I’m (happily) at a point in my life when a video from Tristan and a cup of coffee is the ideal Friday night. Cheers guys, hope y’all are reading some good stuff

A long book doesn’t seem long if it’s interesting while a 200 page book can seem interminable if it’s boring.

I love listening to a person talking elegantly about books that they adore. Thank you for this.

Thank you so much for your advocacy for literature. It often feels like there are just a few of us left who love books, ideas, learning and discussing these texts in an educators and collegial manner. Your authentic passion for the value of reading is a light.

Don Quixote is not only worth reading, it’s worth RE-reading! Greatest book of all time.

I just read Anna Karenina for the first time and WOW. I was left speechless at the end. I don’t know why I was intimidated by such a lengthy novel. What a beautiful, life-changing story.

My favourite big books: 🤎 Les Misérables 🤎 Notre-Dame de Paris 🤎 The Count of Monte Cristo 🤎 Anna Karenina 🤎 War & Peace 🤎 Don Quixote Love the topic & video! Can't wait to read more big books in 2024.

Your reading is simply mesmerizing! You've got the best voice for an audio book. I could listen to you for hours 😊

Tristan, you are such a wonderful and enthusiastic teacher. Listening to you is like being in a college classroom with your favorite professor of all time! thank you for all you do; you educate, encourage and stimulate our reading.

I’m 77 and have been fortunate to have read all these wonderful novels. My favorite, read four times, is Dumas’s “The Count of Monte Cristo “. Last month I read the first five of Shakespeare’s historical plays while listening to it enacted on KZfaq. What a most enjoyable way to do this. By the way, I really enjoyed this video and several others of yours.

Tristan, your videos are such a salve for my knackered old soul!

Wuthering Heights has a special place in my heart.

You speak about them with such passion I want to read them all! I'm relatively new to classics, The Count of Monte Cristo is definitely top of my tbr.

You're an excellent presenter. I'm challenging myself to read more classics in 2024 and you've given me a great starting point.

The Woman in White does not get enough love!! So good! I'm currently just about halfway through Anna Karenina and loving it.

I discovered your channel only yesterday. As soon as I heard you read aloud, I knew you were the Booktuber for me and I had to subscribe! I've been watching/listening to your videos for hours now and the house I meant to tidy is still in ruins, the shortbread has not been made ,and I could not be happier. Your enthusiasm and lack of pretension is inspiring. Just how did you know that I actually have ALL of those on my bookshelf (and have for years) and yet have only managed to read The Count of Monte Cristo? (Am presently reading Anna Karenina). All of these long classics appeal to me, but I think The Idiot will be next on my list to read.(I just checked and I actually have 2 copies of it).

What a video, what a channel! ❤ this brought peace to my soul that I needed so much. You made me question what videos are showing up on my feed. In the KZfaq world of sarcasm, complaining, fighting little ideological wars, this is a breath of fresh air. Thank you for your enthusiasm, I absolutely love this video and I’m looking forward to seeing more on your channel. 🎉❤🎉❤🎉

Your channel just makes me happy!

I usually can’t stand it when booktubers read excerpts from the books they recommend, but I really enjoyed your readings. I’m also interested in the books you recommended and added a few of them to my TBR. You have a new subscriber.

You mentioned The Mill on the Floss in another video. I found an old copy of it in a charity shop a couple weeks ago and am on page 301 today. Beautiful writing. A lovely read. Thank you!

A couple of my personal favourites: • The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope • Middlemarch by George Eliot

What a wonderful channel! Absolutely inspiring, comforting and uplifting. Thank you for the work you put into it. You’re quite eloquent in speaking of literature, and you would be perfect for any audiobook narration! I might even learn to like audiobooks, if you were to do so.

I'm on my road to reading all the classics. I'm on 100 years of solitude, and I have 4 of these in my queue. Now I have a good reference.point. Thank you.

Don Quixote is my nemesis. I’ve tried several translations. Eventually, I read the children’s board book and called it finished.😂

So many great gems here! Some I’ve read, others are waiting on my shelves. I’m so glad you started with the Don! He’s a New Year’s resolution of mine for 2024.

1) Don Quixote 2)Women in White by W.Collins 3) The Mill in the Floss, G.Eliot 4) Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas 5) Anna Karenina 6) Vanity Fair, Thackeray 7) The Idiot, Dostoevsky 8) Moby Dick, Melville 9) Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens 10) Shakespeare's Histories

Your reading is great! None of that stiff weird affectation of so many audio books. Great stuff! 👍

I just happened upon this video and feel I have found a kindred spirit. I have read several of your recommendations while at university, but now that I have more time to devote to truly enjoying them, I'm planning a re-read. Thank you for inspiring me.

I think I have a new favorite book tube channel! Don Quixote was a great book. I enjoyed your reading.

Your passion is contagious. Will get some of them for sure.

I loved this video as I am a great advocate of the big, chunky book, novel, book of poems, plays or nonfiction. I haven't read The Idiot, but have recently read The Brothers Karamazov and am half way throught Crime and Punishment. I have put the Idiot on my TBR now. I realised that it is decades since I read any Thackeray, so shall revisit his novels in 2024. You managed to cover all my favourites, including Shakesperare. My 2023 reading project was reading all the plays of Shakespeare in the order they were written. It was enlightening to see how Shakespeare grew as a playwright. I think some of his history plays are amongst his best work. I love your edition of Sgakespeare.

I couldn't be happier that youtube put your channel on my recommended!

I have just discovered your channel and am hooked! I know there will be much to live in delving into your backlist of posts. Your love of reading shines through and is inspiring.

I am subscribing to as many channels like yours, which is superb. And I am trying to avoid anything pertaining to the nightmare that is america. Both for my mental health. Thank you so much Tristan. People like you make this world a better place.

So glad you mentioned Vanity Fair- it needs more love!! ❤ thank you for your video as always.

Tristan, this is a terrific list of recommendations! You are such a trustworthy guide to and through the world of great literature. I’ve read four of the books on your list, and am set to read The Mill on the Floss with a group of friends in January, and enthusiastically agree with your choices presented in this video! And may I also add my voice to several of the other commenters here and say that you are a wonderful narrator!!

Whoah, chills as you described Shakespeare and language at the end -- so glad I found your channel!

I enjoyed this video so much.Your enthusiasm is contagious. Thank you for sharing your love of these beautiful classics

YAAAS King! I am so happy that one of my favorite Dickens novels made your list, since it seems to be often overlooked! And take that, Bleak House!

ThankU How inspiring! Your love for literature comes through. I have a lot of catching up to do

Happiest that I found your channel!! I had these books described by so many booktubers and articles on Google, that I lost count. Yours, though, are filled with magic! This is why I love youtube. I can stumble upon gems like your channel.

You should literally become an audiobook reader. Your voice is soothing 😊

Was happy to see Dostoyevsky on the list and 'The Idiot' deserves all the recognition as a classic however The Brothers Karamazov I'd honestly say was his masterpiece!

I read the Count of Monte Cristo in 6th grade … in French! Took us all year. BTW I lived in Illinois, U.S.A. and only had one year of French at that time. Great list, plus some of the commenters added more….plan to start reading today!

As an Italian, I wasn't familiar with a couple of books in the list. Though, the Count of Montecristo was the most impressive and shocking book I read in high school to the point that I still remember the main events of the plot. Nice list and awesome video!

Steinbeck’s East of Eden is on my big book list. Absolutely perfect in my eyes. I do love Shakespeare’s Henry V and Julius Caesar, too.

In my youth, I read and re-read many times some scenes of the Comte de Monte-Cristo (in particular all the dialogues between Edmond Dantés and the Abbé Faria), but from a French perspective, I believe two huge Himalayas of our literature are to be added to this list : Les Misérables of course, and A la recherche du temps perdu, both classics, both very long, both mesmerizing… And if I may, also Les Essais from Montaigne.

Fantastic. I've read most of your top 10. The Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby is possibly my favorite in the Dickens canon (Tale of Two Cities close behind). Vanity Fair is one of my all-time favorite novels and no one ever discusses it. And Mill on the Floss--a perfect novel. That final scene is so cinematic for a time when movies didn't exist! To make it a dozen, I would add: Les Miserables and Middlemarch.

They are all appealing to me worth re-reading, as I read the big novels when I was very young and books were our entertainment. I so enjoy your videos and advocacy for reading great books.

If anyone could get me to read Shakespeare besides Kenneth Branagh, it would be you. You should be doing audio books. Your voice and inflections are perfect for that. I would listen forever.

What a timely presented🎉 channel. Thank you so much. Enjoying the right books makes life quite livable 🙂

Robertson Davies’ The Deptford Trilogy is stunning. It changed Canadian literature forever

Lovely! Your reading of excerpts so well done!

Thank you for another great video. My reading list keeps growing! So many great classics to explore.

Of Human Bondage, w Somerset Maugham This book never lost my attention.

I like the addition of reading excerpts from the books mentioned. It gives me a sense of the author's voice and taste of their prose and/or dialogue, which can make or break a novel for me. Having that small taste of, say, Shakespeare's Histories, I definitely am more interested in reading them (when I catch up with my other reading). But as far as those on this list that are the most immediately appealing, Moby Dick wins. Have only read the opening chapter a few months ago, and about every other line in it is better than the one before. "(...) Whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul (...)" "This is my substitute for pistol and ball." "Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it?" "The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us." And other longer passages just as good. And that just within 4 pages. I'm gonna like this book once I get around to it.

You can talk about books in such a passionate way, it is much appreciated 😊! The woman in white was one of my favorites this year and I want to reread it ever since. The same goes for The count. All the other ones are one my tbr, so I can’t wait to read them. The first big one will be Les Miserables though. I heard such great things about it!

Downloaded The Woman in White to my Kindle after watching this video and I have been reading it all day. You'r assessment is accurate. This book hooked me from the first page.

I'm surprised that you didn't include Les Misérables, as it's one of the greatest, if not the greatest books of all time. It's my personal favourite, and for a good reason. Would recommend to anyone 👍

Had a fun time trying to guess the next book as soon as possible from your descriptions. Great list.

You are so right on Moby Dick. I had to battle through that book but the last 100 pages flew by and I really did feel something profound when I finished it. Great channel.

I have disregarded Anna Karenina before, when others have mentioned it. When I heard the excerpt, it took my breath away. It’s now next on my list. Thanks.

😍Cute guy. Thanks never tackled a long classic. Nice to hear about these.

Fantastic recommendations! I recently got the second of the Doubleday Complete Works of Shakespeare and you really inspired me to crack it open to some of the histories. Also: the passages you read from each book were just fantastic and clearly chosen with great care; absolutely wonderful :3

Hi, Tristan! Thank you for another great video. I'm so glad you started with Don Quixote. I've had an unread copy sitting on my bookshelves for years, and now you've got me thinking that perhaps 2024 will be the year I finally pick it up. I also want to say thank you for reigniting my interest in reading the classics. I've just launched a BookTube channel, and I mention your channel as a new favorite discovery. Your content is greatly appreciated!

Congratulations on passing 20k-and well on our way to 21,000 already!

What a beautiful video of the evening sea. It makes want to jump the corner bus to the Ocean! Where I did see, alas, my only whale, dead on the beach, years ago.

This was a fantastic video. Thank you for a fascinating and well-considered list. Adding several titles to my TBR list and subscribing for future videos. Cheers!

I love your passion for language!

Spot on about Shakespeare’s histories and the music of his language. Richard II is my absolute favorite of all his plays: For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings- How some have been deposed, some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed- All murdered: for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits, Mocking his state and grinning at his pomp, Allowing him a space, a little scene To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks, Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As though this flesh which walls about our life Were brass impregnable; and humored thus, Comes at the end, and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and-farewell, King!

You've convinced me to read the woman in white. If it's anything like Christie's work, I'm in for a treat.

Dostoevsky's The Idiot is definitely an underrated novel! I think Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov are greater works, but The Idiot is only a few notches below. It's about the holy fool in Eastern Orthodox including Russian Orthodox life and theology. Western Christianities have tended to focus on propositional arguments for God, but Eastern Christianities see a person as no less an argument for God as a proposition. In any case, the fact that Dostoevsky produced so many great works (and Notes from Underground and Demons deserve mention in the same breath as The Idiot) is a reflection of his artistic genius.

Today, I completed my acquisition of the 10 greatest books of literature! Of the 10, I owned 3, borrowed 1 from the library and bought the others. Don Quixote is my favorite, but I look forward to enjoying the others! I have heard you speak of Middlemarch and Ulysses so I decided to add those to the group. As we are expecting a big snow here in New York, I will have plenty to read! Thank you for the interesting videos and happy reading!

I have read all of these (sometimes few times) except that I have never managed to get all the way through Moby Dick or Don Quixote. I am putting them on my 2024 list and will see if I can push my way through Don Quixote and Moby Dick. Thanks for great suggestions! I read all of thee Shakespeare plays during two semesters of seminars at University, but not since. I am looking forward to reading or listening to them again.

I’m so glad I got recommended this Video

I have only just discovered this channel and this video was my introduction. What an excellent presentation! I have subscribed and look forward to your future videos. As I wait I will certainly be investigating your past productions.

Ould love to listen to you read these to me. Great voice!

thank you for this wonderful video and for taking the time to read excerpts. I'm often intimidated by classics, thinking I will get lost in the language, times, and characters, but your video makes these so inviting. Will definitely pick one of these up and go from there!

Woman in White! Soooo good. It’s a mystery, a romance, a thriller. My dog-eared copy has been passed on to multiple friends. I always have them sign the inside cover afterward. It’s fun to look back at who’s read it. It got me hooked on Collins and I’ve read several, but this one remains my favorite of his.

Loved this video. Several of my all time favourites are on here; Count of Monte Cristo, Woman in White, Nicholas Nickelby and Vanity Fair. Anna Karenina is on my tbr list for sure and I read Mill on the Floss many years ago (maybe I should read again)but I’d always considered Don Quixote and Moby Dick as very challenging-you make me think again.

Thank you very much. Your enthusiasm is very infectious. I have bought now all the books and am now embarking on my literary journey

I always enjoy Tristan reading aloud. 😊

I just found you and have been binging your videos. I adore classic literature and I love your channel.I am disappointed that you didn't include Les Miserables in this list or any of the other lists I've watched on your channel yet. Such a beautiful, important novel.

I'm so glad to have just found your channel! So many out there are YA and not for me. I love your passion!👏📚 I've got several chonky classics on my TBR for this year, including Crime and Punishment and Moby Dick🐋

My book club is starting to read War and Peace in Jan. Great book and easy to read (vs .e.g Dostoyevsky). Just print out a list of characters to refer to so you can keep track (some go by 3 different names i.e. family name, first name and nickname)

My sisters and I love the Indian novel A Suitable Boy. It is a wonderful story of a female literature student in 1950s India and whether she will pick the boy she loves or 1 of 2 possible arranged marriages. The author includes a little poem in the preface apologizing for "straining the wrists" of readers holding this large and heavy book.

Hi Tristan. I have never heard you mention the Elena Ferrante quadrology My Brilliant Friend. This is a modern classic I would hate you to miss out on. Once the characters get into your heart they’ll never let go.

I'm going to read Bleak House this winter for the first time, as I suspect that's another Dickens classic that is sadly relevant today. And I've heard Donna Tartt (who is obsessed with detail) rave about its portrayal of London at the time. Funny, I had just added Vanity Fair to my winter reading list. Now I'm going to get The Mill on the Floss as well. New to your channel here and enjoying it immensely, especially at bedtime once I'm too tired to read anymore!

Just discovered your channel, and it's an immediate subscribe from me!

Hi Tristan, I enjoyed this so much because I have already read about four of the list and plan to read several more, I enjoyed The Woman in white while still in high school, but read The Mill on the floss this summer as well as Vanity Fair and another you mentioned but can’t remember right now. And I am planning on reading both Moby Dick and the Count of Monte Crisco soon. The books are already purchased. So thank you so much for your encouragement.😊

So many yt videos with great recommendations but this is the first I found where I get a real insight (due to your reading). This helps a lot bc I as a non native speaker know if the book in question is fitting my level of understanding of the language. Thanks 😊

Great list!

I found out your channel a few days ago. Congratulations, Tristan.

Thank you so much for your channel! It makes me feel excited to read! Would love if you would recommend a specific edition/translation of the translated books.

I read The Woman in White this year, the best mystery I've ever read!!!!!

Beautiful list!!!🎉🎉🎉🎉 I've read some but have Vanity Fair to get to next year for sure!

I have only read The Woman in White, and loved it, but NN by Dickens and Mill on Floss are on the tops of my list.

Love how the first book is Don Quijote. I did a screenplay transporting it from 16th century Spain to 18th American-Mexican border as a western. One of my favorite books.

My favorites are: The Count of Monte Cristo Les Miserables Middlemarch Bleak House Dombey and Son Anna Karenina The next biggie I will read is The Woman in White. 😊

Hi there! I’m a new subscriber, thank you for this video, I loved it.❤📚