Classics For Beginners

so growing up I didn't read a lot of classics I wasn't assigned a lot of classics in school it wasn't really a big part of my curriculum and I never read them for like enjoyment and so just about a year ago I decided that I really wanted to give a few classics ago and just kind of see if it was something that would interest me so I made it a goal on my channel to read like six books in a year six classic books in a year and I ended up reading like 20 or something like that because I ended up loving them but I remember in the very beginning of my trying on different classics I really struggled because I just picked up people's favorites ones that people said oh my gosh I love this book and the problem with being a beginner in classics is that with some of these books the language is so different and the writing style and like the story structure is so different from what modern novels are today that it can end up being really daunting and I just remember in the very beginning there were times where I kind of felt like I was drowning and like I felt like there wasn't any way that I ever could get into classics because I felt like I could barely understand what I was reading because it was so different from what I was used to I ended up finding some really amazing ones that really just ended up becoming like all-time favorites of mine and that motivated me to keep trying I eventually found a good niche of classics that I thought I was really loving that ended up getting me really used to the language and I was able to move on to the more I guess quote unquote difficult reads like I said I've been reading classics for about a year now so I am in no way an authority on classics or good classics or recommendations for classics but because I just started reading classics like when I was like 24 I think right around there and it's all pretty recent to me I feel like I want to help other people because I do my my dedicated classics wrap ups every month since I read two or three classics a month now and I've had several people tell me that they really want to get into classics themselves and that's why they watch my classics wrap ups but it's all really daunting to them and so I thought that it might be helpful if I did a recommendations video based off of the classics that I've read that I think would be good classics if you're trying to get into it to not be too daunting and overwhelming there are so many classics that I still haven't read so this list is very much incomplete but based off of the books that I've written in about a year I have some that I think will be really good so I'm gonna kick it off with the kind of classics that I started out that really like gripped me and made me realize that I had a chance in navigating classic literature because the first ever that I read that I read were really daunting and overwhelming and difficult but then I picked up Peter Pan which is my favorite book of all time classics modern books Peter Pan takes the cake it's my favorite book that I've ever read this book is thrilling and it's dark and it just was really emotional it really spoke to me on a lot of levels and from there I decided what I could do is I could start exploring all of the origin stories for like the Disney movies that I grew up watching and loving I was a huge Disney buff as a kid and even as a teenager and so going back and reading classics like Alice in Wonderland The Little Mermaid Little Red Riding Hood Cinderella Snow White Pinocchio basically any Disney movie that I grew up watching and I already knew the story being able to read the origin was perfect for me because it was different and it was darker and a lot of them are more like kind of tragedy so it's a different story but it's the same story I already knew the characters in the world and the general story arc even though it was pretty different in book format but I felt like I already knew the story so it made it really easy for me to navigate the more classical sort of writing and plus it was just really really fun to get a darker spin on a story that I already loved so if you happen to be a lover of fairy tales I highly recommend checking out the classics that they come from because it is so much fun and some of my favorite stories happen to be classic stories they're way better than the Disney adaptations because they are dark on that same note I think Grimm's fairy tales are a really good place to start they're extremely short they're usually they could be anywhere from a paragraph to like five pages long so it's such a it's a such a little commitment and they're odd and they're quirky and like they make you laugh and some of them are like really intense and exciting and some of them are stupid and pointless but it's fun to navigate the Grimm's fairy tales and I can understand why some people wouldn't like them because a lot of them are pointless and because they are like quirky and odd but I think that they're like such a good way to just dip your toes into that writing style and see how much fun these odd sort of tales can be next book I'm gonna recommend is a Picture of Dorian Gray make sure of Dorian Gray is a story about a man who has a portrait painted of him because this artist sees Dorian and he thinks that he's beautiful the most beautiful man and so he really wants to capture him and when the painting is finished Dorian is struck by his beauty for the first time and he kind of becomes this very vain character and we follow him throughout his life and his life starts to go pretty dark and that's all I want to say this book is intriguing from the very beginning it's also gruesome in a way that I totally didn't expect and the ending is so dark and shocking and amazing I love this book it is fast paced it is intriguing from the beginning to the end and it's shocking and how it ends I highly recommend this book because as far as like classics can sometimes sometimes they're fast paced sometimes they're slow paced a lot of times they're slow a picture of dorian gray is so quick and so intriguing and fun and again that ending though highly recommend the Picture of Dorian Gray could not recommend it more it was amazing next I'm gonna recommend the outsiders this is kind of known as the first why a novel as follows this is a difficult one to to describe in my opinion this follows a boy named Pony boy and he lives in this town where there are the greasers and the sotius and so the greasers are kind of like the rough around the edges living in more poverty kind of like street boys and then you've got the Scioscia is who are like the preppy you know social kids the story kicks off when Pony boy and a couple of his friends hang out with some socials and then they get jumped by some so schmooze and I won't say much because it is a very short book and things happen really really fast in this one but the plot totally takes a direction that I wasn't expecting and things are constantly changing in pony boy's life each chapter there's something totally new happening it's all really cohesive but things just jump really fast things move so fast but the truth about this story the heart of the story the beautiful side of this story is the character arcs as someone who is a plot driven reader this is a character driven book and I it's one of my favorite books of all time these characters are so raw and gritty and honest and there is a level of emotion and honesty in this book that you really don't get in modern young adult literature it's fast paced it's intriguing these characters aren't incredibly relatable even though it's set in a much older time than modern literature is it's still so relatable and believable and these characters are people you want to know and to have in your life it's emotional it's unpredictable it's exciting it's thrilling it's devastating it's amazing and the last book I'm gonna recommend to you it's kind of like a modern classic so I don't even know if everybody would think that this counts but it's gonna be The Giver by Lois Lowry this is actually a quartet there's four books in this and I've said this many times on my channel I think that every single one well I didn't really love book two but almost every single one of these books are interesting and intriguing and and so deep and interesting and fantastic but they're all like companions that are supposed to all connect in the end and while they do that there's so many different threads that happen in all four books that I honestly think that the author did a poor job at connecting them completely there's a lot of threads that just sort of get dropped off and they don't end up fully resolving and I did feel a little bit a lot of bit disappointed with the ending of this quartet but being said I still highly recommend the entire series this is a dystopian series following a especially in book 1 it follows a modern society that has developed to the point where they have such laws and rules of regular regulation that everybody knows exactly what they're supposed to do what they're supposed to say they're assigned their life basically there are scientists houses it's all very controlled and it's controlled in a way that ends up being terrible and our main character is put in a position of leadership at a very young age and as he starts to see the inner workings of everything he decides to make some really tough decisions and that's all I'll say and then book two fellas totally different society free Falls a total different society but they all end up connecting in a world that is beautifully fascinating exciting intriguing some really deep subjects are our address here I personally would have loved to see them go even deeper and explore it even more but as a whole this is even though book 2 was like not my favorite and the ending was low-key disappointing this is a five star series for me it's imperfect but it's still so amazing and if you want to see dystopian done right this will be it so here are some of the books that I highly recommend if you're trying to get into classics if you want something that's a little bit more like a modern story so that the writing and the style of story structure and everything doesn't trip you up and overwhelm you these are some classics that I think are written in a way that's a great bridge from modern literature to classic written literature they're so rich and they're so deep but they're also really exciting and thrilling and action-packed and just a lot of fun to read for those of you who haven't read very many classics and are here to learn please comment and let me know if you want to try any of these because I would love to like hype them for you even more and be excited for you and for those of you who are here because you love classics and you just like talking about them please leave more recommendations in the comments for classics that you think are good starter books for people who are wanting to use them as sort of a bridge to get them into more classic literature as always the links to everything that I've talked about today will be down in the description so be sure to check them out if any of these look interesting to you I post videos every Monday Tuesday Thursday and Saturday so I'll see you again [Music]

Channel: Merphy Napier

Views: 55,694

Rating: 4.9459963 out of 5

Keywords: classics, for, beginners, where, to, start, book, books, booked, read, reads, reader, reading, booktube, booktuber, grimm, peter, pan, the, picture, of, dorian, gray, outsiders, giver, quartet

Id: iRycZS50IcI

Length: 11min 36sec (696 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 14 2018