12 Classics You MUST Read!

hello friends, hello and welcome once again to the majestic von mansion, where today I'm going to talk to you about the 12

classics

you should

read

, you really don't have to

read

them if you don't want to. but I was thinking about this. I've spent a month reading fiction that I really enjoyed for the most part, but it wasn't the most challenging, shall we say, thing in the world and sometimes After spending a lot of time just reading, you know, fun books that are really fun, but you know that sometimes Sometimes you want a little more, a little more challenge, maybe some books with deeper themes, some nuances like that, you know sometimes. you want a classic and I was thinking if I would recommend some

classics

but not just classics these are the classics that you know what you read at least if you don't read any other classics in your life and you only go to read some for whatever reason read these at least read these 12 . these are the

must

reads, you don't know you have to, but these are my list of classics that yes, you should read these, what are they good?

There are 12 of them and they are in no particular order. I just took the 12 books and threw them in here and we'll go through them, although the older ones are at the top of the pile here so we'll go through them first. the first would be the epic of gilgamesh the epic of gilgamesh this book is very very very old it is one of the oldest known books that has survived in different clay tablets and this penguin version is really good because it brings together all of these surviving tablets have small illustrations of the tablets themselves and the text and also some illustrations that came along with the original tablets from that time, so it's really cool, this is a really cool addition and not only do I recommend it because it's very old, but because the themes Those that the epic of Gilgamesh talks about are universal and for a book that is thousands of years old it is a human story that we can immediately identify with and this connects us to that distant past through our own humanity because it asks questions and speaks. about themes that are as important to us now as they were when this was originally composed so long ago in the past, themes like friendship and the nature of friendship and death and facing death and how we need to develop the courage to face death. death so that they' There are some pretty heavy themes in this life, death, friendship, I love that kind of stuff, everything is here and you know it as well as you know, monsters and interesting things like that, there's a lot here to recommend and definitely yes, the epic of Gilma Gilgamesh at some point. moment in your life, I would recommend choosing this for sure, so the next one is also very old but it is also essential.

This is Homer's Iliad. It is as I said, a text that has greatly influenced throughout history and this version in particular. from the story translated by robert fagles robert feigel's translation of homer is so beautiful and so well done that i suspect it will become a classic in its own right if it hasn't already, it might have, i think and i have read some translations different from Homer. I think this is probably my favorite. I think it is the most successful. I'm not going to say that it is the most faithful to the poem line by line, but it is a beautiful work. and it brings you Homer with immediacy, uh, the story of Achilles' wrath during the Trojan War again, a story with many human themes that we can relate to, yes, definitely, Homer's Iliad, you need to read this.

The Odyssey is good too, it has a sequel, The Odyssey, but I think of those two this is probably the best and most moving epic poem, so yeah, Homer's Iliad, you should read it, you should read that book, now let's move on to something that's actually really fun this is a fun book this is the complete sherlock holmes penguin but yes the complete sherlock holmes by sir arthur conan doyle you should read it in full just get a complete edition and read it it's not that long I know it's not There are too many Sherlock Holmes stories to fit in this book, but like I said, it's a lot of fun, again it's a very influential book.

Every mystery or detective series that came after was probably affected by it in some way. Whether big or small, but more so than some of the best detective stories in all of literature, this is an interesting examination and development of a fascinating character. That character is Sherlock Holmes, who is a very different man, very interesting, brilliant and focused on his life. brilliance in an interesting way the solving of the crime and also tells the developing story of another great friendship the friendship between watson and sherlock holmes these things develop throughout these stories and novels that are part of the sherlock holmes series and if Read it all together, you really see that development, the character development of Sherlock Holmes, where he starts off as some kind of distant thinking machine, but throughout the stories you see that he's actually a human being and he's really cool, Sherlock Holmes. you should read that you should do that and then we'll move on to a great book.

I don't have my penguin edition that's in the von lodge paperback, so the only copy I have of Moby Dick is this one. the franklin library edition is really great, moby dick, yes it's an adventure story about a whale, but it's so much more. Now I hear a lot of talk about moby dick lately on booktube, not everyone likes this book, some people are really upset with this book and it's a lot of apparent asides and digressions from the main story of the hunt for the great white whale, Moby Dick, who bit Captain Ahab's leg and Captain Ahab has been really angry since then, so he is obsessed and needs to find Moby Dick at all costs, even the cost. of becoming a worse captain and endangering his crew because of his own obsession, but there is a lot more to this book than just that and, in fact, many of the things that bother a lot of people about this book are the ones that in They actually make this book great. because a lot of those chapters that are in between the main story, chapters on whaling, chapters on whales, philosophical reflections on whales, they actually bring this story to life and give it a sense of realism that you wouldn't otherwise would make you feel like you were.

I have been on a whaling ship after reading this book because you get a lot of information about whaling and whales and whaling ships and what they knew about whales at the time, which is not always completely accurate, but it puts you at this time in which this was written it is fascinating it is a fascinating book that you can return to several times throughout your life and you will find something different in it it is one of those books this is one of those books that shows why the classics They are important because they are the kind of books that are so good and so interesting that you can come back to them again and again and find something new in them each time moby dick you should read that book it's great now let's move on to the book you knew was going to stop and that, of course, is war and peace, war and peace, now war and peace are huge and that scares a lot of people, although I've said it before, if you can read these giant epics by Brandon Sanderson or Game of Thrones. or any book like that, you can certainly read this one, it's less complex than malazon, although I guess everything is, but it is a fascinating book about war and the effects of war on people's lives.

In this case, we are dealing with aristocratic families, although it has a couple of main characters and can show you the devastating effects of war and also how war can change you as a person and how hardships and hardships can bring out who you really are if you go through hardships and struggles that can focus you as a person and help you see what's really important and give you a better understanding of who you are and I think that happens to some of the characters in this book. A lot of things happen in this book, a lot of philosophy, particularly in the later section there is a later section in this book that drives everyone crazy, but it's fascinating, it's brilliant, it guarantees peace, I've heard some people say crazy things, like It was overrated, it's not, war and peace is incredible, you should read that book, hey, here's another great book.

This is Les Miserables Miserables by Victor Hugo so this book is very different from War and Peace it focuses on different things This is a very human story It is long It is a long story Another book with many digressions but you know in the past When they wrote these things , that wasn't that important, it's not like you were going to miss your favorite TV show or something. You know big books and long stories have their advantages and this is a story about courage and the hardships and the heartbreak and the resilience of the human spirit, like I said, it's a very human and humane story and I think it's just wonderful.

Victor Hugo's Les Mis Brilliants is worth reading even though it's giant and make sure you get the giant version out there. They are abbreviated versions, of course, of many of these works, but don't mess with those weak abbreviated versions; After all, you want a challenge, if you're going for the classics, you don't want an easy read, no, so get the real version. thing man, get the real thing, don't sell yourself short, so here you go, here's something that's a lot smaller, although this is frankenstein by mary shelley, a bright shiny book for such a little thing, this is a little book, This is the text from 1818.

The version we usually see is a version that was revised years later by Mary Shelley. She watered it down, I think a little bit in the revised version. I like this version that she wrote when she was younger and maybe less worried about what people would think. She or this story could not have known how successful this story would be and has become one of the most successful and influential works in all of literature. Almost everyone has heard of Frankenstein. Not many people seem to have heard of Frankenstein. read the book frankenstein and the book is very different from any of the movies you've ever seen and one of the really interesting things about this book is that there are so many things that this book is about it's about revenge it's about responsibility it's about the limits of human knowledge and maybe if some knowledge is forbidden or at least knowledge that we are not prepared for, it's about ambition, it's about a lot of things, I mean, this is another one of those books that you can come back to. your life and when you read it you will find something different in it, but again it is a very human story, the monster in this story is a creature that is sympathetic, it can be a scary creature and this monster does terrible things in this story, but you understand why that at least Frankenstein's monster is forced to do this because Frankenstein is not a great guy and certainly not up to his responsibilities, so Frankenstein I will always recommend Frankenstein.

Let me put down this big stack of books I have. and we'll move on to the rest of these books, okay, so this book, the next one, is a beautiful book, this is ovid, this is the metamorphosis and this is a retelling of the greek and roman myths in a long poem by ovid, who He was a Roman poet who lived in the time of Augustus. He got into trouble for some of the things he wrote and was unfortunately exiled, but this is probably his masterpiece. It's a beautiful version of these stories, these stories that are immortal and have been so influential.

In much of our literature, this is just a wonderful book and, again, I think it's one of those books that you can come back to again and again. In fact, I've only read it once and it's about time I read it again. I didn't actually read this edition this is an edition that was translated by david rayburn uh I read a different edition years ago but look how great it's beautiful and it's a wonderful book and I think you know it's one of those books that you really have to read at least once in my opinion, in my opinion, let's move on to some of Charles Dickens, you probably have to read some of Charles Dickens at some point in your life and look, it's Charles Dickens, so I chose high expectations out of all of them. charles dickens books and it was a difficult decision because he has written some good things charles dickens I probably chose high expectations because I think it is representative of a lot of things that you will find in dickens, the eccentric characters that still somehow manage to be human beings and to seem real while you read this the work of charles dickens is a fascinating story of pip in which you are invested pip his ambition and his good his great expectations he wants to be more than he is and along the way he makes some mistakes and things turn out very different than they I expected worse or better read the book and find out but it's an excellent book high expectations many people feel this is his best work I'm debating that in my mind I haven't read all of Charles Dickens' books so I can't give you an opinion Informed opinion on that, but of the ones I've read, this is the one I would say yes, read this book, read this book if you haven't read anything else by Charles Dickens.

This is definitely one you won't want to miss. Now let's move on to a challenging book. Very often this next book is considered or has been considered or at least presented as aRomance. It's not that it's Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights, this is an amazing book full of really unpleasant characters, I guess there's romance in this, but it's kind of a selfish romance, the people in this book, man, but what this is about book is actually about passion. It's about passion, at least, violent passion and how destructive it can be and it's about a lot of other things too.

There is a lot of abuse in this book. There is a lot of anger. There is a lot of discomfort in general, but at the same time it is beautiful. It's hard to explain, but I was surprised when I first read this. The Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. This is a book you

must

read. If you have any preconceptions about this book, I'll probably demolish them. Wuthering Heights. This is an amazing book by Emily. bronte, it is a great achievement in literature and probably one of the best novels ever written, so yes there is such a thing as wuthering heights, now let's get to something that is not a work of fiction, this is a very early work of history. work of history you think I'm going to say Herodotus, right?

I'm not. Instead of choosing Herodotus, I'm going to choose Thucydides for this list because Thucydides, well, I think he's a much more challenging historian than Herodotus. He has some very serious things to say about the nature of human beings and how human beings don't change. We are to a certain extent predictable because our desires, our needs, our desires will always be the same from one generation to the next. Next, no matter how much our technology seems to change, we seem to remain more or less the same as we were 2,000 years ago, when Thucydides wrote this book about the Peloponnesian War, the massive war that shook the Greek world, a civil war within from Greece. where all the Greek city-states had to choose sides between Athens or Spartacide and go to war and this describes in great detail the effects of that war and how that war was fought and how people change during times of war, many of those things never change. also about the nature of politics and power and how nations are very interested in how nations when they make allies or make decisions it is always from a point of self-interest, it is something interesting and this has always been studied and rightly so, so Thucydides history of the Peloponnesian War yes you should read this book probably everyone should read this book I mean unless you don't want to but you know what I say I'm going to finish again this is a book that is not a penguin but this is the version that I read of this is the brothers karamazov by theodore dostoevsky and I think this could be this could be the best novel ever written it could be without a doubt the best I have read in my opinion many topics in this book a lot of theological themes a lot about the nature of good and evil what it means to fight to be a good person how difficult it can be sometimes it's about a family about the worst father of all time and his three children his three children or were there four children and it is also a kind of murder mystery and there are many other things it is just a wonderful novel beautifully written it has everything you want in a novel and much more it is just an incredibly rewarding novel The experience of reading this book will probably be one of the most personally rewarding reading experiences of my life.

I just found this book amazing and yes, I think it's the best. It is the best. It's your brother's Karamazov. I can't say this translation is the best but it was tremendously good this is who does this uh this is by richard pevier and larissa vlonkonsky vlonkonski yeah I didn't remove that name at all so yeah his brother's karamazov oh my god , I have talked a lot, I will shut up now I will shut up, guys, I will see you tomorrow when I talk about things that are not classic, nothing, guys, I will see you next time.