1. The Twelve Caesars 2. APOLLONIUS OF RHODES 3. The Tale of Genji 4. The Canterbury Tales 5. The Prince 6. Hamlet 7. Pride and Prejudice 8. Middle March 9. The House of Mirth 10. A Room of One's Own 11. The Narrative of Life of Friedrich Douglass 12. The Makioka Sisters

After I reached about 200 read books in my lifetime, I started to find books that were pleasurable to me without pause. Every page was a brilliant from start to finish. Here is my list of those books. 1. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte 2. Demons by Dostoevsky 3. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman (on your recommendation) 4. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 5. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (also thanks to your recommendation) 6. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 7. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell Those are it, so far.

Oooo fun. A few of yours would also be on my list! Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch, A Room of Ones Own - and coincidentally I’m reading The House of Mirth right now.

50 years later, I still have nightmares about reading the original Canterbury Tales and writing a paper on it in 3 weeks time! It took me an hour to read and comprehend one page!!! And I had 4 other classes to prepare for - calculus, chemistry, French and art. And college professors wonder why their students dislike the classics.

I loved every single minute of this video!

Please make more videos like these! My favourite of your videos are the ones dealing with canonical works.

Due to watching your videos I'd learnt of the landmark Herodotus, I'm at book 8 and thoroughly enjoyed it. The maps and pictures have helped to place the relevant stories, and in turn have made my journey with Herodotus a pleasure. Thank you Steve for your bookish infectious enthusiasm.

Many years ago (the clue for how long being that the Waley translation was the only one available) I read The Tale Of Genji on a month long ocean journey, maybe the best way to read it, clear of distractions. In a similar vein, on a two-week holiday I took Middlemarch, and what a fabulous reading experience : a laughed out loud at the astuteness and sharpness of her social observations. Superior to anything by Dickens or Trollope. On my own list I'd have to include Willa Cather's The Professor's House, Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, and Gorky's My Childhood, books that I love with a passion.

All these books...All. These. Books. Are the definition of man. All his foibles, all his courage, all his nobleness, his best and worst. I was enthralled at each book you held up like they were jewels to be offered up. I was saying yes to every one of them. It did sound like the first day in a course on literature and the required reading but at this point in my life, my motivations for reading are for pure enjoyment and to learn. The list you gave is achievable. No huge long books but definitely a bite to chew on for a while. I'm glad you recommend Pride and Prejudice. That lets me know you're an OK guy and that I can trust you. I have read House of Mirth and most of Wharton's well know novels. I just cried and cried at the end of this one. I remember a teacher in HIgh School making a class memorize the prologue of Canterbury Tales in Old English. I read the Miller's Tale and laughed and laughed at how funny it was because I had never read such things as farting and such in a book. I could never read the young adult books these kids are reading now. They are marketed like the latest candy bar. These classics are what I like. The tried and true.

Thanks to Kim at Middle of the Book March, I began a George Eliot quest. I recently finished my first, Silas Marner, and loved it. On basically every page there was a line or two that was just so lovely that I had to stop, read it again and let it soak in. Practically the whole book is underlined since there were so many amazing lines! So… I am leaving Minnesota in 2 weeks to spend 3 months in France and am taking my Penguin English Library version of Middlemarch. Can’t wait to start it and sit in cafes and read it. Will come home with a beautifully marked up copy! Thanks for the great suggestions. Though I really feel you should have included The Count of Monte Cristo. That was my chunker from last year and I loved it so so so much. ❤️ Love you, Steve & Frida.

I'd say my Top 12 Must Read list of books in no particular order is as follows: 1) The Iliad by Homer 2) The Aenid by Virgil 3) Metamorphoses by Ovid 4) The King James Bible 5) War and Peace by Tolstoy 6) Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor D. 7) Moby Dick by Herman Melville 8) The Complete Works of Shakespeare 9) Middlemarch by George Elliot 10) Madam Bovary by Gustav Flaubert 11) Pride and Predjudice by Jane Austin 12) Le Morte D'Artur by Sir Thomas Mallory (Sorry hipsters, Infinite Jest didn't make the cut )

Oooo. I am mentally stocking my list. I enjoy your lists and starter kits.

Oh excellent! The Makioka Sisters is high on my TBR!

I love your selections and one of the best parts of your presentation is that you hold the title still while you are talking!

Your love for MiddleMarch is always wonderfully compelling Steve..Great to witness it yet again..

As always your videos are immensely enjoyable, now to watch the original video, here is my list, I really need to stay in more :) The Odyssey - A classic adventure story. if you ask 100 people to tell you a story set in the ancient world, the majority of them will be from the Odyssey. Antigone -This is just a fantastic play, it provoked questions from ancient audiences and perhaps it provokes different questions from modern audiences. It questions the role of women in society, whether man should follow religious teachings or state law, which comes first loyalty to your family or your country…… I could go on forever. Shappho’s Poetry - Sappho will show you that the inhabitants of the classical world were just people, like you or I, her poetry is timeless and beautiful,Sappho is the beating heart of the ancient world. Macbeth - In my opinion the most thrilling Shakespeare play, the tale of a King, a Queens and a country’s decent into madness - Banquo will forever be welcome at my table. The Lord of the Rings - A book that shaped the fantasy genre, dungeons and dragons, modern RPG video games, trace their history to the LOTR. War and piece - Tolstoy’s monologues become increasingly monotonous, everything else is brilliant. In Cold Blood - True crime, is perhaps one of those he most popular genres, this is the one that gripped me. The Prince - for all of the reasons Stephen had listed :) Dubliners - National Pride is at stake and an Irish author had to make my list, a great collection of short stories that captures Ireland at the tipping point between freedom and Empire, it should have been set in Cork :) The Trial by Franz Kafka - Any one who has ever had to deal with a university’s administration will feel right at home here. Pride and Prejudice- The archetypal romance novel, but one with Austin’s wonderfully sardonic sense of humour. Persuasion is also fantastic and depending on the day these two will flip flop. Wuthering Heights - Welcoming is not a word I would use to describe this novel, I think serves as a brilliant counterpoint to pride and Prejudice and is a brilliant doorway into the darker side of Victorian literature. Brave New World- while 1984 is perhaps the more famous piece of dystopian fiction, Brave New world is a better story in my opinion. While I love Orwell I would still probably recommend something like children of men over 1984.

Don Quixote - Greatest, most life-changing book I’ve ever read. I re-read it every January!

I so loved the Tanizaki book. Wonderful!

Inspirational stuff Steve, I've put the Tanizaki on my list. I'm reading The Enneads by Plotinus right now which if I remember correctly you once descried as "flapdoodle". I think I might be enjoying it more than you did 😄

Love your channel and your way of covering them. I wanted to say I had gastric bypass 15 years ago. Best thing I ever did for my health. God bless you on your healthy journey. My question is, where do you get your glasses? They are cute. Congratulations on 2000 dubs🎉

Why is there a picture of you on that cover of Pride & Prejudice?

I, CLAUDIUS is a wild ride. I read it for a book club once. Wowza. There are some evil deeds in there. Also, one year I read lots and lots of Edith Wharton--everything I could get my hands on. That, and Henry James. So much drama in both. I guess I was in a classics period.

Huzzah! My boy Bill Shakespeare gets some love. But Steve, o Steve, where did you find that cheesy cover for Pride and Prejudice?!

I read all of Jane Austen’s books in my 30s and because of reading contemporary Japanese literature I’m going to read the Makioka sisters. I’m not ready for some of the books that you mentioned but I have a house of birth by Edith Wharton on my shelf, Aloha

I’ve only read Pride and Prejudice of these but I very much want to get to the rest, especially the ancient works and Chaucer. I am reading Hamlet this month.

The Penguin Classics translation of Machiavelli is fantastic. Almost poetry. Have you read Sunzuu's Art of War? The Wordsworth Classic translation is the best I've found. Best wishes with your reading in 2024 and to your channel.

I'm glad you had at least one play on your list and humbly submit there should be more. Not just Shakespeare but Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, Aristophanes and Plautus. And in addition to Shakespeare, some Marlowe and Webster for the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. Some Restoration Comedies ( Congreve,and Vanbrugh, etc.) and then George Bernard Shaw and J.M. Barrie and Edmond Rostand. Of course we shouldn't omit Schiller and Goethe, and Ibsen and Strindberg. And coming back to modern times Eugene O'Neill and Bertolt Brecht. As a dramatist, and translator of dramas it troubles me that hardly any of the really fine Booktubers ( like yourself and M.K. Vaughan) who have broad knowledge hardly ever mention plays of any sort or description. As to your list, I would, in addition to dramas add some books of my own choosing. GREEK AND ROMAN Plato (Dialogues about Socrates, also the Symposium, & the Republic. Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics. Quintus Smyrnaeus The Troy Book Callimachos Poems Juvenal Satires. MIDDLE AGES AND RENAISSANCE Song of Roland (author unknown) Dante Boccacio Decameron Petrarch Africa, Sonnets. Machiavelli Commentaries on Titus Livy. Erasmus In Praise of Folly ENLIGHTENMENT and ROMANTICISM Diderot Rameau's Nephew, Jacques the Fatalist and his Master. Voltaire Candide Rousseau The Social Contract De Sade Justine Pope The Rape of the Lock Lord Byron Don Juan Fielding Tom Jones. Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo, Anthony !9th CENTURY Karl Marx The Communist Manifesto, Historical writings (the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Robert Browning Poems The Ring and The Book T. Hardy The Dynasts J. Verne The Voyage through the Impossible. 20th CENTURY American Thomas Wolfe Look Homeward Angel Albee Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf ? European Camus The Stranger Simenon Mysteries Curzio Malaparte Kaputt That's a lot more than 12 and I could add more. But that's enough. I've tried to keep the works limited to books that would interest a general reader, not just specialist.

Really enjoyed this video. And I got several reading recommendations out of it. Of your list, I've only read Hamlet and Frederick Douglass. And I picked up the Frederick Douglass book largely due to your recommendation (when you did it as one of your Daily Penguin videos a couple years ago.)

Great video! Thanks Steve! I've read at least half your choices, and love them. I just recently finished yet another reread of Hamlet., and after a lifetime of analysis and rereads, I still am enthralled! I guess I should finally read that Seutonius sitting on my shelf though. I also have Hercules My Ship mate sitting on the same shelf. Hmmm,c maybe that one too ( since I don't have The Argonautica?.

Great talk 😊

Just bought middlemarch last week, you’ve got me hype

Mainly just surprised that the Metamorphoses wasn't on here. Or did I just get distracted by Quinzel at that moment? She apparently didn't want me listening to this video, so there was a lot of skipping back and rewinding going on, but might still have missed things. Obviously some great recommendations here Steve, and I know that rule number two states that Steve is always right, so I bow to your objective assessments... However, in the favourite-but-evidently-not-best category, I'd rate Othello over Hamlet (love them both, but - come on! Othello is magnificent!), next I'd say no list of essential classics is complete without my favourite novel of all time (Frankenstein) - maybe that's just because I love horror and sci-fi so much, but I'd say it was easily one of the best novels ever written for endless reasons (I'm sure we'll discuss all of those over wine and calzones one day!). There's definitely no denying the majority of these, even the ones I haven't read yet have such a staggering reputation that they're must-reads... But a classics list in Dick10mber that doesn't include Hound Of The Baskervilles? Tut-tut... Lol

We had to read Chaucer at school, Nun's Priest's Tale... From the 12 I've only read Pride and Prejudice and Middlemarch for pleasure.

Pride and prejudice is still the best one. I go back to it often

I have read all the Greek plays this year and had great fun. Many are so entertaining and some funny. I intend to bread the histories in the Landmark series in 2023, if I manage to wait that long. I'm reading Plato's Republic currently, and have added your two suggestions to read before December. Genji is already on my to be reread list, as it is decades since I last read it. Chaucer is a great favourite, and is reread continually. It's great for dipping in and reading a single tale. I have a copy of Coghill, but prefer an original edition now.

Wonderful

Another way to understand Hamlet, or any Shakespeare, is to listen to a radio dramatisation.

I did much better with MKV’s choices: 9 out of 12. 6 out of 12 on your list. However, I’m organizing a group read of Middlemarch with Shawn D Steadfast in October on Voxer. So far a little over 12 and shown a nibble of interest.

Could you make a read-along of The Tale of Genji? I need all the help I can get with this one))))

I have a question for you that is based on a series of assumptions on my part. Due to the western allies fighting two World Wars against the Germans and a very bitter Cold War against the Soviet Union various German and Russian stories, books and authors have fallen out of favour. Even on stage the Nutcracker has been modified to appear more British or American colonial in some areas. (These are my assumptions rightly or wrongly, perhaps not as informed as they should be) Do you have a list of stories or books from German and Russian authors once thought of as must read classics that should return to the readings lists of Americans, Canadians and British and other ally nations?

I would have included Anna Karenina. After all, its the War and Peace of Russian literature. You might convince me to pick up Tale of Genjii someday.

Funny thing is, I'm really interested in ancient Rome, have enjoyed several books on it and enjoy ancient writing, but I don't really get why 12 Caesars is always recommended as a good entry point. I finally read it this year and found it super dull, to the point where I think it'd put most people off of reading ancient Roman writing. The lascivious stuff that most people go into it for is just a tiny sliver of the content. I think if someone isn't well-versed in what was going on around each Caesar, they won't get much out of it. I'm about to try Livy and hopefully that's a bit more interesting!

Can you recommend any good web sites to buy books other than amazon ?

More, please)

Hello! I've been enjoying your vids. I've got a question that's been growing inside me as I've been watching: Is the Brattle Bookshop merely the wonderful bookstore you once worked at, or is it ALSO the sort of "1 to a City" ** GEM** of a bookstore like the Strand to NYC , Powells to Portland, or Green Apple to SF?

Would you recommend any reading to prepare for George Eliot's Middlemarch?

Is that a Kindle? What model would you recommend?

No French books? C’est un scandale!

Oh that is a terrible cover for Pride & Prejudice. I'm horrified. But I especially like this video Steve, and I now think I need to read The Tale Of Genji.

all those romantic pictures reject me.womeni

Hiw about: in search of lost time? Or Madame Bovary, or Les Misérables ? Or The Divine Comedy ? Or Young Werther ? Your literary world is mostly bound by the English language.

today, we spend tons of money on educating blacks, and most of them barely graduate, and what passes for black intellectual thought is Kendi X. Frederick Douglas, like all great personalities, was an outlier. it's been forever since black community produced a first rate writer like baldwin.