Ten Hard Books I Will Read (But You Don't Have To)

A video in which I talk about a lot of difficult books that I plan to read, even if you don't have to.

Here are the other videos I mention:

[jwhend]

Having read Joseph and His Brothers twice, I would encourage you to dive right in at the beginning. Mann's great sense of humor and his authorial asides directed directly at the reader were two of the book's highlights for me.

[BookishTexan]

I can honestly say that I have no interest in any of these books, but I enjoyed listening to you discuss them and explain your reasons for reading them.

[alexr.]

Did not expect algorithms to suggest your video, but it was indeed a very thorough video and well made!
P.S. Would appreciate if you add the book titles and the edition in the description and/or on youtube player itself.

[ToReadersItMayConcern]

This is a great idea, and I love your selection (many I would have love to have chosen myself, such as The Novel or House of Government—surely no one would pick that, I would have thought)! I'll try my own attempt soon. :)

[Vocatus]

Death in Venice is a really great book, but Joseph and his Brothers is a whole other level, you will enjoy it a lot! The Magic Mountain is my favorite of all his books. The Enneads is in my opinion, a foundational work of western literature. The Gulag Archipelago is another great choice, you have indeed picked some good ones!! Happy reading.

[curtjarrell]

Wow! I never knew that's what The City of God was about. I recently read a portion of Confessions of St. Augustine, with keen interest. I may have to add City... to my TBR. Thanks for the video.

[beckyfair]

Thank you for this video. You gave me some good ideas of books that I might want to read.

[davidnovakreadspoetry]

I hope to read Mann’s _Magic Mountain_ soon. I’m drawn to mammoths these days though.

This was a nice video — if you make videos as you chew through these book I will follow delightfully.

[adnanferdousleo]

Such a wonderful recommendation . Thankyou for your video .

[hdcbpxsytahdcbpx]

wow i hadnt heard of most of these before this video, thanks for the recommendations!

[gaildoughty]

I love the informality of this video. Coincidentally I just got Vol. 1 of the Penguin Arabian Nights. That and The Magic Mountain are on my summer reading list. I have The Novel as well—my kids gave it to me, knowing my reading tastes well. Please keep on making videos.

[yobyhenthorn]

I love big books and I cannot lie. Interesting selection. Thanks.

[BobbyMick-cb]

I certainly have an interest in reading The Gulag Archipelago, written by a fascinating man who survived communist brutality of which most westerners have difficulty conceiving. Alexander Solzhenitsyn will endure in history as a giant of the 20th century.

[musicroom]

Good to see a video from you. I can't imagine trying to make my way through all of these! Hope you enjoy. I would be interested in hearing a follow up after you read one/some to hear if they met your expectations. The one from this grouping which I can most see myself enjoying is "The Novel". Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[MothicalBeast]

This is such a good idea. My YouTube algorithm brought me here and I absolutely love the video

[Summalogicae]

I added Magic Mountain to my tbr in January, and intended to get to it by May.

I’ve read Mann’s Dr. Faustus and I love it; it’s one of my top 10 favorites of all time.

[iloveteddybears]

OMG I literally got a copy of The Kindly Ones today!! I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on it!!

[michaelmedlinger]

In picking up Dr. Faustus, you hit on what I consider Thomas Mann‘s least accessible novel. I studied music for 3 years and have always delved deep into music theory, history, etc., and I still found it difficult to follow. It is especially important to be familiar with the Beethoven piano sonata that is discussed in such detail and to know something about 12-tone music (I believe the main character is based at least to some degree on Schönberg).
Mann is notorious for his long sentences. German syntax allows for much denser writing than is possible in English: clauses within clauses within clauses, with the subject and the verb of the main clause at each end of the sentence and separated by all the clauses in-between. It works in German, but even then you sometimes have to pay close attention to see what the antecedents of various relative pronouns might be. The only English-language writer I know who comes close to this is William Faulkner.
I always recommend reading Buddenbrooks as the first Thomas Mann novel. It has a fascinating story that is relatively straightforward (although perhaps part of the reason I found it fascinating is that it takes place in Lübeck and Hamburg, which is where I live). In other words, it is a little less daunting than many of his other works while still being Thomas Mann. But Magic Mountain is also a good choice. I have had Joseph and His Brothers on my shelves for some time as well, but have been diverted by my current interest in French and reading French literature.

[BriteRory]

I'm so glad to have discovered your channel! Augustine's City of God was a book that marked the major turning point in my intellectual life. I found a used copy of it and was immediately attracted to it, having only the vaguest notion of who he was. I was 22 years old and had been a father for a few years at that point, and after merely a few pages into it I realized how utterly atrocious my knowledge of history was. But not only of history, rather of almost anything. It came to me all of a sudden in a flash of insight how little I actually knew, all the while thinking I was intelligent! I made it my singular goal to reach a point where one day I could read that book and recognize with intimate familiarity every name, every book, and every historical event or philosophical and theological idea referenced in it. I'm about to turn 39 and have since read that book in its entirely four times, in four different translations, and can only in the past few years say with confidence that I now approach the person I so desperately wanted to be almost two decades ago.

Today my home has almost as many books in it as it does bricks, my children and pets have to maneuver around the maze of stacks that litter all but one room because I ran out of bookshelves a very long time ago, haha. I'm not a Christian, at least not outside of cultural heritage, but Augustine's work became for me an entry into a world in which the desire for knowledge of any kind is as vital to my sustenance as water and food and so he is one of my heroes. He is also hilarious, it is anything but a dry text. De Trinitate is significantly more difficult but also excellent. I wish my edition of the Enneads were as handsome as yours, but very cool to see, especially given how fundamental a familiarity with Neoplatonism is to understanding significant portions of the first half or more precisely the second quarter of City of God is.

Another book that became a referential touchstone for me was Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, which introduced me to the works of the Warburg Institute. I can also highly recommend those Penguin versions of the Calcutta II edition of Arabian Nights, I've read them front to back only once but occasionally will get one of them out to reread and they are basically a dream come true for anybody interested in an approximation to the actual text. My interest in fiction literature largely faded once I entered my thirties, but there are a handful of nonfiction books I cherish and those 3 volumes are among them. So neat to find a video of somebody sharing an interest in books so similar to my own!

Edit - Ah, I forgot you mentioned Joseph and his Brothers! One of the last major works of literature I read, and an absolute masterpiece from the very first sentence. Have you by chance read Gibbon, the Decline and Fall? That was the first work of history I read after my struggle to encounter Augustine, and is another book I've read more than once, and own in three different editions (two three-volumes and one six volume). How about the 12 volumes of Arnold Toynbee's Study of History? I have yet to finish that but highly recommend it if you have an interest in world history, as well as Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West.

[JamesRuchala]

Great selection Reading Guy. Ill echo some otnhers that Magic Mountain is a great first Mann novel.