The Lord of the Rings was my first introduction to real fantasy when I was 11, and I have absolutely loved it ever since. That being said, I completely understand why some people just can't get into it. It can be quite...wordy, at times. Not sure how else to put that.
I don't have a book to add but I really admire the fact that you wish to read French literature in French even if this ask of you an additional effort. I know that reading in the original language adds to the reading experience but i'm too scared to do that. I fear that it will be too hard for me and maybe that will keep me from enjoying the book or even finishing it.
Thanks! In fairness, I learned to read French before English, so I don't think it's that admirable. Now, if I decide to read Don Quixote in Spanish, then I will EXPECT your admiration :)
As we say here in Russia: it s a crime not to read Dostoyevsky, it s a punishment to read him 😂. I adore Dostoyevsky, and very proud of his global appreciation.
Thanks! Where can I find these books? I don't usually make fun of books on this channel, but something tells me that given your handle, you'd actually LIKE that...
I remember liking some of The Pillars of the Earth. But there were some really gross sexual parts that caught me off guard. I can't even remember if I ended up finishing it.
I can’t remember if I’ve left you any recommendations (not in any order): Fair and Tender Ladies (Lee Smith), Mother Night (Kurt Vonnegut Jr), QB VII (Leon Uris), One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia) Villette (Brontë) Oh, and all 18 books (so far) of *The Dresden Files* (Jim Baker)
You have definitely given me some recommendations over time (must have). Also, well done giving some "less popular" recommendations from well known authors (I've read quite a bit of Vonnegut, and don't think I've ever even heard of Mother Night, and Villette is not what most people think of when they hear Bronte). Also, side note: I only have two books left in the Dresden Files. That's 16 books from the same series in less than a year for me... some kind of new record.
@@ADudeWhoReads The Dresden Files is addicting! 🤣 I LOVE that series!! As for Mother Night, it’s one of the BEST Vonnegut IMO. The Sirens of Titan is also impressive but not known by most people. Give them both a read and I think you will be pleased . Cheers Dude!
I am struggling my way through Brothers K. right now. I'M TRYING, PEOPLE! I'm not that far in. But I can barely keep track of what's happening. I'm starting to dread it every time I pick it up. But I don't want to give up. Sigh. Why is life so hard? ;)
Hah. I know you’re joking, but I will say a couple of things: first, there’s actually a pretty suspenseful plot that develop so that should help! Second, there is a lot going on in that novel, that frankly, I wouldn’t expect anyone to catch on the first read through, so I wouldn’t even try!! there are certain characters and subplots that appear early in the novel that you expect might reappear later. but they just don’t, and if you stop to ask yourself why each time, you’ll never make it to the end! In other words, I think the right way to read Bros K as a first read is for pure entertainment and not to try and analyze it too much (plenty of time for that later). lastly, and you don’t need me to tell you this, but if you’re really struggling… don’t finish it :). I’m sure there are 100 other great novels out there that you could spent that time reading AND enjoying more. Thanks for the comment and sorry for the wordy reply!
Just finished Project Hail Mary. Great recommendation. Really enjoyed it. It was heavy on the sci but just dumb enough for me to wrap my head around. Weirdly plausible throughout. Just a fantastic read. Also wrapped up Before The Are Hanged. The Glokta storyline was once again the highlight for me. Such a compelling character. The whole Bayaz escapade to the end of the world, only to find... a rock... was much less compelling though. I'm giving Abercrombie the benefit of the doubt and hoping that was a one off, or it somehow ties into a larger more entertaining plot point, and shall read on.
So glad you liked Project Hail Mary. I agree with you that the science was dumbed down just enough so that the layman could still appreciate the novel. With Before They Are Hanged, I agree with you that the payoff to that story arc was anti-climactic (and I won't say whether or not it gets redeemed later). With Abercrombie, the plots of his novels get better the more of him you read (I think Best Served Cold might be my favourite), but the reality is if you don't love him for his style and his characters, it won't be his storylines that convert you.
I have read and loved the Stoner, Ana Karenina, The Hobbit, The Brother's Karamazov. Years ago, I read over half of Proust's first volume and I remember loving the writing, but parts of it were too difficult for me at the time. I'd like to restart it and see what I think now. Also, I think (I could be wrong on this) that in reading Proust the reader should not be expecting a normal plot structure. When I was reading that first volume, I thought I was reading see musings, reflections of a life, but not a novel with a plot, a problem, and a resolution type of thing. I had read Lolita too long ago also and I remember it as disturbing, but I don't remember it fully, so I'd want to reread it. I read The Count of Monte Christo (and The Iron Mask) by Dumas when I was in Jr. High School, but in my native language, Greek. I remember loving the books, but I don't know if I would feel the same now. I love The Brothers Karamazov, but I love everything I've read so far by Dostoyevsky. I also love Tolstoy's work. I agree with you as I think that Tosltoy and Dostoyevski are not comparable. I think they are different writers and both are masters in their own style and themes. I lean towards Dostoyevsky more, but I also have read more of him than of Tolstoy. Dostoyevsky's novella, The Double is also fantastic and I think is underrated. If you haven't read Nikolai Gogol, his short stories are excellent, and his novel Dead Souls is also great.
Wow, I just mentioned Into Thin Air today in casual conversation when a child in my family was drawing a mountain! Sheesh, that book wore me out! I really did feel physically exhausted.
@@Yesica1993 Jon Krakauer is a good writer and journalist, and the fact that he was THERE during the Everest disaster he's writing about takes the book to another level.
I read Dune just a couple of years ago. I think Dune, like LotR, was genre defining. However, if you’ve already grown up with the genre and then read it for the first time 60 years after it was published, you lose out on so much of the originality because it’s been copied so much.
@@ADudeWhoReads You definitely see while reading it many areas where other books and movies took from it. I just thought it was amazing how detailed it was, from the landscape to the cultures and mythology and religion and politics and science. I couldn’t believe that one person could come up with so many unique ideas.
How interesting that you will more than likely read _The Count of Monte Cristo_ in its original, French! I finally read it a couple of years ago and I'm already wanting to give it a re-read. 🤓
I had a great time with Pillars of the Earth, which was my intro to historical fiction about 6 or 7 years ago. I've since read all of Follett's Kingsbridge books but Pillars feels like his best (the second, World Without End being a close runner up).
Thanks for the confirmation and for watching! I will most definitely give Pillars of the Earth a read, and based on how much I like it, I'll see about continuing with the other four books.
Interesting that you imply Marcel Proust's masterpiece is off-putting because of how long it is. It always amazes me how many people gobble up every novel in a series-not just trilogies, but series that are 5, 7, 10 books long. I have friends who have Kindle subscriptions on Amazon set to automatically download the next book out from their favorite authors, who already have 25 or more books out. But mention In Search of Lost Time, and they're like "What a tome! Way too long!" As for War and Peace, I reread it with great pleasure every five years or so. I don't think of such books as needing patience to consume, because when immersed in them, I'm always so impatient to turn the page. =grin= By the way, I admire your wanting to read it in French. I've read passages en français, but to read the whole thing from one end to the other, I chose translations-of which I've read two different ones. I do read a lot of poetry in French, German & Spanish (editions with facing pages in translation are the best), but that's because poetry is so dependent on perfection of the language. And poems are short. I hope soon to learn enough Russian to be able to read the poems of Anna Ahkmatova & others: the glimmers I get of how wonderful Russian poetry must be, from reading translations, are spurring me on. Speaking of Russian, a couple of Dostoevsky books to add to your TBR pile if you haven't read them yet: When I listed my favorite poets to you earlier, I inexplicably omitted Wallace Stevens. Wallace Stevens is my favorite recommendation for people who are bright & well-read, but unfamiliar with modern poetry. He's one of those poets, like William Butler Yeats, where not every poem will hit for you at one particular moment in time, but the ones that do hit will burn themselves into your brain & seem to define a whole era of your life. There's a reason Stevens gets quoted a lot in popular movies. Stevens & Yeats both have œuvres that are super high quality & also quite variable in style. And when I mentioned favorite short story writers, I left off Franz Kafka. DUH! He's one I'd say who didn't write a single mediocre story, & his sense of humor is much underrated. The Metamorphosis is funny AF. A fave Kafka you might check out quickly is "The Burrow." Joyce Carol Oates is also a very good short story writer: she's so prolific, her Greatest Hits are crème de la crème. Glad you got past Lolita's subject matter to how well-crafted & witty it is. Lolita is hands down my favorite road trip novel: Nabokov's outsider view of Americana, especially small motels in the midwest, is sweeeet. I've read pretty much all of Nabokov, who's a pre-eminent prose stylist, but my favorite work of his isn't fiction, it's his memoir: Speak, Memory. All I have to do is *think* of Speak, Memory to want to read it all over again. I haven't seen all your vids, so I don't know if you've mentioned these, but in case you haven't read these authors, do go for them: -Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano (always my top choice when people ask me for a stellar novel they may not have heard of) -all of Italo Calvino, especially Invisible Cities & Cosmicomics -N. K. Jemison's Broken Earth trilogy, widely considered to be the sine qua non of 21st century science fiction, the way that Isaac Asimov was in the 1970s -Middlemarch by George Eliot -Virginia Woolf, especially To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway & The Waves You've probably read some Cormac McCarthy (I've read every word he wrote & feel SO lucky to have him in my life) but here's one of his that doesn't get mentioned enough: Child of God. It's quite short & very, very funny. Do you read crime fiction? Elmore Leonard is an amazing writer, a unique stylist whose mark on the field is unparalleled. Michael McConnelly's Harry Bosch series is another top-notch read. (The Amazon TV series didn't do it justice.) Also the Swedish police procedurals by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Another genre I love is horror or dark lit: Thomas Ligotti, Robert Aickman, Caitlin R. Kiernan, H. P. Lovecraft, Angela Carter, Clive Barker's Books of Blood & Damnation Game. Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child, Alan Moore's graphic novel From Hell, & many more. Stephen King, who's obviously not just a horror writer, tends to be underrated as a prose stylist, because people either only know the movies based on his books, or only know his first 10 or so books. He doesn't credit for how much *better* a writer he's become in his later years: he's recently written quite a few brilliant short stories & novellas & has won the prestigious O. Henry Award for best short fiction. (His shorts appear in the New Yorker.) Recent long fiction of his that's very good indeed: the Finders Keepers trilogy & Billy Summers. I love Billy Summers so much, I've already read it three times, even though it only came out in 2021. I'm enjoying your videos more than most bookish TH-camrs, because you strike me as having good taste. The only thing that's disappointed me so far is that you have yet to mention a book I haven't read. But I'll keep watching you in the hope of discovering a new gem. Here's a suggestion: read some of your favorite passages aloud to us. I always enjoy hearing what sections of their favorite books people especially enjoyed. Happy reading...
Oops, I didn't list the Dostoevksy books I meant to: Notes from Unerground & The Idiot. I was so taken with the main character of The Idiot, I named a cat after him.
Do you include plays in your best of all time lists: Mine top 25 or so would definitely include Shakespeare (natch) & the plays of Samuel Beckett-whose prose works Molloy & Malone Dies are also big faves. Samuel Beckett has dark humor like Kafka's. We're living through a very Samuel Beckett time, so I go back to him for companionship amidst the insanity of the 2020s.
Once again, thanks for a considered response with a treasure trove of recommendations (believe it or not, I do take note of all of them). I cracked a smile because just today I started The Fifth Season and a few hours later found it mentioned your note! I appreciate the compliment of having good taste, but as to your point about me not mentioning a lot of books you HAVEN'T read, that may not change for a while. Most of my reading this year has been focused on well-known classics that I've somehow never read, and I get the sense that's not going to unearth anything "new" for you. :) And then for 2025, I'm playing with the idea of making it the year of "re-reads." I'm always recommending that people re-read books, but need to take my own advice a bit more. Combine that with the fact that I'm a relatively slow reader compared to most of the people who talk about books on TH-cam, and my guess is it'll be a while before someone as well read as you finds a lot of "new" stuff on my channel (except perhaps my upcoming video about Graphic Novels...). Thanks again, and please don't stop with the recommendations :)
@@ADudeWhoReads How delightful to find thoughtful response! I'll definitely check out your video on graphic novels, because I'm tired of reading the same lists of people's favorite graphic novels over & over again. Either they list the same old same old (Alison Bechdel, Marjane Satrapi, Art Spiegelman, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore...) or else they insist that if I haven't consumed every single story in Jaime's Love & Rockets multiverse, then I don't know squat. =big sigh= I'm sure you will find, as the decades go by, that rereading books is much like listening to your favorite albums: it's a voyage of self-discovery. Some use the word "psychonaut" for an explorer of inner space. That's what rereading books turns you into. You probably don't need to hear this, but I encourage you to celebrate being a slow reader. Slow readers are deep readers. The more important the book, the more you want to stretch out the experience. Here's an odd readerly thing to do that I only discovered a few years ago: be a completist for someone who was a prolific writer. My first time was with Iris Murdoch. In 2019 I read all 26 of her novels plus about 70% of her academic philosophy and an over 800-page book of her collected letters. It was a very strange experience, like climbing into the driver's seat of someone else's mind. Happy reading... BTW, My name is Fi (pronounced "fee") short for Fiona.
@@fiwebster9814 Fi, a thoughtful comment deserves a thoughtful response! Your completionist approach to reading an author is something I've wanted to do for a long while (the closest I've come is probably with Murakami). When you did that with Murdoch, did you also try to read her works in chronological order of publication? One of the things I find interesting is to see how an author evolves over time.
If you haven't already read them, and if you like historical fiction, particularly WWII fiction, Herman Wouk's, The Winds of War, and the sequel, War and Remembrance, are wonderful! I'm generally not one for family dramas. I always say, I have enough drama in my real life. I don't need it in my books. But these two books don't feel like a soap opera. You're thrown into this time period of sweeping world events and you feel like you're right there. It's like a move in your head. Just thinking about it makes me want to read them again.
I need to read Catch 22 again. In my younger years, maybe late teens/early 20s, it was one of my favorite books. But I can't remember a darned thing about it now.
@@ADudeWhoReads Anything Stephen King. I do not read horror but tried a few of his non-horror books and they are too slow paced, too detailed and just go on and on. I have him on permanent DNF. I do like him as a person and love watching him on interviews; his prose is just not for me.
![[TH] FS vs BME - VCT Ascension Pacific - Lower Bracket Final](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wnygqsR2Fig/mqdefault.jpg)
The Lord of the Rings was my first introduction to real fantasy when I was 11, and I have absolutely loved it ever since. That being said, I completely understand why some people just can't get into it. It can be quite...wordy, at times. Not sure how else to put that.
I don't have a book to add but I really admire the fact that you wish to read French literature in French even if this ask of you an additional effort. I know that reading in the original language adds to the reading experience but i'm too scared to do that. I fear that it will be too hard for me and maybe that will keep me from enjoying the book or even finishing it.
Thanks! In fairness, I learned to read French before English, so I don't think it's that admirable. Now, if I decide to read Don Quixote in Spanish, then I will EXPECT your admiration :)
As we say here in Russia: it s a crime not to read Dostoyevsky, it s a punishment to read him 😂. I adore Dostoyevsky, and very proud of his global appreciation.
Hah! I like it. Thanks for watching :)
As a russian myself I've never heard this saying. Can only agree with the first part though.
Ha ha! I am struggling through Brothers K. right now. Pray for me!
You should checkout my books, and even make fun of them if you want to. Anyway great video and interesting insights. 👍
Thanks! Where can I find these books? I don't usually make fun of books on this channel, but something tells me that given your handle, you'd actually LIKE that...
Thanks for the interest. I have 3 on Amazon, and 1 on Barnes and Nobles, plus many short novellas on Kindle. Just look for author Stacy Meadows.
Look for author Stacy James Meadows. ❤
I remember liking some of The Pillars of the Earth. But there were some really gross sexual parts that caught me off guard. I can't even remember if I ended up finishing it.
Ah…. I did not know that. thanks for the warning!
I can’t remember if I’ve left you any recommendations (not in any order):
Fair and Tender Ladies (Lee Smith),
Mother Night (Kurt Vonnegut Jr),
QB VII (Leon Uris),
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia)
Villette (Brontë)
Oh, and all 18 books (so far) of *The Dresden Files* (Jim Baker)
You have definitely given me some recommendations over time (must have). Also, well done giving some "less popular" recommendations from well known authors (I've read quite a bit of Vonnegut, and don't think I've ever even heard of Mother Night, and Villette is not what most people think of when they hear Bronte).
Also, side note: I only have two books left in the Dresden Files. That's 16 books from the same series in less than a year for me... some kind of new record.
@@ADudeWhoReads The Dresden Files is addicting! 🤣 I LOVE that series!! As for Mother Night, it’s one of the BEST Vonnegut IMO. The Sirens of Titan is also impressive but not known by most people. Give them both a read and I think you will be pleased . Cheers Dude!
@@GreatGreebo As always, thanks for the tip. I will definitely check it out.
Please do a short novel/novella top 10. And the funny book one. Tx. :)
P.s. Great video
PS: As always, thanks Greebo ;)
I am struggling my way through Brothers K. right now. I'M TRYING, PEOPLE! I'm not that far in. But I can barely keep track of what's happening. I'm starting to dread it every time I pick it up. But I don't want to give up. Sigh. Why is life so hard? ;)
Hah. I know you’re joking, but I will say a couple of things: first, there’s actually a pretty suspenseful plot that develop so that should help! Second, there is a lot going on in that novel, that frankly, I wouldn’t expect anyone to catch on the first read through, so I wouldn’t even try!! there are certain characters and subplots that appear early in the novel that you expect might reappear later. but they just don’t, and if you stop to ask yourself why each time, you’ll never make it to the end! In other words, I think the right way to read Bros K as a first read is for pure entertainment and not to try and analyze it too much (plenty of time for that later). lastly, and you don’t need me to tell you this, but if you’re really struggling… don’t finish it :). I’m sure there are 100 other great novels out there that you could spent that time reading AND enjoying more. Thanks for the comment and sorry for the wordy reply!
Just finished Project Hail Mary. Great recommendation. Really enjoyed it. It was heavy on the sci but just dumb enough for me to wrap my head around. Weirdly plausible throughout. Just a fantastic read.
Also wrapped up Before The Are Hanged. The Glokta storyline was once again the highlight for me. Such a compelling character. The whole Bayaz escapade to the end of the world, only to find... a rock... was much less compelling though. I'm giving Abercrombie the benefit of the doubt and hoping that was a one off, or it somehow ties into a larger more entertaining plot point, and shall read on.
So glad you liked Project Hail Mary. I agree with you that the science was dumbed down just enough so that the layman could still appreciate the novel.
With Before They Are Hanged, I agree with you that the payoff to that story arc was anti-climactic (and I won't say whether or not it gets redeemed later). With Abercrombie, the plots of his novels get better the more of him you read (I think Best Served Cold might be my favourite), but the reality is if you don't love him for his style and his characters, it won't be his storylines that convert you.
I have read and loved the Stoner, Ana Karenina, The Hobbit, The Brother's Karamazov.
Years ago, I read over half of Proust's first volume and I remember loving the writing, but parts of it were too difficult for me at the time. I'd like to restart it and see what I think now. Also, I think (I could be wrong on this) that in reading Proust the reader should not be expecting a normal plot structure. When I was reading that first volume, I thought I was reading see musings, reflections of a life, but not a novel with a plot, a problem, and a resolution type of thing. I had read Lolita too long ago also and I remember it as disturbing, but I don't remember it fully, so I'd want to reread it. I read The Count of Monte Christo (and The Iron Mask) by Dumas when I was in Jr. High School, but in my native language, Greek. I remember loving the books, but I don't know if I would feel the same now. I love
The Brothers Karamazov, but I love everything I've read so far by Dostoyevsky. I also love Tolstoy's work. I agree with you as I think that Tosltoy and Dostoyevski are not comparable. I think they are different writers and both are masters in their own style and themes. I lean towards Dostoyevsky more, but I also have read more of him than of Tolstoy.
Dostoyevsky's novella, The Double is also fantastic and I think is underrated. If you haven't read Nikolai Gogol, his short stories are excellent, and his novel Dead Souls is also great.
Thanks so much for the detailed comment and sharing your experiences. I haven’t read any Gogol, but I will look into him!
Fiction: House of Leaves; Demon Copperhead; The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Nonfiction: Into Thin Air.
Nice. A couple I've never heard of before! Thanks for the tip!
Wow, I just mentioned Into Thin Air today in casual conversation when a child in my family was drawing a mountain! Sheesh, that book wore me out! I really did feel physically exhausted.
@@Yesica1993 Jon Krakauer is a good writer and journalist, and the fact that he was THERE during the Everest disaster he's writing about takes the book to another level.
Dostoyevsky is my favorite Russian author and he is better than Tolstoy in my opinion.
Fair enough. Thanks for watching!
I have a lot of reading ahead of me! Great list
Happy reading!
Great video. Have you read 'Don Quixote' by Cervantes? That's another one that I see a lot of people recommending. It's on my TBR list :).
I think Don Quixote was 11th or 12th on the list, so just barely missed the cut for this video :) Thanks for watching!
@@ADudeWhoReads Thanks for the reply. Aww it so very nearly made the top ten lol. I'm looking forward to reading it. It's quite funny apparently.
Have you read Dune? I’ve read a lot of books, and Dune absolutely blew me away. It’s also considered possibly the best sci-fi book of all time.
I read Dune just a couple of years ago. I think Dune, like LotR, was genre defining. However, if you’ve already grown up with the genre and then read it for the first time 60 years after it was published, you lose out on so much of the originality because it’s been copied so much.
@@ADudeWhoReads You definitely see while reading it many areas where other books and movies took from it. I just thought it was amazing how detailed it was, from the landscape to the cultures and mythology and religion and politics and science. I couldn’t believe that one person could come up with so many unique ideas.
How interesting that you will more than likely read _The Count of Monte Cristo_ in its original, French! I finally read it a couple of years ago and I'm already wanting to give it a re-read. 🤓
That's a great endorsement! I'm super curious what makes everyone love this book so much. Thanks for watching and commenting!
I had a great time with Pillars of the Earth, which was my intro to historical fiction about 6 or 7 years ago. I've since read all of Follett's Kingsbridge books but Pillars feels like his best (the second, World Without End being a close runner up).
Thanks for the confirmation and for watching! I will most definitely give Pillars of the Earth a read, and based on how much I like it, I'll see about continuing with the other four books.
Interesting that you imply Marcel Proust's masterpiece is off-putting because of how long it is. It always amazes me how many people gobble up every novel in a series-not just trilogies, but series that are 5, 7, 10 books long. I have friends who have Kindle subscriptions on Amazon set to automatically download the next book out from their favorite authors, who already have 25 or more books out. But mention In Search of Lost Time, and they're like "What a tome! Way too long!" As for War and Peace, I reread it with great pleasure every five years or so. I don't think of such books as needing patience to consume, because when immersed in them, I'm always so impatient to turn the page. =grin=
By the way, I admire your wanting to read it in French. I've read passages en français, but to read the whole thing from one end to the other, I chose translations-of which I've read two different ones. I do read a lot of poetry in French, German & Spanish (editions with facing pages in translation are the best), but that's because poetry is so dependent on perfection of the language. And poems are short. I hope soon to learn enough Russian to be able to read the poems of Anna Ahkmatova & others: the glimmers I get of how wonderful Russian poetry must be, from reading translations, are spurring me on.
Speaking of Russian, a couple of Dostoevsky books to add to your TBR pile if you haven't read them yet:
When I listed my favorite poets to you earlier, I inexplicably omitted Wallace Stevens. Wallace Stevens is my favorite recommendation for people who are bright & well-read, but unfamiliar with modern poetry. He's one of those poets, like William Butler Yeats, where not every poem will hit for you at one particular moment in time, but the ones that do hit will burn themselves into your brain & seem to define a whole era of your life. There's a reason Stevens gets quoted a lot in popular movies. Stevens & Yeats both have œuvres that are super high quality & also quite variable in style.
And when I mentioned favorite short story writers, I left off Franz Kafka. DUH! He's one I'd say who didn't write a single mediocre story, & his sense of humor is much underrated. The Metamorphosis is funny AF. A fave Kafka you might check out quickly is "The Burrow." Joyce Carol Oates is also a very good short story writer: she's so prolific, her Greatest Hits are crème de la crème.
Glad you got past Lolita's subject matter to how well-crafted & witty it is. Lolita is hands down my favorite road trip novel: Nabokov's outsider view of Americana, especially small motels in the midwest, is sweeeet. I've read pretty much all of Nabokov, who's a pre-eminent prose stylist, but my favorite work of his isn't fiction, it's his memoir: Speak, Memory. All I have to do is *think* of Speak, Memory to want to read it all over again.
I haven't seen all your vids, so I don't know if you've mentioned these, but in case you haven't read these authors, do go for them:
-Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano (always my top choice when people ask me for a stellar novel they may not have heard of)
-all of Italo Calvino, especially Invisible Cities & Cosmicomics
-N. K. Jemison's Broken Earth trilogy, widely considered to be the sine qua non of 21st century science fiction, the way that Isaac Asimov was in the 1970s
-Middlemarch by George Eliot
-Virginia Woolf, especially To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway & The Waves
You've probably read some Cormac McCarthy (I've read every word he wrote & feel SO lucky to have him in my life) but here's one of his that doesn't get mentioned enough: Child of God. It's quite short & very, very funny.
Do you read crime fiction? Elmore Leonard is an amazing writer, a unique stylist whose mark on the field is unparalleled. Michael McConnelly's Harry Bosch series is another top-notch read. (The Amazon TV series didn't do it justice.) Also the Swedish police procedurals by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.
Another genre I love is horror or dark lit: Thomas Ligotti, Robert Aickman, Caitlin R. Kiernan, H. P. Lovecraft, Angela Carter, Clive Barker's Books of Blood & Damnation Game. Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child, Alan Moore's graphic novel From Hell, & many more. Stephen King, who's obviously not just a horror writer, tends to be underrated as a prose stylist, because people either only know the movies based on his books, or only know his first 10 or so books. He doesn't credit for how much *better* a writer he's become in his later years: he's recently written quite a few brilliant short stories & novellas & has won the prestigious O. Henry Award for best short fiction. (His shorts appear in the New Yorker.) Recent long fiction of his that's very good indeed: the Finders Keepers trilogy & Billy Summers. I love Billy Summers so much, I've already read it three times, even though it only came out in 2021.
I'm enjoying your videos more than most bookish TH-camrs, because you strike me as having good taste. The only thing that's disappointed me so far is that you have yet to mention a book I haven't read. But I'll keep watching you in the hope of discovering a new gem. Here's a suggestion: read some of your favorite passages aloud to us. I always enjoy hearing what sections of their favorite books people especially enjoyed.
Happy reading...
Oops, I didn't list the Dostoevksy books I meant to: Notes from Unerground & The Idiot. I was so taken with the main character of The Idiot, I named a cat after him.
Do you include plays in your best of all time lists: Mine top 25 or so would definitely include Shakespeare (natch) & the plays of Samuel Beckett-whose prose works Molloy & Malone Dies are also big faves. Samuel Beckett has dark humor like Kafka's. We're living through a very Samuel Beckett time, so I go back to him for companionship amidst the insanity of the 2020s.
Once again, thanks for a considered response with a treasure trove of recommendations (believe it or not, I do take note of all of them). I cracked a smile because just today I started The Fifth Season and a few hours later found it mentioned your note!
I appreciate the compliment of having good taste, but as to your point about me not mentioning a lot of books you HAVEN'T read, that may not change for a while. Most of my reading this year has been focused on well-known classics that I've somehow never read, and I get the sense that's not going to unearth anything "new" for you. :) And then for 2025, I'm playing with the idea of making it the year of "re-reads." I'm always recommending that people re-read books, but need to take my own advice a bit more. Combine that with the fact that I'm a relatively slow reader compared to most of the people who talk about books on TH-cam, and my guess is it'll be a while before someone as well read as you finds a lot of "new" stuff on my channel (except perhaps my upcoming video about Graphic Novels...).
Thanks again, and please don't stop with the recommendations :)
@@ADudeWhoReads How delightful to find thoughtful response! I'll definitely check out your video on graphic novels, because I'm tired of reading the same lists of people's favorite graphic novels over & over again. Either they list the same old same old (Alison Bechdel, Marjane Satrapi, Art Spiegelman, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore...) or else they insist that if I haven't consumed every single story in Jaime's Love & Rockets multiverse, then I don't know squat. =big sigh=
I'm sure you will find, as the decades go by, that rereading books is much like listening to your favorite albums: it's a voyage of self-discovery. Some use the word "psychonaut" for an explorer of inner space. That's what rereading books turns you into.
You probably don't need to hear this, but I encourage you to celebrate being a slow reader. Slow readers are deep readers. The more important the book, the more you want to stretch out the experience.
Here's an odd readerly thing to do that I only discovered a few years ago: be a completist for someone who was a prolific writer. My first time was with Iris Murdoch. In 2019 I read all 26 of her novels plus about 70% of her academic philosophy and an over 800-page book of her collected letters. It was a very strange experience, like climbing into the driver's seat of someone else's mind.
Happy reading...
BTW, My name is Fi (pronounced "fee") short for Fiona.
@@fiwebster9814 Fi, a thoughtful comment deserves a thoughtful response!
Your completionist approach to reading an author is something I've wanted to do for a long while (the closest I've come is probably with Murakami). When you did that with Murdoch, did you also try to read her works in chronological order of publication? One of the things I find interesting is to see how an author evolves over time.
If you haven't already read them, and if you like historical fiction, particularly WWII fiction, Herman Wouk's, The Winds of War, and the sequel, War and Remembrance, are wonderful! I'm generally not one for family dramas. I always say, I have enough drama in my real life. I don't need it in my books. But these two books don't feel like a soap opera. You're thrown into this time period of sweeping world events and you feel like you're right there. It's like a move in your head. Just thinking about it makes me want to read them again.
Thanks for the tip. you’re not the first to mention these to me, so I’ll need to seriously look into them!!
I need to read Catch 22 again. In my younger years, maybe late teens/early 20s, it was one of my favorite books. But I can't remember a darned thing about it now.
That is so true about so many of the books I read during that time of my life!
Best wishes with what you choose to read and to your channel. Happy reading.
Thank you so much! All the best!
I feel like I’ve seen this video before ha
maybe...
You need to do the opposite now: books least enjoyed by readers and see how it compares to either your preferences or your viewers.
Hah. Not a bad idea. Wanna start us off?
Great idea! 😊
@@ADudeWhoReads Anything Stephen King. I do not read horror but tried a few of his non-horror books and they are too slow paced, too detailed and just go on and on. I have him on permanent DNF. I do like him as a person and love watching him on interviews; his prose is just not for me.
Please do make a list of funny books.
And everyone loves the monte cristo.
Alrighty. Will do :)