I love your enthusiasm for books (actual, physical books), and literature. I stumbled upon your channel while looking for material on Crime and Punishment, which I'm currently rereading. Glad to have found you!

Hi, great video. I don’t normally comment on videos. But I find your channel so inspiring. It was able to convince me, after years of neglect, to read the classics. I always doubted the nourishment you could get from literature , ,being a maths student myself, but you proved me otherwise . I’m currently reading the picture of Dorian Gray. This channel is very underrated . But I kind of like the fact that it’s smaller and personal.

I love your videos so much! I'm in my early 20s and I didn't really read outside of coursework till I was out of highschool. I started reading a few years ago and I'm so glad I've found your channel now as it has really inspired me to read more and read better. I always used to think the classics were these boring books and wondered why for the life of me I couldn't remember much about the lastest booker prize YA fiction that I had just finished and I think I know the reason now lol. Thankfully, you have introduced me to so many new nooks and crannies of literature. Looking forward to more of your amazing videos. P.s. - I really love these haul videos and the vlogs too where you just talk about books and reading. They are a nice contrast to the lectures (love those too). ❤️

Thanks for sharing your newest additions to the shelves! The Italo Calvino book sounds interesting and love that you’re feeling a bond to it within just the first few pages, will be curious to hear your final thoughts on it as well. Always makes me smile to see more Everyman’s Pocket Poets editions, I just received the Percy Shelley edition and figured I would read it while we are working on Frankenstein too. Little bit of reading love for the entire Shelley family. That Bewitched edition looks gorgeous and perfect for this time of year. I had not seen that one yet. I will be excited to hear your thoughts on the Books and Libraries edition too, I have that on pre-order as well. Counting down the days :) Thank you for another wonderful video, Ben!

It's so beautiful listening to you and what you have to say about all these wonderful readings. I simply love it. Thank you, thanks to you and your enthusiasm for literature I have started to read again. Many blessings for your teachings. I came across your channel while looking for material on troy and one of the books that have intimidated is the illiad and the Odyssey and the main one War and peace. Thanks to you, I started reading the illiad. My hat off to you Sir.

Hello :) I could listen to you talking about books forever, I save your videos and keep listening to them when I need to calm. You sound as genuine man and a fellow pieces as you say. I hope your channel grows so big, and get all the luck.

I love watching your videos so much! I love listening to someone who is even more obsessed with literature than I am. Amazing!

Mr Benjamin i want to express my deepest gratitude to you and your videos as you have opened a new threshold of books I never thought I will fall in love with literature as I have been a fan of non fiction for some time......looking forward to join the patreon. Thanks once again.... your book discussion has immensely and positively impacted my life in ways I never thought.

I love this book haul :) I've read half of the mirror and the lamp in my high school's library and had to drop it because I graduated. Your video made me want to pick it up after so long a pause. By the way I am so glad that you are enjoying Holderlin! I read his Bread and Wine once and I immediate fell in love with his style. He was amazing

I like your promotion of re-reading the classics. Sometimes when you read a book the first time around, you have difficulty focusing on it or you just don’t see the attraction. A second read years later can bring you closer to understanding what makes the book great,or at least a better understanding of why you don’t like it the first time. Another reason to reRead a book is you did like and want to enjoy again. I did this with T H whites “the once and future king”. It was so meaningful now that I am 70. I read the first time at 17 and again in my 30s. Great book.

Really enjoyed this haul. I always receive inspiration from you and my classics tbr is growing but there's just not enough hours to read all I want. One day I'll hopefully get to read all of my tbr and want to reads.

Hi Ben, so glad I came across your channel, my friend. Excellent stuff! I was wondering what you thought of Honore de Balzac?

Finally! A book haul I can get excited about!

Glad to see Zola's Rougon-Macquart series there - I have all twenty volumes in the Oxford Classics edition and can't recommend it enough. Every volume has its own 'flavour'!

Benjamin, I love you!

Hi, Benjamin! Greetings from Russia) I'm so happy, I found your channel)) you won't believe, but because of you now I re-read Crime and Punishment ( I have read it in school for the literature lessons about 10 years ago) and I thought I would never re-read no book of Dostoevsky😂 and because of your videos I felt like "shame on you, you read it any time you want in Russian, so go and do this" 😂😂 so I went and bought a new beautiful edition) and I'm going to start reading Hardy) thanks a lot for sharing your love to classics with us)

A long and in-depth Everyman haul will be nice!

Love the whole re-read concept. I know Harold Bloom is a fan. Deep reading is where It's at. Lots want to find ways to speed read through everything whereas I'm with you in that I prefer to sit with a big book for a month straight if i have to as long as I really take in every single period of it and comprehend it through and through.

I am reading classics and biographies in 2022. You have given me some classics to add to my list. Great video.

Since I started non vocalisations my reading has rocketed absolutely loving it ,really getting the you tubers enthusiasm

You read all of my very favorite books. I just wish I could speak and write about books with the same eloquence and knowledge that you speak and write. Frankenstein and Tess are most favorites. But I also love Emerson and Thoreau. And I love everything I've read by Henry James, including The Turn of The Screw. The only one I have read by Molliere is Tartuffe and I thought was hilarious! I loved how he used comedy to pass some very important criticism on hypocrisy. I would love to read more by all of these writers, and even more to reread them with better understanding. I would also love to read some other authors you mentioned here, like D.H Laurence or Calvino that I haven't read yet, but I've been wanting to read them for a long time.

Excellent haul, Ben. Books I recently bought are: 1. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey 2. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence 3. Orlando by Virginia Woolf 4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 5. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro 6. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - I bought the Everyman’s Library Classics edition, after seeing your collection on here. 😆 I’m really looking forward to reading The Idiot. I finished reading Crime and Punishment at the beginning of September, and it’s certainly one of the best books I’ve ever read.

I have had a very busy October and it's finally eased up so I am getting to seeing all your videos today...and they just energise me and make me smile...talk to myself out loud....and talk to you whilst watching the videos as if you were in the room....lol...clearly I have missed your channel. I spent October doing the Victober book challenge and I got to read really wonderful Victorian books that I have never read before. I had a challenge of five books but alas I have only finished two which were both long... Elliots Daniel Deronda and Trollopes The way we live now. I really enjoyed both and especially the Elliot it was such an important book and so cutting edge for that time. I really related to Gwendolyn Harleth which made me think that I must be so shallow but the characterization was superb. Highly recommend both to classic literature readers.

Still loving your channel! I read The Crucible (for the first time) recently, directly after Crime & Punishment (for the first time). I found them interesting companion pieces - individual vs group morality. What do you think? Also, more prosaically, I've always avoided reading more than one book at once. It seems you have many on the go at once. I'd be really interested on a video with tips on how to engage with multiple books at once...if you have the time or inclination! Greetings from Aus.

new bookshelf tour please. your collection is so beautiful

I love "haul"ing from the "thrift" or "second-hand"type stores. 1 or 2 dollars a title in many cases, here in northern California. I'm always trying to re-find books I lost or lent(gave)away along the years. I got the Modern Library edition of Walt Whitman, LOG in perfect cond. for 2$ yesterday. Modern Library eds. are so cool. with dustcover.Peace out.

I did read Stacey Schiff Witches book. I love anything witchy … It wasnt an easy read but I didn’t give up. And that was before I even joined your club and gained even more stamina :)

Hello, Benjamin, I'm new to your channel, and have just recently decided to comment on some of the literary books that you and others review. I notice that you picked up some of Zola's Rougron series. I've only read as novels Nana and Pot Bouille both of which are excellent. I particularly liked Pot Bouille which is, I think, vastly underrated. I've also read and translated some plays based on Zola's works by W. Busnach a professional playwright and by Alfred Bruneau who was a friend and disciple of Zola. Busnach adapted very successfully Nana, Pot Bouille, L'Assamoir, and Germinal. In addition he did The Ladies Paradise, and several others which have never been published. I'm hoping they will be so I can get my hands on them. Bruneau adapted The Attack on the Mill as an opera. The libretto which Gallet and Bruneau worked on was very faithful to the story and works well as a play, in my opinion. A very powerful story. Zola was himself a playwright and his own adaptation of Therese Raquin was excellent, but too strong for most audiences of the time. It's a sort of Crime and Punishment, French style and equally powerful. Although Zola believed himself a scientific naturalist the reason he remains popular is that his works usually contain a plot that is highly melodramatic and gripping. His works are easy to adapt.

I think you should like "The Fortune of the Rougons" because it is easier to read than any other books from Zola's serie (in France, students generally must read "L'Assomoir" and it's very difficult because there are many and long descriptions of places where workers lived). This is a real good choice ;)

Okay, I'm going to read Clarissa, you have mentioned it several times.

I've made a few book hauls mostly because I'm rebuilding my library which was largely lost when my parents divorced though I do have some books I was able save

I was just going over the list of books I read this year and realized how badly I don't only want but need to re read some of them. Great haul, I love the comments on the editions. Personal favorite was Calvino because I LOVE HIS WORK! A favorite. I got Cranford, Wuthering Heights, The Tempest (the Arden edition on your recommendation!) and Winter (Ali Smith) this month.

I call it rolling in my books when I get a bunch, spread them around me on the floor, then enjoy their covers, illustrations, and tables of contents.

I recently discovered penguin pocket poems! I love them so much! How funny you got the Halloween bewitched one! I was just gazing at it on Amazon! Moving right now though so no buying anything! Lol but I’m loving all the collections! I like collections that have different poets of a similar theme! Versus collection of poems by one poet. I’m basically new to poetry and like to taste test different poets I’m not sure what I like yet.

I love how you speak.. would love to hear you recite poetry

I love the idea of surrounding oneself with books and dipping into them! I do that with fiction books, but it would work better with poetry i'm sure. Recently started reading on a Kindle, there was some stuff i was planning to purchase in December (the next time i can afford it) but then i saw that i could read them for free right away by borrowing them. A true crime series, and some Splatterpunk, extreme horror. Base sensationalism. I plan on collecting all of Cormac McCarthy physically however, of all the authors i'm into now, he could be the one you'd most feel inclined to read or appreciate. Also of note is a book on Nietzsche by Pierre Klossowski. I saw that Library of America recently included some Moliere translations, i'm considering getting their Flannery O'Connor volume. Happy Halloween readings :)

Also one day I was in the heights (If you know what i mean) and was debating on what to read next, decided to give The Rainbow's first page a shot and i had to stop everything and kept reading for hours on straight... The writing was mesmerizing.

Thought you might find this interesting in a "some degrees of separation" kind of way ... I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I graduated in French/Spanish/German, and Arthur Miller graduated from Michigan as well...He retained strong ties to our alma mater, and is revered by many of us...There even is an Arthur Miller Theater on campus...Want more random associations? My son performed in "The Crucible," and my fourth great-grandmother was jailed as a witch in Salem! There! That's all I've got!😆

Re: Holderlin. I would urge you to check out the Penguin volume containing his essays and letters if you can obtain it. The letters in particular are wonderful. I was profoundly moved by them.

Your view of book hauls is 100% accurate.

Just been reading Daniel Daronda. Really good book. I think George Eliot is probably my favourite Victorian novelist. Been reading Tom McCarthy's The Making of Incantation and Richard Powers Bewilderment. Both excellent. Just started reading The Magician by Colm Toibin a fictionalised account of the life of Thomas Mann. Thinking of reading some Thomas Ligotti next week for Halloween. Just been on a book unintentional book haul this morning. Went into town just wanting to buy Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison and ended up buying Edna O'Brien's The Little Red Chairs, The Passenger by ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown and age of Anger by Pankaj Mishra as well. as well as The Rainbow Women in Love is also a good D H Lawrence novel.

Haven’t watched yet but I’m excited to after class.

Can you please do a vlog on Robert Musil, “ the man without qualities “

I love book hauls because they so often draw my attention to books that I did not know of. Books I've recently bought are 1 - Somehow Crystal by Yasuo Tanaka. 2 - Mozart, The Reign of Love by Jan Swafford. 3 - An event perhaps: A biography of Jaques Derrida by Peter Salmon. 4 - A Liars Dictionary by Eley Williams. 5 - An Accidental Bookseller: A personal memory of Foyles by Bill Samuels. 6 - Listening to Stanley Kubrick: The Music in his Films by Christine Lee Gengaro. 7 - Music from the earliest notation to the sixteenth Century: The Oxford History of Western Music by Richard Taruskin.

RE Molière...In French a final E without an accent is usually silent...ergo, the author's name is "Mole-ee-AIR"... As for "Rougon-Macquart"...pronounced "Roo-gohng (and to be most accurate, say "gong", but stop before the back of your tongue rises to make the second hard g sound) ..."Macquart = Mah-CAHR" ... End of French lesson...😄 Sheila (AKA Madame P)

How many pages do you read an hour?

You pronounced Hoelderlin rather well!

take off the dust jacket. Pumpkin orange is too beautiful to hide.

Difficult to imagine you being misanthropic but there’s more in a man than his public appearance.