 What's up book lovers, my name is Ian and welcome to my channel where we not only break down the greatest books of all time, but also create actionable steps from the information in those books to help not only transform our life, but transform the world because what's the use of having all this information if we're not doing anything with it. And that's something I see in the book community right now. People read so much and have so much to give, but they don't do that. And that's what my job here is on YouTube to encourage you and help you to become a person who can use all this beautiful knowledge or good. So subscribe to the channel if you're interested in that, because today I am tier ranking the best classical novels of all time and I am super excited for this because I love the classics. I always talk about the modernist period and how it's important, but let's see. I want to show you guys what I think and what I'm picking here. So let's start off with the list. And if you guys don't know, S stands for superb F is then this is the normal grading system. Apparently this is a Japanese grading system. So first of all, we have Faulkner, Absalon, and what do you guys think I'm going to, where do you guys think I'm going to throw this one? William Faulkner is obviously going to go in the S because William Faulkner, the extension of Ernest Hemingway is one of the greatest authors in American history. His work transcended voice and genre and really helped progress southern gothic literature and paved the way for men like Don DeLillo. And of course my boy Cormac McCarthy, Faulkner really got transcendental with his work. Absalon, Absalon is my favorite work by Faulkner. So of course I'm putting this at the top. Next I mean they're just really lining this up. This tier ranking list right here is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov about an old man loving a young woman and you know I kind of hate to you know also you know a lot of people would probably say you can put this down at the F but you know I kind of hate to do this but it's going up at S because Nabokov is one of the best craftsmen and technicians of all time and as writers we cannot be scared to explore taboo topics. So much craziness is happening in 2022 with cancel culture on the left and the crazy conservatives on the right trying to tighten down on writers and artists imagination and people love it. People are calling for this. People in Florida don't say gay bill ban all textbooks challenge all the books that teachers are trying to create then the people on the left trying to cancel all the classics and any ideas that don't conform to their narrative. It's insane as a writer as an artist your imagination takes precedence the deep ideas that you pull from the pond of the ideas that you catch need to come and flower to fruition and if you are scared of losing your job or wondering what someone's going to say to you then you won't be able to reach your highest potential and that sucks and that's what Nabokov does and that's why he gets an S. It was controversial back then and it's still controversial now and go check out the Stanley Kubrick movie. So now we have Catcher in the Ride by JD Salinger and man once again I'm really kind of scared to do this but this one is getting an F man. This is the ultimate sad boy novel I just reread this while teaching one of my classes this year and I've always had a feeling that this is overrated you want to know why this book is overrated because JD Salinger only wrote one novel his entire life. He piggybacked off this one novel that he wrote he was a beginner writer basically basically wrote one novel and then quit and retired and that's how you can tell that he had some of the same complexes as in the story this the catcher in the ride speaks to a lot of the angst that was happening at the time it was written and much like the outsiders it's a kind of a weak version and a weak transmission of those events doesn't make it classical literature absolutely not but low-level people middle schooler middle schoolers and high schoolers not to call them low level but adolescents people who have a growing mind seem to raise this up and this also gets raised up because most people never read books after high school it's insane the outsiders and the catcher in the ride are so big because so many adults now talk it up because they don't read anymore you know how whack the catcher in the ride is compared to Faulkner or Lolita or all these books on this list are you kidding me i i i don't get it people love like i said i really think it's people who stopped reading who stopped progressing i don't really see the appeal to the catcher in the ride all right moby dick moby dick where do we think moby dick's gonna go you know i am going to give moby dick an a and that's going to cause a lot of problems because when you read this it's about wailing there are pages upon pages of wailing descriptions and problems but this is the voice this is an axiomatic voice for not just american literature but world literature there would be no Faulkner or no Hemingway or no cormac McCarthy without melville melville was at that time the transmitter of the king james bible one of the the canonical piece of literature i know a lot of people don't want to hear that of our time but melville took that as a talented person once again another guy who retired because he wasn't understood took the bible and transmitted it to direct experience he was a wailer i know i saw jack edwards do a similar tier ranking list and he gave it enough because jack edwards also thinks that dune is enough he's not i'm no offense he supports cancel culture he loves control he doesn't understand the freedom of captain ahab and the journey and the angst of the time at sea and the story and you have to read into this you have to go deeper you have to understand the history of literature to dive into a lot of these texts and if you just want to read this at a surface level then just go read virginia world and sappho and and sexton and call it a day but if you actually want to transform your life and understand you know deeply book you know the history of literature and understand like i said this very potent field this lineage of writing moby dick is good and that's why it's getting an a not an s because obviously i know it can't be it rants and i actually got fired from a job for reading moby dick i was working i live in las vegas i was working at the mandalay bay doing convention security but it wasn't very cool security i was downstairs in a basement guarding a bunch of like really nice cars like sports cars and i was at a door and this is like a three in the morning i worked from like ten at night to six in the morning nobody around i'm just guarding a door nobody comes to this door without credentials and nobody would come through all night except my my boss and i was reading moby dick why not read moby dick and my boss came through and that night and it was this big guy and he was like what are you doing what are you like i'm reading moby dick but he said you need to put that away i'm like why there's no one around man if someone comes through this door i'm gonna look it up and see who it is and if they aren't a security guard to have credentials i'm gonna try to stop them or call you guys this is simple nope and then he was like stop reading i was like all right and then i put it down he leaves start reading again and we went through this like three times he's like give me that book i'm like no he's like you're fired then it's like all right see you later anyway next we have 1984 and so yeah moby dick everybody i you can tell that i'm a fan i got fired over over moby dick so maybe i'm just biased all right 1984 by george orwell i'm going to give this book ac because the dystopian impact that it had on people is really good but once again this is one of those novels that novel novels that people camp on in society it's a good novel i can see but it's not really a very high-powered dystopian novel and its impact on society i think is actually a trap that imagining this dystopian society and big brother actually prevents you from doing the work the only solution that we can have to the only solution out there is an educational solution government just creates band-aids any solution you that you can think of other than waking up every single consciousness on the face of the earth to become nonviolent to end the cycle of abuse is a cop-out and worrying about big brother and getting into it creates a lot of paranoia a lot of problems on both sides of the political aisle and people like to camp on this for their whole life read one book and think they know what's happening with big brother with the police state orwell is a pretty good writer i feel like an overrated writer and that's why he's getting a c-man i don't feel like this book stacks up but we think it stacks up because we live in the surveillance state now this could happen that reality has a potential to happen but once again on the channel we are trying to create actual solutions to make that not happen getting stuck in hegellian political dialectics is not going to stop that stop that from happening because one day all it takes is one group of people to take power take control of the ai technology and we're all screwed but if that those people don't necessarily exist or if they do they can't gain that major support then that can never happen who's responsible i was talking about this with my class today if a hypothetical president said we need to go nuke peru and just and peru's not doing anything like how peru does nothing to us now there's a cool country in south america whose fault is it i would say it's the fault of the guys pushing the button because everyone knows there's no reason to nuke peru whose fault is it is it the order followers or the order givers i feel that it's the order followers because obviously they are the ones enacting the orders they are the ones culpable they don't have to listen if they are educated then they're just they just have a leader who's crazy and they should probably boot them out throughout history the people who who carry the karmic load are the people out there doing the bidding of their masters and creating pain on the earth you know on this channel i you know anyway boom pride and prejudice by jane austin i am going to give this also a c i took a jane austin course with a jane austin ph a professor who got a phd from harvard on jane austin and i got it man we spread the complete all all our novels graduate course graduate level course really cool but i see the appeal but once again much like virginia wolf i feel like these works if i'm judging this on terms of the meritocracy you know this could get a b this is a high c lopi i feel like this gets elevated because it speaks to a marginalized voice and speaks for women as a female author for women and that's important so you know we might bump this up to a b honestly i feel like jane austin's a good writer it's a good story i'm i'm teetering on c you know actually it's going down to a c it's kind of a campy novel it's not the most entertaining novel a lot of mishmash ups and downs all right beloved by tony morrison is going to get a b on my list this is not my favorite tony morrison book i don't know how tony morrison made this list i mean i understand that it's a classic novel but this one's a little bit too recent i like a couple other books by tony morrison sola and sola and oh my gosh i'm blanking i'm gonna look song of solomon i feel like those are her strongest works i still love beloved i've read tony morrison's whole bibliography and i like tony morrison i think tony morrison is probably one of the best recent american novelists in the last 50 years for sure she's an og of the game this just isn't my favorite by her so you know i think tony morrison gets an s in terms of you know being an author if this was an authorless okay don kihote by servantes i had have a new found appreciation for this book actually takes teaches you a lot for the time and where it was written this i think this goes into the b category too once again you have to be ready in prime to read this if you're just reading this point blank meritocracy comparing it to books now obviously it's enough but don kihote it tells a lot of it shows a lot of humor and storytelling i look we i took once again a class that covered this book and i learned a lot because it was also we read it in a creative writing class for whatever reason because our professor wanted to show how it all stories are the same the up and down of the plot and characterization and how things move it all remains the same and i got a whole new appreciation for don kihote so for sure once again the sound and fury by falkner i'm gonna give this one an a i really like the sound and fury i don't feel like it's his best work there's a couple of the books i like a little bit better i'd probably i'll tier rank falkner one day i would probably put this around four or five on on the list and so that i would say that that doesn't deserve an s so i already went on my rant about falkner so next we have um david copperfield by charles dickens i'm going to give this one a c i'd like great expectations if this was great expectations in beginning of b or n a david david copperfield to me felt a little bit flat felt a little bit posh felt a little bit campy long i saw it i'm giving you to see because i dickens is a great writer i mean i see the writing potential of dickens i enjoyed it i took this it seems like i read all these a lot of these at the start in class dickens class with a another graduate level graduate level class with a professor that was all into dickens just really it was a dickens circle jerk in there man with a but i would felt like there was there was like 15 kids in there i felt like 12 of them were writing a dick dickens thesis but in reality probably only one was but everyone was acting like that it's so funny that when when the professors when your professor has a degree from an ivy league school everyone literally sucks their dick in class because i didn't know this i always wondered this because they all try to get letters of recommendation so they can go to ivy league schools and it looks better if you have an ivy league graduate i didn't know this and i was always wondering like why is this vibe different because it's not like most of the time the ivy league professors were actually worse than like the professors went to like university of oklahoma or florida or somewhere because you know they just have this kind of academic sense to them they can't really connect and bring it back down like we're trying to do on this channel subscribe but yeah i didn't i i didn't always just blew my mind iliad by homer i'm going to give this a b also even though this is a canonical text of course it's important reading it gives you a lot of information but i feel like with the iliad i reread this in the odyssey two years ago during cove it i did kind of a mythology kick and i felt like this almost is not required that and that's why i am thinking here it's like okay is this really required is this life changing could this be fulfilled by a summary kind of yes and the reason it goes up to a b is because the writing is pretty good for the time in the context the story is pretty good but i feel like it extends a little bit long a little bit confusing has some problems and is it you know the most vital to think probably not for looking up here at moby dick falkner lolita even uh tony morrison for the time those i feel like are kind of more vital and than the iliad all right but you know i may be wrong virginia wolf to the lighthouse so i am going to give to the lighthouse i'm gonna give it an a this is my favorite virginia wolf look once again i feel like virginia wolf is kind of a camped on author for a lot of people now and she's overrated at times but the third person close close third person point of view enacted into the lighthouse i feel like is the pinnacle overwork and something that wasn't being done at the time so i don't think it breaks into the s but i think it for sure gets an a because as story i'm calling it a b craftsmanship s for the time really pushing the limits of the craft so and so i think that averages out around an a really i mean once again i think as we're going to get to some more virginia wolf i think some of her other books are a little bit you know maybe a little bit overrated but to the lighthouse for sure is really good so swans way by marcel proust where do you guys think this one is going to go i am of course going to put this right up here as an s this is consciousness prousty and way consciousness contact emotions layers proust is very hard to read but he really isn't you can actually get through these novels it's a once again a little campy a little bit hard you know talking about the pillar the the cathedral whatever the clock tower whatever the hell he was going on about especially in swans way remember i read this i read the whole series with the buddy man and it was it was a wild time and we are just literally i've never laughed so hard in my life like because we would chat on the phone about it i would just giggle my ass off just laughing about the book because it was like we're like this is so good but why is he going on about this like this is not relevant this says like what the hell is going on in this book so proust i would recommend everyone's got to read the series at least once i would say it's probably one of those books probably one of those series that you should sit down over the course of a year or summer and just get your way through and then read the criticism man read i took a proust class i took a proust class and that really helped my um mindset on proust take a proust class take a proust course watch some youtube videos i will get to him probably in five to ten years he's not anywhere on the list in the short term proust that is all right we have your door your door i always say his name wrong and the brother's karma's off and i would say this is another s this is one of the best pieces of russian literature ever better than tostoy better than anybody because tostoy tostoyesky sorry everyone saying that one wrong at least i can say gertha right um i was actually learning i actually i listened i listened to his name being pronounced and tried to learn it at least 200 times in my life and i always just in playing a guessing game i never really care i didn't really care about names having been a substitute teacher for a couple years earlier in my life before you know becoming a real teacher i learned how to mess people's up up people's names up and just not care because you know people will be like i'd be like it's blank and they'll say no it's block a and i would just so i would just say i don't care about your name i'm just going to read and that's actually been termed as not politically correct or prejudice because you know i'm messing people's names up but i just tell them i'm reading the page anyway tostoyesky great book pinnacle russian author really brought trauma pain humor too light in a modern context i mean i would obviously i would rank this book on above swan's way moby dick in terms of the actual story and readability this is one of the most readable stories on this whole list so far the brothers karma's off is one of the best books of all time i once again would recommend this to everyone this is i feel like pinnacle reading for everyone in their lifetime the story is not just good on its own but once again the criticism what this inspires derrida foucault heidegger all these different people you this this story never goes away if you want to dive into modern consciousness you kind of have this on the list basically everybody basically if you don't have melville proust and the brothers karma's off in your having if you haven't read those and you can't really understand a lot of postmodern thought because they love to analyze and break down these books so for sure an s for this text all right the stranger by albert camille you know i am going to give this one this is a biased opinion for me i think this one probably should be in the c or d range but i'm going to give this one a b and i really want to give it an a or an s because this is the book that changed my life in eighth grade my teacher mr steward gate saw my potential saw that i love to read and he gave me this book actually he gave me said hartha by herman hessie first i don't think that's on this list and i got through that in like three days and i was like give me more and then he gave me this book and this is literally this book alone turn me into an existentialist and an atheist for five years until i really hit the psychedelic circuit you know really hard until a hundred plus you know trips i was not very fond of god because of the camille rabbit hole and dos fiesce rabbit hole sarcha rabbit hole that i got sent down because of this book i'm a stranger killing an arab i mean it's a really good book because it shows a certain detachment that is happening because of the the the new world the existentialist world and existentialist philosophy is starting to come up which is such a great branch of psychoanalytical thought and people realize that there are a deeper this is like the the palette of emotions is now expanding which i think is so important and with the stranger the mute emotions the lack of emotions is a statement of emotions itself camud won the first this is one of the first sad boy novels this is phenomenal love this book once again does it really hold up probably on the c or d range in terms of like actual content so there's my camu talk all right so to kill a mockingbird i'm going to give this a c to kill a mockingbird i once again reread this at the start of this year for a class i was actually helping a friend out with teaching their class and the new english teacher wanted some help and so i read they were doing this book so i read it helped her out with her class some of the content and i feel like this could be a b honestly this could be a b i'm gonna leave it at c but what i really think about in this book is integrity that adicus finch shows integrity and it's probably one of the best displays of integrity in a novel ever but i don't think in terms of writing and context and once again this is one of these high school books this is only really only big because we all had to do it and this is a better one than i mean it's on the level of 1984 it's better than catcher in the rye it has a lot of good tones it's been called it's been cancelled people have been trying to cancel it and it's so dumb obviously there are racial tones and maybe even some prejudice and weird stuff in this book but it has a positive message in the end and people are so sensitive and so dumb and so programmed now people are caught up in such big dialects because they don't go outside people don't go outside anymore people are really weird they actually don't have understanding life at a deeper level because if you understood what you ascend into higher consciousness you realize that all work has meaning all that cancelling and bringing and tearing people down doesn't actually do anything because all these people this is what's insane all the people that want to cancel just want to cancel and destroy so they can build new things up they don't want to destroy so that we can live in a non-hierarchical peaceful educated society they just want to tear down and enact more control but with their tint and their perspective on on it all and that's dangerous that's insane that every time that's ever happened in history it's gone bad but they think that they are the ones they think that they are next all these little you know all the little gen zers who think that or and millennials oh my god who think that they know so much because they are reddits are socialists socialists redditors i i don't get it i don't get that if you want to educate and change the world we have to lessen all forms of control and educate and to do that we have to stand on the shoulders of the greats not tear them down and create a narrative mindset and culture that's not how it goes i understand accountability i understand people being like actual like heidegger or paul deman actually being nazis or um the guy that wrote oh my god he went a Nobel prize in literature i'm blanking the guy wrote the tin drum he was a nazi so you know but if you actually look at their work like gunter grass i think his name is heidegger paul deman gunter grass their their knowledge is actually pivotal to understanding higher consciousness were they nazis or nazi sympathizers yeah but am i going to stop me from utilizing their work to transforming and transmuting the world and transmuting their energy into a positive one to help change the world no i'm not an idiot you know and that's the big argument with social media oh wait they they they think people can't handle it because people can't handle it people don't have the critical thinking skills to be able to absorb information and not become what they are reading or absorbing it's so silly man and that's why we have to read these books and all these books are so important so the odyssey by homer i'm just going to throw this as a b2 i really you know i actually just binge read sursey i don't remember what's her name i don't remember um the female author i can't remember her name right now i just binge read that on an airplane the other week just one shot literally one shot no non-stop reading on the airplane didn't get up didn't do anything didn't stop just one shot reading of sursey which i thought was really good and just a refresher on the odyssey which i once again read at the start of the of the pandemic the adventures of huckleberry fin i'm going to give this a c i'd like mark twain i think mark twain's a great author i mean uh and once again these are the racial tones coming people say this is canceled blah blah blah you know mark twain deserves a b man the adventures of huckleberry fin man great text great fun reading that's what's nice sometimes you just need some fun reading with actual substance though and morals a lot of the fun reading now romance mystery all these different things are absolutely whack there are so yeah oh look the great x oh anyway yeah just whack i think twain is really good to read one time huckleberry fin you know read that one time i i recommend people read mark twain when i get asked about it or talk about it just over over your christmas break you have some time off for the holidays is actually a really fun read it's actually really cool really light really really fun and you once again get to see a really good writer in a certain time in american history so warren peace by leo tostoy so i read this 10 years ago so you know this is a little bit my analysis is going to be a little bit off but i'm going to throw this in the sea rain see ah you know tostoy i feel like is an overrated russian author compared author compared to dos fieski and chekov and some others i feel like he gets you know because i the bourgeoisie nature and i feel like he gets a little bit more credit than what's due and big book long book haven't read it in 10 years so i can't give the best analysis but when i did read it i looked at my good reads review from 10 years ago i gave it two and i in my review i said two and a half stars and i i didn't really like it and i reread the summary before this and that's what i am giving to this catch showing to you by joseph heller i think there's too many structures i'm giving this a d i feel like there is a lot of high points in this book but there are a lot of structural problems once again this is one of these things that people read when they're 16 to 20 this is kind of a pseudo book this one has the image has the potential for transformation and flauncet but it actually doesn't it doesn't have really any literary merit the literary merit not so great the transformational merit not so great but it just has enough of both and got enough it's enough attention from mostly you know college white men in college who are pseudo-intellectuals to give it that notoriety and status still i didn't really don't really like this one the sun also rises by urnist time anyway is obviously going to get an a because i love urnist Hemingway once again was Hemingway a misogynist yeah probably Hemingway kind of a jerk hypo mask has macho machoist yeah he was does that deserve a death sentence no he was one of the most impactful authors of all time very good author the criticism with Hemingway we were just talking about Hemingway the other day i think on this channel the iceberg theory with Hemingway that at the top you only get the very top of the pen with Hemingway and the rest it's the iceberg theory that there's so much unconscious potential in Hemingway and that's the way he writes the way he writes because there's so much unconscious in like what i mean by unconscious there's so much to unpack in his work that it's absolutely insane i absolutely love Hemingway we're going to be actually dropping a Hemingway course on this channel soon and a paid course on my website injameskandact.com so go check that out when it drops invisible man my Ralph Ellis i elison i just read this i read this when i was like 18 and i feel like i was one of those suits because i would have given this an a or b i read this right as soon as i was graduating college i think in one of my last semester i was in college and i didn't like it i get the analogies i get everything that it's saying but in terms of the meritocracy of writing and what it means for society i don't think if i'm looking at african-american literature i don't view this as a high point especially even for the time i think that there are better books and i like i said i get the overall analogy so maybe this one gets a c maybe we can throw this one up at a c for the impact and the metaphors but you know honestly it's going to get a d because i really feel like it falls flat like i said at the time we have people like a little bit later but like amiri baraka other non-fiction authors poets you know the Harlem renaissance they're all i feel like better authors and better ideas getting flowed around i feel like this one kind of falls flat to me still but once again i understand its cultural impact and what it did and it's why it's a stepping stone but i really just don't didn't feel like it was a very i had to slug through it man i had to force my way through it and and i you know it was for a grade like i really wanted to read i've read it before like i said i was excited to read it but the second time through i was just like really what's the point here next we have madham bovery um i haven't read this i'm not even going to rank this one i haven't read this since i was a freshman in college and i was really stoned when that happened all right jane here by shellet bronte you know i'm going to give this one also a c i feel like there's potential i feel like you know see hi c we're gonna give this one a c i really feel like bronte brings out a lot and this really touched me in i read this 1920 i was gone off on a classic kick but i feel like jane here falls a little flat once again if we're looking at the list it's probably an a of a book but if i have to rank this books is jane you're competing with twain or kimu tony morrison melville falter no i feel like bronte's more in this category down here um 100 years of solitude i'm going to give this a low b by gabriel garcia marquez i feel like of course this is an axiomatic pinnacle of magical realism so it's and i love you know magical realism that is what i write that is what i read all the time but i love to read it it's one of my favorites but rereading uh reading this i've read this two times i feel like once again it falls flat in a lot of places so the impact gets a b but honestly or an s but the writing honestly gets a d i feel like it's very you know psychedelic i love the psychedelic field the jungle feel i really enjoyed the book and that's why it gets a b but i feel like there were times in this book that had to slog through it there's another book by oh my god i the famished road by ben okre which really took this to the next level what was the exactly the same ben okre is i think i have that right the famished road by ben okre he's an altar from africa really good and he really like he almost lsd'd this book but then it got a little bit it got 40 per it obviously because it's in africa it's really wild it's a really wild story he's really gonna have all these tribal storytelling elements to it so it's like really really good but then it got like 30 percent more incoherent 30 percent better and better at the same time so i really recommend that one if you want a really cool trippy magical realist novel that kind of takes off on this marquez tradition and some of the moments in that book were absolutely wild the famished road man same with hundred uh hundred years of solitude but check out the famished road if you're into magical realism i'll have to reread that and break that down on here because there was some incoherence like i said but then there were some moments that were so beautiful and so bizarre and like worked so well in terms of magic like shamanistic magic that it blew my mind i was sitting there like holy crap man like what what is this and like i said it really could only come from ben okre who really i feel like is a part of nature and like culture and storytelling like he's a really good at it and he really knocked that one out of the park so on on a carrot kerry kerry nina i'm going to give this one by toaster i'm going to give this one a b actually i'm not the biggest toaster hater shout out the code x cantina the channel the code x cantina it's a booktube channel i read this one a couple months ago with them i they did read long on their channel and i decided to hop in and i really i like this one better than war and peace i really enjoyed this one i like their breakdown shout out to them i have no affiliation with them um leave a comment saying you came from my channel and maybe they'll come check me out they have more subscribers than me so you know trying to grow my channel maybe i should reach out so the great gatsby i'm going to give the great gatsby a c in my humble opinion that this one deserves a c because i understand it is the start of kind of the post modernist disillusionment with society and class in the american public but it falls flat because it is that it is the rich people it is the bougie people it does have and if you look at it's gerald's life it does kind of have this elitist position to it that i really don't like you know the green light like come on like i get it and the metaphors and all the people writing about it i feel like this is at that level of one of those high school books i remember there was this kid in one of my creative writing classes and a professor our professor asked him like what's your favorite book and he said the great gatsby and my professor was like are you kidding me he's like what really what's your favorite book and he's like the great gatsby my professor couldn't believe it and i looked back and i'm like no wonder that guy wasn't very good at writing no wonder it was bland no wonder he didn't get accepted into any mfa programs because you know this is not really that powerful of a book the great gatsby but it is i i get the impact it's a pretty good story it's not it doesn't deserve a d or enough so ulysses by james joce i read this once again when i was 19 on a lot of psychedelics and weed but i'm going to give this one a b and we're starting to now pan and james joce is crazy but james joce is an innovator i i just formatted this so it looks a little bit better for us james joce is a beautiful writer in this book for all of its shortcomings this isn't as bad as bad as finnigan's wake you this book is actually you can actually read this if you have a guide and understand what's happening that's what i did for a book like this you have to have a guide and i think i said it wrong just this is like i said don't worry about my pronunciations i followed a guy there was a guy a book online i still have it to this day and i just followed along i didn't get what was happening but now that i know it's impact and remember the stories and it reviewed it a couple times and it is impactful because james joce was on a freaking trip he was so innovative and some of the writing in this is so good and that it's undeniably a classic it's undeniably way better than anything in the cd and f category and that's what we're kind of doing here if you look at the c's a lot of classics are actually classics but you know these ones are so weak like i said if you look down here that all these are kind of the pseudo novels that people love to latch on to so next we have mist all the way by virginia wolf and i added a couple more lines here i am going to give this one a high c i feel like this one you know the party with clorissa and the party and the suicide almost feels like the great gatsby it doesn't really hit like some of her other books i don't know like to the lighthouse like i said i feel like that's an a i'm not a virginia wolf hater but i don't feel like this was once again i like the writing style just this one wasn't my favorite all right so next we have the trial by france kaufka and i am going to put this one actually at ns we haven't been up here in a while we haven't been up here like i we had a fast start i think a lot of people were maybe thinking i was a little bit oh if you guys are still here i was a little bit over zealous with the s's and the a's but i really feel like the trial by france kaufka is his best work is one of the most innovative works ever still holds up today this is night oh kaufka destroys what orwell is trying to do we compare orwell versus the trial and this was written how many years before i mean how many decades before was kaufka writing and writing better than orwell and i feel like getting to the point more if you want to feel paranoid if you want to feel dystopian if you want to feel what it feels like to live in an actual society that's what kaufka captures that the confusion of the modern mind with life in the trial and being accused for something that you're not being accused for there's also a great movie who did that one there's a great black and white movie that is absolutely phenomenal done on the trial i would if you haven't read the book and don't want to read the book i would go check that one out for sure all right yeah kaufka absolute i mean just talk like i said talking about the impact of this because i should say something because this is an f s this set in stone modern consciousness on the surveillance state i feel like that at least and i feel like kaufka still to the state captures this i just there's a new win revive there's a new translation out that i read oh let's say a year a year and a half ago and i really really loved it watch the movie with my with my partner and yeah it was a really good time so next is the great subrath by john steinbeck this is going to get a d i feel like this is i hate to give it a d let's give it a c actually this one is campy it's way too long i don't feel like it's as good as east east east of eden excuse me if i'm getting east to eat east of eden i don't feel like it's time but steinbeck's best work i'd read this once in high school and once in college and just what felt like fell a little flat with me it didn't really ride like i wanted it to ride i don't i understand it's capturing a part of the west consciousness i live in the west i you know cal right next to california i i get what's happening over there and the culture and the progress i understand that even though even still i feel like this one falls flat all right so great expectation by dickens i feel like this is dickens best work if you're going to read something i would probably say great expectations because just the amount one it's a good story reads well you can get through it and it has a ton of criticism on it man this is a treasure trove to be able to think there's actually a lot more than you think what after you've read this book there's a book by an unknown specified person that i can't remember right now it's called the reading for plot and i've covered it on this a little bit before i'll cover the whole thing and other time on this channel the book and it is an absolute bank he has an absolute banger of a chapter it's like 50 or 60 pages breaking out the plot of this book and that really changed my perspective i was like oh my god this is actually a genius piece of work in terms of the storyline and the characterization dickens would walk around london and think and talk to people and you really lived in this environment i think like this this is the one rather than david copperfield where you really get to feel that a lot easier by dickens so the this is a weird choice like the the divine company by daunte i'm giving this one a ac i understand daunte's impact and what it did but the whole christian narrative at the time that he was writing this is out i i feel like he falls flat i don't feel like it's really there i understand he's humoring it and making fun of it you know honestly i can give this one it could be a b this is a high c in my opinion i don't really once again feel like the impact was there to really touch and i guess it has touched a lot of people throughout time so it probably should get a b but i don't feel like it holds up as well as even like a shakespeare holds up in that that's gonna have to lose some points because of that little women okay little women you know i'll give this one a b i can give this a b i feel like this one is once again if we're looking at high school novels novels that young people read this one's better than most i would compare this you know i would throw this in the twain the twain you know level for if you're in high school i would rather make my high schoolers read this one it is a good love story i feel like it's better than pride and prejudice i feel like it does a better job of capturing the state and mindset of women i love nope i cried when the sister dies i cried when i can't remember her name right now the main sister doesn't get to get with you know with the guy of her desires and her other sister does you know i cried multiple times in this book and i would i would give it a b you know i really think this is a really great book really good great testament to writing too you know it's a really motivational book for authors to read and like the story call the wild by jack london this one will also this one will receive a name man i i really feel like this is a great jack london is an underrated and great author the whole story is sad returning to nature the path of you know what's his name buck buck buck the dog i really feel like it's important when you have lost with many of these books other than maybe moby dick you know maybe moby dick uh the the eco writing isn't there the connection to nature this a lot of these books are actually taking us further away from our connection to nature and that's really what i wanted my life man i might be biased here but i really think that nature calms us down and heals us and is a non-hierarchical system in its relation to us obviously we are put in a hierarchy in nature we dominate or it dominates us i get eaten by the mountain lion i understand there's cause and effect and objective reality but soothing nature and reflective nature of reflective nature of nature is really wonderful i've never read this book by d.h. lorence i've never read this one never read this one the old man in the sea this one's going to receive an a this is really a novella this is a great text this is hemmingway's last real written work that uh that he released last real novel or novella that he released this is a pinnacle of hemmingway i feel like this is one of the best books that you can read as a middle school or early high school i feel like and as an adult it's an easy read it's a fun read there's a lot of commentary in it about human consciousness and existence once again a lot of stuff with the iceberg theory i really feel like like i said some people might be confused about some of these picks if you're confused like i said try to compare it to some of these books up here man with actual connection with actual thought on all quiet on the rest of western font this one for sure deserves a b um and honestly i'm gonna give this one an a this one deserves an a people don't understand what happened in world war one i would recommend dan carlin's podcast hardcore history and his series blueprint for armageddon which goes over the history of world war one you guys need to know that's it's the forgotten war man many kids especially in the millennials or gen z's or the alpha gen they're not going to remember or care about world war one but my grandfather who recently died at 93 his dad was in world one his two of his uncles died in world war one so i heard you know first-hand accounts from him and my dad knew though his you know my great grandfather and it was the nastiest war my great grandfather came back he was a canadian he was there since for years he was you know because the canadiens got in there before america he was there for years man he had multiple mental breakdowns and when he got home finally he didn't come home one time until after the war was over and when he got home to markham ontario you know back then markham ontario outside of toronto was nobody it was not even a thousand people wait not even a couple it was a couple hundred people he sat down and he got home and as soon as he got into the front door and he sat on the couch and then it was just kind of quiet for a second and he had a complete breakdown it was just sobbing hysterically for days apparently because can you imagine being stuck in the trenches in the mud with shells flying over all day people dying body parts everywhere lice all these different things and so much anguish and you can't leave or they kill you back in the day it's not you can't get a discharge if you abandon ship man they were going to kill you firing squad type ship man and he was yeah and can you imagine then finally coming home to the silence to nothingness to the innocence of home and your childhood after seeing all that apparently he was never the same after that apparently he was very much a changed man after that whole experience as i can only imagine and that modern consciousness unlike world war two people knew what was what they were kind of getting into in world war two but in world war one with all the new weapons and artillery shells people had no idea what they were getting into so it's absolutely ridiculous wind up bro chronicle man i don't know how this once again like tony morrison how this kind of gets into this list but obviously i'm a mario economy fanboy everyone should go read the wind up bro chronicle one of my favorite books of all time this is obviously going into the ass even though i don't think it belongs in this list all right so there's the end of the s's so if we have any more s's we'll have to expand the list magical realism one-on-one everybody the wind up bro chronicle by mirakami next we have hamlet you know hamlet deserves an a for sure hamlet is one of my favorite play by shakespeare i really feel like once again psychology modern psychology has so much to gain from examining hamlet and thinking and the ghost and trauma there's so many different themes this is not a novel it's a play but this is my favorite play by shakespeare and i really i'm a hamlet fanboy i really think that hamlet watch it read it go see it luckily i live around the shakespeare festival in cedar city absolutely adore hamlet by william shakespeare man i would really recommend that one next uh falconer as i lay dying you know i'm just going to this is going to go off the screen but i'm just going to give this one an a also also you know this one could get a b this is not you know i'll throw this one down you know actually i like this one as i lay dying is going to get an m lord of the rings series obviously i am a fanboy you know once again jack edwards was poo pooing on this one so let me let me pause i feel like the lord of the rings is the pinnacle fantasy novel the inspirations the impact it's had in our society the writing still holds up i feel like it's amazing i don't understand how people once again i really feel like it's people who are have too much logical and sandy and are comparing and getting too caught up if you have an open heart and you read the lord of the rings there's so much it's i would say the best argument for christianity and the christian moral code and social fabric i've ever seen and i'm not a christian i mean i've been bagging on it this whole time i don't see anything better a better argument for the existence of god and good versus evil and the devil and all the crazy christian moral questions i really feel like tokeen and c.s lewis were christian philosophers in their own right and they were writing with literature and you know and this is all stemming from the bible and other things they were masters of the craft and and innovators in terms of fantasy and i i have to give credit where credit is due for the lord of the rings next we have alice's adventures in wonderland and i'm going to give this one a b i've recently read read this one i really like the trippy nature of this not my favorite you know this could deserve a b but once again for the innovation the pushing of the limits by louis carol i really think this one deserves a b a dad is a economics and statistics professor and he always reads brave new world this is another one that i feel like is just going to fall into the c category i really feel like one of these books that a lot of people alice's was kind of a jerk anyway but i really feel like this could get a b hi c b i am a little indifferent though to a brave new world by alice's once again i really feel like it's for the people who never went further and when you reflect on when you first read it right when i first read brave new world in 1984 it was an s it's an s to me a lot of these books were absolute s man when i read 1984 i was mind blown that's all i could talk about for years in high school same with brave new world literally was shocked but as a 28 year old do i need to still feel that way no i don't feel like it holds up i i don't feel like i've read i think three or four huxley novels and i really i think he's overrated he was a eugenicist a social engineer i really i really don't enjoy him crime and punishment deserves an s another great book man another pivotal book in my own consciousness i just reread this a new translation just came out on this i've read this during covet really think that this is one of the most impactful books for modern consciousness and if you want to once again the creative lineages like i said if you want to look at creative lineages most go through dose fieske even today if you look at like a david foster walis an absolute superfan of dose fieske if you like i said if you look at a lot of the greats today who they liked and who they read look at mirakami you know all these people why they keep mentioning it why do they keep mentioning this guy because of the impact how good it was slaughterhouse five i would give i'm going to give this one a solid b really like this book bombings of dresden kind of a play on world war two a comedy black comedy dresden kurbana get i love this one man this one really showed me a different side of writing different side of series writing when i was in the existentialist phase i really i read all avana gets work and i really liked his playfulness i really like that playfulness and i really think that that made an impact really kind of a pre-post-modern impact on our society lord of the flies i think this one i'm just going to give this one an app i feel like this one kind of falls flat in all sense i really don't like this one i you know and you might ask why just the reads bad not the best story frankenstein i will give frankenstein a b i really feel like if you read into frankenstein and know what it's about many people think they know what's about and maybe i don't need it but the best thing that you can get from frankenstein actionable steps is that look victor creates his monster victor is a genius victor understands life and how to create life he's i mean that in conceivably in that reality the smartest person ever a genius he creates life and what does he do he faints he denies it he denies his creative self and we can view that this creation as an extension of his creative self and what does he do he runs away from it what do you do what happens to people when you run away from your own creativity you die and that's what happens he ends up dying and all that frankenstein wants is attention and love and nurturing or then a partner something anything to help him something more you know always something more that's what happens with creativity always want something more and if you don't give it to it it will haunt you if you think that you can continue on in life and not honor your creativity and work a desk job you're going to get hurt your life is going to be painful and it's going to end and and it's not going to be nice so many people are living this existence i don't know what that last book is so here is the list so we have a lot you know this i feel like this is a pretty good distribution there's a lot in the bees and the seas there's you know a lot you know not too many up here i'm a big fan of this kind of time period uh let me know what picks up what picks up surprised you let me know what you guys thought where did i go wrong here what do i need to reread you know what do i need to reread to send it higher or reread to send it lower let me know subscribe to the channel and i'm going to be doing a ton more this tier ranking so thank you guys for being here