My Top 10 Favourite Classics

[@GreenBitterfly]

I first read Jane Eyre when I was about 14, as one of the English teachers said if we read it, we would go on a trip to Haworth Parsonage. I read it, and I still wasn't taken on the trip. Around about 20 years on, I'm still bitter about it.

[@adamhasideas6813]

I've read Jane Eyre, the Sherlock Holmes stories, The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Of Mice and Men and loved all of those. My favorite classic, which I very highly recommend to you is Les Miserables, which is long, but sooo good! It's much better than the musical, and emotionally compelling. I loved it and you will too, based on your education and reading level. Thanks for your insightful commentary!

[@richardranke3158]

When I was in a Book Club during the 7th and 8th grade I read some Sherlock Holmes and Jane Eyre-and when I was in High School our English class read Of Mice and Men.

[@GreenBitterfly]

Funnily enough, I was going to buy A Study in Scarlet yesterday, but the copy Waterstones had, had a tear to the back, so I put it back. I'm very picky about new copies of books being damaged!

[@bookishshenanigans4769]

Can you please do a video on your favourite Scottish literature? I realised that I haven't read that much and would love to have your recommendations on where to start from both classics and modern authors.

[@JeansThoughts]

I'll think, although I'm not massively well versed either aha. I do love Sunset Song, I also love Ali Smith and John Burnside for modern Scottish authors.

[@bookishshenanigans4769]

I guess there's always Robert Louis Stevenson too.

[@flamewillowspn]

Kirsty Logan is fantastic, and if you like crime Ian Rankin, Morvern Callar - Alan Warner is an amazing book, Irvine welsh known for trainspotting. Anything by Maggie O'Farrell. As for classics The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson Sherlock Holmes to name a few :) xx

[@tonybennett4159]

Lanark by Alasdair Gray is already considered a modern classic, and is just wonderful. It is so inventive, packed with humour and compulsively readable.

[@goosesong1]

Great to see Sunset Song on your list. Used to be pretty ubiquitous in Scottish secondary schools, but not so much these days. You might also like The Quarry Wood by Nan Shepherd - another author from North East Scotland, from around the same era, and another story of a young woman growing into the world.

[@JeansThoughts]

+David Dixon no? That's a shame, I studied it in secondary school but around 9 years ago. I haven't read any Nan Shepherd so thanks for the recommendation!

[@MiguelBenitezJr]

Great video and great choices! The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe is one of my all time favorite books. It's an exciting and enchanting tale but has deep themes that even as a PhD student I enjoy exploring and wrestling with. I teach it every year in my Great Books I class (8-10th graders) and the students always love it!

[@JashanaC]

Omg that Therese Raquin edition is BEAUTIFUL! I've never heard of that book, but it sounds super interesting. *adds to Goodreads* That Jane Eyre edition is also SO BEAUTIFUL! :D

[@freeyourmind16]

Couple of recommendations from one doctoral lit student to another: Corinne by Mme de Stael and C. Bronte's Villette. If you haven't read either, you should! They seem to align with your tastes rather well

[@theshadishow9255]

The Silver Chair by C S Lewis is my favourite Narnia book, and if they ever make a film adaptation I would just adore playing Jill Pole - I feel as if Eustace and Jill are the most like the sort of child I was growing up. I would thoroughly recommend it! Love the recommendations! They all sound so good!

[@JeansThoughts]

Oh it would be fabulous if the BBC or Netflix did a whole series just going through every single Narnia book. Now I really want this aha.

[@masteatro]

I hope to start with Zola with "Therese Raquin", I remember watching the play based on that novel and enjoying it very much. I want also to read "The magician" because I have read several works by Maughan and i liked them very much. By this author my favorite for the moment is "Theatre". "Mice and men" is really great. It is difficult to tell so well a story with so few pages.

[@s_8438]

You look great ❣️ I love the dress 👗 too. I loved learning Of Mice and Men in school.

[@kristinclark8843]

When I was a child, the edition of the Chronicles of Narnia that we had actually had the Magician's Nephew as the last book in the series because the set grouped them in order of publication rather than chronologically. I remember when I was a kid in grade school I mentioned this to my (least favorite) teacher because a classmate was reading the Magician's Nephew in a newer addition which listed it as number one, and she treated me like an idiot.

[@GreenBitterfly]

Sorry to be spamming your comments, but if anyone in the UK is interested, the complete Narnia series of books is available as a box set at The Works for £10.

[@valiumflowers72]

GreenBitterfly how much to send to Australia and are you legitimate? :)

[@GreenBitterfly]

Valium & Flowers No idea, you'll have to check their website if they post there, not sure what you mean by legitimate, I was in a branch yesterday and spotted they had some in stock.

[@TherapywithAyo]

GreenBitterfly thank you! I want to read these!

[@chboskyy]

Right, you've convinced me - The Day of the Triffids will be my next John Wyndham 👍🏻 and The Magician sounds bloody brilliant, I'll have to check that one out too!

[@JeansThoughts]

Yas! I hope you enjoy them. The Day of the Triffids is well worth a read, my favourite so far and what seems to be for a lot of people.

[@madubadubadu]

I've always wanted to read Sherlock Holmes (and am a little too obsessed with the BBC show), I think it's time to make a start!

[@JeansThoughts]

+Madu Venkatesan aah you must read the originals!

[@emmajones7060]

If you wanted to give anything earlier a crack I'd recommend Moll Flanders. She's such an amazing, ballsy character who has the most outrageous adventures and I just fell in love with her

[@JeansThoughts]

I actually have that one on my shelf, my mum passed it on to me so I definitely need to get to it!

[@avie3937]

Your Jane Eyre book is so lovely 🙂 I love most how Jane accepts she is poor and plain and yet she doesn't allow those parts of herself to generate shame of herself or accept people's snide comments of herself as being true. Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion are my favorite Jane Austen novels so give them a try if you're in the mood. 😊

[@JeansThoughts]

+Adriana Resendez yes I love Jane as a character ^_^ Jane Austen narrowly missed being on my top 10, I've read Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey and really enjoyed them, especially the latter. I'm still working my way through them. I think if it had been a top 15 Jane Austen and Shakespeare would have been in there :D

[@inessamaria2428]

Sherlock is

[@HeathersHecticHideaway]

I love your edition of Sherlock Holmes! I remember reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle in high school.

[@JeansThoughts]

You cannot beat the Penguin English LIbrary classic editions aha. It's not the only edition I own though, Holmes obsessive...

[@HeathersHecticHideaway]

Haha! I need to start collecting all of those editions.

[@GreenBitterfly]

I wasn't that keen on them when those editions were first published, but after watching BookTube, I really like them. I was looking at the Penguin English Library edition of Bleak House, as I don't like the newer Penguin classics editions of the Dickens books, the cover illustrations on those are far too cartoon like for me.

[@emilyh1886]

Jane Eyre and The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe are my two all time favourite books 😊 love the old BBC series too! Rewatched it earlier this year

[@bentheoverlord]

Woo finally someone else who loves Sunset Song, it’s easily in my top 5 books of all time

[@ornleifs]

I agree with you the BBC Narnia was really good and was my intro to the series - I later read the books while I was supposed to be studying for exams in high school !! - Wonderful escape.

[@JeansThoughts]

So much better than the Disney film right!?

[@ornleifs]

Absolutely, that film did not get the right atmosphere.

[@itslitwithleshai3819]

I believe Sherlock Holmes has 56 short stories and 4 novels. I absolutely adore them!

[@laneygirlee2843]

Shirley Jackson was an American writer☺️ You have two on your list now. ☺️✌🏻📚

[@JeansThoughts]

Oh yeah! So you are. Aha, I can't believe I forgot that.

[@jacqo4426]

You might enjoy Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin. It is such a wonderful biography.

[@iamviccckkk]

YOUR HAIR!! My goodness, it's fabulous. Seriously suits you so damn much!

[@visorah9299]

when you started talking about we have always lived in the castle i first confused it with we captured the castle and was like 'unsettling?? have i missed some subtext??' :,) i love me some dark-sh classics and many of these went on my tbr list, thanks for the recommendations :D

[@JeansThoughts]

Aha I haven't read the Dodie Smith book but I do get the impression they're very different. Damn similar titles.

[@alexalovesbooks]

I’ve yet to read Sherlock Holmes, but I definitely want to!

[@JeansThoughts]

+Alexa Loves Books so worth it!

[@itslitwithleshai3819]

Alexa Loves Books You'll love it! I love Sherlock Holmes and I have found the complete collection... So excited!

[@dianechandler]

I really enjoyed your video! Can't wait to read some of these! Also - have you read The Grapes of Wrath or A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court? Those are both quite good. Or how about Don Quixote? I loved that one too. Anyway - thanks for the great recommendations!

[@MargaretPinard]

OH-YES! Thanks for reminding me of A Scots Quair--I wish I could use that as a comp, but no one in the US would know it...:/ I loved it, even stumbling through the dialect

[@Xenu]

This is undoubtedly very nosy of me but I am now extremely curious as to what an adult mermaid-themed birthday party looks like. Post pictures in your next video, Jean! :-) Well, if we're limiting our scope to classics from the 18th to 20th centuries: The collected poems of William Blake, John Keats, Percy Shelly and Emily Dickinson. Selected plays of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg. The short stories of Anton Chekhov and Jorge Luis Borges. It may be considered cheating to include an entire author's oeuvre but those do exist in collected, single-volume editions. I would also add: Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights." A tenth fiction book from that era is difficult for me to choose. Would the fairy tales of George MacDonald be considered classics? I mean, they damn sure should.

[@JeansThoughts]

+Xenu aha i mean technically the scope was anything post antiquity - 20th century I just didn't have any pre-19th century favourites, although I do like Shakespeare :). I have to confess I gave up on Wuthering Heights, it wasn't for me. I do really want to read P Shelly though, he is up the top of my TBR!

[@Xenu]

Ah, in that case I certainly would have had to add Shakespeare and Chaucer to the top of my list. I obviously tend to prefer plays and poetry over novels but "Don Quixote" would have to appear on my list as well, especially for the wild second part of the novel. Shelley's long eulogy for John Keats, "Adonais" is one of my favorite poems.

[@lisaishuman]

Of this list I've only read Jane Eyre & The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but my english lit student heart longs for all these books.

[@JeansThoughts]

Lots of great books to look forward to ;)

[@lisaishuman]

Ooh definitely!

[@SonniesOriginals]

Have you ever read East of Eden by John Steinbeck? I loved it, and apparently he saw that as his only 'real' book! Lots of books on here that are on my tbr, so exciting! We Have Always Lived in the Castle is up next for me /)

[@JeansThoughts]

I still haven't read any more Steinbeck but I do really want to!

[@jackiesliterarycorner]

The Magician sounds like my kind of book.

[@JeansThoughts]

It's so good!

[@ciganyweaverandherperiwink6293]

Thank you for coming at me from left field! This was a really good video. Most 'top 10 favourite classics' videos feature all the usual suspects. Which is fine, only the presenter of the video never has anything new, anything interesting and unexpected to offer in their review or explanation for why it made their short list. Why would any reader need to watch someone flash well known classics up one by one and then just give boring synopses with no personality infused into the review?! We can read the plots of the books online: we come to KZbin videos to hear self-assured personal opinions without apology, and monologues that are full of personality! There are so many videos like the ones I just described and I cannot understand the thought process behind such lazy, anodyne videos. Thank you for choosing a few lesser known books here and having interesting things to say about them. :)

[@abibiggs9751]

I love Jane Eyre so much! If you like the novel you might also like Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys if you haven't read it already. It's a brilliant post-colonial and feminist response to Jane Eyre in my opinion.

[@DancethedrizzleBlogspot]

Ah now, the controversy! lol :D I must say, I do prefer to read Chronicles of Narnia in the publication order, which makes The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe the first and the Magician's Nephew the sixth. Much more magical and mysterious that way imho ;)

[@JeansThoughts]

Yeah I read The Magician's Nephew afterward and it felt like reading a prequel where all of the secrets of Narnia where explained.

[@SaraStar7373]

I see your Day of the Triffids and raise you Jose Saramago’s Blindness as a book where society goes blind as the premise. It’s beautifully written and it analyses the downfall of society when one big aspect is removed, it’s horrifying and magical and wonderful and terrible. Highly recommend.

[@thetastychapter]

Oh I love the hair colour! You should do that permanently! Looks great on you :-)

[@JeansThoughts]

+Gem I do like it but it'd be way to high maintenance ^_^ the highlights are enough aha - always fun for a bit though, it's a toner

[@giselaperez6746]

I almost added every book in my wish list!

[@giselaperez6746]

I almost added every book in my wish list! :)

[@CarolynsReadingRamblings]

I read Therese Raquin in high school and completely loved it! I think it was the first sort "tragically dark" classic that I loved. I really need to re-read it and I want to start Emile Zola's really long family saga that he wrote. I also really love Jane Eyre! I had seen so many movie adaptations since I was little so.liked the story for a long time but just read the book about 2 years ago and kicked myself for waiting so long because it is amazing! Also your edition is gorgeous! Have you read Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte? That is an amazing Bronte book as well! I shamefully admit that I have only seen the film of Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and not read the book yet. It took me 3 tries to finally finish Magician's Nephew, which I didn't really like so even though I love the LWW film, it put me off trying the book for a long time. I do have a copy though and enough time has passed that now I am eager to read it so I think it is on my list for ReadKidsLit November that Lesley from WordsofaReader is hosting.

[@DaeronK]

Was wondering what was different about you in this video... your hair is blow dry straightened! Looks good! The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, my pre-teenage favourite.

[@TheJane1775]

You look great in that "folklorish" style!

[@michelea2326]

The Day of the Triffids ordered!

[@JeansThoughts]

+Michele Arnwine ah i really hope you enjoy it!!

[@GreenGretel]

Some classic American lit. recs: If you loved Of Mice and Men DEFINITELY give The Grapes of Wrath a go! The Great Gatsby & Moby-Dick are the other must-read American classics, imo (and Catch-22 although that's not considered quite as "classic"). I don't rate Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, The Scarlett Letter, and To Kill a Mockingbird as highly, though they're all engaging...and I'm just not a Hemingway person. Faulkner is probably the only American writer that can equal Melville, but his works can be very challenging (I'd argue to hold off on The Sound and the Fury and try his other works like Light in August first). Unfortunately, the American canon is much more male-dominated than its British counterpart. :-/ (tho Toni Morrison is probably the finest American novelist of the past few decades)

[@valiumflowers72]

Mermaid themed girls birthday party, now that i have to see 😍😍😍 haha

[@eduard05ilva]

I could listen to you all day... you have such a cute voice :) And you really sparked me to read Jane Eyre the book I have in my TBR for at least 4 year lol (sorry)... I will read it before the end of the year... I promise :D Hope you have an amazing day

[@manuelodabashian]

The magician I think is a true story Maugham met that man and it took him a while to recover from him. The Chrysalids is better than Triffids and though The lion , the witch and the wardrobe is a great story but I think Prince caspian is better

[@valiumflowers72]

Therese Raquin is a beautiful book oh my God :o

[@inanimatecarbongod]

Oooooh, I *hated* Therese Raquin. It's made me kind of reluctant to pursue Zola further. Haven't read Gibbon, but I should. My own immediate ancestry is Scottish and I feel I should be better acquainted with Scottish literature. I've not read The Magician, but I've seen the 1920s film based on it which I really liked. Haven't read Triffids since high school. I read that and a couple of other Wyndhams back then (Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids), and thought there was some interesting ideas but the execution just kind of petered out. I *badly* need to reread Holmes. Don't think I've read any Doyle since high school either.

[@BooksandLooks]

Mermaid thing birthday party

[@muhammadrafiqulislamkhan6994]

Hello Jean. Good afternoon. Today you look as a doll. Your outfit gorgeous. Your make is so sweet. And you favourite books are lovely. And your summarization is excellent. Thank you for sharing your books.

[@fallingforyou56]

You remind me of Christina Aguilera a little bit when you laugh.

[@JeansThoughts]

Aha I have never had that one before ;)

[@manuelodabashian]

You definitely look like Mary Hopkins

[@JeansThoughts]

aha I'll take that

[@manuelodabashian]

By the way can you do a review of the magicians nephew I never understood it at all. The other books are pretty good too. I recommend Prince caspian and the silver chair

[@bomkarangu7803]

I love you

[@giselaperez6746]

I almost added every book in my wish list! :)

[@giselaperez6746]

I almost added every book in my wish list! :)