Top 10 Books You Should Read In Your Lifetime

okay so today i'm going to be talking about 10 books that i think you should read in your lifetime which is ridiculously subjective these are not going to be my all-time favorite books although a lot of the books on this list would make that video this is going to be a list of books that made me really stop and think that were really reflective books for me that were very influential to me or very important to me because of the topics they explored and i love them and appreciate them for those things first book on this list is going to be a classic the count of monte cristo this is a tough book for me to talk about spoiler-free because i think that everything that i love and appreciated about this book isn't spoiler um so i think you should read it uh it is it's big but it's worth every page it starts out with a kid who is living the good life his life abruptly changes and then he abruptly changes and it's a story of dissent it's a story of drastic change based off of your circumstances becoming a product of your circumstances becoming a product of of the things that you've gone through and then a lot of self-reflection of those things and of what you've become and i love that and you'll find that it's a it's a theme in this in this list now that i think about it but that's about as much as i could say keep say keeping it spoiler free because this book is quite the ride and there's a lot of twists and turns it also just has a really phenomenal plot a really complex interesting exciting storyline that is very unpredictable if you happen to go in not already knowing the story and um i highly recommend it next book on this list is going to be oh man the boy the mole the fox and the horse this is a book that is good for all ages you can read it to your child which i have you can read it as an adult which i have both times you'll cry this does such a phenomenal job of taking very complex thoughts emotions feelings and things that we can struggle with taking these really complex things breaking it down into such a digestible and yet blunt way that can just kind of surprise you and how it makes you think about it a little bit differently a little bit more vulnerably and oftentimes it's done from the perspective of but it's okay but you're gonna be okay so it's also such an encouraging book it's a book that really really surprised me um i think the subscriber that sent this to me said that they sent it to me for my son so i read it to my son and you know he he he sat through the whole thing he's only three and um it there's not a lot of words to the page i love the artwork in it and i cried my way through it and it was a book that i wish i had read as a kid it's a book i will be reading to my kids many times it's a book i will be reading on my own many times it's a book i cannot recommend enough and it's such a fast easy read that i think you will come back to many many times next book on my list is going to be wuthering heights so this book is oftentimes viewed as romance please don't go into it viewing it as a romance it was published as a tragedy think of it as a tragedy it's a tragedy and it is about the cycle of abuse it follows people who have been abused and continue that cycle this book is really really really valuable to me because i have such strong feelings about this concept and about this story and and this book the way it's written is not heavy-handed it's more written in a way of examples so it's easy to kind of just see it as a story and not see it as also a reflection piece and then just say wow that story was depressing hated that but to me it was so bad it's kind of like that episode of avatar where katara i won't say spoilers goes to find someone that she has a grudge against and that episode of avatar had me sobbing because it explores the same concepts here explores the concepts of holding on to what's been done to you and letting it turn you into that thing tint and this book is so daggum valuable to me because it so blatantly and brutally shows it and i appreciate it so much for that let's go lighter let's talk about how to win friends and influence people i don't know where my copy of this is i weird story oh it's over there how to win friends and influence people i recently reorganized my bookshelves my three-year-old son wanted to help me i gave him all my non-fiction told him where to put it and then i organized other books only about two of those books actually landed on the non-fiction shelf and i have no idea apparently they're just scattered around my room which is quite messy so that's that's on me so one thing that's really really really valuable to me in my life is letting people in my life know that they're valuable to me that they're important to me that what they say matters what they care about what they believe in what they dream about what their life is focused on all those things are valuable are important that their humanity them as a person is important and anytime i have a conversation with someone anytime i have a friendship or even just an acquaintanceship with someone it's so important to me to communicate in the way i speak to that person in the way i talk to in the way i i interact with that person it's important to me to know that they know coming out of it that i value them right so i read a lot a lot of non-fiction books i mean i don't read a lot i don't read a ton of non-fiction but when i read non-fiction a lot of the books that i end up picking up are on effective communication and on this type of thing and i think that this is probably my it definitely is my favorite book so far that i've picked up on this subject i think that dale carnegie does exactly he has this exact same value exactly what i just described that's his main goal too and this talks about how to communicate with people in business settings in social settings in familial settings he talks about how to show people that they're valuable and how to make a person see that that's important to you and that is effective in every situation of life and i think it's even if this isn't your one of your number one most important things to communicate to people even if that isn't high on your list i still think that this is a really a valuable book and a great book for making you kind of reflect on how you view the world and reflect on how you view success and i just i appreciate this book so much for seeing exactly what i value and showing me how to display that value more effectively next book on this list is the picture of dorian gray we have a theme here this story is about a man who's very beautiful and he has people in his life who let him know how beautiful he is very frequently so he becomes very vain and conceited he has a portrait drawn of him how do you talk about this book spoiler free um this is also about the descent of a character man i love character descent stories he gets really prideful really wrapped up in himself and it turns him ugly from the inside out and i adore this book i adore this book because one it's just a great read it's just a really interesting story but i also love it for the concepts that are discussed for the more philosophical discussions that come from this book and from the journey that dorian gray takes and from where it ends and what it does to him and i love it i love i love this discussion and all the things when when when people read this book all the things that we can discuss together about it it's a great story in and of itself it's great discussion piece and i love it for that next book on this list will be another nonfiction and that is things my son needs to know about the world is that right yeah hey i get it right things my son needs to know about the world is one that won't be applicable to a lot of people but it is to me this is a nonfiction by my favorite author who primarily writes fiction he uh this is his a series of letters and stories that he wrote to his son but published for the world there's a lot of stuff in here that any parent could relate to and bachmann does such an amazing job of taking these simple non-non-important topics talking around them in circles to the point that you're thinking what why why why are we here and then bringing it all together with the biggest gut punch that ha that leaves me crying at least there's so many sections of this book that i read to my husband that had him also teary-eyed because it's just stuff it's a raw real look into the messiness of parenthood but more importantly the incredible joy and wonder of parenthood and the fears that you have when you're raising a kid and just it's so relatable everything he writes is so emotional i just this is an author that can do no wrong this nonfiction hit me hard and it's one that i reread sections of because it's just so great next on my list is kind of a more general thing and that's just going to be memoirs i really really enjoy reading people's real life stories usually the memoirs i read are more personal accounts of someone's story this was written after harriet tubman had passed away but it's a recounting of her story of her life not just the underground railroad but a lot of elements of her life and a lot of the incredible things that she accomplished and influential things that she did that are less well-known as well as a lot in to her personal life and personal things that she had to accomplish and overcome and for me just reading a memoir about a person that has gone through so much more than me and who has accomplished so much more than me is really eye-opening humbling and inspiring and i i feel like i always come out of these kinds of books just amazed and kind of looking at my life a little bit differently so just in general this is kind of a general recommendation but someone in history or in life in general that has done something that you admire and look up to reading a memoir about them can't recommend it enough next book on this list is going to be a weird one and that's pet cemetery by stephen king so stephen king is an author that i still don't really know how i feel about i've tried many of his books i my feelings about them end up being all over the place so far my favorite book of his has been pet cemetery and partially because it's a great story but more so because i know that king does this in most if not all of his book most of his books where he takes a real life thing a real life subject and creates the horror around it and this has been my favorite instance of him doing that i love books that have deep explore explorations of grief i think probably because grief is a a concept and emotion that i really struggle to handle in a healthy way and i loved the way king broke it down and worked through it i know that he worked with psychologists and doctors while writing this book to get these things right and i'm so impressed with how he did it in this fictional setting and it took grief here with a small loss and escalated it and escalated it and escalated it and the story itself was great and i i've recommended this book a lot and i've gotten a lot of mixed feedback on it some people love it too some people think that it's super predictable and boring and we're really disappointed about it and that's fine i like the story itself i thought the story itself was really interesting and good but the thing that made this over the top for me the thing that made this absolutely groundbreaking and phenomenal and mind-blowing to me was that it wasn't just a great story but that it had such a nuanced and complex discussion of grief within it i think the king accomplished this on a level that impressed me and made me i mean i read it shortly after i lost someone very important in my life and i had already read nonfictions on grief to help me sort through what i was going through but this was one of the most effective ways to help me sort through my grief in this horror novel but it did it helped me sort through my grief on a level that a lot of the nonfictions i had read didn't do and that meant a lot to me and was really important to me and i just really loved this book for its many purposes next on this list i will recommend every other bachmann book that he's written so frederick bachmann is my favorite author of all time and he does exactly what i just described king doing except he does it in every single one of his books he tackles really really difficult topics and discusses them very bluntly in fictional settings and he first of all bachmann's prose is unlike any author i just i'm amazed by his prose constantly but he takes these complex difficult real-life raw topics and breaks them down in a way that's not holding your hand that's not heavy-handed in a way that that is so simple and beautiful yet raw and and takes these things these real-life things and makes me walk away thinking whoa i see that a little bit differently not necessarily not necessarily changing my perspective all the time but a lot of times just i was able to think about that from another angle and i love that his stories are great he has great stories but also every time i read a new book of his i don't feel like i've had a discussion with him exclusively i actually feel like i've walked through something with him i feel like i've walked through a real life pain with someone who's walked through it too and we just went through that together and i just what what other author can do that what other author accomplishes what bachmann accomplishes i don't know but i'm constantly amazed and impressed every time i pick up another bachmann book and i still have more of his books to read i read them very slowly because i need space between the amount of pain and self-reflection that comes from each of them but i'm always impressed there are other books that i consider putting on this list that i do think deserve to be on a list like this but it wouldn't be a top 10 list if they were so those here's some honorable mentions for more phenomenal phenomenal books that i highly recommend but i'm gonna end this list with my all-time favorite book i have been promising that i would that i would re-read this book and have a full discussion on it for a long time i still haven't done it i promise you i will someday um i have talked about why this book is so valuable to me i think it's a great story we'll say it again i think it's a great story in and of itself on its own great story i i love the magic of it i love the whimsy of it i love that peter pan is just this little runt this little brat that has so many layers to him oh my goodness i love peter pan so much i love the emphasis on all of his faults um and where they come from and abandonment is a big theme of peter pan's character and uh hardening oneself and running away from that abandonment um family and family always being there um is is a big theme and as a mom it hits me hard um uh and and a focus on especially near the end on on that that parental i will always be there for my kids kind of mentality but not only that also an open arm embrace to other kids that need you and you know adoption and bringing other children into the home there's a lot of things that this fairy tale did that struck a certain chord for me so not only is it a great story very whimsical very beautiful very fun very exciting but there are some things that were valuable to these characters or that hurt these characters that um i felt and i appreciate so peter pan on the list here's some books that i highly highly recommend books that i am so grateful that i read not just because they're a good story they are all good stories but also because they made me think they made me feel either understood or made me see the world a little bit differently and i appreciate them so much for that so here's some books that i'm glad i read before the end of my lifetime and would recommend others read i'd love to hear what your list is what your top 10 list is so be sure to continue chatting with me about it in the comments i post videos every sunday tuesday thursday and saturday i'll see you guys again soon [Music] bye [Music] you

Channel: Merphy Napier | Manga

Views: 730,699

Keywords: read, reads, reader, reading, book, boooks, booktube, booktuber, fiction, non fiction, literature, library, june, summer, 2020, merphy, napier, wrap, up, My, Top, 10, ten, Fantasy, Series, Top 10 Books You Should Read, In Your Lifetime

Id: NQXooN0Qvew

Length: 19min 12sec (1152 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 05 2020