Top 10 Books You Should Read In Your Lifetime

Links to books I talked about in this video
(These are affiliate links. If you buy through these links, I get a small percentage of the sale):

WHERE TO FIND ME:

[ameliarose]

Some books are for escaping reality, but these books help us get through reality. Thank you!

[mjalen]

0:38 - The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
1:59 - The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy
3:25 - Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
4:50 - How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
7:21 - The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
8:34 - Things My Son Needs To Know About The World by Fredrik Backman
10:06 - She Came To Slay by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
11:18 - Pet Sematary by Stephen King
13:50 - And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman
16:15 - Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

[sammorgan]

The Count of Monte Cristo really is so incredible, I'm glad that someone on booktube has finally talked about it

[barchettam]

This is my personal list:

1. 1984 (highly relevant to what we are experiencing in the world right now)
2. Anna Karenina (It is not a work of literature, it is a symbolism and definition of life and romance itself)
3. War and Peace (A masterpiece of literature, the equivalent of the Mona Lisa in the world of literature)
4. Great Expectations (It's desert-island kind of book. It makes you cry, but it also makes you laugh, it scares you too and then it makes you feel love and pity and disgust...it's got everything.)
5. A Tale of Two Cities ( The language, if you love the English language, this is it. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...you get the idea.)
6. East of Eden: (Steinbeck, what is there to say about him? His style is raw and throaty, and his characters are little bits of pieces of him.)
7. Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet (The characters, the mystery, the twists, if you want quality entertainment and love solving mysteries, this is the one for you)
8. Walden: or, Life in the Woods (Henry David Thoreau is the definition of transcendentalism. If you enjoy philosophy and nature, this is it! Pay attention to his message about following your heart and inner light)
9. The War of the Worlds (A highly influential science fiction book by H.G. Wells, along with The Time Machine. It cleared the path for other science fiction novels and cinema)
10. Alice in Wonderland (Carroll’s mastery over sarcasm, nuance and wordplay is understood best by readers with a certain level of maturity, and my appreciation for his writing has only improved over time. Alice has taught me the power of dreams, the strength of my imagination, to question the strange and accept the weird)

[devitabeata]

Everyone should read The Count of Montecristo.

[Lioralon]

WOW how much I loved wuthering heights. It gets so much hate for being "depressing" and "the characters are horrible people", and like, yes and yes! That's why the book is so amazing!
I guess that if you expect it to be a romance and read it as if it's a romance you might hate it. For me, from the very beginning I felt like it was meant to be very VERY dark and twisted. It's a story about obsession, possessiveness, abuse, extremely toxic people and relationships. It starts with semi-insect and ends with ghosts. Fascinating and I love it.

[Carlosmgcosta]

After a week at the cottage, reading and writing. This is arguably the best video to come back to.

[rashidal-heidous]

On Dale Carnegie books, I recommend "How to stop worrying and start living" I keep returning to that book as it is more concerned with communication with one's self. Thanks for the recommendations 🙏

[TheDrawmaniac]

My parents and I have a tradition to read books aloud with one another. As a child they always did this for me. Memorably chronicles of narnia, Peter Pan, Stuart Little, and so many others. But during my high school years they wanted to continue reading aloud. We started with the count of monte Cristo, and I cannot begin to articulate my feelings and thoughts on that book. Reading it aloud with people you love is a joy I wish everyone can have, because as you read you can reflect together and gush, and fully take in what the book is offering. I will hopefully read the other books in your list I haven’t already read, but thank you so much for such an insightful list!

[etherealephemera]

So, I read "And Every Morning The Way Home Get's Longer and Longer" on your recommendation from a video a while back and let me tell you, that book was the first book in my life that I cried so hard reading. It just hit me towards the end and I ugly cried. That book made me ugly cry and that doesn't happen when I read books. Such a great book though, Short as it may be and even though it got me so hard I would definitely read it again.

[michellesmirnova]

Honestly I think fiction is the best way to look at yourself from another perspective. I had a horrible internet experience a few years back and it left me with a severe amount of self-hatred. So, I happened to be reading a story while dealing with this that already meant a lot to me, but soon the story took a turn, and one of my all-time favorite characters started experiencing very similar things to myself. It helped me understand that I am more than this self-hatred and that I need to leave the toxic environment I was in. I don’t think I could’ve done this otherwise. People claim that fiction “isn’t important to read” but it’s SO important.

[sophiaisabelle]

Honestly, at this point, I wanna write something before I pass away so that I could leave some sort of mark in this world. Times like this needed a lot more setback for literary inspiration. Thanks for the reco!

[rome]

The horror element isn't the reason I love King. It's the warmth of his voice, his characters, and his wisdom about the world. And I think that shows up most in his later works like 11/22/63, Duma Key, and Lisey's Story. Plus, I think his prose got a lot better. You might like Lisey's Story if you want a book about grief.

[eclecticdogk]

The Count of Monte Cristo is amazing! I love it too! And coming up with a top 10 is very difficult (putting them in order near impossible) but these are high up there to be sure:
God's Way of Peace - Horatius Bonar
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - Mildred D. Taylor
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street - Jeanne Birdsall

[aqm]

"How to find friends and influence people" was really good. You find that it is incredibly helpful for understanding human dynamics for people who are not naturally socially adept.

Sadly, the title, in my opinion, is a huge drawback because people then read it hoping to acquire skills to become more influential and popular which, ironically, is not what the book is really about. Its teachings are not inverted or designed to bolster the individual but rather encourage humility, compassion and empathy.

Great to see someone who uses the book as a means of valuing others as opposed to simply acquiring more influence or becoming more popular.

Also, the most important lessons I think are on the last few pages.

[muthulakshmivaratharajan]

Honestly who become a follower of Merphy in this year but became a big fan of her

( count me in )

[nicholasschroeder]

My ten: 1. 1984 2. Pride and Prejudice. 3. Anna Karenina 3. Great Expectations 4. Crime and Punishment 5. Catch-22. 6. The Great Gatsby. 7. Huckleberry Finn. 8. David Copperfield 9. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. 10. The Picture of Dorian Gray. I've read them all more than once. None of them will bore you.

[OhAlice]

“Wow, that story was depressing, hated that!!” was EXACTLY my experience reading Wuthering Heights in high school. Looks like I’ll be picking it up again after seeing it through your lense

[KingHador]

"How to win friends and influence people" is such a gem.

[gamezilla]

Wuthering heights is the most intense Novel of all times. I love it.