 What's up everybody? I'm here today to rank the crappy books we had to read in high school from a radical bibliotherapist's point of view. My name is Ian and on this channel we break down the greatest books of all time but we also take ideas from those great books and turn them into actionable steps because knowledge can change the world but if we do nothing with that knowledge then what are we other than? So the first book on our list is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and this is a great book. First of all because Ray Bradbury put in the work probably more so than any of these authors on the list. He wrote for tens of thousands of hours. I would recommend everybody go read Zen in the Art of Creative Writing if you want to be a writer or want to understand what the process is to become a great writer. So I would give this book an A maybe even an S because the concept, the writing, the dystopian world is very true. Ray Bradbury knew what was going to happen but what he didn't see in that novel was that you don't have to have book burners or ban books. All you have to do is create TikTok, create platforms and lower the attention span of people, lower the critical thinking of people, shove them into public schooling where there is bell system and grading and we get regimented and standardized and traumatized away from education with a lot of the damn books on this list but Ray Bradbury is a shining light there and if you guys don't believe me about the dying art of reading check this out. On the flip side according to the New York Times about 98% of the books that publishers released in 2020 sold fewer than 5,000 copies. Are you kidding me? Do you know what that means? That 98% of authors who got published, the published authors out there, the dream that we all have to become a published author made less than $10,000. Didn't even break five figures when they got their book published. 98 out of 100 authors didn't even make $10,000 for their book and they didn't even self-publish online. That number if we include self-published people would be 99 point something. It's absolutely insane. People are not reading. How many books you know there excuse me how many movies that go to the theater don't at least make a couple million dollars even if it goes under budget. Anyway Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451 has a beautiful writing a beautiful concept and moves through it pretty well. I just read this with my middle school class and you know what this is my last year being a teacher everybody so subscribe to the channel. I am not trying to teach middle school anymore middle school English. I want to teach the world I want to become the greatest the greatest pusher the greatest promoter of books ever created. I want to bring books back so subscribe everybody. I am here I'm live I'm trying to do I'm trying to make a dream become a reality and escape from teaching a couple people to millions of people. So next on the list that's what I have to say about Fahrenheit 451. I if I have to stay within the constraints I always have to of what I can make my class read I usually will make it Fahrenheit 451 and I've read all these books I should have said that at the start I've read all these books and had to make my class read all of these books that we're going to cover today and so I have some opinions on these and I like I said I'm coming at this from an adult perspective and well farmed by George Orwell I'm going to give this one a it's it's it's feeling like a high C I think it really is an A in terms of merit it is short it is fast it gets a point across about communism so it might be a B you know I might bump this up to a B but we'll just keep it at a C because I think it falls short you know what you know I don't think it falls short I think it hits the emotions I read this the other year the horse getting sent off to the glue factory the pigs starting to walk and talk and the exploitation of the people that is an important thing for us to understand over 200 million people died from democide in the 20th century that is death by government and it's in people not soldiers that's another hundred million innocent people dying by the hands of government and that and that is from democratic governments communist governments socialist governments fascist governments every single type of government contributed to that number but most of it was from communists or socialist countries and if you don't if you guys would like to look that up just type in democide university of Hawaii there's a huge study on that but understanding communism and what it brings to the table is really important just like how understanding what fascism on the right does and or you know yeah fascism or populism on the right does populism on the left or totalitarianism that's what we should say totalitarianism is a disease and it comes about in a similar way and this book really brings it out even as an adult a lot of people don't understand this because their policies and the way that they're living their life and the way they engage engage with the hegelian dialectic of our political american political system is insane it's like they never read a book next on the list we have Anthem by Anne Rand and I would say that I'm going to give this one a B once again I am I am a political I have escaped the political Polaris and a lot of people hate Anne Rand but the end of the book to spoil it you know these characters are stuck in this stuck in this dystopian world where they all have to be the same like every other Anne Rand novel honestly but at the end they find this magical word they find this word that is like a word that has been lost and it's ego and I thought that was so profound because I am into yoga I'm in into meditation go check out my yoga channel yoga deluxe on youtube and the eastern philosophy and people in into that love to destroy the ego we want to obliterate the ego I'm sure you've heard that the ego is bad no the ego is actually the most important thing that we can have because you can we need to create the greatest character that we can to help change the world and live a beautiful life destroying and obliterating your ego and parts of yourself also means destroying the parts of yourself that you like your good memories if you engage in pranayama and meditative techniques at an extreme level and fasting you don't just get rid of the bad you also get rid of the good you get rid of everything you eliminate all samskaras all memories all connections and I don't believe in that that's where I think the east goes wrong and especially for westerners westerners love that because we live traumatic life in this capitalistic schizophrenic society we live traumatic lives and we want to escape we want to give up we want to just relax and go back to the womb because we were abandoned in a sense by our parents we were sent into the public school system because our parents didn't love us enough to teach us to help us to get us personal tutors to take us into nature and ego is important because when you think when I say ego he has a big ego we think that means that guy's just a huge jerk that's an a-hole having a big ego could also mean a big character the most positive generous character of all time I'm trying to get rid of any forms of self not all forms but a lot of my selfishness and you know negative all my negative emotions I want to lessen those but I want to broaden my positive emotions which requires the ego joy happiness those things don't exist if you still the mind and live in polarity excuse me and get rid of dualism and I think it's important to learn that because it just has to be done in moderation that's what I'm saying I think that Anne Rand was pretty on point with just that one point and we are trying to turn everyone into the same personnel that's what the military does when you enter the military that's why they shave your head and they make you eat the same way that's what colds do and that's what we're trying to do now and it's really crazy because people buying dying their hair and getting tattoos and getting piercings and listening to all the same music is actually a form of not an individualism it's tribal it's masquerading it's peacocking people are doing it for attention you want to hide how do I know that because if you look at their life what are they contributing if they're not contributing anything that's all they're contributing is their identity we need to get over our identity crisis and that's what creates identity politics and just like how and here we go we're talking about the left just how the right needs to get over their religious fanaticism and their weird what christian mind said and value system and social fabric that is absolutely you don't have some truth to it but it's BS and they need to move beyond that if we are going to transcend into a utopia with a capital U say this almost every video all right next we have bae wolf seamus kini translation i'm giving this one a b i think that bae wolf is one of the most important stories of all time i would really recommend reading the old english version because i think that bae wolf is the last text until the romantics until the great restoration that connects to nature maybe some of the holy grail myth and a little bit in chaucer and the canterbury tales what do i mean by that that at a time this may seem like a crazy concept at a time people would look at nature and write in the form of nature be not just inspired by nature but right like how we wouldn't artists create and they mimic something poets and writers also can do that through language and with nature but to do that requires a deep connection with nature tens of thousands of hours of time with nature and bae wolf does that bae wolf is the only and last english text and i am an i am an english speaker and probably you are too that does that and like i said in the holy grail myth a green night and then by chaucer it's a little bit there then it's gone it's gone for 400 years until the restoration and day card almost killed it forever the enlightenment pillar here it almost killed it more but until finally there was a restoration mostly with german poets gertha novelist a couple others i can't remember right now then of course the modernist and the romantics it was gone and bae wolf i think for that reason and for the axiomatic storylines that still come with us today i think it's an important work if you can understand it have a good teacher or you can do the research to understand what the hell is going on in it next we have a brave new world by alice huxley and this is getting a ad everybody because alice huxley is a eugenicist he in a in a sense wanted to create the world that he wrote about in a brave in a brave new world i don't see the literary merit of a brave new world alice huxley as a person is not very good and i think that he was writing from a point of view that he wanted to enact as a eugenicist as a person who didn't believe it wasn't very optimistic about society i've read multiple novels by alice huxley and i'm not really impressed by his literary merit literary merit at all i think he's a poser honestly i think that he's a major poser in the field i think he intelligent maybe even genius like in the intellect and that's what carries him with the ideas with the novels that's why it became spent became became famous but it's an absolute it's it's it's not a very good novel but it's a little bit better than the catcher in the ride which i think is one of the worst novels that you can show people because it programs students and programs people to be sad boys because the problem okay i should have mentioned this at the start that we live in a society where most people have only read this book list that most people after high school stopped reading and if they do they're reading some weird multicultural crappy novel or airplane thrillers or ya random things they're not reading they're not pushing themselves in reading and what they are producing is or what they are their input it sucks and their output aka their life is kind of crap and the catcher in the right right is one of these problems it programs sad boys it reinforces this idea that we see in the outsiders in other texts that tell you that you can act like an idiot and you can act a rebel without a cause and that is a part of our society and that was stemming from the post world war two mindset and j.d. salinger never wrote a never another book after catcher in the right it was his first and last book that's how you know he's a wack writer no writer out there no musician if you can do it once you can do it again you have the gift then you grow it you don't hold on to it and masquerade around j.d. salinger in this book once again this is a book that people connect to because they hate their life they were traumatized they don't like what's going on in their life so they are going to connect with this book especially men young men love this book because they are abandoned and traumatized individuals because you have to be in our society once again if you get shipped off to school if your parents get divorced if your parents go to work for eight hours a day you don't see them very often back in the day we would what you did what your dad did you did what your mom did if your dad was a carpenter you were a carpenter you had a connection you had a soul level connection now we ship off into these schools where we only hang out with kids in our own class we have horizontal think we have no exposure to older individuals who can help us into thoughts and ideas the teachers are censored and don't care and are just there for a paycheck the easiest job you can get the easiest job you can get is to be a teacher really easy to get a job as a teacher because there's huge shortages hey it's pretty good he gets benefits a bunch of time off those teachers don't care nine out of ten teachers don't care and the one out of ten probably are pretty miserable too what while doing it aren't giving the energy they deserve because the standards don't let them especially in public education a lot of a lot of time in private education and i'm not saying homeschooling homeschooling is the magic pill either because a lot of homeschooling a lot of parents aren't meant to homeschool because they're really dumb too they just want to homeschool their kids to give them a radical mostly right agenda that stems from christianity or some you know weird ideas and paranoia from the right home most of the you know homeschooling is the disaster right now too and the catcher in the ride literally is one of these books and i understand that jd salinger was tapping into the ether and to this thing that was happening in society that thing being the angst the post-world war two angst he had it he got it he transmuted it but why are we still reading it why is this book matter because we've been abandoned if you haven't been abandoned we've all been cosmically abandoned we have no idea where we came from we have no proof of it and we are display those signs of trauma we have no idea what's happening on earth right now we have no idea what's happening in reality and most people can't accept that then work within frameworks instead they hunker down as an atheist as a christian as this as that instead of being able to flow through all of them because they've read so much that they know how to use different frames they literally go and do they literally bunk they get in the bunker with all their friends that you know and on d-day and they they die in that bunker man it's absolutely insane and i feel like this is one of the things that does it okay death of the sales death of a salesman i am going to give this a c i feel like this is a decent critique of capitalism and what was what is happening to society the american dream and this could get a b i think it falls short it's not the most entertaining thing that's a little bit old now and it's not holding up as well i think that this critique of depends but i think that if you this is a pretty easy thing if you look at animal farm if you look at developing and understanding the idea of an ego or mimicking nature what's happening to books that's what though that's why those books got an a or a b because they actually mean something actually pushing the agenda 1984 brave new world catcher in the ride death of a salesman you can kind of figure this out without that you can look at this aside and be like the american dream is broken so i don't feel like it's as effective the divine comedy i i've done two lists recently and they keep putting the divine comedy on i've never i don't our kids smart enough to read the divine comedy our most high school students really are their teachers really breaking this down in the way um the divine comedy obviously i think for high schoolers and just in general as a book we read in high school i would i would say it's b i think daunte is a great thinker great writer i i prefer uh the inferno i think the divine comedy is pretty good i enjoy it if you understand you have to have an axiomatic knowledge of christianity if you want to actually understand the book and i think a lot of people don't so i think it kind of falls flat on that sense like i remember when i read it i remember in high school we read we read it and i didn't understand it till i read it on my own later i told the story on my other video in philadelphia i read it and i had i had read the read the bible and took a class um the studying the bible's literature where we went over the whole bible and academic sources and uh it made a lot more sense but if you don't have that religious training then or knowledge and i don't i think the book kind of falls flat right 1984 i think deserves a c once again i think this is a book that is overrated people like to use it as paranoia and it's one of these books that people hunker down on that they love to mention big brother and think about it but looking back when you read it georgio well it's not his best work it's not the most dynamic work i feel like animal farm was better i don't think that 1984 has that much relevancy now today if i'm judging this objectively as a dystopian book i mean a c's actually if i'm comparing it to other dystopian books especially in the last 40 years 50 years i i i can name a lot better ones i think that would scale even lower on this list but i will give it because it's a historical context and it can make an impact it can create some conversations um of people of all ages so great expectations by charles dickens i would give this one a b this is my favorite book by dickens uh no dickens wants to get an a i i don't understand though once again you know most people most high schoolers maybe i'm chilling maybe like i said i'm in the 49th out of 50th state in the country for education and in a terrible school district so i understand that maybe i know a lot of students can't read they can't even read mice and men i'm not moral not i mean great expectations like climbing Mount Everest but i think that it's a great novel i would throw it in as a b it's my favorite dickens novel and yeah dickens has has some good merit the giver i'm going to give this one a c i don't really understand this doesn't have very much merit it has some nice moral lessons i i love the book and my love for the book is an s but in terms of the tenacity the objective reality of how good this book is it's a c maybe it's a b high c the giver i think maybe for a high school but i don't know what less what lesson is it really teaching and comment down below please if i'm like missing things or given terrible grades here if you love catcher and the rhyman then you don't know what you're talking about but yeah let me know i i feel like the giver is a pretty big book and a lot of people like it but i don't i'm not really vibing with i don't know what book this is i think it's the grapes of wrath a lot of these books like i don't know what these two books are right here but the grapes of wrath i'm going to give it a c i like east of eden by john signbeckmore i i feel like i'm repeating some of these books from my other video but yeah grapes of wrath i'm gonna give a c the great gatsby i'm also going to give a c i feel like the great gatsby is absolutely overrated i don't think it subverts the american dream like they like we're told that it does i think it falls flat in terms of writing that it's jerald is kind of a jerk i don't think he really has the skill to carry us he's talented i don't think the story has the merit that we give it but it's important to read because if you want to read mirakami's latest latest book killing common common dot torii everybody say that then it's based on the great gatsby but it's the japanese remote japanese version based in nature and with a painter so read it for that reason go read the new mirakami book which is absolutely fire but other than that i don't really think that the great gatsby it's a kind of so anything that's above a c you should maybe just read it just for the historical you know all these books i could see they're they're on the list but i don't think they really hold up like you know they don't really hold up like a fahrenheit 451 does or a bay wolf does or you know look at i mean every book right here other than anthem like a lot of people probably give anthem aneth um but they they don't i like i said i'm not polarized so i can appreciate anran so now we have heart of darkness by joseph conrad and i'm going to give this a we're gonna call it a low b i would say a heart of darkness is important but you need someone it's just one of those books that i want to give it a see but it's one of those books that if you want to understand the time and the culture and the progression of writing and ideas then you need to read it you need to understand and that's why it's important it's a good story it has a lot of themes and it's important for as your growth as a reader to read it's not about story either even though a lot of people you know it's been canceled a lot of people call it a racist book a problematic book and that people shouldn't read it anymore and i 100% disagree all right next on the list we have the adventures of huckleberry finn i'm going to give this one a b we have a new list for bs i think that mark twain is a great author i've been talking a lot about mark twain on this channel but i i think that mark twain is a great author i think it's he's great for everybody and i would recommend reading him on your holiday i recommend it and that's some light reading and that's why i think it's format don't get too serious about it it's just a fun thing it's a great area it's i'm not gonna call it a great era in history but it's an interesting era in history minus the slavery minus all the racism and craziness down there you know it's an important era in american history antebellum and all that even in post-civil war even with all the racism which is you know looking back at american history we're going to be doing some civil war book breakdowns you know it's just an absolute joke man i mean i just can't believe it that we had playdoh i mean obviously playdoh and iris thought all supported slavery but i just don't understand how people just didn't get it that like all human beings are the same that we all have the same capacity it's just all for control once again it's all those governments it's crazy jean ear by charlotte bronte i am going to give this a c i prefer other books by bronte i never teach this i never really want to teach this the writing is really clean this could get a b the writing is really clean the story is really clean but what's the other book i can't remember there's another book by bronte that i really like that could get a b or an a that i really think gets a lot uh pulls a lot more themes out but it's not on this list next is a joy luck club by amy tan i'm going to give this a d i don't understand this a lot of times this is put in for a form of multiculturalism or something and this book falls flat on its face i could give even this a nap like i could probably give this book a nap that i don't really understand why we ever teach this book if we want to talk about asian american culture or immigrants i i i can easily just off the top of my head named 10 or 20 books just in terms of like the immigrant experience in america that are a way better like absolutely in every possible way better book than this and i could think of hundreds of books that we're talking about asian american led or asian led in general that did you know just blow this out of the water so i i don't understand what we're doing with the joy luck club once again i think a lot of these books are just staples they're staples in our classrooms because a lot of parents a lot of people force them down our throats and they're considered good because that's all they ever read i had a parent man and they demanded we were reading this book about it had nothing wrong with it but it wasn't a classic so they demanded that the child read mark twain and because that's what they read that's what she read and as a child and the kid didn't even read the book the kid just got but i didn't i didn't say anything because mom was threatening because we were reading the classics to go you know to take it to the you know take it to the highest authorities in the district and i was just like all right okay whatever this kid says he gets an a in here maybe not like that but it's like okay you know i you can tell when someone's cheating or not cheating but actually not reading and i've taken polls i every single year i asked my kids and i take an honest poll who's actually reading the book and i motivate man i just promote i'm a book promoter that's my that was my job and 60 to 70 percent don't even read a page 10 percent 10 to 15 percent actually finish the books those are terrible numbers and like i said i am much different than most teachers i literally and i once i realized that i actually forced the kids to read i actually read in class together that's the only way the books get done lord of the flies i will give this one a d i've never really liked this book i mean i like the book i just it's never really hit home with me i don't really like teaching it there's some good themes and good things to talk about but like i said everything above it i think has more power in questions than this of mice and men i would give this one a still got room i guess i would give this one a solid c i would give of mice and men a c for sure good story telling hard speaks of the problems in a certain time in american life you know in california but i don't yeah just not not not competing with some of the higher higher level books up here the odyssey by and we'll call this the iliad slash the odyssey by Homer the first sure it gets to be the odyssey i think is and the iliad are great i think they're sometimes not overrated but a little bit too high on the list if you actually read them and read them well it's you know they're great but i don't i don't consider you know something's greatness like i said we're talking about their objective merit and what you can transform with i think that you can learn more if you want to learn about greek mythology go read a mythology by edith hamilton or a hero of a thousand faces by joseph camber and his books on mythology there's a lot of you things you can read if you want to learn some greek mythology and get some action but as a story i understand it's merit i really love it i i'll give it a b pride and prejudice i'm going to give a low b honestly i would give it a high c but we just don't have room here um if hopefully we go i think we've got some c's coming up too but i'm going to give this so we're going to throw it in at a c right now and i'll make another row right now so i like jay nelson jay nelson's pretty cool taking some classes on jay nelson university but i i feel like pride and prejudice is not my favorite book by her i could give some of austin's book a b i don't really prefer pride and prejudice i've had to read it three times i just have never seen the merit especially compared to other authors at the time it's really innovative i will just give that to austin she's a really really really good author but we're moving a little bit too far back in history for objective works to rank a little bit high i think i'm giving even the odyssey of b's a little bit high but you know moving back into the 1800s 19th century and i'm talking today about really just the objective nature if you're going to read this now and if we should be reading it if you like i said if we want to read i understand it's female author you want to read an impactful book by a female author go read ceremony by leslie marman silco i mean if we're trying to try to you know elevate some um oh there we go some female authors okay that's great i understand a lot of them a lot of big male 90 male right here maybe even more looks like 99 male honestly is this the only book other than amy tan who i can't even f yeah but there are a margaret atwood tony morrison i mean are you kidding me there's so many good authors out there they're at the same level reading pride and prejudice is it can be a slog you know there are books out there that are way better way more impactful and relevant now i mean even like little women i think is better than pride and prejudice and i if we want to you know get something from a somewhat similar so romeo and juliette by shakespeare i i'm going to give this one and a i think that shakespeare as a genius i you know romeo and juliette's not probably even in my top five plays but i think that romeo and juliette is a great production a great play and great you know script if you're going to read it and hopefully that's romeo and juliette it just says juliette but i'm just gonna assume it's romeo and juliette um i might be out of it out of the loop but yeah romeo and juliette i think it's an a a lot of people don't like it i mean a lot of time they read out the underbridge version you can't talk about it in class you can't talk as a teacher about sex and about the hormones and what's happening with romeo and juliette and the longing that was created by not having sex back then you know there's a lot of things that you can't really mention because it's a high school class on love you can't really mention about passion and love you can't say what happens when you have sex with someone what happens to your home hormones and what it feels like i mean if you know you know are you experienced there's jimmy hendrix would say and you know most kids in high school aren't but i would say that i'm looking at shakespeare i mean it's hard not to give this because this is you know and talk about impact this created our concept of love it created really pushed off the idea of tristan and isult and the idea of the love potion which is a very problematic idea that a lot of people still do today and i would go check out my video on we understanding the psychology of romantic love by robert a johnson on this channel my most successful video to date which is very sad when my most successful video only has 1400 views but i'm happy about that i'm very happy about those 1400 views everyone has to start somewhere the scarlet letter i'm going to give this one a d i once again i don't understand like if we're going to read books about women and about the exploitation of women what about the handmaid's tale when you know what about like the real books like what about like the book books you know i read the scarlet letter like two and a half years ago was my class and it just fell fell flat fell flat with me fell flat with them it's good topics that you can talk about that it happens this is what happens to women this is the exploitation of women it still in a sense happens in our society today it's a good concept to talk about but i really think that we that's one of those things that people know that you can get you can talk about without having to show the experience in that book next we have the stranger by camu and you know what we're going to give this one an s we have to throw an s in here i would say in terms of the integrity of this list that the stranger by camu is the best book on this list by far that this is an existentialist classic this can show you a certain mindset even though that mindset may be a little bit problematic much like uh catcher on the right but camu doesn't mess around camu is actually doing this camu is in the game he's a revolutionary he is a revel like a literal revolutionary fight who fought against hitler and joined renegade presses and hid and then i think was a part of the war in algeria i mean very emotional philosopher and writer and novelist a very multi-talented individual and camu's book the stranger i would recommend to anybody and i so i'm putting it as that high school this is something that i wish that i could have read more with my classes things for all part by chino achebe you know i'm going to give this one a teetering between b and c but i'm really i'd like to give it a b i really think that this is a selection that is a sad book it's a book that really humanizes africa that at times you know we can romanticize africa and what was happening there but really brings back the human element that okonkowo is you know the protagonist in the book he is flawed he's just a human like everyone else even before the colonization happens and that kind of creates more tension he has flaws he has problems you know that it's it's a part of human society and life man you know murder suicide rape all these things happened no matter where you were in the world before we were touched you know the world was touched by the evil westerners it's happened forever and yeah i i think it's it's a really important book to show that it's really you know and it also shows the effects of colonization i don't know if it really deserves a b but you know it kind of has a self spot in my heart because i've read it a couple times and i i think that if you know how to pick it apart that you can you can gather some good stuff but once again i actually don't know i think it maybe actually deserves a c i won't give it right i won't do that but i really think if we want to read african literature i could you gave me some time i could probably pull a hundred books out that beat it that really i think do a better job the famished road by ben ochre the long way gone but i can't remember his way name right now the long a long way gone so many better books out there that i think you know i wish i had the selection to teach and then next we have to kill a mockingbird i'm going to give adicus's finches adicus finch ac i think this is a good book not the best book i don't even believe and i've been giving this because of it being canceled now and why people you know don't like it i just don't think it's the strongest book and these three books what are these three books the importance of being here so i've never read that but what are these two books right here i have no idea what these books are all or if someone in the comments let me know lets me know i will rate them so thank you guys for being here if you guys would like to go check out my book on me ranking here ranking classic novels check it go check that out right now