Hi! Teenage girl here 😅 really happy I came across this video!! I’ve never been a fan of YA, and I just started on classics around two years ago. I think the first ‘adult’ book I read was (the first one that I actually didn’t skip half of, at least) was somehow one hundred years of solitude- i know it’s not something I would be expected to read but I loved it. I also read Sense and sensibility, Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist (which I absolutely hated at first)all of which I plan to re read soon, and last year I read Les Mis (I hated it at first too but I really liked it afterwards; it took me a year and I’m planning to re read that one too) and gone with the wind (liked it so much I finished it in a week). The books I particularly enjoyed reading this year were wuthering heights, Emma, the Scarlett letter, Mrs dalloway (I really love Virginia Woolf)and some of kafka. Currently reading don Quixote and I have a longgg booklist waiting for me- I haven’t heard of 1/3 of the books you mentioned, would definitely add them to my list!! Im planning to start on Greek mythology, dystopian literature, Shakespeare and some philosophy. And maybe some poetry, like Sylvia Plath and Emily dickenson. Sorry for the rant, just really excited to find content that is for my age group 😭

As a teenager I devoured all of Jane Austen novels and then went to read Anna Karenina, Jane Eyre, Little Woman and The Picture of Dorian Gray. It is safe to say that I fell in love with reading classics since then 😊. Love these recommendations as well!

I read The Diary of Anne Frank as a young teen, and it made a huge impact on me. I related to Anne Frank as a teen girl reading about the feelings and experiences of another girl. The ending, written by her father, was a total shock to me. I did not know, before I read the book, what ultimately happened to Anne Frank, and I didn't really understand what happened during WWII. The Diary of Anne Frank was the most impactful book I had ever read to that point and if I'm honest, it probably still is.

@pattorelli3451

9 ай бұрын

Yes, this is what I was going to say. The Diary of Anne Frank is the perfect read for a young teenage girl. I also enjoyed the poems of e e cummings, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch, and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

@pattorelli3451

9 ай бұрын

And also short stories by O. Henry.

As a former teenage girl this is a great list. I like that you emphasize read slowly not just to check the I read it box.

@BenjaminMcEvoy

Жыл бұрын

Thank you, Jacqui :)

Grandma here ....my 14 year old granddaughter said to me, after talking for a few minutes... Grandma I'm reading! Meaning after all these years of you telling me to read, I finally love it. And with that our journey begins! Thank you. Your videos are wonderful.

Nice, that's one contentious topic right there. And although I dearly appreciate classical high literature I'm on the side that the book-seller was right. I mean, not only he made a sale (which is basically his whole thing) but he might have laid the first step on a long ladder to book reading appreciation. Long story short, you can lead a teenager daughter to water but you can't make her read. And it's way more easy to get someone into reading by the likes of Harry Potter or Hunger Games or whatever than throwing Shakespeare and Aristotle with a touch of Proust from the start at them. Just my 2 cents, gentle readers. I'll throw myself out, thank you! Cheers!

I think a teenager, young or old, needs to read _stories with a plot,_ and not the theoretical, philosophical stuff like Aristotle or Nietzsche. Traditionally, Jane Austin was suggested for a girl, _Count of Monte Cristo_ for a boy. Today, I think both of these are good choices for _both_ boys and girls. An easy read is necessary for starting readers; Sherlock Holmes was challenging for me when I was 13. A well-meaning teacher tried to get (force?) my brother to read _A Tale of Two Cities_ when he was 8 or 9, and it ruined any chance he had for a love of reading. A teenager is just beginning to read hard, sophisticated books. When teenagers start getting morose and arguing with their parents, that's the time for some philosophical content; something like _The Outsiders,_ by S. E. Hinton, or _Bonjour Tristesse,_ by Françoise Sagan. But these, too, are stories with engaging plots. Engaging plots seem to me essential for a young reader. The older I get the more I appreciate Tolstoy, and I still have trouble with Dostoevsky.

I found an old copy of Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block in a used bookstore in the mid 90s when I was 14. I bought it because the cover looked cool. That book blew my mind and rewired my brain and forever changed my taste in books. Up to that point, I had been a voracious reader of Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley High and Little House on the Prairie-type books. Weetzie Bat was my introduction to more adult themed stories, albeit disguised in dreamy and euphemistic language. Decades later, it still holds up. A must-read for teenage girls, especially of the angsty, artsy and awkward variety.

I'd highly recommend Oleander Girl by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë , Evelina by Fanny Burney, Little Women and Anne of Green Gables

@BenjaminMcEvoy

2 жыл бұрын

Wonderful recommendations, thank you :)

@Tiger89Lilly

Жыл бұрын

I would add the Katie did books I love that series when I was a young teenager

The short story “White nights” by Dostoyevsky is the book that got me into reading when I was 15 years old. It was a lovely hardcover book that belonged to a wonderful collection my neighbor had. So I would hand that book to a teenage girl. And not that I needed an excuse to adore your videos, but the thought of this video and it’s content is both marvelous and significant. Thank you.

The father may have had good intentions, and defined well what he'd like for his daughter, but the right questions were not asked. I don't blame her for behaving with quiet indifference. It's one thing for a parent not to be interested in what you are interested in, but to hear also that the salesman took note of what the father wanted and immediately decided he knew what she should/would/could read based on his own ideas, without even asking her what she's read, the type of books she was familiar with, what interests her most, etc...? At that age they will generally decide to blank out and just go with the flow if there's no social engagement. At that age I was well into Shakespeare, the Bronte's, Charles Dickens, etc.. as well as fantasy (LOTR etc) and sci-fi (John Wyndham, etc) and eventually any number of other things as well. As my children grew, I let them choose. Right from when they were small. We made regular library visits to browse and borrow. I used to give them some cash at the bookstore to buy some books they wanted for themselves. At that age I had one that used to pick out things from Austen to trash romance, another choosing manga and mythology, yet another into self-discovery and philosophy with books like Siddhartha etc.. Plenty of very different books were selected and read, and who was I to deny their personal choice? Given I have always been an avid reader with an extensive collection they had the opportunity to browse my own library at home as well so there are many books they have shared reading experiences of as well, simply because the books were there for them to browse and at least one of us had something to say about it if someone was interested in one. Unless someone she values shows an interest in one of the books that have been purchased for her, I feel this young girl might be less inspired to read them due to that fact. Her fathers intention to get her to read more may very well backfire.

@BenjaminMcEvoy

3 жыл бұрын

You're so right. And what a wonderful childhood reading plan you had! One of my own cherished childhood memories involved going to the public library as part of their initiative to get children reading more - we would receive stickers based on how many books we read and were asked to track them. If we hit a certain goal number, we got a medal and a bookmark. It was pretty motivating :)

@nicole73551

3 жыл бұрын

Haha.. No stickers or goal setting for my lot. They were encouraged to look at books just by exposure, and encouraged to tell the rest of us what they thought of a book they read. So their inspiration to read came more from wanting to inspire the rest of us to read something they enjoyed themselves. Total joy if everyone liked something.

@BenjaminMcEvoy

3 жыл бұрын

@@nicole73551 Wow. Your children are very lucky to have you! Sounds like the perfect approach :)

Little Women by LM Alcott and of course Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery (Canadian girl here 😊)

@BenjaminMcEvoy

2 жыл бұрын

Very nice :)

@kina7128

2 жыл бұрын

Brought up in South Africa, here. My favourite as a teenager was Little Women, followed by Good Wives and Jo's Boys. Also LOVED the books by Dalene Matthee, with Circles in a Forest my all-time favourite.

Recommended books: A basis: - Jane Austen; don't immediately go for Pride and Prejudice, go for Persuasion, Emma, Sense and Sensibility - Shakespeare; plays where he has imbued the characters with humanity: Macbeth, Anthony & Cleopatra - Chaucer; Wife of Bath Then to get the teenage girl to looking at the world he recommends - George Orwell; 1984, Animal Farm But to keep with female voices: - Margaret Atwood; The Handmaids Tale - Shirley Jackson; The Lottery - Daphne du Maurier; Rebecca - June Chang; Wild Swans Lastly because it's a slim book and in line with the other books: - Viktor Frankl; Man's search for meaning Two huge novels the teenage girl should take her time with - Leo Tolstoy; Anna Karenina --> teaches empathy - Victor Hugo; Les Miserables --> what is an ideal man, what is an ideal woman? Modern stuff for a guy: - William Faulkner; Absalom, Absalom; As I lay Dying - Hemingway (no titles mentioned, but Hemingway is a macho) Modern stuff for a girl: - Toni Morrison; Song of Solomon - Flannery O'Connor; A Good Man is Hard to Find, in general her short stories If the teenage girls likes shorts stories: - Alice Munro --> one of the greatest short story writers And if she's reading Morrison and O'Connor she'll need a biblical understanding as well: - Harold Boom wrote great critical works on the Bible - A bit of the Bible as well Essayists, to teach about self-reliance - Montaigne - Thoreau - Emerson Critical thinking - Aristotle - A bit of Homer, Ovid Just for fun: - Friedrich Nietzsche for a view on what a traditional man is

As a teenage girl with a classical bent, I love this video. I would also recommend reading some Elizabeth Gaskell. She was an amazing Victorian novelist with a great thinking mind. Maybe throw some Bronte sisters in there too😌

@vsrobertson

21 күн бұрын

I had my son read North and South - I loved it and he really enjoyed it.

A book that I would recommend a teenage girl is Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac. Great read that a young mind can relate and understand with a profound message.

I read classics often as a teenager for the simple reason that there was no library and only one bookstore with English titles in my city. I remember using my allowance to buy as many Signet Classics as I could. Some of my favorites were "Frankenstein", "Pride & Prejudice", "The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Anderson" and "Anne of Green Gables". Looking back, though I didn't have access to a library I was lucky those Signet Classics caught my eye. I had many wonderful reading experiences with them and some remain as favorites to this day.

While Persuasion and P&P are my favorites from JA, I would recommend Sense and Sensibility to every young woman. It made a big difference for me when I was young. Being able to master your heart and moderate your actions will make a big difference in your life forever.

Have you ever read Carson McCullers' The heart is a lonely hunter? In it there is a lovely portrait of a young teenager and her love of classical music. She is not the main character per se, but plays a big part in the story.

@cathylindeboo.9598

8 ай бұрын

I read that book in my early 20's and much loved it too!

@construct3

8 ай бұрын

I haven't read The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, but I was already thinking of The Member of the Wedding as I was watching the video. My favorite from Carson McCullers is Reflections in a Golden Eye, but I don't think I would be the person to put that book into the hands of a fourteen-year-old girl.

Canadian woman here. The books I loved in elementary school were classics: "Up a Road Slowly" by Irene Hunt; "Moonfleet" by J. Meade Faulkner; "Never Cry Wolf" by Farley Mowat; "The Enchanted Barn" by Grace Livingston Hill; "Call of the Wild" by Jack London; and several Agatha Christies. The junk written for kids now depresses me. :(

@fairlightjones6322

Жыл бұрын

I used to enjoy picking out books for my grandchildren but it’s become very difficult - subject matter, lack of good writing, etc. Unfortunately I also find a lot of current adult fiction crude. This video has helped me - not only for my grandchildren but also for myself

Great suggestions. To start even a classic aimed at younger readers could work for a teenager. (Many have only read books like Harry Potter). Maybe some Lewis Carroll, like Alice in Wonderland. Or the Secret Garden by Francis Burnett. I'd consider giving her George Eliot, if she has a sense of humour, she might enjoy Aristophanes Lysistrata. if she is more mature she could try some Virginia Woolf. Maybe start with Orlando. If she wants more sci fi-- I'd suggest Ursula Le Guin. And as for essays maybe read Mary Wollstonecraft, and Woolf's A Room of Ones Own.

@27aritrasinhaxb63

2 жыл бұрын

I think for sci fi there is no better place than Dune and if she likes very dark and challenging books then the Expanse series and if she has great sense of humour then obviously Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

This is so late to comment BUT I must say that all the works you recommend are great for a well educated 15 year old who has guidance while reading these works. While I may cringe at some more modern works, at least they get children to read! Get them off electronic devices…get them back to the written word. Generally, it takes a much mature mind to be able to read the works that you have suggested. Austin, Brontë and Russian authors are not easily readable by todays young adults or in many cases by this grandma. I still like your site ! And enjoy following you!!

Apparently your recommended books to your teenager daughter would be different from your recommended books to your teenager son. I think this genre difference in education is wrong. A conversation with the daughter would have been a good start, maybe asking her first "what kind of books would you like to read?" ...

@BenjaminMcEvoy

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, talking to the girl in question would have been the smartest move :)

@tamething1

2 жыл бұрын

My grade 7 teacher spent about 20 minutes each morning reading through classic books to the class. She purposely picked adventure books, so that the boys wouldn't get bored :) I'm female, and I enjoyed these books, but I doubt very much that the boys would have enjoyed the books the girls went for, like "Sister of the Bride" and "Three Loves Has Sandy," ha ha. But when the teacher read "Call of the Wild," everyone was riveted.

i am not a teenage girl and although i was embarrassed to do it, i did read the entire twilight series and much to my surprised loved it....really, couldnt put it down, although it wasnt as deep, it was very suspenseful. right now i am in middlemarch and struggling to get it and persevere (about 1/3 complete) i particularly love russian authors, with dostoyevsky at the top of the list. anyhow, point being...i think its more difficult to understand what a person would be drawn to based on gender and age, so much as actually knowing their interests and personality. even at that, sometimes we dont even know what we would like until we expose ourselves to it

Great to hear about your suggestions. As someone who used to be a teenage daughter not long ago, I remember vividly that I disregarded any reading suggestion coming from my parents, and asserted my freedom of choosing what to read. The best books to buy a teenage daughter are those that she actually wants to read, so I guess I would try to tailor my suggestions to her interests. That said, these are some of the books I read as a teenage girl (15/16 yo), that had a huge impact on my thinking. Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar (I would also try to pick an edition that doesn’t have written on its blurb any reference to her husband or her death) Virginia Woolf - The Waves Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Americanah Zadie Smith - White Teeth (but also Swing Time, On beauty - pretty much anything by Zadie Smith) The poetry of Rimbaud The poetry of Allen Ginsberg The Neapolitan chronicles of Elena Ferrante (in particular, the first and second book) The Color Purple - Alice Walker Marguerite Yourcenar -Memoirs of Hadrian Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse Maya Angelou - I know why the caged bird sings I agree with you on this one -> Ovid - Remedia Amoris The book IV of the Aeneid, on Queen Dido As someone who grew up in Italy, the books of Italian war reporter Oriana Fallaci were very formative (Letter to a Child Never Born in particular, on motherhood and society’s expectation of women).

@BenjaminMcEvoy

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you very much for such wonderful recommendations, Sofia. Definitely tailoring to interests is a must! Your teenage reading looks very similar to mine. I was really big into Rimbaud, Ginsberg, Ovid, Plath, Woolf. There's a couple on there that are new to me, like Oriana Fallaci and Elena Ferrante, so I'll check those out :)

@sofiaboni2215

3 жыл бұрын

@@BenjaminMcEvoy You’re welcome and thanks for sharing. I really like your channel and I’m curious to listen to your podcast too. If you end up reading Ferrante/Fallaci let me know what you think :)

@BenjaminMcEvoy

3 жыл бұрын

@@sofiaboni2215 I'll definitely check them out and let you know :) They look awesome (Ferrante might take longer). Especially interested as Italian will be my next language learning project. I hope you enjoy the podcast! :)

@tiredcat9492

Жыл бұрын

@@BenjaminMcEvoy I hope you have delved into the Neapolitan Quartet by now, Benjamin, they bowled me over. For a teenage girl, I would agree that the first two would be particularly relevant, they raise so many questions about friendship, the importance (or not) of education, where we are headed at the threshold of adulthood, and much more.Complex, intense and thrilling.

@BenjaminMcEvoy

Жыл бұрын

@@tiredcat9492 I have indeed delved into Elena Ferrante's masterful books. She has swiftly become one of my favourite writers. I'm so happy readers recommended her work to me. Your reasons for recommending them to a teenage girl are spot on! :)

Animal books first caught my attention as a kid…Watership Down, The Wind in the Willows, Black Beauty, Lassie Come Home, National Velvet, etc. Series books attracted my pre teen self from ages from ages 8-11. After that the sky was the limit at the library on Saturday morning.

I just found your channel, and I am loving your content!! This video idea is so unique and unexpected, and I think that's what made it so fun to watch. When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with classics, so I was really happy to see so many of those types of books in this recommendations list. A majority of your recommendations were the books I read between the ages of 16-18. One book I was particularly obsessed with was "the Godfather" by Mario Puzo -- the movie's great, but the book hits different (haha)

@BenjaminMcEvoy

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you, Nicole! I'm so glad you enjoyed it :) It sounds like you had a tremendous reading habit as a teenager. I remember reading Puzo's novel before seeing the films and it's definitely a good one. I shall have to reread that, especially as I've recently watched the two films back to back :)

From this I’m thinking, would it be possible for you to make a video on: If you like this YA/modern fiction, then you should read this classic literature. Some examples I can think of: Harry Potter & Alice in the Wonderland (Fantasy), Hunger Game & 1984/Animal Farm/ Handmaid’s Tale (Dystopian), Twilight (Romance), Stephen King’s (Suspense/Horror). Something like that. I would be so interested if have such video. Cheers!

@BenjaminMcEvoy

3 жыл бұрын

That's a lovely idea for a video, thank you :) Your recommendations here are spot on. Stephen King's books are built on classic horror. If you check out his Danse Macabre he talks at length about Dracula, Frankenstein, The Turn of the Screw, and many more. As for Twilight, I suppose we'd be going back to the Gothic realm - plenty of love triangles and illicit romances there. I'll try and put something out :)

@casualcascade

2 жыл бұрын

I know this is an old comment but I'd specifically recommend Jane Eyre to a teen who likes Twilight. I'd recommend Parable of the Sower for someone who likes The Hunger Games as well as those Orwell books you mentioned :)

I started my reading journey with Thomas Mann (Buddenbrooks, stories) and Hermann Hesse (everything) before going on a trajectory from Christa Wolf to the 19th century (Hoelderlin, Novalis, Goethe, Fontane) and ancient Greece. Austen and Gaskell, Zola and Flaubert, Tolstoy and Turgenyev, Kalevala and other folklore all appeared on my horizon before I was eighteen. It was a bit eclectic but I'm happy my parents let me read everything they had and everything I wanted.

When I was a teenager I used to read Karl May(loved Winnetou), Jules Vernes(they where so fascinating), Charles Dickens(Oliver Twist), Alexander Dumas (The Conte of Monte Cristo was one of my favourite, but enjoyed The three Musketeers as well), Mark Twain, and later I came across Jane Austen and loved it. :)) and of course some of the writers from my country.

@BenjaminMcEvoy

3 жыл бұрын

Oh, I loved Dumas. I'm sure you would love some of Victor Hugo's stuff too - Les Misérables and Hunchback of Notre Dame. Great list. Thanks for sharing, Rut :)

@rutolteanu3828

3 жыл бұрын

@@BenjaminMcEvoy I've read Les Misérables about 3 years ago and I still think of Fontaine and Cosette and Jean Valjean, Javert, Marius and little Gavroche... loved them. Such complex characters, they have a special place in my mind. And the movie from 2012 is my favourite. Ah... I could talk all day about it and the books. Really a masterpiece!!

My mom introduced me to l. M. Montgomery, Louisa may Alcott, and Laura Ingalls wilder when I was in grade school.

Watched this video a few times. So helpful as I am helping my granddaughter with her schooling. I’m so grateful that I came across your channel. You’ve inspired me to actually read something that’s not trashy. 👏👏👏🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🤓

These are all great recommendations. I would also add Harper Lee’s original enduring tale, because I believe it shows a young woman what a true gentleman is, as well as a unique perspective on true masculinity. I would also add Gone With the Wind, not because I particularly agree with most of Scarlett’s views, obviously, but I believe it shows the indomitable strength of the female spirit. And, of course, Jane Eyre! I would also direct her to Edna Ferber, a Jewish American writer of the 20th century who was beautifully aware of the human condition. It is a pity that she has been all but forgotten. 😢 And we mustn’t forget Dickens!!

This is more of a recommendation for all preteens and early teens, but reading The Lord of the Flies had an extremely profound and deep impact on me when I read it at 11. Being able to truly relate to and understand the emotions and motives of the characters who were the same age as I was by far the most wonderful literary experience I've ever had. Similarly, William Golding's straightforward writing style made the novel extremely accessible to me at that age, and the surface plot of children fighting and turning on each other, was pretty relatable to any kid who has to interact with kids - it made growing up with other children a little easier since to feel better, I could compare my ordeals to the deranged madness of the boys on the island.

@MariaPetrescu

4 ай бұрын

It's interesting to read the opinion of someone who loved it! I had an extreme, visceral reaction to it: I *HATED* it. The thing is, I still cannot point my finger exactly on the reason why it caused such an instinctive nope.

I think it is essential to expose our daughters to women's literature, but especially when it comes to education I don't think we should perpetuate gendered differences. There is a great deal for them to learn from recommendations that would be considered targeted to boys aswell. We do a disservice to young women when we box them into one group, rather than showing them the diverse world of literature as a whole.

I am currently 17 years old and just recently stumbled upon your channel and I’m so glad I did because it has really inspired me to read more classics. When I was younger I mainly read Ya fiction but now I really wish I had developed a love for the classics at a younger age

When I was a teenager, I enjoyed reading Louise rennison books (the angus, thongs and perfect snogging series), because that’s what I could relate to! Literature should be relatable and understandable to the reader, you should read a book because you will enjoy it. Reading complex, large classics is not gonna serve you at all if you do it to prove your intelligence, or to become “smarter”. And it certainly won’t make your reading experience very pleasant. These classics should be read because you’re intrigued by them, maybe you find them relatable or just because you might enjoy them! Reading shouldn’t be a requirement, but a pleasure.

Wow, thank you for noticing that. Young adult books have their place but I personally grew out of them when I was about 14? I will stay 19 for a few more months so I'll try and get to these, haha! I've read a few of your suggestions and found them wonderful.

@BenjaminMcEvoy

2 жыл бұрын

Enjoy that last teenage year! These books are still great at any age though :) happy reading!

I love all of your videos. They’re really interesting, detailed and informative. Your video on the ELAT really helped me with my exam. Thank you!

@BenjaminMcEvoy

3 жыл бұрын

Aw, thank you, Laura! You've made my day :) I'm glad the exam went well. I've got my fingers crossed for you!

So happy you mentioned Flannery my all time favorite along with Chesterton , Lewis , Graham Greene and Eudora Welty. I think it is a mistake to assume female authors are the ones women want or need to read. I’ve enjoyed Austin, Alcott and many other women writers. Respectfully, aren’t we past all this. I recommended what I felt were stories worth reading to my children. I am now 76 and was so please to find your wonderful book channel. Thank you.

Lorrie Moorie’s early Eighties collection of short stories, Self Help, is so well written and romantic, I can see a young lady enjoying her. To Kill A Mockingbird has a female protagonist, but I’m sure that many American teens are already forced to read it. If she is idealistic and has an interest in writing, I would recommend Rilke’s Letters To A Young Poet.

@BenjaminMcEvoy

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for these wonderful recommendations. I personally love Rilke's letters to a young poet. I did a whole podcast on that book - truly life-changing stuff. I would assign it for my class to read regardless of what subject there were sitting.

Happy you’re learning Italian. Don Camilo is a great book to practice Italian and get the picaresque spirit of Italians.

As a teenage girl whose teenage years are coming to an end, the most memorable books that influenced my perception on reading and life are: The Bell Jar, Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird, Beloved, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Great Gatsby, Little Women, 1984, Animal Farm, Watership Down, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Les Miserables

"What kind of stories do you like? What are your favorite movies?" I would ask those questions a teenage girl before to recommend her any book. I find unrealistic a young girl being really interested in an ancient greek philosopher. In that case I would recommend "Sophie's world" by Jostein Gaarder is about the history of philosophy telling in a form of a novel. I was a very independent teenager and I didn't enjoy to have my parents imposing me what I must read. Force certain books to a very young person could kills their taste for reading and look reading as a dry obligation. Great chanel and I find amazing how you talk about classics, is very motivated.

Hey there. Literature-loving mom to an adolescent daughter here. My recommendations would be Howard’s End, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, the poetry of Carolyn Forche, Till We Have Faces, Jane Eyre, The Painted Veil, and the essays of Simone Weil.

For teenage girls I would recommend the Bronte sisters (Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are a good basic start) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (if she hasn't read it already) and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Do you know Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset? It tells the entire life-story of a woman from mid-fourteenth-century Norway. I'm afraid I lack the skill to describe how deep an impression this book made on me: it was like lifting a stone and being stung by a viper. Extremely understated in style, but still very intimate, and ruthlessly honest. Nobody who speaks English knows it, partly because it suffered for a long time from a bad translation, so if you don't know it, make sure to get Tiina Nunnally's newer and much better translation. Also, Undset's first novel, Gunnar's Daughter, is worth a read: short and savage. A lot of people recommend Jenny, which is said to be about the emptiness of modern women's lives, but I haven't read it. Also, Edith Wharton is a badass: The Age of Innocence still holds me in thrall.

My Antonia: Willa Cather in general is sadly oft forgotten; Grapes of Wrath; Great Expectations; Little Women; and Flannery O'Connor, of course. Being an American, I would have poked my nose right in their business. ALSO, ask the girl what she was interested in 📚

I am a homeschool mom to a 4th grader (9yr old). I stumbled across this video and I so appreciate you taking the time to even do it. So often the little voices of girls go unnoticed, their opinions unasked before offered a right answer. In the 4th grade, we read the original unabridged Dracula, Little Women, Black Beauty, The Hobbit, all of Laura Ingall's Wilder, and several poems memorised. For this coming year, this is what I have on her literature list to work on with me during the first term: The Twelfth Night Daphne Du Maurier's The Birds The Alchemist Emma Binti Joy Harjo's An American Sunrise Bob Dylan's Tarantula Rime of the Ancient Mariner To Kill A Mockingbird The 4:50 From Paddington So, thank you for your video. It's nice to know I'm not nuts.

I'm a 16yr girl, and I've been wanting to get into classics for a quite a bit of time, but I've been very confused on what books I should start with, and I found your channel by the video of The Brother Karamazov, and I thought that maybe you'd have a good list of books for "beginners". I was right! And you even went beyond that by recommending books that would resonate with a young girl. Thank you so much! Omw to buy Jane Austen right now 😅

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Love this list! New to classics as a young adult woman so I will pick some of these up.

@BenjaminMcEvoy

Жыл бұрын

Thank you :) I'm so happy to hear that! I'd love to know what you make of them!

These are great reading recommendations for a teenage daughter. I would have added some Willa Cather and Eudora Welty as well.

@BenjaminMcEvoy

2 жыл бұрын

Very nice additions :) Thank you, Rick!

Thanks for the recommendations i agree with all the books u recommended but why not to read Dostoevsky especially crime and punishment and brothers Karamazov?

I'd recommend Wuthering Heights for sure. And some Romantic poetry maybe.

I would recommend Animal Liberation by Peter Singer , for critical thinking reasons and Lettre d'une inconnue ( letter from a stranger) de Stefan Zweig because it's my favorite short novel of all time! It's beautiful.

When I was a teenager I absolutely loved reading Pride and Prejudice, the Picture of Dorian Gray, Dracula, Jane Eyre, Harry Potter, Eva Luna, among other works. I think these books really helped me shape part of who I am today :) and I would recommend them to any teenage girl.

Really interesting video. Thanks. Some good suggestions here, but there was no way I could have read a book like Anna Karenina as a teenager. I did not have the life experience or mental ability to do so. I could not get my head around Shakespeare either and I never managed to get through any of the Dickens' books we had to grind through at school. His sentences were too long for me. I did enjoy some of Hardy's books though, especially "Far from the madding Crowd" and "the Mayor of Casterbridge." I guess I must have been a poor reader or a bit backward?

I vividly remember reading Jane Austen for the first time 20 years ago, around 12 years old, and loving it. My grandad had the folio society editions and I would sit in his reading nook for hours reading them. Then not long after that I read Jane eyre, and I can recall even now reading the first line in the car on jway home, after buying it. Both of these experiences started me on the classics journey, and I proceeded to read George Elliot and Thomas hardy over the following teen years too. So completely resonates with me. Half the battle is exposure and unless you’re exposed to these kinds of books, it’s hard to start.

Tell us what you would get for your teenage son please!! A have a younger brother and want to get him into good literature

@BenjaminMcEvoy

2 жыл бұрын

Great idea :) I can certainly do that!

@ngocbichdang6820

2 жыл бұрын

@@BenjaminMcEvoy yes, please do! 😀

Orwell’s The Clergyman’s Daughter would be good for girls. About how difficult it is being a teacher and how the system grinds you down.

Hello Benjamin. A new subscriber here. I was a teenager a few decades ago. I was surprised you recommended the work of Jane Austen because in my rebellious adolescence the novels by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens I found some kind of consolation. Thank you for all your wonderful and passionate videos. I have been taking notes for further studies.

When I was a teen, I never read YA books... not only did I read classics (Wuthering Heights and Taming of the Shrew were favorites), I read a fair amount of science fiction and fantasy (but not YA fantasy).

I would add a pinch of Angela Carter in this amazing list .

I loved this video, but I was wondering if you had one for young men (or even younger-I have an eight year old nephew who desperately needs a break from TikTok). I was curious about your thoughts on Jane Eyre since I didn’t see it mentioned. Also something like A Little Princess by Burnett (1905): an erudite girl who loses her well to do father and pushes beyond adversity to succeed despite the her newly impoverished life and surrounding tormentors. It’s a bit on the younger audience side, but my sixty-something mother mentioned it the other day while chatting about books. Interesting that it’s one that stayed with her all this time.

Great list! I have saved it for future reference ;-) If she was into dystopian fiction, I'd also recommend Vox or Femlandia or Q (all by Christina Dalcher) and The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, among all the other great books you mentioned.

@BenjaminMcEvoy

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you, Jessica! I'll have to check out some of these you've mentioned :) I've read Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police and really enjoyed it - very similar vibes to Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go!

@JessicaPawlitzki

2 жыл бұрын

@@BenjaminMcEvoy Never Let Me Go has been on my list for a while now. I guess I'll pick it up next since I enjoyed The Memory Police quite a lot. Thanks for the tip!

Thank you 🙏🏼

Oh man!! If I was that father I'd surely have appreciated YOUR input.

I would add Little Weman. A newer searies, the hunger games. weathering hights. Tuesdays With Morrie. I do have teenage daughters. i read tuesday with morrie with one. my teens have special needs, one is mentally too young for their attention to grasp other literature. the other one is hard for her to understand social situations. She is obsessed with cats. so she has taken to Worrier Cats books and have read as much as she can by that author as well as she is totally emerssed in the character, clans and their world.

Ghost stories by Edith Wharton.

Hello Benjamin, this was a great list of recommendations 😊👍Do you have any recommendations of great works from Russian & Japanese Literature apart from Dosteovsky? I'm trying to explore their classical works but am unsure which ones to pick, and would be very happy to have a few recommendations. 😁

@BenjaminMcEvoy

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you, Hamsavahini :) One of my favourite books of all time is 'A Sportsman's Notebook' by Ivan Turgenev. Magical collection of Russian short stories - 'A Living Relic' and 'Kasyan of Fair Springs' are two stories in the collection that I adore. You might also want to try Chekhov - short stories like 'The Lady with the Dog' and drama like 'Three Sisters'. Tolstoy is also superb. 'Anna Karenina' is one of my personal favourite novels. I also love Bulgakov's 'The Master and Margarita'. As for Japanese writers, I highly recommend Yasunari Kawabata, particularly the short story collection, 'Palm of the Hand Stories'. Start with the 'The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket'. Another favourite of mine is Yukio Mishima :)

@HamsavahiniVajraasthra

2 жыл бұрын

@@BenjaminMcEvoy ✨👍Thanks a million Benjamin, I've never heard of these authors before!!!! This is exactly what I needed & thanks again for these fantastic recommendations🌟👍👍👍👍😊

Jane Eyre for certain, as well as Austin - Shakespeare would include some witty females such as Beatrice in As You Like It. Loved your suggestions! Thank you!

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall! Fantastic book, all young women should read it.

You mentioned Anthony and Cleopatra, and Chaucer's Wife of Bath... two of my A Level texts 😁

How happy I'm here finding this one

Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Orwell's Animal Farm, Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, Pearl Buck's The Big Wave, Tolkien's The Hobbit.

⁉️ My son is 22 years old, Quite bright, quite troubled, Almost died a month ago is now attending a PHD program at one of the most prestigious universities in the United States, He was partially home schooled I never let them watch the Influencing Machine but they had books everywhere. He wants to start reading again and we've listened to the audio book The Count of Monte Cristo. What classic do you recommend it is his idea to read again

I remember my father - an Out-of-the-box-thinker for all of his life - handing me "Creek Mary's Blood" by Dee Brown, a native american family saga...a book that shaped my thinking back than and that still lingers in my mind after all those years. It covers some universal themes and portraits a very strong female character. Unfortunately it is not very well known...

Margaret Atwood’s Edible Woman resonated with me as a teen aged girl.

I was forced to read a lot of classics as a teenager. I fell in love with Orwell, Bradbury, Dostojevskij, Steinbeck. I never quite resonated with female authors unfortunately. The one controversial author I would recommend to an older teenage daughter is Charles Bukowski. Not because I agree with the narrative or ideas or values expressed, but because It shows a different side of humanity, less calculated, less ethical, less idealistic. I hate the view he has on women, but know there are still people who think like that. It made me think about morality in a different way then say Dostojevskij.

@BenjaminMcEvoy

2 жыл бұрын

Very interesting and wonderful choices. I love that you would recommend Bukowski to an older teenage daughter. Now that would be an interesting conversation! The question is - which Bukowski novel would one start with?

@passio-735

2 жыл бұрын

Hallo Sashulka Gyl :) I know this is an older comment but I just stumbled upon it and I have to admit that I never heard of Bukowski but I found your reasons for recommending him very intriguing. I will be 17 in July. Like Benjamin I was wondering which of his novels you would recommend to start with?

Have you done a video on book recommendations for young men?

Hmmm tough one: Madam Bovary by Flaubert Definitely Middlemarch because Dorothea Brookes is such a nuanced character. Margaret Atwood, for sure. Probably To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Toni Morrison's Beloved And if she liked Scifi perhaps Octavia Butler. All of the tragedies by Euripides that relate to the Trojan Women.

This might seem like a tangent but it relates to what you say at the start of the video: So I'm a music teacher, focusing on contemporary styles and I show my teenage students classic popular contemporary music from well beyond their time: The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Miles Davis etc. But since the music is so old they have a hard time connecting with it. They all love artists like Taylor Swift and Harry Styles, much to my chagrin. But there's a glimmer of hope: Ive noticed that Taylor gets a lot of kids interested in songwriting as a whole and the really curious ones end up getting to Lennon and McCartney on their search for more music. So who knows, maybe the girl reading Young Adult books will end up at Jane Austen someday. You have to start somewhere 😊 Having said that I loved hearing you list out your choices for what you'd have recommended to her.

What a heartbreaking story! Sweet and sad.

For short stories Angela Carter is a must!

@BenjaminMcEvoy

3 жыл бұрын

Great recommendation! Thank you, Alice :)

Great talk.are you familiar with The Goldfinch by Donna Tarrt? Also good for this age and above.

I would have recommended the maxims of Francois de La Rouchefoucauld but otherwise i do agree with a lot of you`rerecommendations

Ok I know I'm really late, but wanted to leave a few recs for anyone else looking: 1. Roll of thunder hear my cry 2. Master and Margurita 3. Junk 4. A town called alice 5. The second sex 6. Half of a yellow sun 7. Hunchback of Notre Dame 8. Tess of the d'urbavilles I chose these because I read them as a young adult, they are approachable books with good stories set in different places, but not YA. It's great as a woman to choose "hardcore literature", but my aim is to introduce a few morally interesting female characters, open up an understanding of classics of different ages and avoid authors found commonly on UK syllabi for philosophy , classics or English lit. Also, I think introducing classics to another, one has to be careful with tomes such as Karenina or Iliad, these will be discovered in one's own time if one is motivated to continue a literary journey. Personally my list was created aged 19 and began with Chaucer and Lady Chatterley's Lover, which was a nice ease in.

First, please don't judge my grammar or sentence structures. I can be rambly in comments LOL. Second, I can't believe the father! Talking FOR his daughter! OK, She May have been shy or maybe he's just a control freak. That's where the store employee could have stepped up to the plate. I can't believe the bookstore employee didn't engage the daughter to get a pulse on her personality. There are sooooo many classics out there to choose from. One can't assume by just looking at sex and age that the person will want to read YA. When I was her age, I fell in love with Dostoevsky and Camus (I thought myself such a deep thinker back then at the ripe old age of 15 lol) and HATED Jane Austen (I love her now) yet friends my age (the ones who read- which weren't many) were more into Jane Austen. Everyone is different and you won't know unless you talk to them. Reading YA as a YA was not the thing at the time (the 80s) - at least in my circles. Those of us who read wanted to read classics. But, hey, if YA gets her to read then so be it . I'm sure there would have been some YA that might have also been able to give her some sort of education? I don't know as I'm not familiar with the genre. Again, if he only spoke to her to find out more about her likes and dislikes to find the right match. This makes me think of a time I was in a book store and was sort of wandering aimlessly . I like to do that and just look around before I get to the books I'm looking for . An employee approached me and asked if I needed help. I said I was just browsing and wasn't sure what I wanted yet. Said employee offers to give me some suggestions without even asking what genres I like . I decided to go along for the ride to see what he'd recommend without knowing a thing about me, and took me to the romance section ! Those paperbacks where there is a woman and a man (with long flowing hair lol) in a passionate embrace . LOL LOL LOL (not disrespecting any of you who read romance . It is not my jam). My bookshelves are filled with translated literary fiction, classics from around the world, non fiction, a whole shelf each of Russian lit and Japanese lit. You see, I'm in my 50s and the guy apparently assumed women in their 50s like reading trashy romance books . I began to laugh . I laughed a little at first then so much I had tears rolling down my face. He walked away and ultimately was the one to ring me up at the register with my purchase of several Kawabata books, The White Guard by Bulgakov, and a Russian Short Story collection . LOL . I specifically remember the purchases because the experience was so funny.

I like the idea but my niece started Pride & Prejudice and stopped reading it. She found it boring but decided to watch the film instead and preferred that. So sad as I told her. I'm not sure you can convince YA to not read YA. I will add that I read and loved the Twilight books and films. There's a place for YA literature for Young people. So with your choice add some of those YA novels as well to let those teens have a taste of the whole range of fiction at their fingertips.

If a Teenage girl wants to read about Vampires instead of Twilight I would suggest Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.Not sure what you would think about that.

Hi young girl here as well thank you for your recommendation. Any others you’d like to mention from that list I would love to add ttfn

Can you make a video for young man?

Unsolicited, free of charge, and probably unwanted, I'd make a suggestion to you. You ought to consider producing a daughter so you can make these sound recommendations to her. You'd make a geat parent. I am not nearly as well read as you, but we were fortunate enough to have a son, who is now in his early 30's. It's a joke in our family that I have become Joe Gargery and he is a version of Pip. Seeing him become a reader and a man (it's been a slow, tough progression) is our greatest delight. He's read all of Jane Austen and the two supreme masterpieces of Tolstoy, and a couple years ago he read Clarissa (I've never read the latter and know no one else who has). He's read lots of marginal stuff, too (Twilight and HP), but he's a reader. It's nice to think that his parents helped shape those reading practices. And it is not puffing smoke to state you have one of the best sites on BookTube. Thanks many times over for the insight and encouragment.

Hi Ben thank you so much love your passion for the arts,,,,, im Andrew advocate for Shakespeare and tour guide at SNP Pescott,,, VIRGINIA WOOLF A ROOM OF ONES OWN,,,,,, SOPHIES WORLD JOSTEN GARDER,,,, TOLSOY ANNA KARENINA,,,, JEANETTE WINTERSON JANE AUSTIN andShakespeares MEASURE FOR MEASURE,,, Ben think you are great keep up the good work you are such an inspiration

As a now 17 year old girl who hated reading 15 years of her life. I got pushed ya, children’s books pushed into me and trust me it did not work. I picked up Harry Potter when it got popular and did enjoy it but adult romance really did get it going and now I am myself getting into classics :))

Hi Benjamin, just discovered your channel and subscribed. Fantastic recommendations here, and a great question to consider. I have two young kids, and just thinking about trying to lay down a reading path for them across the years is really exciting. I’ve started my own KZread channel recently celebrating my favourite books with video essays - part of the motivation for doing so was to create an ongoing collection of detailed book recommendations for them to dip into when they get old enough. Perhaps there will be hundreds of them by the time I’m gone! It would be great if you could drop my channel and have a look at what I’m doing, but I imagine you get plenty of people asking you to do the same, so no problem if not! Anyway, all the best from Adelaide, and congratulations on a great channel! Cheers, Sam

What is the title of the book by Harold Bloom on the Bible?

That's great, but has anyone asked the young lady what she's interested in? Throwing Anna Karenina and Aristotle at a young person could do the very opposite of what you want, which is to encourage loving reading. Expand her horizons by tailoring a reading list to her interests, and based on what she responds to after she's sampled a few books, you can give more recommendations, and if she's ready to be challenged more, then you could get her further outside her comfort zone. But whatever you do, don't kill a young person's love of reading for enjoyment and remember everyone is different.

Anti-Oedipus.

@construct3

8 ай бұрын

LOL! That's very nice. For the newcomer, I always recommend Empiricism and Subjectivity: An Essay on Hume's Theory of Human Nature, but that's just me.

@IvyTeaRN

8 ай бұрын

@@construct3 I'd rather throw them in the deep end but thats just me and my rhizomaticism

@construct3

8 ай бұрын

@@IvyTeaRN If you want the deep end, that would be Difference and Repetition., but that would be really cruel. I acted as sherpa through D&R for a friend at his request. It took a little convincing on his part, but I did it. That was his first exposure to Deleuze. We went on to read together most of Deleuze's later books--The Logic of Sense, both volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Cinema 1 & 2, and the rest. He is a retired psychiatrist with a background in Biblical Studies, and he had listened to me struggling through reading Foucault. So I knew he could handle philosophical work. He still found it difficult to shake free from Chomsky. And he did find the Deleuze project very rewarding. It made a difference in his thinking about the world and his place in it.

I wish you had pushed forward and saved that girl's education.