Response Video: Top 10 Classics You MUST Read!

[@KDbooks]

Did Steve call my video “wonderful”? That’s clearly worth 20 beans, surely?!

[@saintdonoghue]

NO BEANS FOR YOU, you Bard-hating MONSTER!

[@philtheo]

00:00 Intro 01:15 Steve starts with KDbooks's list 01:20 Oedipus Rex (Sophocles) 01:52 Inferno (Dante) 03:10 Everyman (anonymous) 04:04 Dr. Faustus (Marlowe) 04:54 Hamlet, Macbeth, or Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) 05:40 Paradise Lost (Milton) 06:59 The Sorrows of Young Werther (Goethe) 08:12 Castle of Otranto (Walpole) 09:19 Frankenstein 1818 version (Shelley) 10:14 Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky) 11:00 Steve's list begins 11:50 Pentateuch/Bible 13:55 Odyssey (Homer) 16:07 Confessions (Augustine) 17:52 Beowulf (anonymous) 20:37 Canterbury Tales (Chaucer) 21:57 Hamlet (Shakespeare) 23:45 A Vindication of the Rights of Women (Wollstonecraft) 25:10 Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth, Coleridge) 26:40 Pride and Prejudice (Austen) 27:35 Jane Eyre (Bronte) 28:30 Outro

[@susanthielen7211]

I have read and continue to Dantes Inferno. I love it. I started reading it while I was homeless and I kept the book in my bag which was the only thing I owned. I kept the book in my locker at the shelter for 3 1/2 years and now i am housed its on my night stand. i bought it Commonwealth books. Believe it or not it got me through a very difficult journey which is really kind of symbolic to the book.

[@JasperAntonelli]

My list would be: 1) Oresteia by Aeschylus 2) Iliad by Homer 3) Metamorphoses by Ovid 4) Augustine's Confessions 5) Bede's Ecclesiastical History 6) Canterbury Tales 7) Shakespeare (At least King Lear, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Midsummer Night's Dream) 8) Don Quixote 9) Gulliver's Travels 10) Moby Dick

[@anotherbibliophilereads]

The problem is 10 books isn’t sufficient to go from the ancient world to the 19th century. There have to be huge gaps. What someone leaves out is just as import as what someone puts in. Let the headshrinkers play ball with that.

[@25nomind]

These kinds of list are always fun. Mine would be: 1) The Iliad (the Odessey is more important, but I just enjoy the Iliad more) 2 Old testament (KJV) 3) Mahabharata (J. A. B. van Buitenen's partial verse translation is still easily the best. Been waiting for a great full translation but for an easy to read modernized translation there is Debroy's loose but complete one) 4) Plato's Dialouges 5) Dante's divine comedy (Robert and Jean Hollander translations) 6) The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights (the new penguin classics editions, translators: Ursula and Malcolm Lyons) 7) Canterbury Tales (in the Middle English if you can) 8) Shakespeare's complete plays 9) Tale of Genji (all 4 full translations of it are good, but my recommendation is for an easy to read and beautiful translation Edward Seidensticker and for the most subtle (as far as I can tell) translations so far Royall Tyler) 10) Brothers Karamazov (this was the hardest choice: it came down to this, War and Peace, Leaves of Grass, Wordsworth and Moby Dick)

[@Adidasler593]

Classic, but mostly boring books. Most of those are a hard grind and are usually read for bragging rights.

[@diamonddust3518]

​@@Adidasler593most of these are read because they're some of the best works of all time. It's how they survived until now.

[@littocorleone]

There is now the most authentic English translation of Mahabharat by Bibek Debroy. It's in English and is unabridged. He is lauded for sticking to the authentic source material. Do check it out, if you finish it, it will top your list i am sure.

[@toryreads9179]

I have always loved the part in Hamlet where Shakespeare writes about Hamlet donning his Gymshark tunic!

[@retiredbooknerd]

I must say, that cover for The Odyssey is that story in a whole new light.. 😳😂

[@bad-girlbex3791]

Not to mention the ones for 'Hamlet' and 'Pride & Prejudice'!

[@bad-girlbex3791]

Ah...Jane Eyre. Having to explain to my other half why I needed to purchase two more copies of that book late last year (despite it being an old favourite that I already own and also have on Kindle) was kind of difficult...until I compared it to him wanting to own every single model of the same steel-framed Honda 600cc motorcycle ever made. That seemed to make my little fascination make sense in his eyes, lol.

[@BrandonsBookshelf]

What a wonderful response to Kierans video. I love that you went through his list in detail here. I have already recorded mine and it will be out in a few weeks. I personally really liked many if the books he out forward and thought it was a nice change of pace from many classic top 10s.

[@HungryCats70]

I like your top ten, but wonder whether there shouldn't be more titles by the ancient greeks on the list, such as Aeschylus' Orestaia (esp. the Agamemnon), Euripides' Medea, or Ovid's Metamorphoses. And aside from Beowulf, what about the tale of Gilgamesh? Also heroic fantasy, right? I think one other commenter had it right, that over a period of several thousand years, ten titles is simply inadequate (to put it mildly) to represent the enormous volume of creative thought expressed by both men and women.

[@rishabhaniket1952]

No Quixote?? Very surprising

[@Decrepit_Productions]

Thanks Steve. I just DL'd most of the works on your list (and a few from KDBooks) that I haven't already obtained, from Project Gutenberg.

[@denisadellinger4543]

Jane Austen. Jane...all the time. Anywhere. Anytime. I think that these books are just a small portion of books you MUST read. Before, I would have read the book, not caring who translated it or what year was the best edition. Now I know it can make a difference.

[@revenantreads]

I finally got around to reading the Heaney translation and it was wonderful.

[@carolynnixon7095]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I recognize the value.

[@Caliban_80]

Purgatorio was my favorite part of the commedia. I've only read the Mendelbaum translation which I thought was very enjoyable.

[@HPLov3craft]

fun thought exercise, here's mine: bible plato's dialogues odyssey The Aeneid Summa Theologica Dante's Inferno hamlet lost ilussions faust Dostoievsky the demons biggest doubt was on lost illusions, red and the black, madam bovary or war and peace on the 8th spot

[@jackwalter5970]

Those hunky male covers are fantastic. 😅

[@larrymarshall9454]

Steve, if the cutoff date is 1900, aren't the likes of Dickens, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, the Brontes, etc. fair game? Seems his list reflects a bias for early, early, early literature. What about Cervantes?

[@BrandonsBookshelf]

Also now that i finished the video i am surprised and delighted at our overlap!

[@omnipotentpoobah60]

Perhaps unsurprisingly your 10 is a lot more orthodox than Kieran’s. The same can not be said of your covers though…

[@Lokster71]

I don't know if I'd feel qualified to do a list like this. There's so much I've not read. And all the non-Anglo classics I've only ever read in English - with some exceptions from Ancient Rome from doing Latin at School. I love the Seamus Heaney translation. I really want to have a party where a group of people sit around, drink beer and read it out loud. Have you read Clive James's translation of Dante? Someone bought it for me years ago as a present knowing I like his criticism/journalism but I've not picked it up.

[@KDbooks]

If it helps, I liked the Clive James translation more than the other two I tried when I read it this year 😊

[@phyllisriley1013]

I’m new here. What’s with the hunky men covers?🤣

[@johncrwarner]

I understand his PhD is on Paradise Lost hence his comments on Milton's works.

[@bouquinsbooks]

Once again, many of your books have, uh, what’s the word, uh, alluring covers. I never noticed Mr. Darcy’s tattoos in P&P. I guess that means I am due for a reread.

[@ianp9086]

There was certainly some kind of beefcake undercurrent to the covers!

[@tumblyhomecarolinep7121]

I enjoyed this video very much. I have been wondering about Seamus Heaney and his translation of Beowulf. I love Heaney so I don’t know why I have dithered, suffice to say I just ordered it. Ps Postscript might not be Heaneys best poem but however many times I read it, it still brings a tear to my eye with the last line

[@bonnie7460]

Hi Steve, greetings from Toronto! Do you have any recommendations for books that take place in New Orleans? Or books on the history of New Orleans? I am thinking visiting the city in late February.

[@wildmanz8233]

If I had to pick ten classics from before 1900, I'd say, in no particular order 1) King James Bible 2) The Iliad 3) The Complete Shakespeare (if that's legit 😁) 4) Moby Dick 5) Ovid's Metamorphoses 6) Middlemarch 7) The Aenead 8) Brothers Karamazov 9) Madam Bovary 10) War and Peace

[@GypsyRoSesx]

Your covers 😂

[@kiranreader]

i second canterbury tales!!

[@GraveyardShift-tl6ri]

jeez, the fact that The Jew of Malta has so much current day cancel culture around it just sounds ridiculous. as someone who *casually* read all of Marlowe for fun, i had no clue. i actually thought the play was a bit fun, pretty chaotic too.

[@etucker82]

You convinced me to spend an hour translating Dante in the manner of Nash and Mencken... I had a midlife crisis. I was all up in a savage forest And somewhere in it I lost my compass. Ouch! To say the least, it was tangled, This brutal forest was so rough and puissant, That horror is ever renewed in the thoughts. It's so much more bitter than just a little death, but for treatment and wellness, whomever I find I'll tell that companion what happened. ...I dunno how I came to her place. I was so deep in her bed That I abandoned true virtue. And afterwards, when I was at the foot of those two hills, In the space where I came out of her valley, My repenting heart was terrified. I looked up and I beheld her shoulders; Already draped in the radiance of planets That leads everyone to her street. And after that, the lonely dread, Forever like a needle in the heart. So many nights passed so pathetically. And like those who with hungry lust I released oceans on the shore. ...it quickly veered into Henry Miller territory....

[@waltera13]

I could make an argument for Otranto - if we are talking about Gothics going toward Romantcism ( I myself like a tight influential grouping of "The Castle of Otranto, The Monk, Vathek, & Melmoth the Wanderer (mebbe?) ) - but as the sole representitive of the Age of Reason in a MUST list? Baffling! Mayhap Voltaire? Descartes Anyone? Impact? Perhaps Adam Smith? No? Karl Marx seemed pretty "impactful" (as the kids say because they've abandoned adjectives.) Skipping over ALL of American Lit for the 19th Century? No Thoreau, or Lincoln or Mellville or awwww nevah mind!

[@ACD1994]

Aww no Don Quixote 😔

[@vesch5083]

You present those covers with all seriousness

[@monaedoyle3631]

Hello Steve. The only time I read some books that were classics was back in high school. I haven’t read any since I left school.

[@Deep_in_the_Reads]

I guess I do need an English degree to enjoy Pride and Prejudice, 'cause I read it this year and really couldn't get into it! Really wish I had liked it though, 'cause it seems a bunch of bookworms whose opinions I respect absolutely adore it! Though I did also read Howards End and liked that one much better even though it's similar. Anyway, thanks for this list! The ones I haven't read are all on my TBR so I'll get to them eventually :)

[@richardsonreads573]

Hilarious

[@RichardJSchwartz]

Bravo!