Ranking All The Classics I've Ever Read 🫖🏛️ | The Book Castle | 2024

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⚔️ MYTHOLOGIE CANDLES ⚔️

🌙 ABOUT ME 🌙
Hi! My name is Alice and I love books! I read just about everything from classics to contemporary fiction, adventures to mysteries, fantasy to all kinds of non-fiction - and I love reviewing and recommending books, and just generally having a chat about literature. I also adore baking, hot chocolate, crafts and basically everything cosy, soft and peaceful. I currently live in Oslo, Norway.

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This video is not sponsored. Links to Waterstones, Taschen & Mythologie Candles are affiliate links.

[michalaharesnape]

I loved this video, thank you Alice. For the ‘altered my brain chemistry’ section I would add ‘The grapes of wrath’ by John Steinbeck. I read it when I was at university years ago and I remember it really altered my worldview. It gave me such a deep understanding of what it is to be oppressed, to be poor, to be homeless. The way that the family in the book struggle to survive and try so hard to stay together and care for one another just broke my heart. I also love Virginia Woolf like you do, I’m going to visit her house in Sussex later this week, can’t wait.

[jenniferrosebruce]

Underrated for The Ice Palace is definately in the correct category. I commented on it last week. Still think about that book. Thanks a lot Alice for recommending it years ago ❤😊

[leighdanielle]

I just love your videos! I haven’t read a ton of classics and really want to! I’m so glad you made this

[salliesones]

I loved how you said that we are all allowed to like different things. Because it is so true. I usually tend to like what others don't and don't like what others do...and it all comes down to your own preference. 💜💜💜

[bujobyfilo]

My cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier and Anna Karenina are probably my favorite classics.
I'm so in love with Du Maurier's writing and brain that I'm slowly reading all of her books.
Adding HG Wells and some of the sci fi you mentionned here to my tbr, thanks!

[TerryJ]

I just finished reading Atonement by Ian McEwan, and it definitely altered my brain - what an absolutely devastating book. Two classics I love very much that weren’t mentioned are The Razor’s Edge and East of Eden. I ordered Youth Without God from my library based on your recommendation from another video and it’s ready to pick up. I loved watching this video and hope you’ll do more tier rankings in the future!

[branwynnemay]

This is so fun! I’ve read most and have some new TBRs now. My top “altered my brain” books are The Giver, East of Eden, and Fahrenheit 451.

[eileennielsen]

This was great Alice, thank you. I discovered Poe as a teen also and STILL like him. I have that exact collection. So does my 18 yr. old granddaughter (I bought it for her). Sense And Sensibility is my fave Austen. I agreed w/all your most ardently loved choices. I did really like A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, read it twice sometime ago!

[sandyokey]

This was such fun. I think most of the books I read in high school would fit in the can’t remember category. Like Hemingway, Hawthorne, Orwell, Crane. Probably considered more American classics. Loved most ardently claims The Age of Innocence, The Great Gatsby, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie. And I think I’m in the minority with What is this being claimed by Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. For altered brain chemistry, Dust tracks on a road, Passing, catcher in the Rye, grapes of Wrath, Little Women, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Agatha Christie also fits here because I discovered my love for mystery writing thanks to her.

[bebebrownsdollhaul]

Master and Margarita altered my brain chemistry because I realized what I don’t know about Russian History

The Awakening altered me because I began to understand the feminist novel

Siddhartha altered by making me think deeply about the Buddha

Handmaid’s Tale altered

Frankenstein altered because I realized how young

Love in the Time of Cholera altered me at twenty because I understood all the different types of loves

Shakespeare—many of the plays altered me by showing me what you could learn about life from a book

Sophie’s World altered by showing the love of learning and mentors

These are some.

I can’t really think of What is This books besides The Master and Margarita. Sometimes the Bible gives me that feeling and sometimes it delights or compels me. The Road was so horrific I would place it in What is This

This was a fun video as always. Thanks

[anastasiariley]

Hi Alice, thank you for the video. I have discover some new book and authors 😊
Also happy some Russian books made it to the top of your chart ❤📚

[avsambart]

Ohhh it's nice to see our taste match up quite a bit.

[emiliepaquet]

Lovely video! I kept thinking about where I would put the classics I've read while watching. Two books that I would put in "altered my brain chemistry": Rebecca and The Bell Jar. Both books I went in with low expectations for different reasons, and they've stayed with me ever since.

[leighdanielle]

Watch Little women the movie 1994 version with Winona Ryder in it! It’s the best

[BaileeWalsh]

hmmm, I think I would put Brideshead Revisited in "altered my brain chemistry." It IS one of my favorite books but it didn't start that way. After I finished it it was a solid 3/5. I really liked the writing but the direction the novel took didn't line up with what I would have preferred to happen. But I could not stop thinking about it, especially after I watched the 1981 miniseries adaptation. After I finished the miniseries I thought about the book again just accepting what happened, taking the book for what it is- not what I wanted or may like more, and I realized how much I appreciate it, which then turned to liking it more, and continuing to think about it and it being a favorite :) Plus, I a couple years later I watched Downton Abbey, which I absolutely loved, it took over my life, and I later recognized the similarities between BR and DA, both being about changing society and being present in history to an extent. Also for me personally The Haunting of Hill House would be here. And I agree with The Color Purple being here, too.
I would put Candy by Maxwell Kenton and The Girl With The Golden Eyes by Balzac in "what is this." Candy is a wild ride and honestly I'm confused about the history and writing of it, like the full context of everything. But it's also one that I like that I have on my shelves. I did like The Girl With The Golden Eyes, minus a couple aspects. I loved the writing (the first part of the book may be more accurate to be put in the "altered my brain chemistry" category now that I think about it). But it is surely one that is like, 'huh?, ' at times when you're reading it. These would more so be in, _"wtf_ is this, " rather than just, _"what_ is this", lol

[shellkay]

Loved/Altered Brain: Gatsby, Walden, Secret Garden, Velveteen Rabbit, Narnia books, Watership Down, Flowers for Algernon & EB White’s children’s books
What is This: As I Lay Dying

[Belladonna_Q]

I loved The Ice Palace! We even got a new translation recently, but I haven’t read that one yet. And I do agree with Lolita being in the "what is this" category.
I would put Forefathers’ Eve part II in the "altered my brain chemistry" category. I liked part III ok enough, but part IV goes straight into the "what the hell is this" territory. This whole poetic drama by Mickiewicz is kind of funny, actually, because he first published part II, then part IV, then part III, and the last one was part I, but only after his death.
The Bride of Corinth also altered my brain chemistry and I'm now a gothic stan. I read it in my Poe/Dracula/European Gothic phase.

[natalied]

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte altered my brain chemistry.

[leighdanielle]

I love Edgar Allen Poe! I love the movies they made from the books

[leighdanielle]

Do you like classic movies? I absolutely love old movies! The Ghost and Mrs Muir I love it! Bell Book and Candle another one I love! I love all of Cary Grant movies as well.