6 "Easy to Read" Classics of English and American Literature your Teacher Recommends

today i've got six easy classics of english and american literature for you and a bonus book when i say an easy classic i'm talking about great books that are written in english that is accessible that is within reach to all there is depth there is poetry there is poignancy but at the same time anybody can read them even if your first language is not english even if you have an intermediate level that will do of course native english speakers can enjoy them too now they do they're classics after all there is a difference between a book which is light and a book which is easy a book which is light is also easy it tells a story but there's nothing beyond that so for example agatha christie it's a light reads you might enjoy it however it's just a story i wouldn't call it literature whereas a book which is easy is not necessarily light most of the books i include here would fall into that category they may have deeper or darker themes or touch on politics and satire and there was also the poetic nature of the writing and after reading them they will change your world view in some way or other so if you've got an intermediate or even an advanced level of english you're going to struggle with books such as ulysses by james joyce or moby dick by melville or lolita by nabakov and i hope this video will act as a starting point for a love of english literature most of the books included in this video are quite short if you're reading a book in a foreign language it generally takes longer if you have to look up the meaning of lots of words in the dictionary so a text with 600 words can be daunting some of the works here are less than 100 pages long i've got six classics for you today four british two american four are by men two by women all of them wonderful plus the bonus book i mentioned the bonus book by the way would not be considered a classic in the conventional sense but i highly recommend it because it is a book that can be enjoyed even if you have a basic level of english and for each book i'll put a link in the description if you wish to purchase these books they are affiliate links however some of these books are out of copyright so you can obtain free copies on the internet or by cheap editions at the bookshop another good reason for reading classics and for each book i'll give you a plot summary and read a paragraph or some quotes from it so let's get started [Music] hello welcome to eleven talk tv and the first book is the catcher in the right by j.d salinger now i must admit when i read this book for the first time when i was 16 same age as the protagonist holden caulfield i became kind of obsessed by it for any young person who senses that they they don't belong for all the misfits out there for all the all the crazy ones this book is for you for me it articulated how i fell to that tender age and to this day its message resonates with awkward adolescence everywhere it tells a story of holden caulfield who after being expelled from school runs away to new york where he spends two days trying to find some meaning to his model life he has some mad adventures like like hiring a prostitute but he doesn't do anything with her he just talks to her he's confused and angry and complains about all the phonies he sees all around him and the two days are kind of a journey of exploration from adolescence into adulthood and he doesn't like what he sees here is the opening paragraph if you really want to hear about it the first thing you'll probably want to know is where i was born and what my lousy childhood was like and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me and all that david copperfield kind of crap but i don't feel like going into it if you want to know the truth in the first place that stuff bores me and in the second place my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if i told them anything pretty personal about them they're quite touchy about anything like that especially my father they're nice and all i'm not saying that but they're also touchy as hell besides i'm not going to tell you my whole goddamn autobiography or anything this is a wonderful book and i've read it countless times of course it won't have the same impact if you read it when you're 30 or 40 or 50 as it does if you're an adolescent but if you consider yourself as someone who is an outsider in this mad world then i'm sure you'll love it i didn't read books as a kid i preferred watching tv but catcher in their eye changed all that so you could say it it changed my life it started me on the path of a lifelong love of literature the book has been banned by some school boards in the us which is completely stupid and some people have misinterpreted its message such as the guy who shot john lennon but these evil people will always find a way to spread a violent and hateful agenda it's got nothing to do with cash and rai which remains a masterpiece and one you should certainly read cash and write is a love it or hate it kind of book i hope like me you'll love it i talked about book in very very serious terms but it's funny very very funny at first glance the book seems a little complicated because it uses quite a few slang terms from 1950s america like phony and running like a bastard and goddamn this and goddamn that but he repeats the same phrases throughout the book so once you've learned them you you know them the rest of the book is fairly easy to read and i would say level intermediate will do intermediate upwards a salinger was overwhelmed by the success of catching the rye the fame and also the unwanted intrusion it brought upon his private life after that he published little else he continued to write however privately right up to his death in 2010 and it is said that there are at least 15 novels of his waiting for publication the catherine rye is also the most famous novel never to have been made into a film so you're gonna have to read the book the next book is the importance of being earnest by oscar wilde written in 1895. i was going to include a book by oscar wilde but i was hesitating between the picture of dorian gray and this one both are great but the importance of being earnest got the vote simply because it's shorter and easier which this is what this video is all about it's a play and it tells a story of jack worthing a pillar of society and he lives a double life when he wants to be naughty he escapes to the countryside on the pretext of going to help his scandalous brother ernest jack and ernest are the same person jack's best friend is algernon who knows jack as earnest as in and is in love with jack's cousin gwendolyn but he starts to get suspicious of jack and then jack goes to the countryside and pretends to be jack's brother i think i'm getting confused now there's something something along those lines anyway it doesn't matter read it you'll you'll you'll see it for yourself the book is is hilarious every line every line is a joy and instead of reading a page from the book i'll just give you some quotes my dear fellow the truth isn't quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice sweet refined girl what extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman i don't like novels that end happily they depress me so much if one plays good music people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk ever since i met you i have admired you more than any girl i have ever met since i met you i never saw anybody take so long to dress and with such little result i'm sick to death of cleverness everybody is clever nowadays you can't go anywhere without meeting clever people the thing has become an absolute public nuisance i wish to goodness we had a few falls left we have i should extremely like to meet them what do they talk about the fools oh about the clever people of course what fools the book satirizes conventions and cultural norms of victorian societies it pokes fun at the institution of marriage as well as the the morals and the manners of the day the other theme is the double life that the two main characters lead behind the facade of respectability there is a darker naughtier side don't we all have a naughtier side i'm talking to you oscar wilde certainly did it's an easy read i would say you could tackle this with a level of lower intermediate you know that lower intermediate incidentally this is the first book i ever read in french when i started learning french though my french level was really low i managed to read this book i know what you're thinking i should have chosen a french book but not the first one the second one i did the next book is animal farm by george orwell it tells a story of a group of animals on a poorly run farm by the alcoholic owner mr jones farmer jones one day the animals decide to take control and create a fair just and equal society where all the animals will be happy needless to say it doesn't work out so well the pigs take control led by their leader napoleon in the end the pigs start to resemble the humans they replaced standing upright and drinking alcohol and mistreating all the other animals of course the book is not really about a farm it's an allegory about the soviet union and the dictatorship of joseph stalin you can also read it as a story about the perils of government and power in general so there are some heavy themes i did tell you that the books i've chosen aren't light interestingly the book came out in 1945 just after the second world war and many uk publishers refused to publish it they said it was too anti-soviet or anti-stalin which seems incredible now but at the time the soviets had been our allies during the war and anti-soviet books were not encouraged of course it did get published and is now considered a classic it's only 112 pages long and easy to read if you like satire and you have at least a lower intermediate level there you are lower intermediate then you can you can you can read this one here's a paragraph from the book the animals are unhappy because the milk and the apples that were supposed to be shared with all the animals have been taken by the pigs squealer was sent to make the necessary explanations to the others comrades he cried you do not imagine i hope that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege many of us actually dislike milk and apples i dislike them myself our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health milk and apples this has been proved by science comrades contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig we pigs are brain workers the whole management and organization of the farm depend on us day and night we are watching over your welfare it is for your sake that we drink the milk and eat those apples the next book is the narrative of the life of frederick douglass an american slave 1845 this is an autobiography as its title suggests it tells the true story of frederick douglass who grew up as a slave in maryland and eventually escaped to freedom later on in life he became a spokesman a speaker and a statesman this book is a shocking account of the cruelty and suffering and of the evils of slavery that he experienced firsthand this is a harrowing account but at the same time it tells a story that that grabs you and keeps you hooked throughout some vocabulary you may need to look up but it's quite easy in the sense that it's written in a straightforward narrative it tells a story and you can easily follow that story even if your english is not first language that there is no power in his words and it is beautifully written when it was published in 1845 many skeptical reviewers wrote that there was no way that a black man black man probably they used stronger terms than that could possibly write such an eloquent piece of literature now in spite of that it became a bestseller in america and in europe douglas went on to write two more autobiographies which expand on the first book and cover the time after he gained his freedom now i haven't read these yet but i'll also put a link in the description to those too if you want to investigate further here's a quote from the first page of the book i was born in tuckahoe near hillsboro about 12 miles from eastern in tulba county maryland i have no accurate knowledge of my age never having seen any authentic record containing it by far the larger part of the slaves knows little of their ages as horses know of theirs and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant i do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday they seldom come nearer to it than planting time harvest time cherry time springtime or full time a want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood the white children could tell their ages i could not tell why i ought to be deprived of the same privilege i was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it he deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent and evidence of a restless spirit the nearest estimate i can give makes me now between 27 and 28 years of age i come to this from hearing my master say sometime during 1835 i was about 17 years old the book is only 98 pages long and it's out of copyright it's free online i picked up a copy from a bookshop in london for just one pound the level because it has some complicated words others in upper intermediate you see that upper intermediate the next book is pride and prejudice by jane austen now i'm cheating a little bit here because this book is less easy than the others i reckon you you would need an upper intermediate level to uh to understand it however the reason why i'm including it is because firstly because it's it's it's very very good and secondly because you probably already know the story there are so many film versions and tv versions and you can find the audio book online it's out of copyright so once again it's free there is so much in the way of support for this and if that's not enough you can have a look at the spark notes website i shall put a link to that in the description spark notes summarizes and explains what's happening on every page so in case you missed something from reading the original text so go to spark notes and it will explain what happened on that page by the way spark note is a marvelous resource not just for uh pride and prejudice but all the classics sparkles is great for shakespeare too if there's a passage in shakespeare you don't understand you'll find it rewritten in modern english very useful but we'll talk about shakespeare another day i won't say too much about the book because probably you already know the story but very very briefly mrs bennett has five daughters and she wants her eldest daughters to get married to someone handsome and rich and guess what some handsome and young and rich young bachelors come to the neighborhood there are bulls there are misunderstandings there is heartache there is comedy is there a happy ending well dear viewer i won't say you have to read it here's the first paragraph it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife however little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood the truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families that he is considered the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters the next book is cold comfort farm by stella gibbons written in 1932. stella gibbons was an english writer and this was her first book written at the age of 30 and it was a huge bestseller unfortunately in spite of writing 15 more novels she was never able to repeat that success cold comfort farm tells a story of 19 year old flora post whose parents had both recently died she decides that she can either get a job or go and live with some relatives she opts for the latter and receives an invitation from her cousin to live on cold comfort farm when she arrives she sees that the place is a mess and the inhabitants of the farm and the extended family the workers they're a strange bunch step by step she goes about changing things at the farm and the lives of the people there this book is funny it's a parody of country life and many of the books written in that era such as d h lawrence i'm sure you'll enjoy it in a non-scientific survey i did with some of my friends the themes of the book might be a little bit more appreciated by the female reader but not necessarily i liked it now let me give you the opening paragraph the education bestowed on flora post by her parents had been expensive athletic and prolonged and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza our spanish plague which occurred in her 20th year she was discovered to possess every art and grace say that of earning her own living her father had always been spoken of as a wealthy man but on his death his executors were disconcerted to find him a poor one after death duties had been paid and the demands of creditors satisfied his child was left with an income of 100 pounds a year and no property it's a short book coming in at 111 pages and very easy to read you can read this level lower intermediate i'd say anyone lower intermediates you can you can cope with it now on to our bonus a great book that even a beginner or maybe not beginning but almost beginner can can read basic level english this book makes a great read for anyone starting to learn english and i often recommend it to my students native speakers of course well if you've got a really good level of english you can enjoy it too and it is tales of american life edited by paul oster in the year 1999 paul oster asked listeners to npr an american radio station to send in their stories there are only two rules one the story had to be short and two they had to be true and there was an absolutely huge response he got over 4 000 replies oster collected the stories and put what he considered the best 179 in this anthology which is 490 pages long that's an average of less than three pages per story some stories are funny some are dark some touch on subjects such as love and pain and sorrow and irony and coincidence acts of kindness regret and what osta calls miraculous encounters it's not a classic in the traditional sense that's why i put it as a bonus but it's sort of book you can pick up at any moment open it at random and find a great story some of the stories are less than a page long so you can read it whatever your level let me read you the very first story and you'll see what i mean the chicken as i was walking down stanton street early one sunday morning i saw a chicken a few yards ahead of me i was walking faster than the chicken so i gradually caught up by the time we approached 18th avenue i was close behind the chicken turned south on 18th at the fourth house along it turned in at the walk hopped up the front steps and wrapped sharply on the metal storm door with its beak after a moment the door opened and the chicken went in linda elegant portland oregon if you read or have read any of these books please let us know in the comments what you think by the way please don't criticize any of these books if you haven't read them we have that in the last video of book reviews that's not cool read the book first then criticize and if you have any easy read english language classics that you think i've left out then let us know about them too in the comments remember we're talking about english literature here translations of foreign literature we'll look at another time thank you for watching happy reading see you in the next video bye

Channel: LetThemTalkTV

Views: 72,175

Rating: 4.9606137 out of 5

Keywords: YT:CC=ON, book review, English literature, easy classics, fiction, literary fiction, book recommendations, book recommendations for English learners, LetThemTalkTV

Id: pezlnc92xh4

Length: 25min 41sec (1541 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 14 2020