Great plans for 2025! I’ve either read or want to read all the books you mentioned. (You have a gift for Persuasion 😉) •Emma is my favorite Jane Austen. I hope she can convert you. •I’m one of those weirdo Moby Dick re-readers. Three times now. Really intrigued by the upcoming Ishmaelle book. •I just read the complete Flannery stories with my bookclub. You will be wise to spread them out. I read too many in a row and overdid it, but so much to discuss and be amazed by! •I want to “have read” Trollope. If that’s a good place to start, I would love a read along. Happy new year of great reading! Thank you for sharing your classic plans.
I reread Mrs. Dalloway AND The Hours before seeing the new opera production at the Met earlier this year (it’s still 2024 here). What a fantastic trio of experiences. I share your love for Virginia (and thank you so much for The Waves read along.)
Great suggestions... Some classics I am planning to read in 2025 : Dickens - David Copperfield and Great Expectations Dostoyevsky - Notes from Underground Camus - The Plague Orwell - Down and out in London and Paris Shakespeare - Hamlet.
Happy New Year! Love your suggestions! I'm planning to reread Tolstoy's War & Peace (one of my fav books), Twain's Huckleberry Finn, reread Steinbeck's East of Eden, reread Austen's Pride & Prejudice. I also want to tackle (successfully this time) Joyce's Ulysses, & read Dickens' Bleak House. I also want to reread some Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, & Toni Morrison. God, be with me🙏🏽😁
@EricKarlAnderson Great list, Eric! I don't remember when I started, but I've been employing your way of choosing classics for a few years now. Blackmore and Trollope were both in my considerations. Aswell as mrs dalloway. I'm with you on your feelings towards Jane Austen so I've been trying to figure out which book i want to read. I've also been considering Zola 🤔 decisions, decisions! I read the great gatsby as an adult a few years ago, and really enjoyed it. I hope you have an amazing 2025!
The Way we live now I read for the first time just this past year and I enjoyed it. I love that you’ll be reading it from your grandmother’s library. I plowed through Moby Dick in high school because I had to, and while I’ve been revisiting books from then now and again, this won’t be one of them😊. I hope you get on with it better. I do love Jane Austen and Virginia Wolff so I revisit them a lot. And The Great Gatsby is perhaps my favorite book of all time. I've got several editions and your manuscript edition is fabulous!!
I’m with you on Jane Austen. Maybe you will inspire me to try Emma. Meanwhile I’m going to tackle War and Peace. Also agree about rereading: Gatsby was one that moved me later in life but not as a teen.
I tried many times to get into Moby Dick and failed, until I tried the audio, and loved it so much it's now one of my all-time favorite books. Ishmael is snarky as all heck and I had a smile on my face the whole way through. I even re-listened to it this year. I love the William Hootkins narration and highly recommend that one, but I've also heard recently from other MD lovers that Anthony Heald also delivers a great version, so you could sample both and see what sticks. There's another book, Melvill, coming out this year and I've seen a bunch of people reading MD in prep for that as well.
Yes, it's very good tho sometimes I wonder how Ishmael is able to narrate Ahab's dialogue with the whale - if his chest were a canon etc. Also, isn't it odd of all the seaman aboard the Pequod only the least experienced rookie survived? I think that he was very lucky. I wonder was it the Rachael found him?
Eric, I had to read Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” as part of a first year university Romantic and Victorian literature course. I tried reading it but didn’t like it at all. Aspects of the course were extremely difficult for an undergraduate degree. The course coordinator (a very learned senior lecturer) really tested the class with some of his assignments. They were not easy. I studied “The Great Gatsby” in senior high school. The beginning 36 pages or so came across as impenetrable for someone who mainly read science fiction and fantasy novels at the time. But once I kept persevering I found the reading much easier. I liked the book, but the beginning really was a right royal bother.
Emma and Mrs Dalloway are on my 2025 TBR. I've got a couple of copies that have extra details that I'm looking forward to. I might add Gatsby too. Yes go to Austen's home. Maybe this year I'll read Trollope. I'd have to find a copy of that one, to do it. I love tying my reading to literary anniversaries, so might add a couple more of these. Thanks Eric Happy Reading 🙂
Moby-Dick is a pretty easy read. It is almost tempting to read too quickly and not enjoy the experience. Doesn't seem very long like some classics. Trollope is really great, and I hope you enjoy that one. Your grandmother had good taste! Emma is I think the richest of Austen's novels; and I have read it three times. Happy reading, I enjoy your channel!
Steel yourself up and power through Moby-Dick. You won't regret it. Like you, I stalled out when it got to the whaling lore digressions but, once I got to the end, it was easily one of the best things I've ever read...and I understood why all of those digressions were there.
All 😊the best with this wonderful list. Rereading seems to be a thing at the moment. Many of these books I have read before but one I would now like to try is Manhattan Transfer. I laugh now when a book which I read when it first came out and which made a huge impression on me is considered a classic! I’m talking about Heat and Dust. Such a good book as are the author’s other books. I’m off to find my Flannery O’Connor stories. 😊happy New Year 🎉 oh yes Lorna Doone. My father read that to me when I was quite young. I wonder if I still have that copy.
Emma is my favourite. I find her deeply relateable and she grows a lot throughout the novel. Emma is meant to be unlikeable so I hope that she doesn't put you more off. I love Trollope so much ❤
The three I’ve read Emma The Great Gatsby Mrs Dalloway I’m not great about reading classics. However, Every year I reread Pride and Prejudice & Persuasion my favourite of Jane Austen novels. I hope you eventually love Jane Austen as much as I do.
I am finding that rereading classics decades after first reading them is often a revelation. That was particularly true for Mrs. Dalloway and also for Middlemarch. In 2025 I am planning to reread Don Quixote, Far from the Madding Crowd, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Cold Comfort Farm, all with book clubs. I’ve wanted to reread Emma ever since the wonderful 2020 adaptation and I have been meaning to read The Way We Live Now for years. Moby Dick is genuinely worthy and another one I definitely will reread at some point! I think we should do a classic book in book club! What do you think?
Ooh. Great list! Even if these were the only books you read, I think it would still be a great reading year. Moby Dick is one of my favorite novels, but it took me three attempts. I hope you catch some of Melville's passion for the topic; he definitely did his research. I've read Gatsby a couple times and also feel like I'm missing something. Seems like it was specially written for high schoolers to write essays about. Definitely loaded with imagery. I remember struggling with Emma in college but finding the lectures absolutely fascinating, like we were talking about two different books. (I'm still slogging my way through P&P, while simultaneously enjoying a social history of the time. Hmmm... Feel like I've written this many times before...) Have a fancy annotated version of Mrs. Dalloway illustrated with contemporary photos now, so maybe this will be my year to finish it. Added Dunbar to my eternal TBR. Happy reading!
I love the O'Connor story with the busybody old lady on the bus; the one with the escaped prisoner is pretty darn good too! Tho without any doubt my favorite is the one about the one-legged girl. O'Connor died as a young woman after being sick much of her life but apparently it only sharpened her sense of humor and power of observation. Fabulous collection - the Gatsby facsimile in particular.
The Way We Live Now and Lorna Doone are great! Now, I love Emma very much indeed, but if you're looking for a Jane Austen without frustrating characters . . . I'm not sure it's the best one! Emma is a fantastic character but very frustrating!
I didn't like Jane Austen for a while either, but it took a few tries and a decade and a half when the switch flipped and I came to love Jane's books. Emma and Persuasion are my favorites. Emma cracks me up. Her character development and arch are so satisfying. I see where maybe people see her as annoying but I just love and adore her.
If you like the Bronte's, one of my favourite books read in 2024 was My Brother's Keeper by Tim Powers. Worth checking out (Bronte's vs Werewolves!!!).
Great video Eric. Some interesting sounding books I've not previously heard of. I also own and really want to read Heat and Dust and Flannery O Connor's Stories. Maybe this will be my year also 😊 I just read Emma in 2024, it was great but I kept picturing Brittany Murphy and Alicia Silverstone as Clueless is so firmly embedded in my mind 😂 I'm ashamed to say I've never read The Great Gatsby. I've tried and failed twice with Moby Dick, I won't try a third. Good luck with it if you read it!
Great list! I have read: Emma (which I like a lot, although I'm not a super huge Austen fan, but I enjoy her; Emma is probably my favorite); Moby Dick (Brilliant--and highly experimental. . . he points the way towards Thomas Pynchon and others; I love this novel); Mrs. Dalloway (I re-read this during lockdown in 2020 and loved it all over again); The Great Gatsby (it has been many years, but I have read it- - I like it, but it is not a huge favorite); The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor.
I look forward to rereading Emma and the Confessions of Nat Turner, Heat and Dust added to my list along with the Lonely Londoners and Manhattan Transfer. I enjoyed rereading Dickens, Mrs Dalloway in 2024.
Hello Eric🙋♀️ Thanks for another interesting video 📹 I have read all the novels of Jane Austin. I am also going to re-read “The Great Gatsby” by F Scott Fitzgerald. I have read “Tender is the Night.” Good Luck with Lorna Doone.” It is a dense novel, and some of the text is written in Somerset dialect... The Classic novels I want to read are “The Professor” by Charlotte Bronte, “Mary Barton” by Elizabeth Gaskell, and “Cold Comfort Farm” by Stella Gibbons. HAPPY READING 📚NEW YEAR 🍾
I love Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ( please do read it ).. I haven't read Emma tho. ( will read it this year ). Also do read these books... A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong'o , A house for Mr Biswas and Mimic Man by V S Naipaul, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Farewell to arms by Ernest Hemingway, Animal farm by George Orwell. All good books ( at least I think so 😁). Oh and I liked Lorna Doone as well. Hope you will enjoy them. 🙏🏻
I hated Jane Austen when I was at school, but now I find her books very funny. Moby-Dick is also one that I struggled with, but then I started to realise that it is funny too. Your choices are very interesting.
Thankyou for your inspiring list I read the great Gatsby when I was young and was like you very underwhelmed What was the fuss about? I read it again about 30 years later and was moved and overwhelmed! Amazing how much sadness and tragedy is packed in there - which passed me by the first time I wish I knew what happened to me in between those readings
Thanks, Eric🌷I love Persuasion and Pride&Prejudice, but I must confess that I can’t stand the meddling Emma (I’m even sorry we share our first name😂). Mrs Dalloway is a lifetime favourite, and I also read Cunningham’s The Hours, long ago. I prefer Tender is the Night to Gatsby. I have Manhattan Transfer on my shelves, unread, and if you decide to read it, I may pick it up as well. Happy New Year and Happy Reading!🥂🍾
I adore both Jane Austen and Emma and I find most of her characters very amiable. The one I don't particularly like is Fanny, not because she is extremely shy but because she is extremely conservative for my tastes.
Lorna Doone is extremely hard as I remember I tried to read it as a teenager and I did persevere I think but the broad Scots clan language type dialogue was a little much. I did recently decide I should re-read it though so it is also on my list. Jane Austen I think has a way of catching people at a certain age, I read them all and liked them in my early 20s but now I think I'd yawn a bit Really didn't like Anthony Trollope or Moby Dick found them very dull. I wish I could understand Virginia Woolf better but I find that I skim over her so much and just don't get the point. I think Mrs Galloway is her easiest but probably moreso now because of The Hours. Gatsby I actually really like even though I'm not big on great American novels. I do think it's great. Good luck with your reading I hope you enjoy 😊
Read Emma.. this made me a fan of jane Austin... I think if u have read Emma in your teens it hits differently then when u read it later in your life.. has anybody else experienced the same
Sad to say all I’ve read is The Way We Live Now. Which I really enjoyed. I’m still meaning to readThe Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and The Black Sheep by Balzac. Thank you for Mentioning Alice Dunbar Nelson. I may try to discover her short stories as well
Hi! Thanks for this list. Many of these I had never heard of so that opened up some new options for future reading. A tiny note of advice: Emma is very boring. Don't get me wrong: I LOVE Jane Austen. I've read all her books. I've read Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice many times over. But Emma is like reading a book about people talking about a time they heard of someone watching paint dry. For me it was the most difficult classic novel to get through I've ever read. It was sooooo boring. If you want to give Jane Austen another try, I feel that you are setting yourself up to fail by choosing Emma. Read Pride and Prejudice if you haven't already, or even Persuasion which is a shorter one. I think that if you already don't like Jane Austen reading Emma is just going to affirm that feeling for you. Now I've read Moby Dick, and I get what you mean about the whaling parts ( he does a whole chapter that reads like a highschool essay on the history of whaling) but you just have to persevere through that bit. Until I read "The Count of Monte Cristo" this year Moby Dick was my absolute favourite classic novel. About The Great Gatsby: I also didn't get what the big deal about it was. It was okay. That's about it. Okay. Nothing compared to other classics I've read. My favourite classic novels: "The Count of Monte Cristo" (absolutely amazing novel!! "Moby Dick" ( he tells you in the first chapter that everyone is going to die and still manages to make you care about the characters and be shocked and grieve when the actually do) Pride and Prejudice (amazing) If you have never read any M.M. Kaye novels, all the ones that I have read are good but especially "Trade Winds" and "The Far Pavilions" (this book is in my top ten fav books of all time!)
I’ve read several of the books and also loved the film version of Heat and Dust with Julie Christie. As for Moby Dick, just skip through the boring whaling parts. I did. Who needs to know 500 ways to tie knots? The other parts of the novel are just sublime.
Please, consider to read anything by Nikos Kazantzakis: Christ Recrucified (or The Greek Passion), The Last Temptation, Zorba the Greek, The Fratricides etc. You are going to discover one of the best authors of the previous century.
Great list! Do you know jow many you read in 2024 of your 2024-list? I have just started Lies&Sorcery by Elsa Morante, so at least I will have read one classic in 2025 :)
I read Moby Dick for a college history class where if you didn't agree with the professor's interpretation, you were wrong. So I kind of hated the entire experience until I came across Harold Bloom's discussion. ["Moby-Dick is not a novel,” Professor Bloom remarks. “It is a giant Shakespearean prose poem, quite deliberately.” And Captain Ahab of the Pequod is no more villain than hero. He is an Emersonian figure, “self-reliance gone mad.”]
I'm also not a Jane Austen fan. "Pride and Prejudice" is the only I was assigned to read in high school that I disliked so much, I only skimmed the last fifty pages or so.
Some of Jane Austen is good, others not. I would certainly revisit Mrs Dalloway and The Great Gatsby. The only William Styron book I have read was Sophie's Choice - harrowing
Emma is not my favourite but it is sreally good . The father is a hoot! Lorna Doone I read as a kid . Might be an idea to revisit. Haven't read that Trollope but he is very readable. . Hadn't heard of Funbar Nelson . ( I am not American ) . Hated Moby Dick . Love Mrs Dalloway and saw Kevin Puts opera based on the Hours in 2024. Never read Manhattan Transfer. Sounds interesting. Not reading The Great Gatsby again . Never heard of Styron . Sounds interesting. Not very interested in Irish stories . . The lonely Londoners. Never heard of it! Heat and Dust is great . It
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I did not like Heat and Dust at all, was made to read it in highschool, so I thought it was because of that so I reread it as an adult and nope can't like it, for me its an awful book Will give some of your other recommendations a go.
I loved Emma. I love her character development, bc oh does she develop. She is stuck up and spoiled and haughty, but she cares deeply about the people around her. This combination leads her to think she knows better than...well, everyone. But oh my goodness, where she ends up and how she learns her lessons (plural) are so satisfying and wonderful to experience. Also, this book made me laugh. It was just funny. I adore this novel.
Never warmed to Hardy. Probably psychologically as was forced to do The Mayor of Casterbridge at school, and absolutely hated it (the book and the school!!!). But open to any recommendations?
So glad you mention re-reads. I'm re-reading books I read 50 years ago--fun to see how my understanding of these books has evolved.
Yes! I'm finding it so poignant to revisit books I read when I was younger and understanding them in an entirely new light.
Agreed!
Great plans for 2025! I’ve either read or want to read all the books you mentioned. (You have a gift for Persuasion 😉) •Emma is my favorite Jane Austen. I hope she can convert you. •I’m one of those weirdo Moby Dick re-readers. Three times now. Really intrigued by the upcoming Ishmaelle book. •I just read the complete Flannery stories with my bookclub. You will be wise to spread them out. I read too many in a row and overdid it, but so much to discuss and be amazed by! •I want to “have read” Trollope. If that’s a good place to start, I would love a read along. Happy new year of great reading! Thank you for sharing your classic plans.
I reread Mrs. Dalloway AND The Hours before seeing the new opera production at the Met earlier this year (it’s still 2024 here). What a fantastic trio of experiences. I share your love for Virginia (and thank you so much for The Waves read along.)
Great suggestions...
Some classics I am planning to read in 2025 :
Dickens - David Copperfield and Great Expectations
Dostoyevsky - Notes from Underground
Camus - The Plague
Orwell - Down and out in London and Paris
Shakespeare - Hamlet.
Great expectations is a great story!
Big thanks, Eric. Happy New Year 2025 to you and your soulmate, and everyone ❤😂🎉😂❤
Happy New Year! Love your suggestions!
I'm planning to reread Tolstoy's War & Peace (one of my fav books), Twain's Huckleberry Finn, reread Steinbeck's East of Eden, reread Austen's Pride & Prejudice. I also want to tackle (successfully this time) Joyce's Ulysses, & read Dickens' Bleak House. I also want to reread some Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, & Toni Morrison. God, be with me🙏🏽😁
Just finished re-reading Emma. A masterpiece I read every few years. I adore all the Austin books and am always reading at least one of them.
I’d recommend to you both to join Jane-uary with all of us who are rereading persuasion💕💕
@@janetsmith8566 Is that YT channel?
Hi Eric, I’m so excited to hear a booktuber mention William Styron! Sophie’s Choice is one of my favorite books. 😊
I read it about 60 years ago and was so impressed and think it deserved more attention! I still have an image of the awful food she had to eat!
@ oh wow! I plan to re-read it soon. It’s been at least 10 years for me!
The language in Moby Dick is gorgeous, even if you end up learning far more about types of whales and knots and so on that is strictly necessary!
Your videos always make me feel good!
That’s good to hear. Thank you! 😊
Mrs Dalloway is such a good read and re read. You will enjoy the london setting. (The film with vanessa redgrave is sublime )
Lol. I swear I just checked your channel 10 minutes ago to see if this had gone up yet😂. Yay!
Ah great! Hope you like my choices. 😊📚
@EricKarlAnderson Great list, Eric!
I don't remember when I started, but I've been employing your way of choosing classics for a few years now.
Blackmore and Trollope were both in my considerations. Aswell as mrs dalloway. I'm with you on your feelings towards Jane Austen so I've been trying to figure out which book i want to read.
I've also been considering Zola 🤔 decisions, decisions!
I read the great gatsby as an adult a few years ago, and really enjoyed it.
I hope you have an amazing 2025!
The Way we live now I read for the first time just this past year and I enjoyed it. I love that you’ll be reading it from your grandmother’s library. I plowed through Moby Dick in high school because I had to, and while I’ve been revisiting books from then now and again, this won’t be one of them😊. I hope you get on with it better. I do love Jane Austen and Virginia Wolff so I revisit them a lot. And The Great Gatsby is perhaps my favorite book of all time. I've got several editions and your manuscript edition is fabulous!!
I’m with you on Jane Austen. Maybe you will inspire me to try Emma. Meanwhile I’m going to tackle War and Peace.
Also agree about rereading: Gatsby was one that moved me later in life but not as a teen.
Great recommendations! Looking forward to a very productive 2025! 🎉
Thanks for this! So many I haven’t heard of before. I hope to read more classics in 2025 as well.
Thanks... I'm planning a reread of Emma next year. And Mrs Dalloway is a great idea!!
I tried many times to get into Moby Dick and failed, until I tried the audio, and loved it so much it's now one of my all-time favorite books. Ishmael is snarky as all heck and I had a smile on my face the whole way through. I even re-listened to it this year. I love the William Hootkins narration and highly recommend that one, but I've also heard recently from other MD lovers that Anthony Heald also delivers a great version, so you could sample both and see what sticks. There's another book, Melvill, coming out this year and I've seen a bunch of people reading MD in prep for that as well.
Yes, it's very good tho sometimes I wonder how Ishmael is able to narrate Ahab's dialogue with the whale - if his chest were a canon etc. Also, isn't it odd of all the seaman aboard the Pequod only the least experienced rookie survived? I think that he was very lucky. I wonder was it the Rachael found him?
Eric, I had to read Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” as part of a first year university Romantic and Victorian literature course. I tried reading it but didn’t like it at all. Aspects of the course were extremely difficult for an undergraduate degree. The course coordinator (a very learned senior lecturer) really tested the class with some of his assignments. They were not easy.
I studied “The Great Gatsby” in senior high school. The beginning 36 pages or so came across as impenetrable for someone who mainly read science fiction and fantasy novels at the time. But once I kept persevering I found the reading much easier. I liked the book, but the beginning really was a right royal bother.
Emma and Mrs Dalloway are on my 2025 TBR. I've got a couple of copies that have extra details that I'm looking forward to. I might add Gatsby too.
Yes go to Austen's home. Maybe this year I'll read Trollope. I'd have to find a copy of that one, to do it.
I love tying my reading to literary anniversaries, so might add a couple more of these. Thanks Eric
Happy Reading 🙂
Moby-Dick is a pretty easy read. It is almost tempting to read too quickly and not enjoy the experience. Doesn't seem very long like some classics. Trollope is really great, and I hope you enjoy that one. Your grandmother had good taste! Emma is I think the richest of Austen's novels; and I have read it three times. Happy reading, I enjoy your channel!
Emma is an absolutely delightful novel to read.
Three of these books are also on my list. I’m excited to hit the classics hard this year and just enjoy and consume them with all intention
Steel yourself up and power through Moby-Dick. You won't regret it. Like you, I stalled out when it got to the whaling lore digressions but, once I got to the end, it was easily one of the best things I've ever read...and I understood why all of those digressions were there.
Thank you for this comment. I had it from the library and it seemed overwhelming. I'll get it again.
I found the same. Once I got over the hump I was so glad I had stuck with it.
All 😊the best with this wonderful list. Rereading seems to be a thing at the moment. Many of these books I have read before but one I would now like to try is Manhattan Transfer. I laugh now when a book which I read when it first came out and which made a huge impression on me is considered a classic! I’m talking about Heat and Dust. Such a good book as are the author’s other books. I’m off to find my Flannery O’Connor stories. 😊happy New Year 🎉 oh yes Lorna Doone. My father read that to me when I was quite young. I wonder if I still have that copy.
Rest assured that Heat and Dust and Emma won’t disappoint you. Happy New Year 🥳 and Happy Reading!!
Good to know, thanks! Happy New Year to you.
Emma is my favourite. I find her deeply relateable and she grows a lot throughout the novel. Emma is meant to be unlikeable so I hope that she doesn't put you more off.
I love Trollope so much ❤
The three I’ve read
Emma
The Great Gatsby
Mrs Dalloway
I’m not great about reading classics. However, Every year I reread Pride and Prejudice & Persuasion my favourite of Jane Austen novels. I hope you eventually love Jane Austen as much as I do.
I am finding that rereading classics decades after first reading them is often a revelation. That was particularly true for Mrs. Dalloway and also for Middlemarch. In 2025 I am planning to reread Don Quixote, Far from the Madding Crowd, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Cold Comfort Farm, all with book clubs. I’ve wanted to reread Emma ever since the wonderful 2020 adaptation and I have been meaning to read The Way We Live Now for years. Moby Dick is genuinely worthy and another one I definitely will reread at some point! I think we should do a classic book in book club! What do you think?
I love a tale of two cities by Charles Dickens.
The opening lines could apply cery well to today's climate!
On my list for 2026 (yes, I do plan that far ahead!).
Emma is my favorite of Jane Austen's books of the four I have read.
Ooh. Great list! Even if these were the only books you read, I think it would still be a great reading year. Moby Dick is one of my favorite novels, but it took me three attempts. I hope you catch some of Melville's passion for the topic; he definitely did his research. I've read Gatsby a couple times and also feel like I'm missing something. Seems like it was specially written for high schoolers to write essays about. Definitely loaded with imagery. I remember struggling with Emma in college but finding the lectures absolutely fascinating, like we were talking about two different books. (I'm still slogging my way through P&P, while simultaneously enjoying a social history of the time. Hmmm... Feel like I've written this many times before...) Have a fancy annotated version of Mrs. Dalloway illustrated with contemporary photos now, so maybe this will be my year to finish it. Added Dunbar to my eternal TBR. Happy reading!
The Way We Live Now and Mrs. Dalloway are both on my list this year!
I love the O'Connor story with the busybody old lady on the bus; the one with the escaped prisoner is pretty darn good too! Tho without any doubt my favorite is the one about the one-legged girl. O'Connor died as a young woman after being sick much of her life but apparently it only sharpened her sense of humor and power of observation. Fabulous collection - the Gatsby facsimile in particular.
I had to read The Confessions of Nat Turner in high school and then went on to read Sophie’s Choice. Loved them both
The Way We Live Now and Lorna Doone are great! Now, I love Emma very much indeed, but if you're looking for a Jane Austen without frustrating characters . . . I'm not sure it's the best one! Emma is a fantastic character but very frustrating!
Thanks for reminding me that I want to read The Lonely Londoners.
I’ve also been meaning to read it for many years.
I didn't like Jane Austen for a while either, but it took a few tries and a decade and a half when the switch flipped and I came to love Jane's books. Emma and Persuasion are my favorites. Emma cracks me up. Her character development and arch are so satisfying. I see where maybe people see her as annoying but I just love and adore her.
Happy New Year!!
Happy New Year to you too! 🥳
I’m with you. I prefer the Bronte sisters.
If you like the Bronte's, one of my favourite books read in 2024 was My Brother's Keeper by Tim Powers. Worth checking out (Bronte's vs Werewolves!!!).
Great video Eric. Some interesting sounding books I've not previously heard of. I also own and really want to read Heat and Dust and Flannery O Connor's Stories. Maybe this will be my year also 😊 I just read Emma in 2024, it was great but I kept picturing Brittany Murphy and Alicia Silverstone as Clueless is so firmly embedded in my mind 😂 I'm ashamed to say I've never read The Great Gatsby. I've tried and failed twice with Moby Dick, I won't try a third. Good luck with it if you read it!
I am always surprised at how funny Jane Austen's novels are! 😊
Great list! I have read: Emma (which I like a lot, although I'm not a super huge Austen fan, but I enjoy her; Emma is probably my favorite); Moby Dick (Brilliant--and highly experimental. . . he points the way towards Thomas Pynchon and others; I love this novel); Mrs. Dalloway (I re-read this during lockdown in 2020 and loved it all over again); The Great Gatsby (it has been many years, but I have read it- - I like it, but it is not a huge favorite); The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor.
I look forward to rereading Emma and the Confessions of Nat Turner, Heat and Dust added to my list along with the Lonely Londoners and Manhattan Transfer. I enjoyed rereading Dickens, Mrs Dalloway in 2024.
Excellent list. I’ve read all but one.
Impressive! 📚
Hello Eric🙋♀️ Thanks for another interesting video 📹 I have read all the novels of Jane Austin. I am also going to re-read “The Great Gatsby” by F Scott Fitzgerald. I have read “Tender is the Night.” Good Luck with Lorna Doone.” It is a dense novel, and some of the text is written in Somerset dialect... The Classic novels I want to read are “The Professor” by Charlotte Bronte, “Mary Barton” by Elizabeth Gaskell, and “Cold Comfort Farm” by Stella Gibbons. HAPPY READING 📚NEW YEAR 🍾
I love Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ( please do read it ).. I haven't read Emma tho. ( will read it this year ).
Also do read these books...
A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong'o ,
A house for Mr Biswas and Mimic Man by V S Naipaul, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
Farewell to arms by Ernest Hemingway,
Animal farm by George Orwell.
All good books ( at least I think so 😁). Oh and I liked Lorna Doone as well. Hope you will enjoy them. 🙏🏻
I hated Jane Austen when I was at school, but now I find her books very funny. Moby-Dick is also one that I struggled with, but then I started to realise that it is funny too. Your choices are very interesting.
Thank you 💙
Thankyou for your inspiring list
I read the great Gatsby when I was young and was like you very underwhelmed
What was the fuss about?
I read it again about 30 years later and was moved and overwhelmed!
Amazing how much sadness and tragedy is packed in there - which passed me by the first time
I wish I knew what happened to me in between those readings
Some wonderful and esoteric suggestions! A pity, our shortlist for 2025 is already set!
Thanks, Eric🌷I love Persuasion and Pride&Prejudice, but I must confess that I can’t stand the meddling Emma (I’m even sorry we share our first name😂). Mrs Dalloway is a lifetime favourite, and I also read Cunningham’s The Hours, long ago. I prefer Tender is the Night to Gatsby. I have Manhattan Transfer on my shelves, unread, and if you decide to read it, I may pick it up as well. Happy New Year and Happy Reading!🥂🍾
I must be thick because I read The Great Gatsby twice and couldn't see that the fuss was about!
From your list I have read and adored Emma, Mrs Dalloway and Great Gatsby. I have also read the the hours by Cunningham
Great! 📚
I have the book, Moby Dick and have had it for 35 years. I have yet to crack it open. I want to read it. Maybe I will read it with you this year.
My awesome re-reads this year were: 1984, The Great Gatsby and Breakfast at Tiffany's
I'd love to join you to read the ones on my tbr shelves; Emma, Lorna Doon, Moby Dick, Mrs Dalloway & Great Gatsby 😊📚
I adore both Jane Austen and Emma and I find most of her characters very amiable. The one I don't particularly like is Fanny, not because she is extremely shy but because she is extremely conservative for my tastes.
A memoir, complimentary to authors Selvon and Jhabvala is NOT FOR EVERYDAY USE by Elizabeth Nunez, a Trinidian-American novelist. 2/18/1944-11/11/2024
Lorna Doone is extremely hard as I remember I tried to read it as a teenager and I did persevere I think but the broad Scots clan language type dialogue was a little much. I did recently decide I should re-read it though so it is also on my list.
Jane Austen I think has a way of catching people at a certain age, I read them all and liked them in my early 20s but now I think I'd yawn a bit
Really didn't like Anthony Trollope or Moby Dick found them very dull.
I wish I could understand Virginia Woolf better but I find that I skim over her so much and just don't get the point. I think Mrs Galloway is her easiest but probably moreso now because of The Hours.
Gatsby I actually really like even though I'm not big on great American novels. I do think it's great.
Good luck with your reading I hope you enjoy 😊
Read Emma.. this made me a fan of jane Austin... I think if u have read Emma in your teens it hits differently then when u read it later in your life.. has anybody else experienced the same
Sad to say all I’ve read is The Way We Live Now. Which I really enjoyed. I’m still meaning to readThe Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and The Black Sheep by Balzac. Thank you for Mentioning Alice Dunbar Nelson. I may try to discover her short stories as well
Planning to read some Brontes starting with Agnes Grey
Great plan! I really enjoyed Agnes Grey
I’ve read some chapters of Manhattan Transfer. Its pretty unique for its time, I think 😊
Hi! Thanks for this list. Many of these I had never heard of so that opened up some new options for future reading.
A tiny note of advice: Emma is very boring. Don't get me wrong: I LOVE Jane Austen. I've read all her books. I've read Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice many times over. But Emma is like reading a book about people talking about a time they heard of someone watching paint dry. For me it was the most difficult classic novel to get through I've ever read. It was sooooo boring. If you want to give Jane Austen another try, I feel that you are setting yourself up to fail by choosing Emma. Read Pride and Prejudice if you haven't already, or even Persuasion which is a shorter one. I think that if you already don't like Jane Austen reading Emma is just going to affirm that feeling for you.
Now I've read Moby Dick, and I get what you mean about the whaling parts ( he does a whole chapter that reads like a highschool essay on the history of whaling) but you just have to persevere through that bit. Until I read "The Count of Monte Cristo" this year Moby Dick was my absolute favourite classic novel.
About The Great Gatsby: I also didn't get what the big deal about it was. It was okay. That's about it. Okay. Nothing compared to other classics I've read.
My favourite classic novels:
"The Count of Monte Cristo" (absolutely amazing novel!!
"Moby Dick" ( he tells you in the first chapter that everyone is going to die and still manages to make you care about the characters and be shocked and grieve when the actually do)
Pride and Prejudice (amazing)
If you have never read any M.M. Kaye novels, all the ones that I have read are good but especially "Trade Winds" and "The Far Pavilions" (this book is in my top ten fav books of all time!)
I’ve read several of the books and also loved the film version of Heat and Dust with Julie Christie. As for Moby Dick, just skip through the boring whaling parts. I did. Who needs to know 500 ways to tie knots? The other parts of the novel are just sublime.
No don't skip!! Just persevere!
Please, consider to read anything by Nikos Kazantzakis: Christ Recrucified (or The Greek Passion), The Last Temptation, Zorba the Greek, The Fratricides etc. You are going to discover one of the best authors of the previous century.
Good time to reread Huckleberry Finn
And fpllow it with James. New book written from Jim"s point of view
Great list! Do you know jow many you read in 2024 of your 2024-list? I have just started Lies&Sorcery by Elsa Morante, so at least I will have read one classic in 2025 :)
Just started Moby. I'm determined 😅
I read Moby Dick for a college history class where if you didn't agree with the professor's interpretation, you were wrong. So I kind of hated the entire experience until I came across Harold Bloom's discussion. ["Moby-Dick is not a novel,” Professor Bloom remarks. “It is a giant Shakespearean prose poem, quite deliberately.” And Captain Ahab of the Pequod is no more villain than hero. He is an Emersonian figure, “self-reliance gone mad.”]
Bronte certainly, but, no
H. G. Wells?
Planning on acquiring some gaps in my Wells collection in 2025 - the less well known books.
I'm also not a Jane Austen fan. "Pride and Prejudice" is the only I was assigned to read in high school that I disliked so much, I only skimmed the last fifty pages or so.
Bronte certainly, but, no Arnold Bennett?
Bronte certainly, but, no George Gissing?
I will give Moby Dick another try. I have also tried a number of times and gave up. I'm going to finish it this time.
Some of Jane Austen is good, others not. I would certainly revisit Mrs Dalloway and The Great Gatsby. The only William Styron book I have read was Sophie's Choice - harrowing
Emma is not my favourite but it is sreally good . The father is a hoot! Lorna Doone I read as a kid . Might be an idea to revisit. Haven't read that Trollope but he is very readable. . Hadn't heard of Funbar Nelson . ( I am not American ) . Hated Moby Dick . Love Mrs Dalloway and saw Kevin Puts opera based on the Hours in 2024. Never read Manhattan Transfer. Sounds interesting. Not reading The Great Gatsby again . Never heard of Styron . Sounds interesting. Not very interested in Irish stories . . The lonely Londoners. Never heard of it! Heat and Dust is great . It
I am reading Moby Dick right now :)
Oh dear, you're not a Austen fan leaving now... 🤣
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I read Emma 2 years ago and all I wanted her to do was to mine her bizness. She was irritating.🙄
😆
@@deirdrehubbs3908 She was annoying and the book was boring. However I did like Pride and Prejudice.
I did not like Heat and Dust at all, was made to read it in highschool, so I thought it was because of that so I reread it as an adult and nope can't like it, for me its an awful book
Will give some of your other recommendations a go.
I love love Jane Austen, but this character Emma is awful. 😂
Really? 😢 I found her quite endearing 😂💚
She is my favourite Austen heroine. The one I find a little standoffish is Fanny.
Just remember Emma is a comedy. She is supposed to be OTT.
Austen expected Emma to be unpopular with readers' someone who won't be much liked except by myself'.
I loved Emma. I love her character development, bc oh does she develop. She is stuck up and spoiled and haughty, but she cares deeply about the people around her. This combination leads her to think she knows better than...well, everyone. But oh my goodness, where she ends up and how she learns her lessons (plural) are so satisfying and wonderful to experience. Also, this book made me laugh. It was just funny. I adore this novel.
Really dont bother with Moby Dick, its long, boring with nothing happening in most of it. It was a chore to finish that damn book
You don't even read.
Bronte certainly, but, no Thomas Hardy?
Never warmed to Hardy. Probably psychologically as was forced to do The Mayor of Casterbridge at school, and absolutely hated it (the book and the school!!!). But open to any recommendations?