Thank you for your suggestions and reviews, for your kindness and for what feels like friendship. I found you at the perfect time, and you bring me peace.
Your channel is new to me and I just wanted to pop in and say I love your style and your taste. The tip you gave about knowing the story before reading the novel is a good one. I often tell people the same. I also love Dickens, and I was thrilled to see you recommend Trollope’s The Way We Live Now. Trollope is so insightful and knows how to write a memorable character, and is somehow so easy to read.
I grew up reading classic literature because that is what was on the bookshelves in my parents’ home. I think it resulted in my being a bit anachronistic in my thinking in some ways, I simply love old things, and as you say, the elegance of the language, but I accept that about myself. I do love the classics, and have reread a lot of them over the years. Reading Bleak House again at the moment! Thank you for another pleasant video, like a nice chat with an old friend ❤ and really wonderful recommendations, some of which I’ve not yet read.
Uncle Tom's Cabin ... loved it. But, To Kill a Mockingbird is actually what got me interested in reading on my own / to myself (as opposed to reading nightly to the children). Another great list! Of all that you mentioned, I put Frankenstein at the top of my TBR ... seems good for the autumn reading list. 😊 Thank you!
I recently started reading classics and I started with Pride and Prejudice, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Count of Monte Cristo. All just really great books. Jane Eyre is next on my list of classics to read.
Great Expectations was absolutely great. It was my very first Charles Dickens book to read. I hope to never forget Joe. ❤ We should all be so blessed with such a steadfast friend.
Great Expectations was required reading for my freshman english class and my first exposure to Dickens other than A Christmas Carol, which I saw performed as a student rather than read. I've read other Dickens since then but Great Expectations remains my favorite.
Rosamunde, that was wonderful! I am sitting here knitting and it was so relaxing listening to your voice which is lovely and soothing. You could read the ingredients on a cereal box and I would be signing up. Love your hints and recommendations. Sorry you and Tilly are so hot! I live in MA near the ocean so we aren’t too uncomfortable here. Looking forward to your next video!
I recently read "The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins. Almost 500 pages of small print in the Penguin Classics edition but a compulsive page-turner nevertheless, it features multiple viewpoints and is an early example of the police detective novel. Highly recommended!
For a fuller understanding of Shakespeare's plays by all means watch a live or filmed version but then delve deep into the OUP Arden editions which must be the ultimate single volume resource available.
I started with Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and then absolutely fell in love with Elizabeth Gaskell. They are my top 3 but I am enjoying exploring others.
Even though I had a minor in English in college in the late 70's in the US, I had never read many of these classics, so a few years ago I picked up Great Expectations not knowing anything about the storyline. I loved it! I was enthralled the characters came to live!! Thanks for the recommendations of many more I will have to try.
Am freezing here in wintry New Zealand, would love some of that warmth, great recommendations, have been meaning to get into some Dickens so this should get me motivated, hopefully. Cheers
I Do enjoy your videos. I can carry many a heavy book bag without breaking a summer sweat in our foggy air- cool breezy San Francisco which is great for the flowers and trees. I look forward to your suggestions and go out and act on them, if they aren't already in my collection.
Midsummer Night's Dream kicked me off one summer Saturday afternoon as my parents went shopping with my siblings. I took out my Mother's little leather copy and lay stomach down on our carpet and read it through and loved Bottom and all the fairies with Oberon and Titania. Eleven years later I saw it alone one warm summer night in the Park in London. I loved it then too. That is a great starting point. We always had Classical Comics as kids. Fun to read in the garden in Summer.
I was amazed to learn recently that Charles Dickens "A Tale Of Two Cities" is the second best selling novel of all time (after Don Quixote). Ironically in a recent poll most Dickens fans chose "Great Expectations" as their all-time favourite.
Interestingly. Presumably, 'A Tale of Two Cities' must have done well in its early years, perhaps when the French Revolution was still just within living memory.
Hi Rosamunde, I really enjoy your videos. I read Frankenstein last year, and absolutely loved it! Vanity Fair is the longest book I've ever read and Thackeray's writing style helped me stay engrossed. I agree with you about the detailed descriptions that are so prevalent in classic novels. I have to remind myself that there was no "instant gratification" 100+ years ago😅.
My childhood introduction to many British classics was via the 1960s Sunday afternoon BBC TV productions geared towards children; What Katy Did with Susan Hampshire was a favorite. My parents invested in a sets of volumes Book Trails and Journeys through Booklands that both included a wide range of classical stories albeit re-written for children. Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies started my love of Victorian storytelling. The Palliser novels or the Forsyte Saga can suck you in with the broad spectrum of characters.
Loved this. Have read all the books you mentioned and loved them. Completely agree with The Way We Live Now. I read it last year as my introduction to Trollope and absolutely loved it 😊
Hello Rosamunde, oh my how good this was! I think my first classics were Little Women, Tom Sawyer, Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre, and The Pickwick Papers, Edgar Allen Poe, and so many more. Don’t we just love them all? And of course Hans Christian Anderson and fairy tales, which I still love! ❤❤❤
Loving your videos 😊 I too went to Hay for the first time this year. I love Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre and Far from the Madding Crowd among others. Also enjoyed Howard’s End and The Way we live Now. I recently found authors such as Katherine Mansfield, Josephine Tey and Elizabeth Bowen. I haven’t finished a Dickens since I read Little Dorrit for A level - felt like it lasted forever!!! I do want to read Bleak House though. Wish there were more hours in a day to read !!
I did literature papers at university as a student and I found that I preferred the American classics rather than the English ones. Authors such as Willa Cather ,John Steinbeck and Nathaniel Hawthorne as well as Harper Lee and John smith. I loved some of the English ones but can I risk the ire of most people and say I dislike Jane Austen. Love your videos
We're pretty non-judgmental here (I hope) - so you are perfectly entitled and allowed to epress your opinion ! Not everyone loves Jane Austen, I know, but I would always be interested in their reasons.
@@booksfrommybookshelf I thank you for your reply. You ask for reasons why I don’t like Jane Austen. I think Ralph Waldo Emerson’s review of her work says it all for me. I find her characters unlikeable and vacuous. They are focused on money and marriage and the writer doesn’t dip into any depth concerning any real problems they might have. I realise that the author may be representing society as she sees it but I find it a very narrow view and it bores the hell out of me. I do love the brontes and Jane Eyre would have to be one of my favourites. I know that Jane Austen has a massive following but I’m afraid I am not one of them. Thank goodness we do not all like the same authors as there would not be much interesting discussion. I love your channel.
@@meryle.hawkins880 I get what you say - but the point is that Austen is gently mocking those people who are focused on money and marriage. There is nothing vacuous about Elizabeth Bennett. She is a much more intelligent and thoughtful person compared to her mother and younger sisters who are more shallow - that's why she is one of Austen's heroines. Anyway - it's an interesting conversation, and thanks for your input!
My favourite film version of "Vanity Fair" is the 2004 adaptation co-starring Reese Witherspoon as Becky Sharp and Romola Garai as Amelia Sedley. On a fittingly Victorian classic note Romola Garai was named after George Eliot's novel "Romola". As E.M Forster said...only connect!
I totally agree with your Shakespeare comments - it’s a great idea to see a production before you try to read it. Midsummer Night’s Dream was the first Shakespeare play I saw in my preteens, but it was seeing a version of Hamlet (starring David Tennant) in my 20s that really made Shakespeare click for me. I only tried reading the plays once I was already a fan.
I think that if you're going to read Shakespeare it's much easier to get a feel for if you read it out loud, even better if it's with another person. I too saw Midsummer Night's Dream first and then we were required to read Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet in high school.
For the Christmas when I was 10yo, I received a box set of Classics. I don't remember all of what was in it but I know it had Black Beauty, Frankenstein, Treasure Island, The Scarlet Letter, an anthology of selected works by Poe, and short stories by O. Henry. I started with Black Beauty and then moved immediately to Jane Eyre as I had gotten a lovely hard bound edition with line drawings in it for that same Christmas. It was probably a bit beyond my reading level but I loved it and have probably read it 15+ times since then (I am in my mid-40s). I'm fairly sure that Gothic fiction (both historic and contemporary versions) is one of my favorite genres because of Jane Eyre.
What a wonderful Christmas present for a 10 year old! I think I would have loved that selection, even if a little advanced. I think I'd love it now too!
If you’re able to find a copy of The Burning Ring by Kay Burdekin (published in 1929 with a second printing in 1941) I think you would really enjoy it. Very unusual novel.
I’ve never read classics except required school reading. I am acquiring them to read. I e tried war and peace last year and les miserables and dnf’d them for the time being.always love tilly time. I thought about naming my Trudy Tilly.
Both quite heavy books to get into! I read War and Peace a long time ago - it's great, but a bit of a marathon. I'd recommend trying something shorter!
I prefer David Copperfield over Great E. but seein the musical film Oliver! as a teen was what brought about my love for Dickens, with A Christmas Carol of course, being a staple from young childhood.
From Shakespeare to "Animal Farm" published in 1945. The age old question...what makes a classic? I wonder how many contemporary best sellers will be considered classics in a hundred years time (if any?!)
Good question. I think, generally, whether it's books, music, art or any other art form, classics are works that stand the test of time because they have a timeless quality - they 'speak' to us as human beings, no matter how old they are. They also often break new ground and are seminal in the evolution of the particular art form. For me, an example of a writer whose books will be the classics of the future, is Hilary Mantel.
Frankenstein is my favorite book of all time but oh goodness Great Expectations was a drudge for me. Don't get me wrong. I love Dickens truly but G.E. really drags out. I liked Room With A View also, but the ending was disappointing- I wanted more romance but it truly was a beautiful novel- rich with description. I haven't read Vanity Fair, thank you for this rec.I always enjoy your videos. Thanks for sharing. AND are your earrings handmade?They look great on you.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 88 | คู่เอก "ป้อมเพชร vs อัสลามจอน"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ZqTVVbMgbo/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you for your suggestions and reviews, for your kindness and for what feels like friendship. I found you at the perfect time, and you bring me peace.
I thoroughly enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities. I bought an edition with notes, which helped. That book still lives in my head many months later.
Your channel is new to me and I just wanted to pop in and say I love your style and your taste. The tip you gave about knowing the story before reading the novel is a good one. I often tell people the same. I also love Dickens, and I was thrilled to see you recommend Trollope’s The Way We Live Now. Trollope is so insightful and knows how to write a memorable character, and is somehow so easy to read.
I grew up reading classic literature because that is what was on the bookshelves in my parents’ home. I think it resulted in my being a bit anachronistic in my thinking in some ways, I simply love old things, and as you say, the elegance of the language, but I accept that about myself. I do love the classics, and have reread a lot of them over the years. Reading Bleak House again at the moment! Thank you for another pleasant video, like a nice chat with an old friend ❤ and really wonderful recommendations, some of which I’ve not yet read.
Uncle Tom's Cabin ... loved it.
But, To Kill a Mockingbird is actually what got me interested in reading on my own / to myself (as opposed to reading nightly to the children).
Another great list! Of all that you mentioned, I put Frankenstein at the top of my TBR ... seems good for the autumn reading list. 😊
Thank you!
So happy you mentioned Frankenstein.
I recently started reading classics and I started with Pride and Prejudice, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Count of Monte Cristo. All just really great books. Jane Eyre is next on my list of classics to read.
Great Expectations was absolutely great. It was my very first Charles Dickens book to read. I hope to never forget Joe. ❤ We should all be so blessed with such a steadfast friend.
Agreed!
Great Expectations was required reading for my freshman english class and my first exposure to Dickens other than A Christmas Carol, which I saw performed as a student rather than read. I've read other Dickens since then but Great Expectations remains my favorite.
Rosamunde, that was wonderful! I am sitting here knitting and it was so relaxing listening to your voice which is lovely and soothing. You could read the
ingredients on a cereal box and I would be signing up. Love your hints and recommendations. Sorry you and Tilly are so hot! I live in MA near the ocean
so we aren’t too uncomfortable here. Looking forward to your next video!
Ha ha! Perhaps I should do a video: 'Cereal boxes I have read'.... 😂
I recently read "The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins. Almost 500 pages of small print in the Penguin Classics edition but a compulsive page-turner nevertheless, it features multiple viewpoints and is an early example of the police detective novel. Highly recommended!
Thanks - that's definitely one I need to put in my TBR!
I just obtained this and hope to read it this fall!
I LOVE A Muppet Christmas Carol!
This is a great list! I’d add Much Ado About Nothing from Shakespeare and agree with Jane Eyre.
Brilliant video - like chatting with much loved Old Friends ❤
Perhaps, Cold Comfort Farm. I re-read this book, this year. A very intelligent comedy, filled with all sorts of eccentric characters.
Loved that book!
For a fuller understanding of Shakespeare's plays by all means watch a live or filmed version but then delve deep into the OUP Arden editions which must be the ultimate single volume resource available.
I started with Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and then absolutely fell in love with Elizabeth Gaskell. They are my top 3 but I am enjoying exploring others.
Even though I had a minor in English in college in the late 70's in the US, I had never read many of these classics, so a few years ago I picked up Great Expectations not knowing anything about the storyline. I loved it! I was
enthralled the characters came to live!! Thanks for the recommendations of many more I will have to try.
Am freezing here in wintry New Zealand, would love some of that warmth, great recommendations, have been meaning to get into some Dickens so this should get me motivated, hopefully. Cheers
I Do enjoy your videos. I can carry many a heavy book bag without breaking a summer sweat in our foggy air- cool breezy San Francisco which is great for the flowers and trees. I look forward to your suggestions and go out and act on them, if they aren't already in my collection.
Midsummer Night's Dream kicked me off one summer Saturday afternoon as my parents went shopping with my siblings. I took out my Mother's little leather copy and lay stomach down on our carpet and read it through and loved Bottom and all the fairies with Oberon and Titania. Eleven years later I saw it alone one warm summer night in the Park in London. I loved it then too. That is a great starting point. We always had Classical Comics as kids. Fun to read in the garden in Summer.
Love your choices! I feel for you and Tillie as it’s been in the 90s and humid here in America. ❤️
I was amazed to learn recently that Charles Dickens "A Tale Of Two Cities" is the second best selling novel of all time (after Don Quixote). Ironically in a recent poll most Dickens fans chose "Great Expectations" as their all-time favourite.
Interestingly. Presumably, 'A Tale of Two Cities' must have done well in its early years, perhaps when the French Revolution was still just within living memory.
Hi Rosamunde, I really enjoy your videos. I read Frankenstein last year, and absolutely loved it! Vanity Fair is the longest book I've ever read and Thackeray's writing style helped me stay engrossed. I agree with you about the detailed descriptions that are so prevalent in classic novels. I have to remind myself that there was no "instant gratification" 100+ years ago😅.
My childhood introduction to many British classics was via the 1960s Sunday afternoon BBC TV productions geared towards children; What Katy Did with Susan Hampshire was a favorite. My parents invested in a sets of volumes Book Trails and Journeys through Booklands that both included a wide range of classical stories albeit re-written for children. Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies started my love of Victorian storytelling. The Palliser novels or the Forsyte Saga can suck you in with the broad spectrum of characters.
Lovely - as a child I read both What Katy Did and The Water Babies - loved them both.
Loved this. Have read all the books you mentioned and loved them. Completely agree with The Way We Live Now. I read it last year as my introduction to Trollope and absolutely loved it 😊
Hello Rosamunde, oh my how good this was! I think my first classics were Little Women, Tom Sawyer, Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre, and The Pickwick Papers, Edgar Allen Poe, and so many more. Don’t we just love them all? And of course Hans Christian Anderson and fairy tales, which I still love! ❤❤❤
Thank you so much. Great books and love your puppy. I think I will read Frankenstein for Halloween this year.
Loving your videos 😊 I too went to Hay for the first time this year. I love Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre and Far from the Madding Crowd among others. Also enjoyed Howard’s End and The Way we live Now. I recently found authors such as Katherine Mansfield, Josephine Tey and Elizabeth Bowen. I haven’t finished a Dickens since I read
Little Dorrit for A level - felt like it lasted forever!!! I do want to read Bleak House though. Wish there were more hours in a day to read !!
Me too!
I did literature papers at university as a student and I found that I preferred the American classics rather than the English ones. Authors such as Willa Cather ,John Steinbeck and Nathaniel Hawthorne as well as Harper Lee and John smith. I loved some of the English ones but can I risk the ire of most people and say I dislike Jane Austen. Love your videos
We're pretty non-judgmental here (I hope) - so you are perfectly entitled and allowed to epress your opinion ! Not everyone loves Jane Austen, I know, but I would always be interested in their reasons.
@@booksfrommybookshelf I thank you for your reply. You ask for reasons why I don’t like Jane Austen. I think Ralph Waldo Emerson’s review of her work says it all for me. I find her characters unlikeable and vacuous. They are focused on money and marriage and the writer doesn’t dip into any depth concerning any real problems they might have. I realise that the author may be representing society as she sees it but I find it a very narrow view and it bores the hell out of me. I do love the brontes and Jane Eyre would have to be one of my favourites. I know that Jane Austen has a massive following but I’m afraid I am not one of them. Thank goodness we do not all like the same authors as there would not be much interesting discussion. I love your channel.
@@meryle.hawkins880 I get what you say - but the point is that Austen is gently mocking those people who are focused on money and marriage. There is nothing vacuous about Elizabeth Bennett. She is a much more intelligent and thoughtful person compared to her mother and younger sisters who are more shallow - that's why she is one of Austen's heroines. Anyway - it's an interesting conversation, and thanks for your input!
My favourite film version of "Vanity Fair" is the 2004 adaptation co-starring Reese Witherspoon as Becky Sharp and Romola Garai as Amelia Sedley. On a fittingly Victorian classic note Romola Garai was named after George Eliot's novel "Romola". As E.M Forster said...only connect!
I totally agree with your Shakespeare comments - it’s a great idea to see a production before you try to read it. Midsummer Night’s Dream was the first Shakespeare play I saw in my preteens, but it was seeing a version of Hamlet (starring David Tennant) in my 20s that really made Shakespeare click for me. I only tried reading the plays once I was already a fan.
David Tennant's Hamlet was amazing.
@@booksfrommybookshelf Absolutely. He played Macbeth recently too, wish I could've seen that!
I think that if you're going to read Shakespeare it's much easier to get a feel for if you read it out loud, even better if it's with another person. I too saw Midsummer Night's Dream first and then we were required to read Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet in high school.
I really enjoyed The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Yes - me too! That's one to go on this list.
I read it recently, and I agree!
Thankyou so very much really enjoyed your recommendations
Thanks!
Thank you very much!
Love your recommendations!
At a fairly young age, I started reading classics with Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.
Yes - I loved that too!
Black Beauty was my first as well. Followed almost immediately by Jane Eyre.
For the Christmas when I was 10yo, I received a box set of Classics. I don't remember all of what was in it but I know it had Black Beauty, Frankenstein, Treasure Island, The Scarlet Letter, an anthology of selected works by Poe, and short stories by O. Henry. I started with Black Beauty and then moved immediately to Jane Eyre as I had gotten a lovely hard bound edition with line drawings in it for that same Christmas. It was probably a bit beyond my reading level but I loved it and have probably read it 15+ times since then (I am in my mid-40s). I'm fairly sure that Gothic fiction (both historic and contemporary versions) is one of my favorite genres because of Jane Eyre.
What a wonderful Christmas present for a 10 year old! I think I would have loved that selection, even if a little advanced. I think I'd love it now too!
If you’re able to find a copy of The Burning Ring by Kay Burdekin (published in 1929 with a second printing in 1941) I think you would really enjoy it. Very unusual novel.
Thanks for the suggestion - I'll add it to my growing list!
I’ve never read classics except required school reading. I am acquiring them to read. I e tried war and peace last year and les miserables and dnf’d them for the time being.always love tilly time. I thought about naming my Trudy Tilly.
Both quite heavy books to get into! I read War and Peace a long time ago - it's great, but a bit of a marathon. I'd recommend trying something shorter!
So well explained. Thank you Rosamunde. Also,recently bought your book “Out of Time” really looking forward to reading it! 📚
Forgot to say “Great Expectations “ was my first Dickens and yes I think a good one to begin with.
Thank you - I hope you enjoy it!
I prefer David Copperfield over Great E. but seein the musical film Oliver! as a teen was what brought about my love for Dickens, with A Christmas Carol of course, being a staple from young childhood.
Yes, I did wonder whether to mention David Copperfield; definitely another possible one to start your Dickens journey with!
When I was younger an English classic I started but never finished was Charles Dickens "a tale if two cities."
I'd say that was a fairly difficult one to try getting into as a first Dickens. 🙂
From Shakespeare to "Animal Farm" published in 1945. The age old question...what makes a classic? I wonder how many contemporary best sellers will be considered classics in a hundred years time (if any?!)
Good question. I think, generally, whether it's books, music, art or any other art form, classics are works that stand the test of time because they have a timeless quality - they 'speak' to us as human beings, no matter how old they are. They also often break new ground and are seminal in the evolution of the particular art form. For me, an example of a writer whose books will be the classics of the future, is Hilary Mantel.
Frankenstein is my favorite book of all time but oh goodness Great Expectations was a drudge for me. Don't get me wrong. I love Dickens truly but G.E. really drags out. I liked Room With A View also, but the ending was disappointing- I wanted more romance but it truly was a beautiful novel- rich with description. I haven't read Vanity Fair, thank you for this rec.I always enjoy your videos. Thanks for sharing. AND are your earrings handmade?They look great on you.
Thank you! My earrings are not hand-made, but they belonged to my mother, who passed away last November.
Dracula.
Oh yes - definitely!