20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is in my top 3 favorite novels of all time. And I adore Captain Nemo. We all enjoy different books, and that’s a good thing! 😄

My particular taste: 0:44 - Time Machine - Love it and continue to love it, read it in Spanish and English 4:29 - The Black Tulip - I was underwhelmed. Read it in french and that did not changed the experience. 7:40 - Hard Times - Plodding, hard to finish, read it in Spanish. I do not want to read it in English. 11:09 - 20,000 Leagues - Genius. I read it in french 14:23 - Last of the Mohicans - Hate it. Read it in Spanish 18:45 - The Trial - I got terrified. I loved it but could not read it again. Good to catch PTSD for me. In Spanish 23:00 - Sense and Sensibility - I enjoyed every page. Read it in English. So elegant prose. 26:53 - The Age of Innocence - Not read it yet. 31:06 - Hound of the Baskervilles - After 10 times, I stop counting the times I got back to this fantastic book. Real Genius. 35:30 - Titus Andronicus - Have not read it yet. Cheers

Age of Innocence is one of my all time favorite books. It’s about a dying society trying to preserve its antiquated rules. In addition, Wharton’s writing style is exquisite. All her stories deal with important topics. Don’t let the beauty of her writing obscure her dead on observations of decay and mutability of society. I read almost all her fiction novels and am amazed that under the gentility and flouncy costumes, there is a laser steal edge of observation of unwelcome reality. Age of Innocence has a cruel core under the depiction of privilege.

Tristan thank you so much for your content. You are an absolute JOY!! You have become my favorite booktuber!! All of your content is so genuine, sincere, enjoyable, and honestly funny. All the while I educating me and making me a better human. Thank you so much. ☺️

You had me cracking up throughout this video. It was so refreshing to hear your honest comments on these classics. So glad you made this video. Good job! 😄

This was brilliant, Your honesty is so refreshing. But then, pretension is not your style, which is why I am a subscriber. I also enjoy your humor. Thank you for your channel. Best wishes. 🇺🇸🇺🇸

My mother used to read us Sherlock Holmes before bed. As a child The Hound of the Baskervilles was my favourite. I still love it.

I have been trying to read Moby Dick for 50 years 🙄I'm nearly half way. I hope I make it before I die 😂

I’ve read most of these and have similar thoughts on many. I think what you say is correct. These aren’t inherently bad works; they just don’t work for you. Whether it’s plot or pacing or theme or character or writing style, we all react to art differently. I love the idea that we can honestly come to a different conclusion and both be “right” in our own individual taste. I think it’s important to try out different genres and time periods and authors to better know what we like and why because that experience of merely finding one’s own taste is growth. And I think this type of video - “negative” as some may think it - is helpful. Sometimes we can know someone better by knowing what they dislike as much as knowing what they do like.

As a German who studied literature I have read The Trial several times. I didn't like it the first time but now I adore it. I think you can't appreciate it when you are looking for a whole, rounded story but have to read it scene by scene. Kafka is always better this way. When you read it that way you can see in every sentence and every scene what a genius he was. The last sentence of The Trial (in most editions) is one of the best closing sentences I have ever read.

You make me want to read eadith Warton now for the ending 😂😂😂😂😂 thank you x

I love Hound of the Baskervilles because of the atmosphere of Baskerville. It's my favourite of Sherlock Holmes.

Mark Twain wrote a beautiful send up of James Fenimore Cooper. It mentions several things that make no more sense than the box of matches you mentioned. He also hated the flowery prose. And the essay was so funny, our little teacher had trouble reading passages to us in High School because he couldn’t keep from laughing at all the wonderful barbs.

Jules Verne and HG Wells were cutting edge for their time. I also got hung up on the 800,000 year old matches just sitting there. That would be like touring some old ruin of an abbey and finding an old bottle of wine or a quill or something. Except way more impossible. But it makes me think of Andy Weir’s The Martian--someday a third grader on a moon colony will read that and say “NO WAY potatoes can grow in that environment! Sheesh, do they think we’re stupid?” And THANK YOU for giving me permission to not like some of the books I’m supposed to like! It’s like I’m embarrassed to tell people.

Sense and Sensibility was her first published novel. Northanger Abbey was her first completed novel, but published posthumously. Pride and Prejudice was a rework of an epistolary novel. So Sense and Sensibility was the first she thought ready for publication.

Breaking my heart with "The Age of Innocence", but I get it, it could use more pages.

Well, this was loads of fun to watch! 😅 The biggest blasphemous one for me on here is The Hound of the Baskerville. I loved it and the whacked out dog. That being said, the way you bashed these great works still made them sound fascinating. I can't wait to read 20,000 Leagues and The Last of the Mohicans now. 😂

The Trial became the sentence for me personally.

Oh, wow ... thank you for the comments on "Time Machine," "Hard Times," "20,000 Leagues," "Sense and Sensibility." I've always felt bad about how much I dislike them. When you pulled out the Sherlock Holmes collection and explained it would be one story, I said to myself: "Oh, Tristan. Please say 'Hound of the Baskervilles.' Please. Please. Please." And .... boom. I HATE that story so much because I was expecting a GOOD Sherlock Holmes reveal and this one was just horrid. I loved the point you made that many "classics" are only described that way because of the writer. Oh, and yes to more of the bear thing with "Last of the Mohicans" (which was another blah for me, too).

Uh-oh, you did risk much mentioning Sense and Sensibility, a favorite of mine. I’m still subscribed, though! Love to hear your takes. By the way, a” Sense and Sensibility in five minutes” performed by you would definitely be a lot of fun! 👍

I'm relatively new to following your channel, and this gave me such a good giggle. I majored in English Lit and enjoyed your thoughts here so much, and yes... I do love Sense and Sensibility but also see your point.😂 It's not my favorite work by Austen either! (Persuasion is my favorite.) I agree that we can appreciate a work without personally liking the story. Can't wait to continue backtracking through the videos you've shared.😄

Age of Innocence totally put me off Edith Wharton. Somewhat surprising because I seem to remember enjoying Ethan Frome. Love your videos though, Tristan!

I love Hound because I enjoy the gothic atmosphere and touch of the supernatural. I wish Conan Doyle had written more stories with those elements in them. I don’t care as much for the realism and the technical details in Sherlock Holmes, although I appreciate that they provide a solid framework for the stories that keeps them from becoming typical Victorian melodrama and cheap thrillers.

I loved your Mohican in 5 min with the high-viz jacket 🤣. I actually devoured the Leatherstocking stories when I was about 13. Haven't been able to re-read them since, though. There is a certain sweet feeling of disappearing into an adventure which I remember from reading as a teen. Too much adventure was not possible then. I kind of miss that. I'd like to hear more about appreciating vs enjoying.

I really like that you are willing to share what your least favorite books are on KZfaq. As an American though I love the Last of the Mohicans. Great story. I prefer the movie of Hounds of the Baskervilles the book version is okay. Great video!! Please do a video like this on your other channel?

I adore the trial (my favorite novel so far, but I haven't read that much yet), although I think it's important to have in mind that it's an unfinished work, that's why it feels so abrupt at times

I'm currently reading 'Shirley' by Charlotte Bronte and feel the same way you do about Sense and Sensibility.

Please do a video on Sense and Sensibility! Im reading it right now.

I just stumbled upon your channel and I like the way you discuss the books very much. Finally, you seem to be a real Englishman bc I can't hear any accent or, in other words, you speak the "Oxford English" that we were taught at school. I can understand your english very well (german), I enjoy your voice and style. I personally like most of Verne's works as well as H.G. Wellses books, my inner mindset is 'the more absurd the better' here. All of Jane Austens novels are a really hard read for me, I am afraid I don't quite understand her and think it may be more for women to read and enjoy Austen...(?!) Simply put, you got a new subscriber. All the best from Leipzig, Germany 0

😆 I love both "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" and "Hound of the Baskervilles." Sometimes where I'm at in life makes a difference in how a book impacts me. "The Day of the Jackal" greatly influenced my reading preferences as a young adult and forward in life. I've been reticent (read there 'afraid') to reread it lest it not captivate me the way it once did.

I was with you the whole way until you mentioned Hound of the Baskervilles. That one hurt, you may have heard me crying. 😆 It's one of my favourites. But I know you are a fan of Sherlock as we just read him in the Patreon group so I can forgive you this time. 😄 Great video!

I can certainly appreciate the fact that not everyone likes one book or another. If we all liked the same thing, life would get borong.

Enjoying your video while having afternoon coffee.....I love the Hound!!!😅 Sence and Sensibility I also enjoy.

Yes! I am half way through sense and sensibility and keep waiting for it to get good to find out why everyone loves it and I am just struggling! I loved Jane Austens Northanger Abby so I had such high hopes.

Tristan...I love this video. Have you thought about doing a Shakespeare ranking of all of his plays? Thank you for the great content. Love ya!

I live near Dartmoor and it is a very atmospheric place, with legends that Conan Doyle was told by his friend that he was staying and with used to make Th Hounds of the Baskervilles. If you stand on the moor on an evening when the mist comes down you can't see more than a foot or two. My grandfather was driving his lorry across the moor from Plymouth to Exeter and the mist came down and h❤e couldn't see the edge of the narrow road so he drove of road. When he got out in the morning, the first set of steering wheels was floating in the bog, and the second set was all that was all that was preventing his 4 axle rigid from sliding into the bog. A skeleton of one of the moorland cattle was floatin a yard or two away from his cab. So yes, I can both appreciate and love th tory, but realise few of us like all of a writers works. So well done Tristan, for admitting what most book lo ers know, that you can't like everything, even with the classics.

I'm not a fan of Little Women. I know, I can hear the gasps. It's even worse because I'm an American. I think the book is fine, but you won't ever find it on my favorites list or even my liked a lot list

*stunned into silent horror* HG Wells the time machine is one of my all time favourites..... 😂 We all have our own tastes and happily so

I haven't read The Black Tulip yet, but I did read another more obscure Dumas novel called "The Knight Of Maison Rouge" which is pretty much the opposite of what you decribed. The first half was pretty unremarkable but the writing greatly increased in quality towards the end. The main character is a young man who's a French revolutionary officer in 1793 Paris. When he encounters a mysterious women at night, he immediately falls in love with her. He discovers where she lives and regularly visits her and her husband over the next few months. Gradually it's revealed that these people are royalists who are conspiring with the mysterious Knight Of Maison Rouge, who is in love with queen Marie Antoinette and wants to free her from her prison. Of course, the main character is torn between his romantic feelings and his political beliefs. All of this felt pretty dry and generic to read and a lot of elements reminded me of Dumas' two most famous works, but in a less interesting execution. However, about two thirds into the book, something happens which changes the relations between the main characters, and from there on the quality of the writing keeps increasing to become one of the most intensely emotional bits of literature I've ever read with some incredibly beautiful lines. It's as if Dumas suddenly remembered that writing isn't supposed to be assembly work and that he actually has to touch his audience.

Are you aware that Dumas used assistants to write a good deal of his texts, in much the same way that Patterson does today? That might explain the change in the book you talked about.

Thank you!!! I feel validated. "Hard Times" was the first Dickens I ever read. It was summer reading for my Freshman year of High School. I was put off for years.

I've tried to read Wuthering Heights three times. I usually get about half way through when I toss the book aside again. There are so many things right about the book, but I can't stand Heathcliff and Cathy. Such unlikable characters. I just couldn't give a toss if they lived or died.

Tristan, I completely agree with you about two of your least favorites and for the same reasons. Sense and Sensibility was the second of Jane Austin’s books that I read, the first being Emma. I was completely bored with S & S but I went on to read all of the others. They were all so wonderful, I tried a second and then a third time to read it again but just could not finish it. The other is Hound of the Baskervilles. What a letdown it was after reading A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four. It just doesn’t fit with any of his other magnificent stories. I am new to your channel and wonder if you have reviewed Lost Horizon. It’s one that continues to come to mind and I would have to say it’s on my “Favorites” list. Not sure it would be considered a classic.

Jane Austen (to me) is a hard read. Mark Twain is a hard read. So is Willie Shakes. By hard read, difficult to smoothly glide over the words. Dickens is hard too. I spend a lot of time reading Agatha Christie, John Grisham, Stephen King & Sherlock Holmes (Doyle). I can have respect for the classics & my fav is Count of Monte Cristo. But sometimes you want a nice escape read instead of a struggle.

Great video. Comes to show how shockingly different tastes could be. I was shocked by seeing a Dickens, an Austen, and a Kafka novel on such a list. And while I'd agree, that Sense & Sensibility is perhaps Austen's least accomplished novel, I find it a bit harsh to see it on a dislike list. There are Literature Nobel laureates, who could only dream they'd write a book as good as Sense and Sensibility. Hard Times and The Trial I simply can't agree with, but that's okay. To me, those are masterpieces.

A Study in Scarlet is the Holmes story that drives me crazy. The part of the story that is the flashback just took me out of the story and I was never able to recover from it.

Loved it, not entirely sure about few books, still huge like and waiting for more videos!

I totally agree about The Hound of the Baskervilles! I read it in sophomore year in high school and thought it was the most ridiculous drivel that now, 50 years later, I still feel the aggravation I felt back then. I do disagree on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. I loved it. The Austen that I didn’t like was Northanger Abbey. I understand what Austen was doing, but I couldn’t get into it at all. Also, I couldn’t make any progress with Last of the Mohicans. I also found the movie unwatchable which shocked friends with crushes on Daniel Day Lewis!

Oh no I literally just picked up The Black Tulip! 😂 Also, I agree with you on Marianne. I adore Austen but I want to shake Marianne and tell her to get it together!

You should rather say which Sci-Fi you like!--- In fact I read both H. G. Wells' Time Machine and Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea when I was teenager and I was mesmerized by them to the point that I was encouraged to go read more realistic literature such as War and Peace where I discovered a new universe. As for the Kafka's Trial, it is exactly the absurdity and irrationality that create the theme of the novel and create Kafkaesque style.

When T says skip it, gotta respect! Only read The Trial--intriguing and memorable on 1st reading and underwhelming on areread 20 years down the road.

Really enjoyed this episode! I love the Kate Bush song Wuthering Heights but sadly the book not so much 😟

Kafka's Trial was so difficult read for me. Don't know if It was the translation though. But I remember bit where I finally got drawn to the story...and then the chapter suddenly ends with a remark that chapter was unfinished by author and I got so angry I almost burned the copy in midsummer bonfire.

I love Time Machine and Hound of the Baskervilles. Have reread the latter multiple times, not something I do for many books. The Sherlock novel I like less is The Sign of Four. Talk about unrealistic! All the treasure hunting just for an extended flashback. I do love Mary Morstan becoming Watson's wife, but never liked the twin brothers or Jonathan Small or any of the rest of it particularly. Hound, on the other hand, has an incredible amount of moving pieces, all used in the course of the solution, and is a gothic novel and also a science novel and also a mystery. Yeah, the half brother thing isn't totally convincing, but hey, it's so much fun up until then.

This was great. Would anyone else like to see Tristan list the classics he thinks are perfect and why?

I would love a full-length video on Sense and Sensibility!! Or any/all Austen novels. I feel like I’m a terrible person because I just don’t like any of them even though I want to 😂 except Emma. That’s the only one that has resonated with me. I think something must be missing in my reading/appreciation

@Tristanandtheclassics, Brilliant 👏👏👏 You made me laugh so much with H.G.Wells and his matches 😂😂😂 then I realized that it never dawned on me; mind you, I was about fourteen at the time ! Black Tulip: reminded me of Hugo's digressions eg: sewers of Paris in LM and architecture of Paris and it's various buildings in THiNG 😴😴 Hard Times: Read it but cannot remember a thing about the novel ! Captain Nimo made me cringe in 20,000 LutS. TLotM:I remember giving it up when I was 14 years old and never tried to read again. Trial: couldn't understand why it was so long...why this, why that ,who is this, who is that ? I got to a point half way and told myself it must be a nightmare ( and mine to read) ! Why did Kafka find it funny ? S&S: I also loved JA because of P&P, but this novel had let me down ;not as much as Mansfield Park. I am planning to re-read her last three novels hoping that I have more taste now than when I was in my mid-teens. Something tells me it will be just P&P. AoI: Never read it. Bought hardback The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes having never read a single one of his stories mainly because I was hooked on Agatha Christie and read all her novels again and again and...... Hey ho, might enjoy one or two of Sherlock 's stories.

What a great episode!! I love knittng channels as well and it's always illuminating to hear what people DON'T like.

Something that I remember finding hilarious about The Black Tulip was the amount of footnotes explaining all the historical facts that Dumas had got wrong or misinterpreted 😂😂 There were so many it was genuinely comical 😂

I would say that I thought the screenplay that Emma Thompson created was better than the actual book. She changed a few things in the plot and I thought it was actually better. Still, I didn’t hate ‘Sense and Sensibility’ the book.

For some reason, I always feel happy when you post a new video. Thank you for sharing your passion with us. The first classic that comes to mind when I think about the ones I didn't enjoy is Hamlet. I do love the book, it is genius, but I find Hamlet the prince insufferable. Finishing the book was so difficult for me just because I kept arguing with Hamlet in my head, but I guess that's what makes the book great, it can get such a strong reaction from the reader.

So glad you reviewed Black Tulip. I’m really enjoying The Count of MC right now and was seriously tempted to buy Black Tulip.

Totally agree with you on the Hound of Baskerville!

I agree with you about Sense and Sensibility. It just falls flat for me (although I love the movie!). Hound of the Baskervilles, however...😭😭😭 I love that book! It's so atmospheric and fun to read! But, we can't all love the same classics. The one classic I struggle with is Dracula, although I have read it twice, and I hated it less the second time around. 😂

I completely agree with you about Titus Andronicus. I will never read it again. Once was enough.

Great video, great topic. Buuuuut… Time Machine is a timeless classic. And sometime tonight a posse of Morlocks is going to pay all the haters a visit for trashing their amazing story. Can I suggest a topic? I’ve always been interested in: Books I Adored but Noone Else Did.

I’m with you on almost all of these and it is wonderful to hear someone talk about these books without reverence. The book at the top of my personal list of classics you could not pay me to read a second time would be the sound and the fury seriously the stream of consciousness lack of punctuation thing drives me crazy I understand it works for some but that is not me.

I know you didn't ask for it but I thought I'd give you the classic that I most struggled to get through. It is George Eliot's "Romola". Eliot's genius is readily apparent but I just couldn't get into the minutiae of Italian history.

Oh, wow, Tristan, I feel like commenting pages and pages... What an interesting list and a great idea. Re The Trial: I've not read the book, but I loved the film, starring Anthony Perkins as K. It had a dreamy weirdness, and the humour came through as well. Re Sense and Sensibility: I agree, Austen is learning her craft so it doesn't come close to her mature novels. But, with Marianne, isn't she spoofing the Romantic Heroine? Like when M lies down to die of her broken heart but gets better in a day or two? And I love the minor characters -- Lady Middleton and her cross husband and her vulgar mother! And the Miss Steeles! Love The Age of Innocence!😊😊

The time traveler finds the matches in an airtight case in a museum's technical chemistry of the past exhibit, so they're not anachronistic, it just shows how advanced the preservation of the past has become in the future. Plus it's very much relevant that he has to walk to the past first in space by going to a museum, before returning to it in time with his time machine, considering the whole premise is time being a dimension that you can travel in like space :) I disagree on Weena as well. It's important to keep in mind that despite her showing affection and gratitude to the time traveler she is essentially an alien from a race which has lost its selflessness (they barely respond to Weena almost drowning) and its concept of writing and perhaps abstraction ("...the bare idea of writing had never entered her head. She always seemed to me, I fancy, more human than she was, perhaps because her affection was so human.") so she's not going to fulfill our character expectations the way a human does. She is more akin to a needy cat, which I find eerie and sad in itself.

Hi, Tristan, thank you for sharing, interesting points! I learned a new English word from you: UNDERWHELMING… in German we’ve the equivalent to OVERWHELMING: überwältigend, but underwhelming doesn’t exist. 😁I always loved 20.000 miles under the sea 🌊. I read it in times, when I needed to escape the real world a little: this safe seeming world, created and controlled by captain Nemo, studying the world under water, using interesting sea food and entertaining under special circumstances let me forget some lacks. I needed a while to get into the 'grown up version', because the first read was from the children library in a shorted version. I’ve a secret, too: I don’t like Cervantes DON QUICHOTE 🫣… tried several times, because it’s so famous, but never read it through. Of course I love Jane Austen, and the characters from 'sense and sensibility' are quite far away from me, but I liked it all in all. My favourite is EMMA for different reasons. I’d like to listen to a Jane Austen ranking! Love from Germany, Monika❣

I think one of the reasons Last of the Mohicans attained fame was because of its sensitive/admiring portrayal of the Native Americans. In those days, that was refreshing. I read it in English class back in the 70s, so my memory may be failing me, but I think it got a lot of credit for that aspect -- unique to the American environment at that time. Appreciate you covering some classics you didn't like.

Jumped ahead to see the book list and will go back but definitely agree with the hound of Bask - wanted a mystery but was disappointed- BUT thank you SO much for recommending The Lady in White - that was fabulous!!!!!

I love I can find most classics for free on the internet, no heavy books to lug around and there are even audio book versions. Time and place are important when looking at classics such as The time machine and 20,000 Leagues under the sea as they were quite remarkable in their day groundbreaking science fiction stories.

Thank you for this video. These are all books that I have tried to read and just couldn't finish.

Kafka was Czech but he wrote in German. There are many translations of his work, but I believe in all of them a lot gets lost, especially humor. I do recommend the short stories, though.

Although I love Jane Austen, I agree with Tristan on Sense and Sensibility. Also, I would have Wuthering Heights on the list.

I definitely agree with Hard Times, not my favorite of the Dickens novels I've read. Ironically, I felt 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was very dry reading (lol). I disagree with Sense and Sensibility, I just love the ridiculous drama (though I acknowledge it's not the best of Jane Austen's novels). I'm going to pretend you didn't mention Hound of the Baskervilles, because I DID read it first, and it got me hooked! But it's ok, I see your points! 😄

I just finished Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and 20 pages in I couldn’t wait to be done with it and that feeling never left me. I understand what he was doing here, I understand the characters are supposed to lack depth to an extent- but I couldn’t abide the characters or the writing. It was his first novel, I’ll try one more of Hemingways more mature works to avoid casting premature judgment, but my God what a slow laborious read that was for me.

Great video again! I am curious about something.. Have you read Les misérables by Victor Hugo ? If so, what do you think of it ? Regards from Madrid, Gabriela

Oh goodness. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I tried reading it in a hard copy. I tried it as an audiobook. I tried it as an ebook. Still haven't made it past the first 1/3.

So interesting, I’d love to know more about when you read them I.e how old you were or what stage of life you were in. Have you attempted to read any of these books again? I fell in love with classics at a young age but as I’ve grown older I realise some books I just wasn’t mature enough to appreciate. There are even a few books that I won’t attempt yet because I still don’t think I’m “ready” for them. But totally agree with Sense and Sensibility…. Dull!

I know it’s a matter of taste but Fenimore Cooper was greatly admired in his day. Victor Hugo called him the greatest novelist of the century outside of France. He was also admired by Balzac, Thoreau and D.H. Lawrence. Of course, nowadays he is mainly remembered for Last of the Mohicans and that will not be forgotten for as long as Hollywood goes on filming it.

I agree with you about most of them. I love your sincerity. Thanks Tristan , a great video.👏🏼👏🏼🇧🇷

I enjoy your enthusiasm both positive and negative 😊. How do you like Anthony Trollope?

Please do all those videos you mentioned. WELL DONE!

I would love an in-depth analysis of Sense and Sensibility, as well as your ranking of Austen's novels (even with the spoiler!). Im always intrigued about people hating the book because of a character - I think the author meant that to happen so that they get a development arc. For my part, I'm more dissatisfied with the last scene with Willoughby - I i don't find that necessary and I'm glad the movie skipped that bit

It is Josef K. not Franz K. ;) and more important: the story did NOT take place in germany! The story doesn`t happen in a particular place. That is very important. AND it is NOT clear whether Josef K. did or did not commit a crime. Thats THE essential point of the whole story. As a small hint: read The Brothers Karamazov. Kafka got the idea for The Trial out of this book (along with biographical problems he was dealing with). The book is more about what the readers lay into it AND probably it was about a "moral crime" and about the Last Judgement. The book is very deep. If you criticize it please do a better job reading.

Great video Tristan. I loved ‘the trial’ for all the reasons you disliked it 😂.. I thought it was really disorientating, delirious and disconcerting (While I was reading it it reminded me of a more ‘adult’ Alice in wonderland) loved your review and your opinions of it though. Great channel Tristan

I think it’s fun to see what books people don’t like and why. It makes it easier to see where our tastes align and where they might clash. I too am a fan of the dystopian end of science fiction but time travel doesn’t bother me. I haven’t gotten to HG Wells or Jules Verne yet, so it will be interesting to see if I like their works.

Yes, exactly! Of the books you mentioned and I have read, we are in accord! Couldn't stand The Time Machine (and the Island of Dr. Moreau), Sense and Sensibility (bloody Marianne!) And while I mostly enjoy Verne, 20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was just an algae and plankton filled snooze fest. Age of Innocence was kind of middling and I actually didn't like the ending either. Sorry 😂 Haven't read The Trial but have read The Metamorphosis and other Kafka short stories and am not a fan, to be honest. Weirdly enough, he depresses me.

I’m a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, but I have to agree with you on Hound of the Baskervilles.

You are quite right about the Hound.

I agree about The Last of the Mohicans. I made myself read it..because it is considered a classic and because I loved the movie with Wes Studi who plays Magwa. It was a real slog. I still love the movie.

What? Not Finnegan's Wake...

I haven’t heard you talk about Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. Did u like that book?

About the box of matches, nothing else in the palace of green porcelain would have been useful to the time traveler as they would have been scavenged by the morlocks. A simple box of matches, however, does nothing but produce fire and light, which would have been odious to the morlocks. Also the box was preserved in a futuristic museum display case. As for the book's pacing, it's generally regarded as snappy. So it's a bit unexpected to hear you regard it as sluggish. Moreover, the book has a rich symbolic layer underneath the surface. I suggest you look into it a bit. It's quite moving when the time traveler proves the truth of his story to his guests by presenting them with flowers in the dead of winter--a simple thing that represents the most important human trait that would endure despite the degeneration of the species: kindness

The one that comes as the greatest surprise for me was The Hound of the Baskervilles --- my favorite Sherlock Holmes.

As a Sherlock Holmes fan. (Last year I finished all 60 stories for a second time), I have to (respectfully) disagree about The hound of the Baskervilles. 🔎🐶

Omg 🤦🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️I love Sense & Sensibility but Emma drove me nuts and couldn't finish it quick enough. Loved Northanger Abbey too. However, great video.