pony, The Pearl, and The Old Man And The Sea. I'm 63 now, and I am so grateful my teachers didn't judge our abilities by our income brackets and exposed us to great literature at such a young age. 🎁 What a precious lifelong gift.
I read through a bunch of Hemingway's short stories earlier this year. You're right in saying it's his form of poetry. Absolutely masterful depth and emotion in just a few pages. My favorite was The Indian Camp.
Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". I remember reading that and stopping at one point and saying out loud, "God, this man can write" Such an outburst, from me, never happened before or since.
1) Dalton Trumbo - Johnny got his gun 2) Upton Sinclair - Jungle 3) Victor Hugo - Les Miserables 4) Nikos Kazantzakis - The Christ Recrussified 5) Uberto Eco - The name of the rose 6) Bram Stoker - Dracula 7) Ambroce Bierce - The monk and and the hangman's daughter 8) John Stainbeck - East of Eden 9) Stanislav Lem - Solaris 10) Jaroslav Hasek - The good soldier Svejk
I love your comment on Kafka. Perhaps you could say 'Read Kafka, think Yes, MInister'. That's what happened to me the second time I read it and I finally could finish the book without a sense of overwhelming desperation.
An excellent choice - although it is an impossible task to chose 50 best books from a thousands! One of my favorites is "The Leopard" by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa which chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the Risorgimento... But then most have their much loved preferences ...
Thanks for this video! i was losing my faith in life, and literature. This video made me strengthen my resolve, read these books and get back into it. They are doorstops that seem like they take forever, but every page is illuminating.
I have mixed feelings about The Great Gatsby being at No. 5. I'm not sure it deserves to be higher than The Brothers Karamazov or Middlemarch. I definitely think that the ending of Gatsby is very contrived.
No, it is only like 180 pages, but it really has some of the best writing ever in the English language. He mentioned his friend was memorizing lines, that's what I'm doing to. Fitzgerald was a master even though he didn't have a large body of work.
I'm a bit sad Frankenstein wasn't included, if only for its sheer influence. Not only is it the first science fiction novel, it essentially predicted AI and the complications associated with it. For a book written 200 years ago its themes are shockingly relevant.
Oh Ben, not even us Italians know the language well enough to understand Dante. The Divine Comedy is one of the most challenging text in our language thus one of the most beautiful. It's the headache of all students together with The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
So glad I found this channel. The thing about not really having people in your life that are interested in literature rings very true for me. Being a novice reader who is in love with the classics such as Don Quixote, Les Miserables, and many works of Dickens, I go about searching for more on my own. Trying to find the translations of ones that were not originally written in English that will be best for my brain has been overwhelming as well and those videos are helping immensely. Also, a very nice voice to listen to and that means a lot for me so it’s just all great.
@@nicholasschroeder3678 As far as I remember, I found Metamorphosis anything but funny. I found it suffocating, perhaps because I put myself in the shoes of the main character.
@@stradavisinului like all of kafka, it's funny in its absurdity. Read his book The Castle, it's incomplete, like The Trial, but had he finished it I think it would have been recognized as one of the greatest novels of all time, it's so unbelievably compelling.
@@golddmane I have. All I said about The Metamorphosis is that it is not funny. But, perhaps you understand "funny" more like the German "komisch". That I admit it to be.
@@stradavisinuluiWell, it is of course suffocating too--it works on two levels. On the one hand, he's a loyal employee and son that's cruelly mistreated and totally misunderstood by those who supposedly should know, honor, love, and cherish him. And that's tragic. In the end he's tossed like so much garbage: it's good riddance. On the other hand, he's just too sensitive and too rational to fit into this absurd world we inhabit. His constant and sincere struggle to make sense of it all is what is so funny. I think it's exactly the same funny bone that's tickled when we watch a Candid Camera.
I am rather fond of Umberto Eco. "The Name of the Rose" will remain one of my all time favorites. The chapter where Adso admires the adornments of the church door is worth a top 50 entry by itself.
Have read that book only twice. Upon the first reading I reread the description of the library 3 or 4 times to get straight in my mind. I’m not sure I ever did. I saw a drawing of it but it didn’t suit me!! Lol
I am joyful that Marcel Proust made number 1, as I am on a journey to start reading In Search of Lost Time for my 70th birthday, and will read it slowly with a journal next to my side to write all my thoughts about this incredible masterpiece of Marcel Proust.
I am 57 and yesterday I started reading my first book by Proust. I read a suggestion that it’s nice to have somebody who’s read him before to talk to as I start and I realized I do not have anybody in my life who has. hmmmm. Has got me thinking, but I did reach out to an old friend who was an English teacher who I’ve lost contact with and hopefully I hear from her. She is probably well familiar.
I read Moby Dick while on holidays last week. It does read like a book written almost two hundred years ago, but what a book. The pacing, the description, the buildup to that final battle are fantastic. In my mind's eye, I was gripped by a scene near the end, when Ahab refuses to help find a boy lost at sea. he looks at the other person who is pleading for help, and says " I will not do it, Captain Gardner." There are so many scenes that are just as powerful, and a lot of stretches where you know something will happen.
Really enjoyed watching this video. I was pleased to see so many respectful literary pieces on the list. "Anna Karenina" is also one of my top favourite, although reading it was a bit psychologically tense. BTW, your manner of speech is really compelling)
I really enjoyed these responses with lists. Yes they are arbitrary but it is a good avenue for you to talk about literature. I also appreciate the honest list personal anecdotes here and how you can link certain parts of your life to these stories. Great stuff. Surprised there is no Ishiguro or McCarthy here
Absolutely, they have to be arbitrary at a certain point. But it's a lovely excuse to just chat about books :) I was also surprised at the lack of Ishiguro and McCarthy!
I have read a few of the books mentioned. I`m a mathematician, and a slow reader of literature. One of the most enjoyable novels I ever read was `North and South,` ( Elizabeth Gaskell ) as an 18 year old lad. I couldn`t possibly study a novel ( as for example one would have to in a course in English Literature ). I therefore have found myself reading some novels - such as Anna Karenina - and wondering whether such works were meant to be read with pleasure or patiently endured. A couple of pints, £10:00 for half an hour`s entertainment. A good novel, a hundred hours of immersion into a different time / world.
Good morning, ladydelishx. It rings a bell. I shall have to find it since I`m sure I did see it ( about 15 years ago ? ) on TV. As far as I remember the adaptation began upon a journey by train - by a young lady who happened to be the daughter of a Parson ? I might have got this completely wrong. At the moment I`m struggling between The Count of Monte Christo, Quantum Mechanics and Les Miserables - and am too old to be able to complete any one of the three, LOL ! Which makes what you say even more endearing. I appreciate your comment - and shall try to find the adaptaiton. Ma`am.
I always suggest people begin Thomas Mann with "Buddenbrooks." Like "David Copperfield" it's semi-autobiographical and it was written at age 26 and was actually the book for which he was nominated (and won) the Nobel Prize. I loved it so much at first reading, I literally couldn't stop reading it.
It’s so refreshing to see someone who is SO well-read and knowledgeable about these great works. I’ve been looking to join a book club and I think I will join yours. Reading The Brothers Karamazov now, and wish I could discuss it with others. Great video! Thanks for this.
Start with “the Pickwick Papers”, no question. Some people say it’s not a proper novel, but we can ignore that. It’s like 1 million stories all rolled into one, stories within stories, a travelogue, Someone said that there’s more descriptions of meals than in any other novel published.It changes as it goes along, at least the character of Mr. Pickwick.At first he’s a figure of fun but then he morphs into a kind of an elder statesman. I think the reason the book changes is that it might have been dickens first time writing by installments. So several installments might’ve been published and been read by the public even before he had got anywhere near the end of the book. It was the first dickens that I read, and after that I was hooked.
One of the most enjoyable videos I've ever watched. Benjamin's insight to every book is super impressive; however, he can be currently re-reading 25 novels lol. Also loved Ben's diplomatic explanations when he didn't agree, while remaining respectful to the novels. Well done my good sir!
Currently I am pursuing my Masters in English literature and your videos have inspired me a lot to study literature in depth. You have such a great motivational power. Hat's off to you sir!
@@BenjaminMcEvoy Thank you for your best wishes my friend. It really means a lot. Keep posting that good stuff. It's really helpful and informative. Kindly make a video on Charles Dickens's Great expectations! Thank you in advance. God bless you!
@@BenjaminMcEvoy I think so too! Loved his description of El Diablo with the horns, & tail! I can still see him standing on the ridge of jagged shoreline shaking his fist at God and lamenting being forsaken but having way too much pride to ask for forgiveness! -studied such over 40+ years ago and still read this magnificent piece and feel the same way! 🍃💚🍃👵🏽👋🏾
I taught Hamlet many times as a high school English teacher, and I agree that it is the best thing ever written by Shakespeare. Not only did the work continue to amaze and surprise me, it did the same for many, many of my students. The greatest strength in literature comes from the most compelling, memorable characters as supported by an all- engrossing plot revealed through exquisitely purposeful use of language. You won’t often find that combination, but when it appears, it’s pure magic.
Love, your channel. A few years ago I came across a list of terms that Shakespeare wrote into his works such as "screamed bloody murder", "blood bath" and even "skim milk". Who would have thought? I find it very exciting that we have incorporated many into our everyday language.
Love your passion for books. I was thrilled, but not surprised, that my compatriot made it to the top-Gabriel Garcia Marquez ☺️ One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece , of course, but Love In Time of Cholera is just as magnificent and so much easier to surrender to it and fall in love again and again.
I came across your youtube by chance whilst having a break from sorting out a very old bookcase with very old books in it! It is an interesting list and I was fascinated to see that many that I studied for English O and A Levels, many moons ago, are in your top 50, including Middlemarch, Portrait and Hamlet. Some of the books on the list have never appealed to me but there are a few that I might visit or revisit. Thank you!
A wonderful discussion of a challenging list. Catch-22 was ice one of the first novels I read as a young-semi adult. I was 18, in the US Air Force, at the start of the Vietnam Conflict. The first time I read it, I laughed and laughed, seeing the idiocy of some military practices. The second time I read, a year or two later, I saw less of the humor and some of the darkness. The third time I read it, as I was about to separate from service and start to college, I found it depressing. A strange, marvelous piece of literature and prose that had its poetic images, too.
reading the comments I came to realize that I read a number of the books on the list before I was ready to truly appreciate them. I’m now 78, so no longer have an excuse for not trying to tackle some of them again. For books in translation finding he right translator is the key. Years ago I read Don Quixote and loved it; but finding that same translation has eluded me, and two recent attempts couldn’t takre me past the first 20 pages or so. I’m still looking. And I think I’ll try Moby Dick again, soon. Two books that really stimulated me were Dostoevsky’s NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND and, surprisingly, Michael Malone’s HANDLING SIN. The second probably won’t be considered great literature, but it is a quick history of where the South has been and hopefully is going, a comic masterpiece, and a wonderfully-told adventure.
As with "Huckleberry Finn", this is a worthy book but not containing any of the literary richness than many lower ranked books--same with "To Kill a Mockingbird" (maybe my personal favorite contemporary novel, btw) worthy of top 100 status but no way should any of these three books qualify for top 50 classic literature.
Your comment resonated with me as I read Catch 22 on the train on my way to my aptitude test to join the Royal Air Force at the age of 19 in 1966. I laughed so much, I frequently had to put the book down to try to stifle the laughter (much to the annoyance of my fellow passengers). After my military service a few years later, I reread it and was struck by how much darkness there was beneath the surface and how Heller understood how deranged the military way of life could be. Should I try it a third time?!
Authors and titles of this list:
1. Proust, Marcel - In Search of Lost Time
2. Joyce, James - Ulysses
3. Cervantes, Miguel de - Don Quixote
4. García Márquez, Gabriel - One Hundred Years of Solitude
5. Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
6. Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
7. Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
8. Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
9. Homer - The Odyssey
10. Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
11. Alighieri, Dante - The Divine Comedy
12. Nabokov, Vladimir - Lolita
13. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - The Brothers Karamazov
14. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
15. Bronte, Emily - Wuthering Heights
16. Salinger, J. D. - The Catcher in the Rye
17. Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
18. Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
19. Tolstoy, Leo - Anna Karenina
20. Carroll, Lewis - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
21. Homer - The Iliad
22. Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
23. Heller, Joseph - Catch-22
24. Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
25. Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
26. Orwell, George - 1984
27. Dickens, Charles - Great Expectations
28. India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt - One Thousand and One Nights
29. Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
30. Faulkner, William - Absalom, Absalom!
31. Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
32. Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
33. Kafka, Franz - The Trial
34. Stendhal - The Red and the Black
35. Eliot, George - Middlemarch
36. Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver’s Travels
37. Morrison, Toni - Beloved
38. Woolf, Virginia - Mrs. Dalloway
39. Chekhov, Anton - The Stories of Anton Chekhov
40. Camus, Albert - The Stranger
41. Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
42. Virgil - The Aeneid
43. Borges, Jorge Luis - Collected Fiction
44. Hemmingway, Ernest - The Sun Also Rises
45. Dickens, Charles - David Copperfield
46. Sterne, Laurence - Tristram Shandy
47. Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
48. Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
49. Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
50. Rushdie, Salmon - Midnight’s Children
THANK YOU!
Thank you! But boring books... one looks for tasty cult like cool, a little offbeat, rare, forbidden or crazy or even decadent... something a little off-center always!
And also volumes of fiction prose can be beaten by a sonnet or a poem...
poetry, poetry, poetry!!
Thanks.
I don’t think Leaves of Grass should be on this list because it is poetry. And Hamlet is a play as great as it is. The rest of the list is narrative fiction.
Also, for Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls, is his superlative novel. And definitely, To the Lighthouse for Woolf.
There’s not one novel by Balzac or Zola.
You are awesome 😊
I have always been a big reader. Since I retired ten years ago I have read many, many books that I had been putting off. Don't do that! My favorite book is "Anna Karinina" by Tolstoy. Anything by Hemingway, Steinbeck and the Russian authors. What a wonderful retirement I have reading 3 to 5 books each week. Read, my friends!
Yes so many add madam bovary, crime and punishment, in cold blood, east of eden, the red pony, novels of Thomas Hardy and for a laugh The Diary of Adrian Mole☘greetings from the emerald isle☘
@@joanlenahan8653 Adrian Moles' diary is fantastic! Thanks for the reminder.
The Mill on the Floss. I stayed up till the middle of the night to finish it. And got up the next day and started in the middle and read it again.
Anna Karenina is also one of my favorites. As well as The Brothers Karamozov and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.
That's my favorite book as well.
When I was a kid, my dad took me to the library every Wednesday night. I could only take out kids books but my dad would take out anything I wanted. My dad and I would discuss whatever I had read.
You had a great dad
What a cool legacy he helped nurture. My kids are great readers but I’m going to follow suit and make it a more special and bonding activity. Thanks for sharing. 🫡
P2R!,))RL$ ]tufGH ❤E2.❤😊
I'm always bothered by not seeing Alexandre Dumas getting the recognition he deserves. I really cannot understand how "The Count of Monte Cristo" doesn't make it to this list... I strongly feel I have never read a better novel than that.
I'm with you there, Filipe. One of my personal favourites, and I'm currently putting some content together on it because I love it so much.
Hear Hear!
Dumas is great on action, not so great on background.
The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas is my favorite. Surely the most exciting and entertaining. I also love Balzac , Zola and Flaubert.
@@patriciamartine5410 But not #Maupassant or #Hugo?
As an 80 year-old I was delightfully surprised at how many of these books I have actually read, many a long time ago. Your video prompted me to discover if there is a top 50 list of great classical music. Thanks again for the excellent review. Yes, reading great literature does make you a better person.
You say reading great literature makes you a better person. Please you elaborate a little on your position?
Is there one?
@@stevelivingstone4616 I believe that exposure to greatness gives you a better frame of reference in evaluating what you experience in life. If truth and beauty are your goals in life then you need to know when you have found them. Can you truly appreciate cuisine if you have only eaten at Burger King your whole life?
Great idea! Would love to see (and listen to) such a list.
@@marygarrapa3537 Albeniz Suite Espanola
Bach Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring
Barber Adagio for Strings
Bartok The Miraculous Mandarin
Beethoven Symphony 5
Berg Violin Concerto
Berio Rendering
Berlioz Symphonie fantastique
Bernstein On the Waterfront
Bizet L'Arlesienne Suites
Borodin Polovetsian Dances
Brahms Intermezzo Op. 118, No. 2
Chopin Mazurka Op. 17, No.4
Copland Billy the Kid
Debussy La Mer
Delius Prelude to Irmelin
Dukas La Peri
Dvorak New World Symphony
Falla Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Franck Symphony in D minor
Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue
Gorecki Totus Tuus
Grieg Piano Concerto
Handel Water Music
Haydn Trumpet Concerto
Hindemith Mathis Der Maler
Ives Three Places in New England
Kodaly Hary Janos
Mahler Symphony 1
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto
Mozart Piano Concerto 23
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition
Prokiev Alexander Nevsky
Rachmaninov Piano Concerto 2
Ravel Daphnis and Chloe
Reich Variations for Winds, Strings, and Keyboards
Respighi Pines of Rome
Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade
Satie Gnossienne No 1
Schoenberg Verklaerte Nacht
Schubert Symphony 8
Scrabin Piano Concerto
Shostakovitch Symphony 5
Sibelius Symphony 5
Strauss Ein Heldenleben
Stravinsky Petrushka
Takemitsu A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden
Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings
Vivaldi The Four Seasons
Wagner Tristan Prelude & Liebestod
Webern Six Pieces for Orchestra
I love how passionate you are and so uncondescending about supposedly high-brow works. I wanna read all the books in the list now.
Thank you so much. That's incredibly kind of you to say. And I'm thrilled you're enthused to read these great books! :)
Some books mentioned in the video:
26. 1984
25. The Sound and the Fury
24. Heart of Darkness (short)
23. Catch-22
22. To the Lighthouse
21. The Iliad
20. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
19. Anna Karenina
18. The Adventures of Huckeberry Finn
17. Pride and Prejudice
16. The Catcher in the Rye
15. Wuthering Heights
14. Crime and punishment
13. The brothers karamazov
12. Lolita
11. The Divine comedi
10. Madame Bovary
9. The Odyssey
8. Hamlet
7. War and Peace
6. Moby Dick
5. The Great Gatsby
4. One Hundred Years of Solitude
3. Don Quixote
2. Ulysses
1. In Search of Lost Time
Thanks for listing the top 26.
i have read 15 of those! plus 'some' of Dante.
@@smkh2890 Ditto. But never read anything by Proust 😳 Better get on it.
@@debcollins8231 I love to read a paragraph or page of Proust, the same thing usually, and savour how he expands on minute sensations. I wish I could read the French!
@@smkh2890 Good morning. I just ordered, "In Search of Lost Time," and am eager to begin. I often savor small sections of writing too, and there can never be enough detail for me. This channel showing up in my feed yesterday, is so timely because due to cataracts, reading is torturous. My second removal surgery is Monday, and as a gift to myself, I am going to read every title listed and reread several others. Have a lovely weekend.
This channel has changed my life. I enrolled in my first literature at college ( Survey of Russian Literature), and I love it! I’m sincerely considering pursuing a Ph.D. in Literature. Thank you!
That's so kind of you to say! Your Survey of Russian Literature class sounds wonderful - who do you have on the syllabus? :) Happy reading, my friend.
@@BenjaminMcEvoy Alexander Pushkin’s “ The Bronze Horseman,” Mikhail Lermontov’s “ A Hero of Our Time,” Nikolai Gogol’s Table of Ranks, and “ The Nose,” Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov, Mikhail Shishkin’s “ afterword,” Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, “ A Man in the Case,” “Gooseberries,” “About Love,” Valentina Dmitrieva’s memoir, Mikhail Zoshchenko’s “ Skaza,”
Mikhail Bulgakov’s “ Fatal Eggs,” Lyudmila Petushevskaya’s “ Words” and “Medea,” Dunya Smirnova’s “Anyway”
It has changed my life too. :)
Lead me where the light is our by n galilea
@@mahammatbaba8666 What a wonderful syllabus. Have fun!
A good English teacher can turn you onto good books and turn you into an avid reader. The really good English teachers are the ones who not only point you to some great books but inspire you to write your own. 11th grade English teacher turned me onto Dante and all of 2005 I read through "Inferno", "Purgatorio,", and "Paradiso" and the following year I started writing my own stories and poetry. Now, I've got a channel on RUclips full of crazy stories. Thanks, Mr. D'Agostino! You put the writer's spark in me and I haven't stopped since! You're the Fourth Bushwacker.
We had this high school teacher in the '60s who had us read nine or more, In Selected Readings. He was the only teacher in my life, before college, who challenged students' ideas and made us think. He was an oddball because he wore a colored shirt with his tie and sport coat. He spent lots of time deriding the establishment and telling we young rebels that we were all part of it. We read fabulous things, like the Brothers K and The Red and the Black. What worlds. What a gift he gave us, a taste for timeless delicacies when our palates were still forming.
I read through Dostoyevsky when I was a teenager. Tough going. Reread in my sixties and seventies. Got it!
That happens to a lot of us. When you’re a teenager you think you’re clever - maybe you are - but you lack the experience to deal with such stuff. Dostoevsky, Joyce, Thomas Mann, even Flaubert, need an adult perspective.
I loved Dostoyevsky is college but my Cooperative lit prof said that he was more suited to young people and that one gets to appreciate Tolstoy as one gets older. He was right and if you haven't checked out War and Peace and Anna K, I'd recommend it.
@@Scottlp2 I read war and peace. Maybe your professor was referring to the pace of the action and depth of description? I wonder. Anyway, bouncing along with Tristram Shandy and ducking devils in Paradise lost right now.
@@buddharuci2701 Dostoyevsky is a very psychological book. Tolstoy eg War and Peace is concerned with things that you can appreciate more as you get older eg SPOILERS Andrei’s spiritual flowering and Tolstoy’s theory of history (where he breaks 4th wall and speaks directly to reader late in book).
@@buddharuci2701 I wonder the same. I remember being exhausted by a page of, The Brothers Karamazov.
Ann Karenina is just about my absolute favorite piece of literature. I read it about 30ish years ago and it changed my life. Besides the fact that it was beautifully written…I would stop whilst reading it and just stop and ponder the beauty of the configuration of the words before me…
Anna Karenina changed my life too! It sounds like we had a very similar experience :) I would get to the end of some passages and just stare off in silence for long gaps of time. Profound work!
I loved Anna K. as well. It totally convinced me that Tolstoy was one of the greats. I just finished War and Peace, and didn't like it nearly so much. Yes, certainly a great novel, but didn't have the emotional appeal of Anna, and had a lot of distractions like battlefield scenes, and philosophy (at the end).
Which translation did you read?
Try to read it again now, you’ll probably find so much new in it as I did while reading it a few times..
Agree about it's beauty. I wondered at times if it was even more beautiful in Russian. The story itself is pretty much a soap opera; it was the beauty that kept me hooked.
I read _Jane Eyre_ in a storm tossed bunk aboard a small trawler many years ago. The memory of bracing myself with one hand and holding the book with the other will always be with me, along with her parting words, "We are born to strive and endure."
Wow. That is an incredible story! You lived the book, Pola!
Reminds me … Two Years before the Mast, by Dana, and The Voyage of the Beagle by Darwin. Both non-fiction, both great books.
I can clearly see a picture of you in the trawler in the two worlds. your own world and the world of Jane Eyre.
@@davecorley5514 My father took my sister and I to see the movie " Two years before the mast" when we were little girls. My sister jumped up onto her seat and shouted at the screen "You can't do that" when the man was keel hauled. My father often recounted that about my sister My mother berated my father for taking two little girls to see such a movie My father took us to see war and cowboy movies Maybe he wanted boys He used to read poetry to us at bedtime and his favourite was The rhyme of the ancient Mariner My father died long ago and my sister five years ago. How stories bind us in magical ways ...
@@cherylmoss3632 Great story. My dad (reportedly) wanted a girl, as boys seem to be a drug on the market on his side of the aisle. Four children later, all intended to be named "Virginia", all male. The middle name of the girl I married is Virginia. We have one child....a boy.
Fortunately, none of us were put into dresses, named Sue, or coerced into playing with dolls. I always considered myself the least favorite of my mother, but the most like her, and the only one that could sing (as she could). The stories and memories that bind us all, indeed, although the parents are long gone and we are now old ourselves.
The library was my babysitter in the summer. My mom would leave us at the library all day to read and browse. I wouldn’t go near the Russian author’s section. I always assumed I would not understand the plot. I thought Russians were smarter than Americans-especially smarter than a black kid in Texas. I never outgrew my fear of Russian literature. Watching your videos has given me courage to read a book by a Russian author.
Try 'Anna Karenina", and don't be put off by 'War and Peace' - apart from the history, the exploration of human nature is fascinating!
@@kristinross4733 Thank you.
I was the same as you as far as being intimidated. I read "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" recently by Tolstoy and recommend it if you're looking to try something by a Russian author without committing too much time (it's a fairly short book). Good luck!
You will 100% not be intimidated once you start reading! I really hope you enjoy the Russian authors - I too suggest starting with Ana Karenina 😊
I recommend Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - A Day in the Life of Ivan Denesovich. Anna Karenina is 800 pages. Ivan is about 250 and he had quite a day. If you like that maybe consider taking a bigger bite.
In Search of Lost Time is a dazzling combination of experiences, impressions, ideas and gorgeous writing that you could probably literally spend a lifetime reading and studying. I agree that it's generally not a book for younger folks. I've read through it, all 6 volumes, 2 times since I turned 45. Both times took about 6 months and it was like taking a trip around the world.
It's really in a class by itself.
It’s too bad. You’re getting no replies because no one’s read it.
@@almada1113I’ve read it countless times. First in my native Portuguese, later I dared to approach it in the original. Magical, obsessive, at times painful, so many deep hidden personal feelings it awakes in us.
As a Frenchman and a Proust lover, may I suggest that the next step would be to try to read La Recherche (as we often say) in the original French. Even in part if reading the entire book in the original is too daunting.
I’m fairly fluent in English and Spanish and I can (somewhat) read Italian. I also know some German and Russian, but not enough, unfortunately, to read directly in these two languages… However, when I read German or Russian books in translation, I try to also have the original with me, so that when I particularly like a page, or a dialogue, or a descrIption, etc., I can read the original next to the French translation and open a window on what words, nuance, construction, the author actually used. I love to do it this way…
@@Daniel-wi6sk Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try it, although my French is rather basic.
As an Irishman I think this guy is really brilliant given the very short time he has to review these books, makes me want to go back and re read, and read for the first time a lot of these great books, thank you sir!
And if you were not Irishman you wouldn't think this man is brilliant? 🤔
@@agaobi573 As an Irish man I laughed out loud at your comment 😂
Hah! Because he put Joyce over Hemingway lol!
The Irish are masters of language and literature. He only mentioned four. There are countless others...including Canadian and American authors with Irish ancestry (Cormac McCarthy). What's with that?
@@tonirose6776 he did flip through snapshots of Cormac McCarthy at the end when speaking of books that he thinks are better than some on the list.
Recently I was reflecting on how books literally saved my life. They provided an escape during my challenging childhood. They also provided the voices of sane adults. David Copperfield was very comforting. Our fourth grade teacher read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn aloud to the class. I picked up Tom Sawyer again, now in my sixties. So good to hear voices of sanity again. The world has changed too quickly for me. I agree completely with your thoughts about satire.
That's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that, Mary Lou. I used to escape into great literature because these books felt like the voices of sanity too. And the world has definitely changed far too quickly. Even 5-10 years ago, it was a very different world! Thank you for being here :)
Yes!
what are ur favorite books?
I and others would tend to agree with you MARYLOU
Proust have saved my life during painful divorce time.
I can come back again and again.Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann was the book of my adolescence.
It's too sad that there is not some Victor Hugo in here especially for his book : Les Misérables. One of the greatest book in French Litterature.
Victor Hugo!!!
I’ve only gotten about 1/4 of the way through Les Mis and I’ve been blown away
The priest might be my favorite character in all literature and I’m not religious or morally cheesy at all but I’m constantly in awe of his human grace.
It’s just so good, very hard to put down
Most definitely agree. Two books each by Joyce and Wolfe might be a bit excessive. Hugo is a heavyweight.
I totally agree....It should be in the 50 most read book. When you think of all the adaptations made of it in musicals and movies and the incredible life lessons contained in it.
Hear!! Hear!!
Your channel recently appeared in my RUclips feed and I was immediately intrigued. I am currently moving through a difficult period in my life, your enthusiasm and rich content has renewed my love and appreciation for great works of literature. Yes, I will revisit those beloved friends. It feels so wonderful to be stirred back toward life. Thank you from a new subscriber.
I echo her (his?) sentiments.
Snap!!! Same here!
.
After the Longest Night
Caught in each golden sunrise
there is more than just the daily
quickening of light.
More like a universal knowing
beckons sight,
a burst of comprehension
on a shore
Where not one staying shadow
cuts the line of blooming truth.
Brighter than trumpets,
white as new drifts under
dazzling sun.
In spite of night,
even the longest one,
design returns,
erasing doubt and fear;
The rich aroma life wraps
round the eager heart
Breaks like a burst of promise;
pulses start that logic labeled dead.
The dawning pitch of hope
that grief or anger had concealed
In every sunrise,
is again revealed.
@@keithdmaust1854 ❤️Beautiful!
Oh my! You touched my heart and my eyes welled up when you said, “It is almost like spending time with that teacher.” I, too, had such a teacher and he inspired me to become a teacher myself. My heart swelled with my own memories of Mr. Dlouhy and with pride of profession. Thank you for sharing this heartfelt sentiment.
Me, as well. Mine was my sixth grade literature teacher. She gave me the gift bound edition of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Sigh. My father took me to the library about the same time and introduced me to his favorite fiction authors, but alas, he had a fifth grade (country) education. I read historical fiction by Edison Marshall and other books by John Mason, and the few in school such as Scarlet Letter and Tale of two cities, but missed out on most of the classics. Just retired and am going to get through as many of these as I can. I did read Siddhartha, Catch 22 and loved Shakespeare (hamlet, midsummer night's dream) and some Dante and Faulkner in college. I have a long way to go, but I'm looking forward to it, now that I know the list! Thanks you Benjamin McEvoy. I, too, am enlivened by your passion and eloquence.
Bravo! It has been a while since I listened to someone speak with such enthusiasm and personal refection about literature. You hooked me as a great admirer when you spoke what was on my heart about Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass." I found myself joining in, out loud, with my comments and some different perspectives regarding these works and their authors, as if you were across the room from me, drinking Scotch neat. It brought me back to conversations my ex-wife and I had. You're the best RUclips creator. Thank you.
1. Bulgakov - Master and Margarita
2. Dostojevski - Crime and Punishment
3. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings
Smth like that if I write them down quite quickly. If I'd think longer, I'd certainly think of many others as well. Actually I can't really put my favourites in any particular order and I also love the works of many Estonian authors, who unfortunately aren't internationally that known, but are amazing writers. Btw, I'm Estonian. :) Thank you for this video, it was very interesting! I just found your channel.
I tried reading 1, but stopped. Boring.
I feel sorry for the poor Russians being made to read evil books like C+P, even as children.
What en evil book that is!
No Shakespeare? Not even Hamlet??? Tolkien above Shakespeare?
Reading Ulysses while reading The Odyssey at the same time as an undergraduate was incredibly difficult, but wow! So many parallels and reimagining. Loved it!
That sounds like a challenging but incredibly rewarding experience :) I'm so glad you loved it, April!
“War and peace” and “Anna Karenina” are the most tremendous masterpieces for me. I wish I could forget it and start again with the new passionate
Anna Karenina made me not want to read War and Peace.
I think someone who could write, among many other things, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Henry 1V parts 1 and 2, Henry Vth, Richard 3rd, Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like it, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Julius Cesar, Troilus and Cressida, Romeo and Juliet, The Sonnets.... is rather greater than Tolstoy, especially since Tolstoy considered Shakespeare to be rubbish.
I agree.. Tolstoy can be rather long winded in English translation ( I don't know how it is in Russian)... in addition to being having imperialist attitudes. @@DiogenesNephew
My introduction literally says:”blessed he who hasn’t read war and peace for he can read it for the first time”
@@daydays12 It seems to me you are hating on Tolstoy just because he is Russian. Who are you to judge his personal opinions? I bet you are the same type of guy who supports wokeism and preach about how everyone is entitled to have their own opinions while being a prejudiced hyprocrite yourself.... No one said Tolstoy is better than Shakespeare but he is much better than many upstart American authors and is undeneiably one of the best authors of all time. Everyone in those days was imperialist........ What about Daniel Defoe, who was clearly racist. Is being imperialist worse than being racist?
Two comments--I've started "The Brothers Karamazav" (only at the beginning of Book 4-TheStrains. I have NEVER been so in love with a book and it's author in my life!! When you mentioned that you would soon be doing a video around the book, I smiled for about a minute! I have been wanting to talk about this book to someone, anyone! And I'm not even 1/4 way through. Second comment--"The Count of Monte Cristo" most definitely should be on this list. I know that this is subjective, but holy moly!! Everyone adores this book--and rightfully so. I really enjoyed your video (just found you here on youtube). You have a new fan. Thanks very much.
Which translation are you reading ?
Which translation are you reading?
I absolutely fell in love with Brothers Karamazov also. Made a huge impact on me and it was very enjoyable to read although I only managed to read one chapter per day in the evenings. Great for people interested in people’s physics
Dostoevsky is the greatest writer of all times. Read the Idiot next, you won't be able to put the book down.
It was always my favourite films,when young,but haven’t read the book yet.😊
Thank you! When you spoke of A Christmas Carol, the lovely memories, a month before Christmas, every year, my father would begin reading this aloud, every night. My sisters and I knew every word, but he did all the voices and would stop to let us fill in the gaps, or finish a sentence
The rest of the year, it would be Dickens, Bronte, all the classics. We all grew up to be voracious readers, for which I am forever grateful. What a gift!
How very lovely. To have a parent such as this...*that* is treasure.
Wow, what a great dad.
@@daveboise_2222 thank you...he was💚
Regarding Dickens, there is a very good book you'd likely enjoy, 'Mr. Dickens and His Carol' is the title.
Where have you been all my life? I have been in a reading slump for years. This is a great, unpretentious breakdown by someone who loves literature, and who has the maturity to know that one's affinity to a book is also influenced by life's experiences. I like how you break down each book with just enough for me to know if this is something I want to delve into, and there are many in the list that I've added to my list. Thank you!
Hi Benjamin - just wanted to say a huge thank you for reigniting my love of literature (not just the classics, but in general). I came across your channel a week ago, by chance, and it was this presentation of 50 greatest books which drew me in. Now I listen to your channel in the car going to and from work (I am a college lecturer) and it inspires me to pick up my books again. I still have plenty of your channel to work through so I am excited as to what else I shall discover! Once again, thank you and keep up this brilliant work 👏
Hi, Ben!
I love what you do here. 😊 I'm a reader who just got out of a slump, and one of the encouraging videos I watched was one of yours -- on Crime and Punishment. I read that classic and It's one of my favorites now. I loved it. Thanks and I hope you continue what you do! God bless you!
Hi Trish! Thank you so much :) That really means a lot to me, and I’m so happy you’re here! God bless to you too 😊
Gatsby can't be above Dante, I'm sorry. Dante invented a language.
Agreed, Gatsby is overrated in this list.
So overrated! Gatsby should not have been included in the top 50, let alone the top five novels of all time, especially considering the masterpieces of the great Victor Hugo, Gulliver's Travels by Swift, The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, Hunger by Hamsun, Memoirs of Hadrian by Yourcenar, and others that did not make the list!
@@michaelurosevic8225You wouldn’t be saying this if it wasn’t the most popular American book ever. It wouldn’t make you feel smart for bashing it and you would actually see how great it is
Dante invented a language, literary world-building (and with that how we even now imagine hell, purgatory and paradise), the genre of encyclopedic epic, and probably many more things. There is no greater book as the Divine Comedy.
My attempts to read the Divine Comedy didn't go well. It took forever to get to anything interesting. Maybe you have to be fluent in medieval Italian to really understand it. In translation, verse version are terrible and the prose version ate still boring and long winded, as Dante himself seems to have been.
Celine "Journey to the end of the night". Mindblowing and the most sincere book I have ever read. Also very very funny at times. I read it in German translation and enjoyed the hell out of the language.
Great list! I was so hoping to see some Thomas Hardy on it along with D. H. Lawrence. I fell in love with Hardy's work as an undergraduate, so much so that I ended up writing my MA thesis on the theme of the grotesque in three specific novels of his. Glad to have discovered your channel!
Agree that both are superb writers, and yes, better than Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald is kind of a one horse pony: obsession with money and status and the corruption it fosters. At his best, though, he does write beautifully as well.
I love your passion of books!! You’re so enjoyable to watch and listen to … you have an incredibly rich knowledge on a diversity of literature. I’m impressed. 😊
Really interesting point you made about satire and our current reality. I had not thought about it that way but now that you've mentioned it, I completely agree. Also, I am very grateful for this channel. I have also gone through periods where I felt that I did not really have anyone to share my love of literature with. Your channel is such a breath of fresh air and in my opinion, a much-needed balance to current popular media options.
Aw, thank you so much, Kelly. I really appreciate that. I've gone through the same thing myself. These videos are definitely born out of wanting to discuss these great books with like-minded lovers of literature like yourself :) I'm grateful for you being here!
My god yes! How could one possibly carry something such as our current wildly satiric-like experiences to any greater extreme! Where did all this ridiculousness explode from? Is it all due to social media?
100 years of solitude are the cause of my most interesting subconscious experience. Just after finishing the book I finished in the hospital with horrible fever for one week. During that time I was hallucinating that I am all of the Buendias at once. I was not a person, but a family ,observing parts of me as a sum of my other parts, worried about the families reproduction.
I TOTALLY agree with Proust being number 1. I have spent almost a year reading everything he wrote and what is in my local library system about him. I miss Siddhartha being on your list. For me THAT was the most memorable book I have read and I am 78.
Proud to have read them all but reread at my age is down to British narrated audiobooks due to aged eyes. Thank you for enjoyable narrative of memory lane reminding me of these journeys I’ve taken. Sometimes to rekindle does brighten a memory loss to reemerge. Thanks.
Yours
K Tate
I love that Moby Dick starts with, "Call Me Ishmael." It puts into question everything that follows. He does not say my name is Ishmael. He says the reader should call him that. He is the sole survivor, and a first person narrator. Both are questionable storytellers. Fantastic book.
The novel is also extremely hilarious in how downright absurd it can be.
@@Inevitable.Change
No it's not !
@@BillSikes. Apart from the witty use of humour of which there are several examples, Captain Ahab's quest in and of itself is rather absurd. Revenge on a whale is certainly absurd. It was only Starbuck who showed signs of doubt. Ahab gained favour in his endeavour through his passionate oratory skills, the promise of money and his power as Captain.
The Confidence Man is stupendous and maddening! Melville should be read in his many manifestations.
@@Inevitable.Change I caught a fish, it was white, and it was THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS BIG!
You are absolutely amazing. I'm currently doing a Masters in English and enjoying every minute of it. It's wonderful to see someone who shares the passion that I have for literature.
Thank you so much. That's very kind of you to say. And how wonderful to hear you're doing your MA in English! I wish you all the best with your studies :)
Catch 22 is one of my all-time favorites. Have read it twice. Several of these books are ones I read clear back, many, many years ago, in high school. You have inspired me to go back and re-read a few and delve into some I have only heard about. I read Crime and Punishment aloud to two of my friends in college. I must read it again!
I came across your channel by chance. I must tell you, l am an avid reader as well as a composer and author of mostly children's stories. Not only did l enjoy listening to your video, having read a great many of the books you mentioned but your articulation, enthusiasm and passion enthralled me and as the sunlight crept through the slits on my shaded windows early in my morning, l felt a great need to reread many of the books in your top 50 list. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and unbounded joy discussing such wonderful.literature. Books and music fill my life and will continue to do so. l shall subscribe to your channel now as l down my well earned toast and marmalade, much later this morning, all due to the thirst acquired to listening twice to your lecture. Thank you once again
My mother and grandfather taught me to read when I was 4 years old. I started with the comic strips in the daily newspaper, Now as I approach my 80th birthday, I watched this list with some curiosity. How many have I read? A conservative estimate: perhaps 40 of the 50. Your commentary has made me add some to my reading queue, so thanks for that. To be honest, today I read for escapism and entertainment. I'm not looking for a life changing experience any more, so I am not sure how many of these books I will actually finish. Time will tell (or run out unexpectedly.)
As for the order of the books, it is a list. Probably nothing like a list I would make. Of course my list today would be very different than my list from just 3 months ago. I recently read Pride and Prejudice for the first time. It shot into my top 10 immediately. Everything evolves. Thanks again.
I feel like Epic wise, Camões is often overlooked. Perhaps due to lack of a great translation. One of the greatest poets of all time.
I was a bit surprised and disappointed that my all-time favorite novel, Les Miserables, did not crack the top 50. It has been a positively life changing book for me.
Its up there with my most favourite, too. Don't worry I'm here for you like Jean Veljean would be.
I completely agree.
Likewise!
I think the focus is mainly on English works and kind of best of the rest. French, Russian, Italian or German books are heavily underrepresented in this list
The list is shit
My mother was a university librarian during the 70s and 80s. The collection was reviewed and renewed about 1980. She saved an almost complete set of “Great Books of the Western World” for me. I’ve kept them but haven’t read many of them … until I retired six years ago. I’m an engineer by training and career. I was especially surprised by the depth of meaning of the ancient Greek epics, tragedies and comedies. And it opened my eyes and mind to a realization that humans have dealt with the great ideas for millennia. Joyce, Sterne, Steinbeck, Hemingway stand on the shoulders of the ancients.
Missing from the list of fifty are the histories of (edit) Thucydides (/edit), Herodotus and Gibbon; the philosophical treatises of Plato, Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius; the political treatises of Plato, Locke, Hobbes, Spinoza, Nietzsche and the US Federalist papers; the economic treatises of Adam Smith; and the great biographies - Plutarch’s Lives and Boswell’s Samuel Johnson; and the scientific works of Euclid, Newton, and Faraday.
But, IMHO the greatest absence in the list is Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Absolutely agree with your list. Where's Shakespeare? Doesn't he qualify? Or don't plays belong to books?
I also definitely agree - the ancients are a missing staple for me, especially Plato and Marcus Aurelius.
Dave, Because my major was the General Program of Liberal Studies, I was lucky enough to read in college all the other titles you mentioned. We had a six-credit great books seminar every semester where we did about a book a week. We also had a four-credit history of science course every semester, reading Newton, the astronomers like Brahe, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, etc. I mention all this because there are a lot of sympathetic souls in this forum that might like such an opportunity for themselves or their kids. My school, Notre Dame, still has a robust GP major. A couple St. John's Universities also teach the classic curriculum. They all derive from the U. of Chicago and Adler, Hutchinson and ??. And ultimately from the trivium and quadrivium in the first European universities. But the point is there's a heaven on earth for lovers of knowledge and the history of knowledge: the General Program. (aka a Humanities major). Maybe some such courses are available to audit. Thanks to all the fans of Benjamin and copious thanks to Benjamin himself for creating the most interesting comments page I've ever seen.
Mike Smyth, I got my BS in engineering at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. I avoided every “bull” (English, philosophy, history, poli sci, etc) class I could while there. I was and am a “nuke” through and through. I must’ve walked past the St John’s campus a thousand times then. A year after I retired I started reading the Great Books. I researched and applied to St John’s just before COVID hit. Even reserved a tiny Apt just off-campus. COVID hit, St John’s shut down. “…best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men…”
@@christhauma2981 Hamlet is number 8.
I loved your story about your teacher. My 7th grade literature teacher would walk around the class as he dramatically read Shakespeare to us and even though I was an 11 year old girl, I admired him. He gave me such a love of books. He changed my life. Thank you to Mr. Pitkin!
I've started rereading the books that first turned me onto literature when I was in high school: Crime and Punishment, Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, Metamorphosis, The Hound of the Baskerville, and Watership Down. These books have a special place in my heart.
"Watership down" is timeless. Still amazing 37 years later
Part one of Don Quixote is absolutely both hilarious ( the "adventures" ) and fascinating ( the conversations and wisdom of Don Quixote and Sancho ). Makes you wish you could have met Cervantes, the great mind that created such an immortal litterary couple. Céline, the french writer, should be there somewhere, with one of his first two books, Journey to the end of the night or Death on credit. Both game changers in the XXth century litterature.
As I biologist I've always enjoyed Melville's inclusion of so much natural lore in Moby Dick. I recently picked up Ahab's Rolling Sea by Richard J. King which delves into and elaborates on this aspect of the novel. Worth a read as a companion piece or to spur you to reread Moby Dick.
Please make the time to watch the movie Heart of the Sea (starring Chris Helmsworth and Cillian Murphy). For those who found/find reading Moby Dick as something of a Tylenol situation, The Heart of the Sea provides a profound and heart-wrenching foundation for the future enjoyment of Melville’s tale.
Blessings! 🙏🏻
Jess.🌹
I have a really hard time believing Tolkien didn’t crack the Top 50. I think the fact that it’s fantasy worked against it, but in terms of sheer influence and creativity I think it certainly deserves a Top 50 (although this is an aggregated list).
Also The Book of the New Sun
And Harry Potter even though it's considered childish, it got multiple generations to read books
@@SidPil Over Demons and anything from Ipsen, Shakespeare, Kafka or Thomas Mann?
@@georgestamatakis697 yes
@@SidPil Have you even read them?
Thank you! This Yank raised amidst vast Indiana cornfields in the late 1950's, a child of pastor - historian and historian - author who laid books all about upside down and open, in homes of books for walls, finds your treasure! 57 years on, a small summer grant reading history at Hertford/Oxford was pure bliss. Encouraging deep draught of books again, you offer a life of the mind akin to arduous athletic training with a fine payoff. Thank you, Mr. McEvoy.
I think Conan Doyle and Sherlock should be there. I would also include Ishiguro's "The remains of the day". Actually there needs to be more Japanese writers included.
You do know that Ishiguro has lived in England since he 5 and is an English citizen. Just checking.
Haha!
You'd think if he has read the book or even just seen the film he would be able to figure that out. But I guess not.
Although I do think the books subject matter could almost have had a Japanese setting due to the peculiar similarity between certain traditional British and Japanese behaviours.
I just loved listening to this. It makes me want to re- read so many books and try the few on the list that I haven't got to yet. Being Irish I may be biased and would have swapped the order of the first two.
Thank you, Tony. My Irish bias would also move Ulysses up - plus I can appreciate the lyricism and inventiveness in the original, without mediation, which is always a nice bonus :)
I read Quixote in high school and 7 years later after i had learned Spanish I read Cervantes in Spanish-Castilian dialect in fact and it was so much deeper, so I admire you for pursuing Dante in Italian. I appreciated your comment on Irish authors and satire that is interesting. Next please do short stories.
Speaking of wonderful Irish writers, J.G. Farrell's trilogy (loosely thematically connected about the British Empire): Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur, and The Singapore Grip. Hilarious black comedy, great characterization, and gorgeous writing. The Siege of Krishnapur won the Booker, and many years later, Troubles won the Lost Booker.
I am so glad to have found this channel. I have recently started reading books again after years of stopping completely. I went through a traumatic period in life and could not bring myself to open the cover of a book at all. I lost reading but still loved books. So, I always kept some close, just like always, Just their presence was comforting. I didn't know if I'd ever read again. And this year, I've found that I can read again. I wasn't sure until I had actually been able to finish at least a few books that I read together with my sister. Now, I want to read selectively, choosing great books, or at least significant ones, ones that expand my human experience that cause me to explore with thought and feeling, books that stick with me and provoke me to grow and connect to what is meaningful. So, I've been watching book review channels, and this channel came up in my feed. It really fits me now. I'm following the podcast on Spotify now too. I've got Blood Meridian on my near to-be-read list.
I love Dante too, but not just for the literature. My first love is history and the Comedy almost requires a knowledge of that period of Italian history to really appreciate some of the work and the characters. A lot of people fixate on Inferno; some don't even know it's one of three. I've read it over and over and then fell in love with Purgatory, flipping back and forth with Inferno for the parallels.
Martha Beck's book, The Way of Integrity leans heavily on Dante and Virgil. You might like it. It's a great metaphor for life, IMO
Thank you very much for this informative and extremely Anglo-Saxon perspective, even though I miss Walden. I´m still endlessly waiting for the "The 50 Greatest Books of All Time"! My top ten: 1. Njals saga. 2. The Karamazov Brothers. 3. Walden. 4. The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes. 5. A Doll's House by Ibsen. 6. King Lear. 7. The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa. 8. Out of Africa by Karen Blixen. 9. The Trial by Kafka. 10. The Plague by Camus.
The Outsider too! Camus
I am so delighted that someone finally mentioned Walden! Thoreau is such an underrated figure even today, which is crazy to me.
Ben, I love your channel and have become a member. I have so much to say, but to keep things short here's a suggestion: what if you did a special course focused on world literature from places like China, Japan, Brazil, India and Persia? People below are making so many exciting suggestions of writing traditions to explore. As an American I have never been exposed to such works at university, or even on local library shelves. I love your thoughtful and well-informed analysis. It would be so much fun to accompany you through what is, for many of us, an as-yet untramelled reading arena. Just a thought.
sorry to break it down for you but persia doesnt exist anymore
I agree with you... brazilian liteature is extremelly rich and I do not doubt that the same occurs with China, Japan and India literature. These are not "the 50 greatest books of all time", but instead they are for sure 50 great, superb books of all time. We have astonishing literature from Brazil that could be into this list as well...
@@silver_soul fact1: it doesnt exist
fact2: it existed like 500 years ago or something
@@silver_soul dont really know, i just know its called iran now
@@AlexandreBrautigam Just an example of an excellent Brazilian author is the 19th-century Machado de Assis, a genius!!!
This is the first video I've seen from your channel, and I will be back for more. This was a delight and highly engaging. I am impressed by your ease of expression. While this looks to be an impromptu discussion, your sophisticated thoughts, cadence and crafting of language came across as a polished text. I feel smarter just for listening.
Great list. I was a bit gutted, though, to see that Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' was not on it, considering its influence on art and literature, its sheer innovativeness, and the pleasure it gives the reader, on so many levels. You're right about the experience of reading epic poetry. It is a transcendent experience.
I am not sure why you are gutted ?
A house wife might consider this list authoritative , while a specialist in Eastern religion might think it’s a bad joke.
Most of the World’s greatest literary achievements aggregated a bad joke?
Why don’t you do me a favor and tell me a good joke, or better yet, expose me to the wonderment of the Eastern Canon?
Yes, yes, yes! There is no more beautiful way to learn about Greek and Roman mythology than the Metamorphoses.
If you've ever heard The Iliad spoken, it is thrilling. I think it was on a C-Span books show that a panel discussed this classic piece. Christopher Hitchens was on it. As usual, he knew as much, or more, than the other guests who specialised in Greek llterature. One panelist, a professor of Greek literature, read excerpts from it, while beating a traditional drum and - although it sounds the height of nerdness - it was moving.
Not only was Ovid a glaring omission - but not a single mention of any Greek tragedy!!
My father a professor told me with "Ulysses," to read this with eight explanatory books- this is what I did, I read ten pages out loud at night during the Pandemic, in an Irish accent.
I think you should make a list of your own picks. As algorithmic lists go, this one is fine, but I'm more curious how you would rank novels. Personally I think lumping novels, plays and poems together is a little too Apples and Oranges. But, I would love to see a video of your favourite novel picks.
Thank you, Nick. I'd definitely be happy to talk through my personal choices and the reasons for them in the future. I completely agree that lumping in novels, plays, and poems is apples and oranges. Nice to see Hamlet there, of course, but kind of strange given the company it sits among!
@@BenjaminMcEvoy Carlo Goldoni's Servant of two Masters is great (also known as Harlequin) but it's original a theatre playbook.
@@BenjaminMcEvoy Yes, please make your own list!
I would like that also
I’ve been waiting eagerly for more content and to give me my daily fix I rewatch a lot of your content. I’ve also stumbled across a plethora of lovely comments that other lovers of literature have left and replies from yourself and I thought I’d show my appreciation once more- this time for both you and the commenters. Only 2 months ago you were 20k and even prior to that when I fell in love with your content and subscribed you were around 14k I believe and now you have surpassed 40k! I’m so happy this video blew up and your content is getting the recognition it deserves. I hope the mass of newcomers doesn’t overwhelm you as I know it does many RUclipsrs. Simply, I hope you keep well! Can’t wait for more content :)
As always I write long-winded ramblings. I do apologise haha, it is done with the best intentions I assure you.
The book I remember that I couldn’t put down (I don’t know if I finished it in one sitting or not) is ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Canadian author, Margaret Atwood. It was very suspenseful, a real page turner. I was surprised Agatha Christie wasn’t on the list. Is she not high-tone enough? I recently read ‘Endless Night’. Haunting, beautifully written.
Have you read “A Farewell to Arms”? I guess
I am a hopeless romantic as I never tire of this masterpiece. I feel like I am right there with Frederick and Catherine. The drinking, the guilt, the love, and the heartbreak.
Loved that book!
Yes, I enjoyed it
I agree completely! A Farewell to Arms and even For Whom the Bell Tolls is far superior to The Sun also Rises, which was written in great haste after EH participated in the Running of the Bulls at Pamplona.
Hemingway was far more talented than Scott Fitzgerald. A Farewell to Arms is infinitely superior to the Great Gatsby. I don’t think the Great Gatsby would be where it is but for the film. I suspect this is a list of books that people have heard of rather than books people have read.
I can’t believe my incredible good fortune to have the opportunity to benefit and learn from your experience, your imagination, your challenges and suggestions, and especially your enthusiasm for great literature. I am about to retire, and one of my main goals in retirement is to read, study and experience the literature and history I was not interested in when I was younger. Thank you for your work!
same!
I marvel that in 4th grade, we read- and understood- The Red Pony, The Pearl, and The Old Man And The Sea.
I'm 63 now, and I am so grateful my teachers didn't judge our abilities by our income brackets and exposed us to great literature at such a young age.
🎁 What a precious lifelong gift.
I read through a bunch of Hemingway's short stories earlier this year. You're right in saying it's his form of poetry. Absolutely masterful depth and emotion in just a few pages. My favorite was The Indian Camp.
Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". I remember reading that and stopping at one point and saying out loud, "God, this man can write" Such an outburst, from me, never happened before or since.
1) Dalton Trumbo - Johnny got his gun
2) Upton Sinclair - Jungle
3) Victor Hugo - Les Miserables
4) Nikos Kazantzakis - The Christ Recrussified
5) Uberto Eco - The name of the rose
6) Bram Stoker - Dracula
7) Ambroce Bierce - The monk and and the hangman's daughter
8) John Stainbeck - East of Eden
9) Stanislav Lem - Solaris
10) Jaroslav Hasek - The good soldier Svejk
Agree , where is Victor Hugo and Umberto Eco here ?
Some of my personal favorites: The Call of the Wild - Jack London, My Antonia - Willa Cather, Exodus - Leon Uris, and so many more!
Very nice :)
Have you read Death Comes for the Archbishop?? My favorite Cather novel
To light a fire, jack london, hemingway short stories and old man and the sea. One day in the life... dante, shakespeare, homer, too many to list
I love Willa Cather too!
I love your comment on Kafka. Perhaps you could say 'Read Kafka, think Yes, MInister'. That's what happened to me the second time I read it and I finally could finish the book without a sense of overwhelming desperation.
An excellent choice - although it is an impossible task to chose 50 best books from a thousands! One of my favorites is "The Leopard" by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa which chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the Risorgimento... But then most have their much loved preferences ...
Brilliant character studies
Thanks for this video! i was losing my faith in life, and literature. This video made me strengthen my resolve, read these books and get back into it. They are doorstops that seem like they take forever, but every page is illuminating.
I have mixed feelings about The Great Gatsby being at No. 5. I'm not sure it deserves to be higher than The Brothers Karamazov or Middlemarch. I definitely think that the ending of Gatsby is very contrived.
it doesn't belong in top 50.
@@siamcharm7904 agreed. The book is shit
I think the ending is the thing that elevates it from being a trifle.
Contrived when it was written? No. A classic.
No, it is only like 180 pages, but it really has some of the best writing ever in the English language. He mentioned his friend was memorizing lines, that's what I'm doing to. Fitzgerald was a master even though he didn't have a large body of work.
I'm a bit sad Frankenstein wasn't included, if only for its sheer influence. Not only is it the first science fiction novel, it essentially predicted AI and the complications associated with it. For a book written 200 years ago its themes are shockingly relevant.
Oh Ben, not even us Italians know the language well enough to understand Dante. The Divine Comedy is one of the most challenging text in our language thus one of the most beautiful. It's the headache of all students together with The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
So glad I found this channel. The thing about not really having people in your life that are interested in literature rings very true for me. Being a novice reader who is in love with the classics such as Don Quixote, Les Miserables, and many works of Dickens, I go about searching for more on my own. Trying to find the translations of ones that were not originally written in English that will be best for my brain has been overwhelming as well and those videos are helping immensely. Also, a very nice voice to listen to and that means a lot for me so it’s just all great.
Something from Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native maybe. I loved all of his novels. Never been to Wessex, but I can feel it. I can see it.
Astonished with No Hardy!
Jude The Obscure
Also, I found Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” to be very funny. The whole bits about his job and lazy family were hilarious.
Agree! It's a hoot. All of Kafka is.
@@nicholasschroeder3678 As far as I remember, I found Metamorphosis anything but funny. I found it suffocating, perhaps because I put myself in the shoes of the main character.
@@stradavisinului like all of kafka, it's funny in its absurdity. Read his book The Castle, it's incomplete, like The Trial, but had he finished it I think it would have been recognized as one of the greatest novels of all time, it's so unbelievably compelling.
@@golddmane I have. All I said about The Metamorphosis is that it is not funny. But, perhaps you understand "funny" more like the German "komisch". That I admit it to be.
@@stradavisinuluiWell, it is of course suffocating too--it works on two levels. On the one hand, he's a loyal employee and son that's cruelly mistreated and totally misunderstood by those who supposedly should know, honor, love, and cherish him. And that's tragic. In the end he's tossed like so much garbage: it's good riddance. On the other hand, he's just too sensitive and too rational to fit into this absurd world we inhabit. His constant and sincere struggle to make sense of it all is what is so funny. I think it's exactly the same funny bone that's tickled when we watch a Candid Camera.
I am rather fond of Umberto Eco. "The Name of the Rose" will remain one of my all time favorites. The chapter where Adso admires the adornments of the church door is worth a top 50 entry by itself.
Oh, yes, how could we forget him...?
Speaking of mundane, there's a whole, beautiful chapter in Les Miserables, describing the Paris sewers!
Actually remember that passage. Loved the mind blowing thoughts of the labyrinths and how cool they were
Have read that book only twice. Upon the first reading I reread the description of the library 3 or 4 times to get straight in my mind. I’m not sure I ever did. I saw a drawing of it but it didn’t suit me!! Lol
@@ant7936 YES! I was able to follow those descriptions! WONDERFUL! I’m due to reread that marvelous book!! I LOVED IT!!!
I am joyful that Marcel Proust made number 1, as I am on a journey to start reading In Search of Lost Time for my 70th birthday, and will read it slowly with a journal next to my side to write all my thoughts about this incredible masterpiece of Marcel Proust.
Brothers Karamazov is my favorite book and I'm glad to see it so high.
I was happy to see it so high up too :)
I am 57 and yesterday I started reading my first book by Proust. I read a suggestion that it’s nice to have somebody who’s read him before to talk to as I start and I realized I do not have anybody in my life who has. hmmmm. Has got me thinking, but I did reach out to an old friend who was an English teacher who I’ve lost contact with and hopefully I hear from her. She is probably well familiar.
I read Victor Hugo's Les Miserable in French. I was a difficult read mainly because of the vocabulary but I got sucked in and couldn't put it down.
One of the most overlooked yet brilliant Irish authors, James Stephens, comes to mind with my personal favourite The Demi-Gods ~ published in 1914
I read Moby Dick while on holidays last week. It does read like a book written almost two hundred years ago, but what a book. The pacing, the description, the buildup to that final battle are fantastic.
In my mind's eye, I was gripped by a scene near the end, when Ahab refuses to help find a boy lost at sea. he looks at the other person who is pleading for help, and says " I will not do it, Captain Gardner." There are so many scenes that are just as powerful, and a lot of stretches where you know something will happen.
Really enjoyed watching this video. I was pleased to see so many respectful literary pieces on the list. "Anna Karenina" is also one of my top favourite, although reading it was a bit psychologically tense. BTW, your manner of speech is really compelling)
I really enjoyed these responses with lists. Yes they are arbitrary but it is a good avenue for you to talk about literature. I also appreciate the honest list personal anecdotes here and how you can link certain parts of your life to these stories.
Great stuff.
Surprised there is no Ishiguro or McCarthy here
Absolutely, they have to be arbitrary at a certain point. But it's a lovely excuse to just chat about books :) I was also surprised at the lack of Ishiguro and McCarthy!
I have read a few of the books mentioned. I`m a mathematician, and a slow reader of literature. One of the most enjoyable novels I ever read was `North and South,` ( Elizabeth Gaskell ) as an 18 year old lad. I couldn`t possibly study a novel ( as for example one would have to in a course in English Literature ). I therefore have found myself reading some novels - such as Anna Karenina - and wondering whether such works were meant to be read with pleasure or patiently endured.
A couple of pints, £10:00 for half an hour`s entertainment. A good novel, a hundred hours of immersion into a different time / world.
Have you seen the bbc north and south adaptation . If not you should . I think you’ll really
Irked it
Good morning, ladydelishx. It rings a bell. I shall have to find it since I`m sure I did see it ( about 15 years ago ? ) on TV.
As far as I remember the adaptation began upon a journey by train - by a young lady who happened to be the daughter of a Parson ? I might have got this completely wrong.
At the moment I`m struggling between The Count of Monte Christo, Quantum Mechanics and Les Miserables - and am too old to be able to complete any one of the three, LOL !
Which makes what you say even more endearing.
I appreciate your comment - and shall try to find the adaptaiton.
Ma`am.
@@ladydelishxx Ps `just found it in "DailyMotion." Thank you for the reminiscence.
I always suggest people begin Thomas Mann with "Buddenbrooks." Like "David Copperfield" it's semi-autobiographical and it was written at age 26 and was actually the book for which he was nominated (and won) the Nobel Prize. I loved it so much at first reading, I literally couldn't stop reading it.
It’s so refreshing to see someone who is SO well-read and knowledgeable about these great works. I’ve been looking to join a book club and I think I will join yours. Reading The Brothers Karamazov now, and wish I could discuss it with others. Great video! Thanks for this.
I just finished reading/rereading a Dickens a year until read them all one after another. Whichever one I was reading was a masterpiece to me!
That's a beautiful reading project. I do the same thing and love it. Always look forward to each year's Dickens :)
Start with “the Pickwick Papers”, no question. Some people say it’s not a proper novel, but we can ignore that. It’s like 1 million stories all rolled into one, stories within stories, a travelogue, Someone said that there’s more descriptions of meals than in any other novel published.It changes as it goes along, at least the character of Mr. Pickwick.At first he’s a figure of fun but then he morphs into a kind of an elder statesman. I think the reason the book changes is that it might have been dickens first time writing by installments. So several installments might’ve been published and been read by the public even before he had got anywhere near the end of the book. It was the first dickens that I read, and after that I was hooked.
I started with Pickwick!
One of the most enjoyable videos I've ever watched. Benjamin's insight to every book is super impressive; however, he can be currently re-reading 25 novels lol. Also loved Ben's diplomatic explanations when he didn't agree, while remaining respectful to the novels. Well done my good sir!
Thank you so much!! I really appreciate your kind words :)
Currently I am pursuing my Masters in English literature and your videos have inspired me a lot to study literature in depth. You have such a great motivational power. Hat's off to you sir!
Thank you so much, Zubair :) I really appreciate that, my friend, and I wish you all the very best with your studies!
@@BenjaminMcEvoy Thank you for your best wishes my friend. It really means a lot. Keep posting that good stuff. It's really helpful and informative. Kindly make a video on Charles Dickens's Great expectations! Thank you in advance. God bless you!
John Milton’s Dramatic Monologue Paradise Lost is an amazing piece of poetry!
Masterpiece :)
@@BenjaminMcEvoy I think so too! Loved his description of El Diablo with the horns, & tail! I can still see him standing on the ridge of jagged shoreline shaking his fist at God and lamenting being forsaken but having way too much pride to ask for forgiveness! -studied such over 40+ years ago and still read this magnificent piece and feel the same way! 🍃💚🍃👵🏽👋🏾
I taught Hamlet many times as a high school English teacher, and I agree that it is the best thing ever written by Shakespeare. Not only did the work continue to amaze and surprise me, it did the same for many, many of my students. The greatest strength in literature comes from the most compelling, memorable characters as supported by an all- engrossing plot revealed through exquisitely purposeful use of language. You won’t often find that combination, but when it appears, it’s pure magic.
Love, your channel. A few years ago I came across a list of terms that Shakespeare wrote into his works such as "screamed bloody murder", "blood bath" and even "skim milk". Who would have thought? I find it very exciting that we have incorporated many into our everyday language.
Love your passion for books. I was thrilled, but not surprised, that my compatriot made it to the top-Gabriel Garcia Marquez ☺️
One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece , of course, but Love In Time of Cholera is just as magnificent and so much easier to surrender to it and fall in love again and again.
Agreed!
Me encantaron los dos
Exactly what I wanted to add , "Love in time of cholera" , brillant , all the love and humour of Marquez are already there !!!
100 Years is an absolute joy.
I came across your youtube by chance whilst having a break from sorting out a very old bookcase with very old books in it! It is an interesting list and I was fascinated to see that many that I studied for English O and A Levels, many moons ago, are in your top 50, including Middlemarch, Portrait and Hamlet. Some of the books on the list have never appealed to me but there are a few that I might visit or revisit. Thank you!
A wonderful discussion of a challenging list.
Catch-22 was ice one of the first novels I read as a young-semi adult. I was 18, in the US Air Force, at the start of the Vietnam Conflict. The first time I read it, I laughed and laughed, seeing the idiocy of some military practices. The second time I read, a year or two later, I saw less of the humor and some of the darkness. The third time I read it, as I was about to separate from service and start to college, I found it depressing. A strange, marvelous piece of literature and prose that had its poetic images, too.
reading the comments I came to realize that I read a number of the books on the list before I was ready to truly appreciate them.
I’m now 78, so no longer have an excuse for not trying to tackle some of them again.
For books in translation finding he right translator is the key. Years ago I read Don Quixote and loved it; but finding that same translation has eluded me, and two recent attempts couldn’t takre me past the first 20 pages or so. I’m still looking. And I think I’ll try Moby Dick again, soon.
Two books that really stimulated me were Dostoevsky’s NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND and, surprisingly, Michael Malone’s HANDLING SIN. The second probably won’t be considered great literature, but it is a quick history of where the South has been and hopefully is going, a comic masterpiece, and a wonderfully-told adventure.
@@WaltSherrill First time I've seen a reference to Handling Sin! It's a great recommendation.
As with "Huckleberry Finn", this is a worthy book but not containing any of the literary richness than many lower ranked books--same with "To Kill a Mockingbird" (maybe my personal favorite contemporary novel, btw) worthy of top 100 status but no way should any of these three books qualify for top 50 classic literature.
Your comment resonated with me as I read Catch 22 on the train on my way to my aptitude test to join the Royal Air Force at the age of 19 in 1966. I laughed so much, I frequently had to put the book down to try to stifle the laughter (much to the annoyance of my fellow passengers). After my military service a few years later, I reread it and was struck by how much darkness there was beneath the surface and how Heller understood how deranged the military way of life could be. Should I try it a third time?!