00:00 Intro 01:20 Tale of Genji (Shikibu) 02:25 Histories (Herodotus) 03:29 Moby-Dick (Melville) 04:21 The Last Hurrah (O'Connor) 06:53 The Persian Boy (Renault) 08:10 History of Rome (Livy) 10:25 The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer) 11:28 Middlemarch (Eliot) 12:34 The Divine Comedy (Dante) 14:25 Metamorphoses (Ovid)

I cannot stop thinking about War and Peace. It is in your own words almost perfect.

Moby Dick was such a revelation for me. So unique, hilarious, epic, tragic. So good.

@MicahCummins

Жыл бұрын

I read Moby Dick for the first time just a few months ago, and I completely agree with you. It blew me away!

@Yungshamgod

Жыл бұрын

great book

1. The World as Will & Representation by Schopenhauer 2. King Lear 3. Ecclesiastes 4. The Canterbury Tales 5. Jane Eyre 6. Uncle Tom's Cabin 7. The Wanderings of Oisin by Yeats 8. The Interior Castle by St Teresa of Avila 9. Plutarch's Lives 10. Plato's Republic It definitely shifts over time but most of these have remained in place.

I just read Middlemarch for March of the Mammoths and my god, it's just such an amazing book. It creeps up on you and it's just full of life, everything that is life is in that book and it's quietly woven in there. I fell in love with it and a part of me will always be in Middlemarch because I feel as if I've lived there with them all.

Commenting before watching so I'm influenced! My 10 favorites in no particular order: 1) Canterbury Tales 2) Vanity Fair 3) Julius Caesar by Shakespeare 4) Mrs. Dalloway 5) Herodotus' Histories 6) Iliad 7) Moby Dick 8) Shropshire Lad 9) Emma 10) The Scarlet Letter

So many folks have recommended "Middlemarch" that I finally decided to borrow a library copy. I also felt compelled to read SOMETHING by George Eliot, because our birthdays fall on the same day. I got the library copy, and I read the ladies' conversations of the first few chapters. And I thought: You know what? I don't care. I can't see myself caring about ANY of this. And back to the library it went.

@saintdonoghue

3 ай бұрын

That’s a shame. You’re really, really missing something great.

You've convinced me, Steve. I'll be making my list soon!

@saintdonoghue

Жыл бұрын

What about we two recording a Zoom chat about the process or even the very idea of lists like this? Wouldn't that be fun!

@_jared

Жыл бұрын

@@saintdonoghue Sounds great to me.

Hi Steve. I watched Ben’s video too and it prompted me to see if I can build up My Top 100 fiction books on goodreads, so I created a shelf and started adding to it. If I picked 10, I think you might think it’s a terrible list haha - hard to pick 10….but I’m often tempted to do something like this.

Brilliant! My three favourite books are on your list. Moby Dick, Ovid and Herodotus..but I still need to read some of your favourites.. Dante, for example, which I find intimidating and get hung up on translations, but I WILL read.

The Lord of the Rings Pride and Prejudice Wuthering Heights The Claverings Lonesome Dove Crime and Punishment Dracula The Witness by Juan José Saer Moonglow by Michael Chabon All the short stories by Borges

Love this, thank you! Moby Dick very nearly made mine, I've got an edition which doesn't have a boring cover though so wouldn't have worked 😂

@saintdonoghue

Жыл бұрын

I was deeply dismayed when watching your video to hear you say you're, what was it? 36? When did you make such a wayward life decision?

@doomantidote

Жыл бұрын

@Steve Donoghue I know... why didn't I become a chain smoking weight lifting billionaire minimalist at 22?? 😭

1. The Lord of the Rings 2. A Bend in the River, by V.S.Naipaul 3. Eyes of the Overworld, by Jack Vance 4. Inferno, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle 5. The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser 6. Huckleberry Finn 7. Paradise Lost 8. Pride and Prejudice 9. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 10. Every single "Biggles" book, by Captain W.E.Johns

@saintdonoghue

Жыл бұрын

"Eyes of the Overworld"????? So you made nine entries on this list, then stopped for an entire plate of edibles, and then came back and added one more?

@pwmiles56

Жыл бұрын

@@saintdonoghue No, it was the second [sorry third] one that came to mind. I had a phase when I was around 20 of talking like Jack Vance's characters. Luckily no-one noticed. (He was American, a merchant sailor in WW2, became a revered fantasy author, unique mannered style)

Excellent video, I knew I'd find some new gems here thanks. Was Gibbon close?

love it!! i made a best books vid when i first joined youtube and i think its safe to say i'd prob make a few edits

my copy of The Last Hurrah just arrived, one of the last books i bought from book depository. I'm looking forward to it.

This will be fun!

Interesting list. Here's mine for now: 1. The Iliad. 2. Paradise Lost. 3.Pamela. 4.Moby Dick. 5. Theory of the Leisure Class. 6.Decline and Fall. 7. How to Do Things with Words. (I know. Well three more white males) 8. The Power Elite. 9. The Rise of the Meritocracy..10. The Shield of Achilles.

I just Iove Steve that’s all I have to say

@saintdonoghue

Жыл бұрын

Good Lord, where's that coming from? It's just the same boring old me!

Thank you, Steve🌷I liked Ben’s video too. This is quite a challenge and, I agree, such a list is not set in stone. My ten favourites could be (in no particular order): Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar, The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni, Anna Karenina, Middlemarch, History: a Novel by Elsa Morante, Canti by Giacomo Leopardi, Sappho’s Poems, Within a Budding Grove by Proust, The Garden of the Finzi Continis by Giorgio Bassani, and… all Shakespeare’s Plays😊By the way, I’ll be following some of the read alongs with Classics and Company. I’ll be rereading (again!) Memoirs of Hadrian and also try The Tale of Genji (it was a favourite of Marguerite Yourcenar’s and I’ve had it on my shelves, unread, forever). I’ll be looking forward to your comments on Genji.

@saintdonoghue

Жыл бұрын

Manzoni!!!

What are you talking about? I love Funeral Games. I especially liked the trick Mary Renault played on me, when I myself forgot all about the second wife heading for Babylon to her doom, because all the other events were so gripping. But as for The Persian boy, I simply couldn't put it down.

I'm tempted to make my own video like this.

Half of the books on your list are on my TBR! (Currently reading Herodotus). Ok here’s my list, the numbers don’t mean anything though! And fair warning, it might give you an aneurism! 1. Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien (duh) 2. Farseer Trilogy, Robin Hobb (I’ll count it as one, it is one story) 3. Complete Stories, HP Lovecraft (I don’t like them all, but most of them) 4. Empire of the East, Fred Saberhagen (I’m not trying to cheat, it’s been published as one book so…) 5. Time out of joint, PK Dick (yes, PKD, fight me Donoghue!) 6. Dune, Frank Herbert 7. Legion of Space, Jack Williamson 8. Necroscope, Brian Lumley 9. Collected stories, CA Smith (ok this is 5 volumes but it could, in theory, be one very big volume…) 10. Bug Jack Barron, Norman Spinrad Ok I hated this and I’m changing my mind already! No REH, Glen Cook, Van Vogt, other writers Steve Donoghue probably doesn’t like… not sure why I included Necroscope… hmm.

@saintdonoghue

Жыл бұрын

"Empire of the East"! Good Lord, I'm loving all these responses!

My top ten list would certainly contain a few in common with Steve's excellent list (Moby Dick, Herodotus, Metamorphoses), but the similarities would end with James Joyce's Ulysses sitting right at the top, godlike and paring its nails.

@saintdonoghue

Жыл бұрын

OK, that last phrase made me fall in love with you ...

Speed reading Canterbury Tales sounds like a mouthful

Orlando Furioso and War and Peace not there anymore!!? I love this kind of video but I don’t know if I could tell which books are my favourites (Definitely Moby-dick would be one of them though)

Great list. Moby Dick is the only one that’s on my list as well. I based mine on books I reread. Mind are also mostly series based. Also subject to change. 1. Dune - Of course. It’s just this past year it jumped to #1. 2. Lord of the Rings, I count The Hobbit with this as well. 3. Conan 4. Moby Dick 5. Star Wars: Republic Commando, by Karen Traviss - This is the first Star Wars author to look at the Star Wars universe from a realistic military perspective. The horrors of being a clone serving in the Clone War. I’m a sucker to military sci-fi as well. 6. The Case Against Satan, by Ray Russell - I’m usually not a big horror guy. This one surprised me. A better version of The Exorcist. Doesn’t give you all the answers. 7. Rumble Fish, by S. E. Hinton - The first book I had to read for school, sixth grade I think, that I enjoyed and got me into reading. 8. The Iliad and The Odyssey

I find myself more eager to discover Moby Dick thanks to you, although that book still scares me... And as for Dante, I tend to prefer the Purgatory, even though one has to embrace the whole story to enjoy it.

I’m going to be really predictable and boring and include Donna Tartt’s The Secret History in my all-time favourite books. I read it before the cool kidz and their dark academia core on its first publication in paperback if that protects me from The Master’s ire?

@saintdonoghue

Жыл бұрын

You and Ben both prioritizing "The Secret History" is actually tempting me to re-read it ...

@EveningReader

Жыл бұрын

Mine, too. I first read it in 1992 and have probably read it more than thirty times. The dark academia thing drives me nuts. My other all-time favorites are True Grit and Lonesome Dove.

My top three books are: War and Peace, Les Miserable and A Tale of Two Cities. After that it's negotiable

I agree, Edwin O’Connor created great characters in Mayor Frank Skeffington and all the satellite characters in his orbit. However, I read it back to back with The Edge of Sadness which for me was the better novel. Mayor Skeffington also appears in that story.

@saintdonoghue

Жыл бұрын

You think “The Edge of Sadness” is a better book? Fascinating! But I have to know: which one would you be more likely to re-read?

@marytumulty4257

Жыл бұрын

“The Edge of Sadness” is most likely for me to re-read. I am wracking my brain as to which one has that very funny wake scene. Certain of the attending characters reminded me of real life individuals my parents knew. I read these books more than 30 yrs ago.

By coincidence I’m reading “Genji “ right now

Tom Holland the famed Spider Man actor 😂😂😂. Careful Steve, some people might buy into it

You loose all credibility for having the audacity to leave off Sally Rooney from this list.