Classic Books Tag

hi everyone I'm Miranda and welcome to my youtube channel today I thought it would be really fun to talk about classic literature I found the classics tag on booktube and I thought it sounded like a really fun tag to join in so I thought that's what I'd do today I found the tag on books by wou channel I'll put a link to that in the description box down below so you can watch that video but let's just dive into the questions so I've got them here on my phone the first question is what is an overhyped classic you really didn't like well I think would be unfair to say that it's overhyped but a classic that I didn't well there just isn't really for me is a watering Heights by Emily brontë which I know is an unpopular opinion because so many people love that book however it's just never really been the book for me I do admire Emily Bronte's writing and her incredible imagination but I've never understood the passion for Heathcliff I don't see what other women seem to find so appealing about him I think he's awful and in fact none of the characters in the book of people I can really relate to or empathize or even sympathise with much so yes weathering Heights is a book but is the classic I've read a few times but I think in the end I have to realize it's one that will never be amongst my very favorites shall we say next question is what is your favorite time period to read about well my very favorite time period to read about is the interwar years I love the literature from that period and I also just find it such a fascinating time in history I also loved the fashion and the music even so much I adore from that period but I also really do enjoy reading about the Victorian era so I love a lot of Victorian fiction and of course Regency England so I love Jane Austen and I also love the writer georgette Heyer because she writes a lot about Regency England and her books are very light but just very witty and they're amongst my favorite comfort reads next question what is your favorite fairy tale question number three well I think this is probably quite random but when I was little I had a collection of fairy tales I think it was called old Peters Russian tales I'll see if I can find it I'll link these books in the description box down below it was collected by Arthur Ransome who is of course famous for the swallows and Amazon's children's books he was a British writer but he spent time in Russia and he published this collection of Russian fairy tales and there's one fairy tale that I can still remember from that collection it's called the silver salsa and the translucent apple and it's a really bizarre grotesque tale but I was just fascinated by it when I was young I think I was really interested in Russian culture generally when I was little because I did a lot of ballet and I was trained in the Vaganova in the Russian style so I was just really fascinated by Russia and I just remember loving this story it was about a young girl who was nicknamed little stupid or little fool by her two older sisters because few little fool was just so kind-hearted she would do all of the sort of grubby chores that no one else wanted to do so they called her little fool for that and um one day her father goes off to the market and he asks his daughters what would you like to bring what would you like me to bring back for you of course the two older sisters asked for fancy jewelry and beautiful dresses but little fool asks only for a silver saucer and a translucent Apple I've seen other translations call it a crystal Apple which makes a little bit more sense and so anyway the father comes back he has these gifts for his daughters the sisters laugh at little fullfil wanting such a stupid present but when she gets a saucer and the crystal Apple she spins the Apple round around on the saucer and by magic she sees all sorts of scenes from all around the world within this Apple and her sisters become very jealous when they realize what a treasure little fool has so they hatch a truly devilish scheme they take her sister sister into the woods to supposedly gather berries she leaves her Apple and her saucer saucer behind with her father but her sisters think that she has it on her so they try to force her to give them the Apple and saucer and when she won't they take an axe that they had already planted in the wood and they kill her I think this was the dis horrifying part that some hollows who just transfixed and fascinated me as a child that these sisters could just kill one of their own anyway so the terrible deed is done and to cut a long story short where they bury little full a reed grows underneath the tree and a wandering Shepherd comes by and he cuts the reed and he creates a whistle out of the reed and when he puts it to his lips this song comes force the is in the voice of little fool and it tells the story of what happened what her sisters did to her the father finds out about this and in his despair he goes to the Tsar and he takes some water some water of life from the czars well sprinkles it over his girl's body and she comes back to life and in true fairy tale fashion she ends up marrying Bazar and she forgives her sisters so that is my number one favorite fairy tale I just adored it when I was young not quite sure why but yes that's my favorite question number four what is the most embarrassing classic you haven't yet read well I guess I'm quite embarrassed I haven't read um all of Dickens's books and you know not a lot of his famous ones I mean I have read quite a few like great expectations tell of Two Cities a Christmas Carol Bleak House but I really want to read Little Dorrit I want to read The Pickwick Papers um I have read David Copperfield but well actually I listened to it I haven't actually read that one and so I would like to physically read that book um via there there are quite a few Dickens that I haven't read then I would really like to next question what are the top five classics that you would like to read soon well one that's really far up on my classics pile like she have it over here it's Lady orderly's secret by Mary Elizabeth Brandon and it just sounds amazing I'll read you what it says it says in this outlandish outrageous triumph of scandal fiction a new lady oddly arrives at the Manor young beautiful and very mysterious why does she behave so strangely what exactly is the dark secret this seductive outsider carries with her a huge success in the 19th century the book revels in an empty heroine with her good looks and hidden past Hill embodied perfectly the concerns of the Victorian age with morality and madness I just think that sounds so good like I said I love reading Victorian literature this sounds like such a classic that I haven't read yet and yes I think it just sounds brilliant I love a book with a good anti-heroin too so this one's high up on my list I made a note actually of other classics but I want to read soon um I've already mentioned that I would like to read David Copperfield I just saw the film which I really enjoyed and that inspired me to read the book because it was a long time ago that I listened to it and I would like to actually physically read that book as well so David Copperfield I also really want to reread the tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte this is actually one of my favorite books but I haven't reread it for quite a while and I just think it's such an underrated classic actually Anne Bronte is amazing I wish she was recognized as much as her sisters are but yes I think the tenant of Wildfell Hall still speaks so much to the present about women who are cool in situations of domestic abuse for instance it's a very sort of early feminist book really and I think it's very special so I want to reread that one again um oh yes other rereads I really like rereading classic fiction I think classic fiction is definitely the type of thick fiction I reread the most and I think especially because a lot I originally read as a teenager so this is a case in point really like to reread the Barchester towers chronicles by Anthony Trollope I love his Barchester books the warden is the first in this series and it's actually really slim light but charming read I really recommend it it I love I love stories about a village and all of the sort of characters within that small village or town and truly just he's so good at character so I really want to reread these books I read them a while ago every read the warden fairly recently but not many of the others so I think that would be a fun project for 2020 so I hope that I won't be able to do that and then oh yes another book the fifth book I think this is that I would like to get to soon is Daniel Deronda by George Eliot this is a George Eliot novel I haven't read and would really like to I watched the TV adaptation and that was on in the early 2000s and I really enjoyed that at the time but I didn't go on to read the book and it's still a book I would really like to read I think it was the last book that George Eliot wrote and I think it was also the only one that she wrote that was actually set within her sort of contemporary Victorian society so I'm interested to read it for that reason as well next question question number six what is your favorite modern book that is based on a classic okay well that would definitely have to be the other Bennet sister by Janice had low I adored that book I've spoken about it before on my youtube channel I was interviewed Janice on my podcast he and tattle I just adored the other Bennet sister it's about Mary Bennet and Janice gives Mary such a believable but lovely story I you like it because she captures the language the sort of tone of Jane Austen really really well in that book and you can tell how much Janice loves Jane Austen because to my mind there are a lot of allusions not just to Pride and Prejudice but to other works by Jane Austen so for instance Mary Bennet in Janice's imagination falls in love over poetry which reminded me of destroy line in persuasion where Louisa Musgrove falls in love with Captain benek over poetry and then oh so in the other Bennet sister Mary ends up with two potential love interests and they both remind me of the sort of male versions of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility and I really enjoyed that so yes the other Bennet sister would be my favorite sort of spinoff from a classic I also want to give a shout out to Longbourn by Joe Baker where she writes from the perspective of the servants at Longbourn in Pride and Prejudice so you you see the characters of the novel and some of the events of the novel play out through the perspective of the servants and I just think that's such a clever idea and it was a really really good read so yeah those are my two recommendations okay question number seven what is your favorite movie or TV series based on the classic well that's really easy that would of course have to be the 1995 Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle Pride and Prejudice I still think that that is the absolute best Jane Austen adaptation I that yeah I think that's what started my love for Jane Austen's I watched it when I was nine years old and I read Pride and Prejudice after that and the rest as they say is history okay next question question eight what is the worst classic - movie adaptation hmm I don't know if it's because I don't much like withering hikes I've already said but I have not come across an film adaptation of that that I have ever really enjoyed to be fair I also haven't I can't think of a Jane Eyre that I absolutely love and I really like the novel Jane Eyre so sadly I don't think the Bronte sisters have done very well in terms of film or TV adaptations okay next question is what are the favorite additions you'd like to collect more classics from well I really like the I've got one I really liked the English penguin library editions with the covers designed by Carly Bickford Smith I interviewed Carly on my podcast and she was so nice to talk to it was really interesting learning about the designs to these covers she she also does the hardback versions of them too which I also love so really like these they open really nicely which is important to me when I'm reading a book so I like the paperbacks a lot and then I think my favorites are the Virago modern classic editions these hardback editions with the beautiful patent covers I absolutely love these I don't have very many of them sadly and quite a few seem to be going out of print which is disappointing because I think they're beautiful I'd really like to get more of these there I think they're my favorite probably of all the views many beautiful series you can get of the classics they are more modern classics obviously these but I really really love them and then the I think it's the final question yes what is an under hyped classic you'd recommend to anyone that would have to be wives and all by Elizabeth Gaskell I'm a huge fan of Elizabeth Gaskell I love Cranford which is her most well known work I think many people love this book but wives and daughters I just I just don't see it mentioned so much which i think is such a shame it's brilliant like almost like family sagas style book to read is very thick and that might put people off a bit and I think the other thing that also puts people off is it was the last novel that Elizabeth Gaskell wrote and very sadly she died before she could finish it but she did almost get to the end and she left some notes on sort of what she was planning to have happen at the end so you do kind of know how it will end and it's almost it's almost there I think if someone is like written me the ending should sort of finish it up in most editions but yes I just I just love it I think she's at her best actually in writing that novel and I would really recommend it if you haven't read it already but anyway that was really fun I hope that you enjoyed watching this video and hearing a bit about my responses to these questions on classic fiction I'll put the questions in the description box below and also links to books I've mentioned but please let me know what are some of your favorite classics which classics do you think are underrated that you'd like to see more people read are there some classics on your list of books that you want to read this year I'd really like to know I just like to know if you like weathering Heights is it just me that doesn't quite get this book and doesn't get the Heathcliff thing let me know um but yes do you give this video a thumbs up if you've enjoyed it remember to subscribe to my channel which you can do by clicking on my face which I think normally come around here somewhere and yes thank you so much for watching I'll be back again soon with another video bye

Channel: Miranda Mills

Views: 4,821

Rating: 4.9880238 out of 5

Keywords: books, classic books, booktube, bookstagram, literature, jane austen, charles dickens, elizabeth gaskell

Id: 4l_uwektzt4

Length: 20min 4sec (1204 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 17 2020