Hey bookworms and literary classic lovers! After talking about a handful of classics I didn't care for, I thought it was only appropriate to discuss the greater majority of classics I did love. There are some "controversial" picks on here, so I've included the time stamps in the description if you'd prefer not to hear me gush about a particular book you find insensitive. I hope that helps! Thanks for watching.

Book banning is dangerous. When you allow a government to ban a certain book, you essentially allow them to ban ANY book, and it’s only a matter of time until they ban all books. Also on a side note: Dracula is effing amazing.

Count of Monte Christo is the best revenge story of all-time. There is no question about this. Fact

When reading a book, one has to always remember the time when it was written and take that into account. We should not ban or dismiss a book because of ideas we now consider problematic in 2020.

Linkin Park shirt is fire

I don't know about the rest of you fine folks, but I honestly don't care whether Mike likes or dislikes any particular book. What I love about Mike and why I come here is that he can articulate a nicely rational explanation for why he did or did not like the thing, and he does it objectively. That's so rare today it's godrotting superpower! So thanks Mike, for being cool like that.

FINE, I'll read Dune, Mike. You wore me down.

Don't be afraid to talk about classics!! Just because a group of elite, self-important academics enjoy cutting down real artists because they can't create anything themselves doesn't mean that normal, intelligent, adults, who understand context and nuance can't keep having important conversations.

please do the “books that made me cry”, that’ll be fun!

I really appreciate you voicing your opinion despite the whole “cancel culture” bs. Your the first booktuber I’ve come across that doesn’t dismiss a book bc of modern day controversy and I’m just like ugh FINALLY 🙌🏽

Reading the Count of Monte Cristo for the first time now. What a treat it has been.

I love that you don’t touch politics. That makes you the best booktube in my opinion

The Time Machine and 1984 are also two of my favorite. They make wonder "Where we headed as a race?" "Where are we going?" Awesome, awesome reads.

Great video! My top 5 classic books are: The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men, Tales of the South Pacific and Gulliver's Travels.

I absolutely love Gone With the Wind. Scarlett is my role model for her strength and gusto

I love the time machine and 1984 and the mountains of madness, 3 of my absolute favs. Such great stories!! You have great taste in books!

I love your videos Mike! I’ve been speeding through them ever since I discovered your channel several months ago. Classics are what transformed me into an avid reader and for the past couple years I’ve been on a shameless fantasy binge. Your videos have had major influence on my personal TBR list. Steinbeck is my all time favorite author with Sanderson being my current favorite fantasy author. A book I’ll recommend to everyone for as long as I have breath is Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. His prose is unparalleled in this beautiful coming of age story. It is one of the few books that has brought me to tears.

Great list Mike. I was actually surprised how many of them I've read.

That was fun! Lord of the Flies is also one of my favorite books of all time. Plan on reading some of these classics this year. Never been into classics but as I've gotten older I would like to read some of these before my time here is over. 😀 Thanks for some recommendations.

My favorite book of all time hands down is The Count of Monte Cristo. Ugh, my heart. I also love To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone With the Wind, and Dune. I'm new to your channel but am so glad I found it.

Mike, I've suspected it before but am now sure, we would be great friends if we ever met. Great list and thanks for sharing. To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite book and I had a similar experience to you; I had to read it for class and we were assigned chapter chunks to read but it was one of those that once I started I found it difficult to put down. The story just flowed so organically that I had to shove the rest of my homework aside and just keep going. Finished it in 2 sittings and it's the one book I've re-read the most (and yes it's going to come around again sometime soon). I have thoroughly enjoyed revisiting some classics that were assigned in school and discovering ones that weren't. Picked up Gone With the Wind for the first time a few years back and was surprised how much I loved it, and for a lot of the same reasons you did. Really enjoy your channel ✌️

High quality list. I own and enjoy many of these, and would be very interested to hear you talk about classics you love in the future, although I understand those videos might not be good for the algorithm.

I had to read Fahrenheit 451 in 9th grade and I loved it. It's one of my favorite books.

I am so glad this video of yours came up on KZfaq for me! Going to now go and check out your other videos! Love your bookcases btw! ❤📚

Great show! I love the classics. I've read most of these. Thanks.

Loved the Time Machine. So impressed by HG Wells, Jules Verne, Bram Stoker. Such imaginative well written books from a long time ago. War of the Worlds is one of my favorites as well. Great vid!

I don't get why so few people have read, or talk about Jack London's novels: "Whitefang" and "Call of the wild". Two of my all-time favorite stories, no doubt.

I personally agree that Scarlet O'Hara is a finely crafted, complex character, who is bratty and entitled, but is also incredibly persevering. She has will and strength, and loyalty that are impossible not to admire, while you also kind of hate her childish desire for things that she can't have and constant attempts at being the center of attention. The romance is also not a sugary soap opera, but a great exploration of the big and small mistakes people make every day. One of my favorite books.

First video I've watched on this channel, and I already subscribed! I love healthy and open conversation about books

Great list. F451 was the first "good" book I loved (7th grade) and was really turned me into a serious reader, and a sci-fi/fantasy reader. The only one of these books I was assigned in school was Lord of the Flies. When you described not liking all quiet on the western front my thought for a war book you'd like was slaughterhouse-five, so glad to see it on the list.

I think reading texts and watching films from the past not only provides an interesting insight into the mistakes of the past, but also show just how far we come, progressively. Not just in history, but in media as well. You can watch Casablanca or Gone with the Wind and still see why it’s considered iconic and get enjoyment from it, while acknowledging some of the dated flaws of it. I’m 20 (as of writing) and have watched Vertigo, while I enjoyed watching it with Hitchcock’s plot unraveling, it had some very creepy and somewhat manipulative undertones in the main characters relationship. Point being, you can still enjoy a piece of media while acknowledging its more heinous flaws.

The way you explain books make me want to read them.

FINALLY! A reviewer that loves- AND lists as #1 -"Gone With The Wind". You zoomed up to the top of my lists of great book reviewers. It's.an amazing period piece with layers and layers of great characters. Now, my friend...how about "Les Miserables"?? Unabridged of course! 😃

Amazing review of monte Cristo! Not a book I’d typically pick up, but now I’m intrigued! On my TBR list.

Great list you've made there, Mike. Varied & all quality reads.

Totally agree about Scarlet O'hara. Didn't like her, but admired her ability to get things done.

One of my fav things about the Count of Monte Cristo is the romance. It would have been so easy for Dantes to win back X (censored for spoilers), but instead Dumas takes the much more satisfying bittersweet route.

Great picks! I have read many and you have given me many to check out! Dracula is one of my favorites!

A great Count of Monte Christo science fiction re telling is The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester...a sci fi classic! Great list Mike.

Slaughterhouse-Five & 1984 have to be my favorite classics! I reread Slaughterhouse-Five a few months ago again and I’m still pulling new thoughts and themes from it.

I discovered Lovecraft as an adult, At the Mountains of Madness is probably his best work. Really recommend the audio book edition.

I think Scarlett O'Hara is my favourite character of fiction ever. Other top favourite classics for me would be Count of Monte Cristo, War & Peace (surprisingly easy read just very long), 1984, and The Count of Monte Cristo.

19k gonna happen! Way to go, Mike!

To Kill a Mockingbird Bird is my favorite book of all time. Actually live south of Monroeville that the town is based on. Reread it every year or so. Love it.

You picked 3 of my faves! I love Dracula, To Kill a Mockingbird and Gone With the Wind! I am against banning books and even worse - burning books!

I agree 100% on “Gone With The Wind”!!

Gone With The Wind. A favorite of mine!!! Love this whole list!!

So many of these books are books I truly dislike (or in the case of “Slaughterhouse Five,” really hate) but your reviews of all of them were absolutely accurate. I’ve read all of these and I’m with you, I think these are all outstanding exemplars of their respective genres even if they don’t appeal to me. In the case of “Dune,” however, it is an all time top ten book for me and I would love to see an entire video on it. I fell into the pro-Dune camp about ten years after it was released, when I was in my mid-teens and I have probably read it a couple of dozen times since then. It still blows my mind and I continue to find new insight each read. These days I read about three hundred books a year and trust me when I say, there are very few books with that kind of depth over time. “Dune” is everything and more.

Great list! A classic I really enjoyed that I didn’t see on your list is Catch 22. This book sat on my shelf for a while. When I finally picked it up, I almost put it back. When I started reading it, I thought it was a slog. It took me about 100-175 pages until I changed my mind and was so glad I had stuck with it. It turned out to be an amazing book. I was really invested in the characters. Definitely a classic that is worth a read. Just don’t give up if it starts off slow for you. You will be glad in the end. (I hope!)

My sister had to read To Kill a Mockingbird and she loved it so much, I read it when she was done and I NEVER read when I was a teenager. Great story. Loved your whole list. Haven't read all of these, but I loved all the ones I have read. And yes, Gone With the Wind is gold!

I love how you say the year of any book you mention❤️

Great Video! I love Frankenstein too. Another classic I love is Tarzan.

Hi started looking at KZfaq vids by readers as I found myself reading more than ever , haven't stopped reading for over a year now. Anyways just saying your vids in particular have been the most appealing so thanks for that and keep up the good work.

I just finished “Solaris” amazing classic sci fi with a brilliant take on the genre. I highly recommend if you haven’t read it

Hey Mike! Can't believe I just found your channel. I'm 2 yrs late to this video and I just wanted to say that I love Dune!! Read it when I was still in Highschool (not because it was required, mostly because I enjoy scifi) and have enjoyed it ever since. I'll sure be going through your backlog of videos.

Vonnegut! I went on a Vonnegut kick years ago. My personal favorite of his is Sirens of Titan.

Great list Mike. All of these books are must reads. Cant wait for October!

Great list. I need to reread many of those.

Nice selection with quite a few of my all time favourites 😊

Considering your list, I’m really surprised to not see Brave New World. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it. The long debate is BNW vs 1984, I’m a BNW guy. Huxley was just a genius overall and the predecessor to Orwell. Don’t judge it based on this upcoming show which will certainly blow.

*To Kill A Mockingbird* is probably my all-time favorite, but I adore *Frankenstein,* too. I recently picked up the 1818 edition which I'm excited to read. Also love *Dracula* and *The Haunting of Hill House.* I have *The Count of Monte Cristo* and *Gone With the Wind* on my shelf, but have yet to read either. Such a great list, thanks for sharing!

I would love to hear about your favorite time travel books. Anything involving time travel is a yes for me.

All great books and some are on my TBR. My favorite classic will always be Catch 22. There were some chapters in that book that made me burst out laughing and most books don’t usually have that effect on me. Also Pony Boy loved the Gone With The Wind so I think I’ll give it a shot one of these days. 👍

Because I've made a promise to myself to branch out a bit in 2022 and read at least one classic, and after much research, I've selected The Count of Monte Cristo! I've heard incredible things about this book and I'm really looking forward to it!

I think I prefer the classics you liked to the ones you didn't, I think the only main change I'd put between the lists would be to switch Huckleberry Finn or Fahrenheit 451 for The Catcher In The Rye. There are quite a few here I somehow haven't checked out yet, and this is a great reminder! Also, congrats on the 35K subs!

I have not read many classics but Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame has always stuck with me since I read it in high School. I have Les Miserables on my tbr list, love the Musical and have very high expections on the book. Crime and Punishment by Dostojevskij is another good one.

The count of monte cristo is my favorite book, so happy to see it on here

What a great list! My favorite classic is Pride and Prejudice but I love a lot of the ones you listed.

Im so happy that I came across your channel

My grandmother read Gone with the WInd before the movie came out, and was really excited when she heard there was going to be a movie. Later, when my mom was a kid, it was playing in a nearby theater. My grandmother said she would take her, but my mom had to promise to read the book. It took my mother the whole summer.

Fantastic list--and so pleased to see a classic in translation included among your picks! If you loved THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO you might want to read an earlier novel of Dumas's, GEORGES, which has some similarities to TCOMC but features a mixed-race protagonist and is set on the island of Mauritius (then Ile de France). Still tons of swashbuckling action (and a man wrestling an alligator!) as only Dumas could write it.

I have almost all of those and many of them I haven’t read yet. I definitely have a problem with buying books faster than I can read them, ha. Fahrenheit 451 was excellent! I have Something Wicked This Way Comes and October Country and I’m planning to read them along with Dracula and Haunting of Hill House in October. I recently picked up a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo and I’m excited to read that one. I’m currently reading Lies of Locke Lamora and The Blade Itself right now and their both pretty awesome! Great video, cheers!

in the mid 70s I read 1984 while playing the Paranoid album by Black Sabbath. A chilling combination!

I loved TKAM too. Here in the Memphis area, we read it in 9th grade. It was the first book I remember reading in AP English.

Great video!! Happy weekend reading to u!!

Count of Monte Christo is also my favourite classic, so glad to see it here! Such an easy and gripping read :)

Great list. Should read some of those books again. I have read these books for the last 20 years🤣

I had to read Lord of the Flies in 6th grade, and I'm convinced that is entirely too young to appreciate that book. Also. I FINALLY added Dune to my TBR. It'll be awhile before I get there, but it's there! I kept pushing back, but you've convinced me 😂

This is such a great list! I need some do some reading :)

Thanks so much for this video! Definitely looking at Gone with the Wind (totally agree with you on Scarlet, even though I have only seen the movie) and The Count of Monte Christo (loved the Musketeers books when I was in my teens), but others will be making their way to my TBR-long-list. I also agree on your view of Dune. I saw the miniseries, then read the books, when I was just starting to read as an adult. That helped me though the tougher bits in the books. Maybe, for some, this might be a case where you should see the movie first, then, if you liked it, start on the books. If you are just looking for a 'good yarn', that is not your book. And the first book is not a standalone. It is the first part of a greater story.

Loud hurrahs for Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird! I felt there was even higher praise you could've given aspects of the former, and the latter may literally be a perfect novel. I could type on for paragraphs, but won't. Enjoyed the vid.

Damn, when you said most people had read the abridged version of CoMC I raised my eyebrows and ran to my shelf, looked over my copy and, alas! It has indeed been *butchered!* Under 600 pages - is that like, half the content? I suppose it's a good thing I haven't read it yet, I was buying all sorts of classics from used book stores years ago and never thought to look for that sort of thing - I suppose it's just to assign to students below it's reading level (or who aren't interested). My Frankenstien had this done to it also, and I didn't notice till years after had consumed and fell in love with it, apparently I haven't _really_ read Frankenstien after all! I guess I can look forward to fixing that. Glad you're covering Dracula and Lovecraft this October, I was planning to finally read those then myself.

This is great a list. To Kill a Mockingbird is my number one novel. I'm always surprised when people say they haven't read it. It was also the number one book in PBS's The Great American Read, getting the most votes and never leaving top spot. Only two books in my life have made me cry TKaM and Flowers for Algernon.

'Far From the Madding Crowd' by Thomas Hardy is a book worth reading as an adult, not when they make you at school. It has complex characters and the most extraordinary prose. Speaking of which, 'The Long Goodbye' by Raymond Chandler. If you've never read that you only know the many sad parodies of it. The original is breathtaking.

Hi Mike, just recently discovered your channel and been really enjoying your videos. This is my first time commenting, but I thought I'd have a go at my favourite 14 classic books (non-fantasy so no Lord of the Rings) in no particular order... 1 - Bleak House (Charles Dickens), 2 - The Count Of Monte Cristo (everything you said and more!), 3 - Gormenghast & Titus Groan (Mervyn Peake - but wouldn't include the 3rd book in the trilogy), 4 - HP Lovecraft - any decent anthology of his best work, 5 - E. A. Poe (ditto), 6 - Sot Weed Factor (John Barth), 7 - I Claudius & Claudius The God (Robert Graves), 8 - The Once & Future King (T H White), 9 - Sherlock Holmes - Complete Stories (A. Conan Doyle), 10 - The Trial (Kafka), 11 - Dracula (Stoker), 12 - Don Quixote (Cervantes), 13 - The Moonstone or The Woman In White (Wilkie Collins - couldn't decide between them), 14 - P. G. Wodehouse - any Jeeves and Wooster book. That unfortunately left no room for some of my favourite classic SF - War of the Worlds, Foundation Trilogy, day of the Triffids, and horror - Something Wicked This way Comes. BTW just coming to the end of The First Law trilogy - absolutely loving it - where to go next? All the best, Peter

Lord of the flies is a dark but excellent book.

Love your channel! Do keep posting more videos!

The Count of Montecristo is a true masterpíece. It is so big but it reads so easily, that the size simply is not there. It is fluent, it is also a good history lesson, and it is just so entertaining and inspiring also. And it goes beyond revenge because it also shows how these evil characters, at least one of them, also brought evil to themselves from their own actions, not all coming from Edmundo Dantes...

I love Dune! It's one of my favourite books! I only got through a third of the first book before I had to return it to the library but I could tell it was something special. I pledge here today that I will finish Dune...eventually.

I read like you do: I’ll give it 3 tries before I give up. Right now on my 2nd attempt at Earth Abides. I love your analysis of Gone With The Wind. If you love The Count of Monte Cristo, have you read Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination?

some great books! my TBR keeps growing lol

I went to school in Germany and I read To Kill a Mockingbird in the Advanced English Course. It was one of those exceptions, where you're forced to read something, but you absolutely love it. But my #1 classic novel would be The Count of Monte Christo everytime! Unabridged version goes without saying. When I went out and bought, it started raining and the book got really wet, but I love it all the more for it.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was assigned when I went to Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield, VA. To Kill a Mockingbird had been assigned when I went to Francis Scott Key Intermediate School in Springfield, VA. I did The Time Machine for a book report at Key.

really excited to dive into the Dune universe when I get the chance sometime (hopefully) in the next year or two.

I'm reading Frankenstein now and it's super hard to read but I'm enjoying the overall story.

The Iliad and The Odyssey translated by F. Scott Fitzgerald make the top of my classics list. Some Shakespeare as well. Jane Austen even.

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu is a vampire book that heavily inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It is good and only 60-something pages.

I've always considered dune a fantasy for scifi fans but your description actually brought me round to your perspective. I still find the inner dialogue for every single character in every single scene completely maddening though. Also LMAO at you getting assigned a 1500 page book for school

Wow, great list! I really need to read Gone with the Wind. In the last couple months, I’ve read War of the Worlds by HG Wells (3 Stars) and Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather (5 Stars).

that time stamps thing was a great idea!