Ten Penguin Classics that Lit Up My Soul

[@Iceageonmars]

The Iliad. Homer Don Quixote. Cervantes Heart of Darkness -Joseph Conrad Selected poems -Lorca Jacobs Room -Virginia Woolf Untouchable -Mulk Raj Anand Tokyo Express -Seicho Matsumoto Complete Stories - Clarice Lispector Against interpretation - Susan Sontag

[@brenboothjones]

Thank you so much for doing this!

[@brenboothjones]

*and Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

[@shanefelle9385]

I read Tokyo Express during the summer, what a great little book!

[@brenboothjones]

@ it’s really fun and atmospheric isn’t it? Beautiful cover too!

[@shanefelle9385]

@brenboothjones yes it was the cover that drew me to it. Reading another Japanese book now "The Sound of waves" by Mishima.

[@AlexATheEngineer]

something about the winter season gets me SO excited to read icy, colder, and/or darker novels, as if the snow blanketing everything in death and bleakness IRL is something i want reflected in my pages, so my ears instantly perked up when you described having wept at End of the Tether, the father-daughter relationship sounds resonant, definitely on my radar now as I savor all the beauty of winter, great video Bren!

[@alb0zfinest]

War and Peace is a great read for winter.

[@brenboothjones]

Always love to hear your responses, Alexa. Thank you! End of the Tether is definitely emotive, but it takes place in a tropical setting (Malaysia)…so a bit less wintry. But I think you’ve just given me a wonderful topic for a video! Wintry classics for the cosy festive time of year. Thanks!

[@AlexATheEngineer]

@@brenboothjones oh I'd LOVE to see an entire video on wintry-themed recs -- such a good idea! cheers

[@brenboothjones]

Tokyo Express translated by Jesse Kirkwood, by the way! Forgot to mention that!

[@Noortjestortelder]

I love how you explain and use the words❤

[@brenboothjones]

Thank you for being here ❤️

[@eduardoandgo]

Over about three months, I read Don Quixote with a Classics book club I was a part of and the discussions definitely made me appreciate its timelessness and humor! My Antonia by Willa Cather is a novel that lit me up. Another great video!

[@brenboothjones]

Ah that’s a fantastic text for a book club reading. Thank you for the encouragement!

[@shabirmagami146]

brilliant list ...great recommendations 💌

[@brenboothjones]

Thank you!

[@10.6.12.]

Like Ganesh in V. S.Naipaul's, 'the mystic masseur', we both seem to be committed collectors of penguins!

[@brenboothjones]

Great reference. I have a Naipaul book coming up in a video in the new year!

[@brenboothjones]

How many of these have you read? Did you love them or fling them across the room in disdain? Or something in between?

[@katlamb4606]

Man, why are you majestic?❤

[@brenboothjones]

Ahah thank you!

[@stephenmorton8017]

I'm reading a penguin classic right now. Roughing It by Mark Twain. I'm only 13 chapters in but already there are tall tales and blood and guts on the overland stage. I just finished a collection of Conrad stories last month. The first one being " an Outpost of Progress " and I thought egads this is something Stephen King would like. I finished that one a huge admirer of Conrad. I always look for that little penguin at the thrift store. They never fail to be good.

[@brenboothjones]

Well said. Yes Conrad actually wrote a ton of supposedly lesser works that are much less talked about these days. Some of them are very good. You’re right that Penguin maintains an exemplary standard! Check out my series on Reading the First 3000 Penguin titles if you fancy it-I think it might be something for you? We are 5 episodes in!

[@ReadingIDEAS.-uz9xk]

Great books mentioned. Best wishes and happy reading to you!

[@brenboothjones]

Thanks so much mate!

[@ShawnMorey-sx7wm]

Your analysis was quite enlightening. Thanks.

[@brenboothjones]

Thank you!

[@livmatharu585]

I just found your channel, love all the books you recommend and the way you described them. Looking forward to more videos from you 😊

[@brenboothjones]

Ah that’s lovely to hear. Thank you! Enjoy the back catalog :)

[@karenbird6727]

I've only read 4 authors that you mentioned: Virginia Woolf, Cervantes, Lispector, and Homer, but I have only read one book that you mentioned: Don Quixote. I think Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, have influenced me the most. Thank you for the list!

[@brenboothjones]

Thank you for sharing. And thanks for the reminder to talk about Dostoevsky. Been a while since I read him. Should make a video soon.

[@CeliaAWhite]

I just found your channel; it's incredible.

[@brenboothjones]

Oh gosh thank you! And welcome! I hope you enjoy catching up on earlier videos. All of which are divided into playlists if you fancy browsing by topic. Best wishes, B

[@444Raine]

Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan (translated by Heather Lloyd) lit up my brain. Sagan was a teenage genius. How could someone so young write like that?

[@brenboothjones]

Good call! Have some Sagan books coming up in my ‘Reading the First 3000 Penguins’ series early next year.

[@tylerbailey85]

Bren, I'm always exposed to new (to me) writers because of you. Thank you. A classic that I thoroughly enjoyed was East of Eden.

[@brenboothjones]

@@tylerbailey85 ah what a lovely comment! Thank you so much! Yes Steinbeck is terrific. I need to do some Steinbeck content soon! Thank you for the reminder!

[@frizzyrascal1493]

Heart of Darkness is so great.

[@stephenmorton8017]

I was flabbergasted to learn that English was not Conrad's first language. What a master he was. Did you know that he was a favorite of the Unabomber?

[@brenboothjones]

It’s powerfully ambivalent and spooky and flawed and complicit and murky and multivalent. Conrad is underrated these days.

[@TheLinguistsLibrary]

OOooh I love your classics collection! Clarice 💕 --Also, guess who just received her first Booth-Jones poetry book?

[@brenboothjones]

Ah gosh that warms my heart! You’re the best. Thank you. I hope the poems move you.

[@tommygoodman4570]

Bren, Read Homer and Cervantes, I have been reading Dostoevsky, “The Idiot,” “Crime and Punishment,” and Read others as well by him! He can be depressing, however very up lifting too as to how we are all able to relate to suffering and redemption in his own life experiences, as well as his characters?! Very simply put as well as quickly stated! Could discuss his works a lot more.

[@brenboothjones]

Well said. Yes I will certainly be covering Dostoyevsky soon!

[@tommygoodman4570]

@ I just finished “Crime and Punishment,” and it is absolutely in my top 10 as of now! It was one of those read you don’t want to finish, but want to know the ending as well!

[@oblomovtheunknown]

It is an interesting and of course eclectic choice. I found that in the course of my reading the first books that got me really addicted to reading were books by Graham Greene and P.G. Wodehouse - like after eights I could not get enough of them. But immediately after leaving school around 16, I read many of the English classics in the Malvern Public Library. That was an education in itself. But, as with all lists, I found certain writers I can reread and enjoy very much and those are Zweig, Broch, Woolf, D.H. Lawrence and William Faulkner as well as Henry James, Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield. Since I lived in Japan, Paris, Denmark, Firenze I naturally read many books from writers from those places. When I lived/stayed in Shakespeare & Co Paris I read and loved Lorca and the American writers.

[@brenboothjones]

What an adventurous life (externally but also internally through your reading). We have very similar taste in writers I see! Also spent many dreamy hours in Shakespeare & Co in Paris! Halcyon days. Thanks for sharing.

[@Gonzalo_Broto]

Hello Bren, a very compelling and varied list! I'm glad to see two Spanish writers included, both extraordinary. "Jacob's Room" left me quite confused, it puzzled and irritated me with that "elusiveness" that you have mentioned, and remains my least favourite Virginia Woolf novel to date (it's still a solid book, just not comparable to her other masterworks, in my opinion). "Against Interpretation" is eye-opening and very insightful. "Heart of Darkness" is eerily beautiful and it grows more and more ambiguous and impactful every time I reread it (I have the Oxford World Classics edition which contains other short stories, but "The End of the Tether" is not, unfortunately, one of them). Cheers!

[@brenboothjones]

Nice to hear your responses! Thanks for sharing. The Oxford World Classics are great, aren’t they? About 6 months ago I made a Virginia Woolf video-I’m curious what you think of it :) you can find it in the “My Canon” playlist, if you’re interested. I agree about the power of rereading Heart of Darkness! I’ve read it twice but it feels like the kind of text that will always throw up new angles and unforeseen shadowy hauntings.

[@Gonzalo_Broto]

@@brenboothjones Will do!

[@ToReadersItMayConcern]

Students are often shocked by the violence-and of the particularity of that violence, with blades sinking deep into someone's shoulder and whatnot-of The Iliad, and yet it always contrasts perfectly with the sympathetic framing of some of those who die, such as of Hector in his home; then the cruelty that follows feels suddenly of worth since we were granted humanity first. Intriguing, too, how entertaining that violence is (though many hesitate to admit it). The Iliad is endlessly re-readable. Fagles' translation has an especially breathless flow to it; he doesn't abuse punctuation like some other translators. I realize as this video goes on that I have a lot to say about all of these books. Excellent, excellent selection, my friend. Among the classics you could have chosen you picked the most worthy of re-reads. Conrad is especially nice after reading a Homeric epic-suddenly the starkness feels grand.

[@brenboothjones]

So well articulated. And you’re right about that contrast: that orchestral resounding of high poetry tempering the violence. I found reading The Iliad illuminating but not particularly enjoyable. Although the quaintness of Pope’s translation is surprisingly fun to read. “Breathless” is apt. Fagles’s version really is relentless. I always appreciate your responses. Thank you for sharing your own journey with us!

[@davidnovakreadspoetry]

“I have a lot to say about all of these books.” Response video time? 🤔

[@ToReadersItMayConcern]

@@davidnovakreadspoetry I guess I haven't done a video devoted to classics. Certainly an idea!

[@brenboothjones]

@@ToReadersItMayConcern ah that would be a delight. But then again, any time you turn on the camera and talk to us about books is a delight. I actually have a list in my head of writers/books I’m excited to hear you speak about. DFW, to take one example!

[@alexandersinclair8942]

“We live as we dream, alone.”

[@brenboothjones]

The horror, the horror.

[@Alejosales]

You should be an actor!

[@dahlia9023]

I clicked because of Seicho Matsumoto 😊

[@brenboothjones]

👌

[@jeanmarieboucherit7376]

Thanks

[@brenboothjones]

Merci!

[@MrToryhere]

Woolf was so tedious and silly. Evelyn Waugh is much better and more revelatory. If you want the real inventor of modernistic writing, eschew Woolf and Joyce and try Ronald Firbank, the first writer to understand how to write cinematically. He could take you through a room at a party catching all the conversation, just like a camera and microphone moving through the crowd. And this was before films had sound.

[@Contraband_Pigments]

"Empathy machines" -- that's great. 👏

[@brenboothjones]

Thank you!

[@davidmayhew8083]

I can't really understand the titles as spoken. Please be a little clearer. I also can't read the text on the covers. I know some of these but many are new.

[@brenboothjones]

Thanks for the feedback. I will write the full list out and pin it in the comments section.

[@74griffo]

Turn the captions on then

[@davidmayhew8083]

@74griffo they're misspelled.

[@brenboothjones]

@ those are the AI-generated titles. Will get back to you when I’ve added the list (today). My excuse for it taking a little longer is that I have a 2 month old baby to take care of. Thanks for understanding.