Classics That Will Fix Your Illiteracy

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:01]Classic books generally just a marketing term, but I actually think that the key to unlocking literacy and reading capability is within reading books that are hard to read. And often times older books harbor that knowledge and that almost mysticism that can genuinely make you a better reader. Now, what makes something a classic book is anything old and influential. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean good. And not every book is for everybody. That's just Well, yeah. But I will say I think most of these books are generally going to be good for anybody watching this. First off is a pretty culturally relevant one even to this day. White Knights by Doski. The perfect entry point into Dostki. Now, if you don't know who he is, you're going to become a little acquainted with him throughout this video. But also, where where were you?

[00:00:51]What cave did you crawl out of? Dosty is maybe the most influential author ever.

[00:00:56]That might be a little controversial. I don't know. Most people who read The Brothers Karamazov say that it's the best book ever written. I haven't read it, but if that many people say it's probably somewhat true. Now, White Knights, you know, longing as a thing, as an idea, is not often portrayed correctly. I think longing is generally something that's supposed to be a little more embarrassing. But I think this book in the lens of an older book, something made over a hundred years ago, depicts it in a very kind of embarrassing way.

[00:01:26]White Knights is about a man and this man falls in love. The scene in which he falls in love too, he is walking down a beach and he sees a woman, a yellow hat, her dress blowing in the wind and tears rolling down her cheeks. And this story is devastating, pure depressing, actually genuinely messed up, and it's a novella. The reason I'm talking about this one first is because it is an introduction into harder to read literature and is written just like all of Dostki's longer books with his choice of language and his writing style, but it's short. And if you're not ready to devote your time to something super laborious, this this is it. And oh my good god, the utter devastation I felt.

[00:02:11]So grand for something I spent so little time actually reading. I actually went into this a little spoiled and I've tried to talk about it less than a lot of people have online, but you've already probably been spoiled and it still didn't matter. I was still devastated and all that just for a second of bliss. Thanks Foder Dostki for ruining my life once again. Next, we have a bit of a misunderstood classic.

[00:02:34]And I have a few of these in here. And I'm also going over the shorter books first for those with shorter attention spans who might actually find something that gets them into reading. Don't mean to call you out, but The Catcher and the Rye by JD Salinger. I have some strong opinions about this one. I I have some strong opinions about this one. The Catcher and the Rye has a bit of a bad reputation for people who are generally toxic or maybe even Reddit moderators really enjoy this book. And I one, I've never seen that before. two, think that that is discrediting the utter beauty in this book. And when I say beauty, I'm not talking about a good-looking thing or something that makes you feel comfortable and happy. What I mean is that the actual talent that is visible in this book is undeniable. Now, I read this book when I was an annoying teenager, and the book is about an annoying teenager named Holden Caulfield who runs away from school to go mess around in New York City for a couple of days. Our main character is annoying and generally a bad person and is overly toxic and makes very bad decisions and is a huge loser, but who isn't when they're a teenager? And also, it definitely opened my eyes to how much of a loser I was, how annoying and mean I was. The story though is about grief and grieving and how grief can afflict somebody who isn't grown up enough to admit that they are sad and grieving.

[00:03:53]When this book takes place, men are not so open to showing their emotions. So Holden Cfield just imagines that everybody deals with grief kind of by shoving it down and ignoring it when in reality you have to acknowledge your grief to do anything about it. And the book ends kind of I guess a little bit of spoilers with him accepting this not with any progression happening. But that's the beauty of the book. It teaches you everything. It shows you all of the mistakes and is written in the form of stream of consciousness where everything is written in the way that Holden is thinking about it in the exact way that he would be thinking about it verbatim, which is a very hard style to write and even harder sometimes to read.

[00:04:32]And I think that's why this short, very good book is great for newer readers and will absolutely open your eyes to what reading and writing can be. I just think that this is not deserving of the bad reputation it has. Just because shitty people like a book does not make it a bad book. It's entirely dependent on what the book is saying. And this book is saying that grief sucks and it afflicts everybody in different ways and it's important to deal with it and talk about it. Next, we have a bit of a controversial one for me. It's of Men.

[00:05:00]Now, I think this is a great book for newer readers to read. It is about two men working in the Great Depression and it is by John Steinbeck, a very prolific author who has another book on this list. No, it's not East of Eden. I'm a little cooler than that. All right. No offense to anybody who likes East of Eden. I've never read it, but I'm assuming it's good. of M man in my opinion is not the best book ever written. It's not great. It's it's actually okay. It's about these two guys working in the Great Depression and they are hopping from farm to farm working as farm hands. But one of the two of them, Lenny, is a bit of an oaf and he's also too strong for his own good and often gets them into trouble. So they have to bounce from farm to farm to find new work. Now the book is about a lot of things. I don't really know if I have enough time to comment on it, but I think that's why people like it so much.

[00:05:41]It comments on racism. It comments on poverty and work culture during the Great Depression, the Great Depression itself, uh, society's inability to cater to certain people, but I think that's why people like it so much is because it hits home for a lot of different folks, and it's very short. Now, I don't really see the draw to this book as some magnum opus masterpiece that is a keystone in society. I think it's generally just super easy to read, super palatable even for what it's talking about, even though it can get quite brutal. I just think it once you read more books, this becomes less of an interesting book. But I do think as a new reader, this is a great place to start. Speaking of shorter books that aren't a great place to start, I think Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonagget is really good. Now, it has some problems. Okay, it it has some issues specifically just because of the time it comes from. I I think how the book talks about women and non-white people is in bad taste, and that makes it not a five-star for me. But besides that, the absolute talent showed here is unbelievable. Slaughterhouse 5 is an anti-war book, and I am always here for anti-war, dude. I love any anti-war message. War is literally the dumbest invention humans have ever created. It's not even close. War is stupid and dumb and only waged by the dumbest and the stupidest. Slaughterhouse 5 is about Billy Pilgrim. Billy just so happens to be a time traveler. Or is he? The makeup of the story is in these forms of memory. He will Billy Pilgrim's conscious will flash forward into time, back in a time, forward into time, and then in that forward in time, back before he was flashing forward, and then back and then forward farther than when he had flashed back. Now, I already see your eyes are glazing over. That's what I mean when this book is not necessarily an easy read for newer people. Now, I do think because of how semi difficult I wouldn't even say this is like mid-level hard. I would say it would be difficult to read for a new reader. That being said, I do think it would genuinely increase your reading capabilities, no matter who you are. I think this book is actually super good and I love this message of war hurts people. It doesn't help anybody except for the richest and the highest in power. It doesn't help anybody and the way it hurts you is so deep. Now, the time travel that I was talking about is entirely central to the plot. It is not a spoiler at all. It happens like the second chapter in and the first chapter is merely an introduction. The question though is is Billy Pilgrim traveling through time or is he just so damaged from the war effort he was taking place in which is centered around the bombing of Dresden which if you don't know anything about you probably should. I thought I knew about it but this book definitely made me look more into it. And I would just say that it's a great piece, great commentary and a great message but it's very hard to read. All right, last of the introductory shorter books. We have Animal Farm. Yeah, Animal Farm. You've heard of it. It's one of the most popular books ever written. Animal Farm is about a literal animal farm written by George Orwell. It details this farm, just a normal farm. But the animals one day decide, we're going to rebel. And they take over this farm from their human overlords or human capttors. But it just so happens that the pigs take power. They say, "Hey, we're actually really smart. we should do all the ordering around and make sure everything goes well. And all the other animals go, "Yeah, all right." And those pigs quickly become corrupt and voracious with power. And it comments on how power corrupts. And it comments on how no human when given power to control others is ever truly trustworthy with that power. Now, this book is super palatable for its messaging. That's the best part of it, I think, for an introduction. I think that this book is super easy to read. I read it in like 4 hours, which is actually kind of a long time for it.

[00:09:20]This was just like one of my first books I read after coming out of a huge long reading slump after just like one book a year. But genuinely, I think anybody could finish this in a day. And that's why it's so good. Increasing your literacy. It's not going to be this huge leap. It's not going to be like, "Oh, I can read most books now." No. But it is definitely going to kickstart your reading journey, especially if you go Animal Farm into 1984 into some of those shorter books I just talked about into everything else. That is a great path to take. 1984 is not in this video, but if you want to know about it, just go watch some of my other videos. It's definitely in them. I just think this book is great for pretty much anybody of any age who understands what a government is, and it will absolutely open your eyes to how you, as a human, can be taken advantage of. Let's change the tempo of this whole video and talk about a classic that will absolutely make you a better reader, but is not depressing and sad like the rest, which is important, by the way. I love books that are depressing and sad. love books that are meant to make you feel something, that are meant to teach you a lesson. That is the point of literature.

[00:10:22]That being said, The Hobbit by J.R.R.

[00:10:24]Tolken. OH. OH, YEAH. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite books. It might be my favorite book of all time at this point in time. It's It's a little bit of a shaky position. I don't actually know what my favorite book is, but god damn, The Hobbit is a great book. It is about a little guy. A little guy, a halfling, a hobbit, a being half the size of a human who loves breakfast, second breakfast, tea times, 11s, lunch, dinner, second dinner, of course, dessert. But he decides to go on a journey with 13 dwarves and a wizard to retake the ancestral home of these dwarves that was stolen from them by the mighty smog. Smog the destruction, smog, the desolation, smog, who is death. This is in my opinion the fantasy book. It is beautiful. It is a great story about good and evil and how good can become evil. How war can be waged and for what reason? For money, for power. The best part about this book is that you can read it after watching the movies, of which basically everybody my age has seen those movies, which I think are actually pretty good movies, but the book is a thousand times better.

[00:11:33]Endlessly better. It is unbelievable.

[00:11:36]Anything with Gandalf in it, put it put it in me, dude. Sorry. I love you, Ian.

[00:11:41]Ian Mckllen. Love him. He's Oh, top 10 people ever for certain. Anyways, anything with Gandalf in it, give it to me and give it to me quickly. I love it so much. Now, this book is deceptively short in this copy, is almost a 100,000 words, which for reference, The Count of Monte Cristo, which we'll go over later, which is 1,200 pages long, is about 450,000 words. This is a fourth of that.

[00:12:06]It's pretty long, but the word use and word choice in the book is pretty complex. Now, it's not hard to follow. I would say I mean, I don't know. I read this book when I was already pretty well along in my reading journey, but I would say that the book is extremely easy to follow. It's just that the word use is very complex, but very fun and whimsical and beautiful and epic. It's a whimsical epic is what I would characterize it as.

[00:12:30]It is just so grand yet follows just this little guy and it's cool and it's ah yeah I really like it. I I think it's pretty good. Uh you should read it. More people should read The Hobbit in today's political climate which sucks. More people should read The Hobbit just for a little bit of brevity. I love this book so much, dude. All right, fine. What a [ __ ] switch up, dude. No Longer Human by Da. I just talked about this book not that long ago. And I will say that it is a bit of a controversial one, but I think this book is so important and it's so far the hardest book to read. It also looks deceptively short. I I think it's about 200 pages, but it feels more like 250. If any avid reader out there will know what I mean. This book will absolutely make you a better reader. It is hard to read and it is very complex.

[00:13:16]Apparently, Daisy's writing in Japanese is very complex already. And when you translate something to English, that only makes it more complex because English is stupid. It is a very complex language and very hard to read, making this all the more difficult to read. No Longer Human is about Yo. He's a boy who's born into a family with many kids.

[00:13:34]I think it's somewhere around 10, including him. And his father is neglectful, and his mother is very busy with 10 children. So, his life starts out pretty hard with this idea ingrained into himself from a very young age that he is not human. He's something else.

[00:13:48]Now, you can argue that he gets this opinion later in life when looking back on his younger self when writing the notebooks that are this book. But from Yozo's opinion, he has had this idea at least for a long time. And it follows him as he falls into more and more misfortune. And this book is even more impactful when you learn that it is the single most depressing book I've ever read. It is literally like somebody is sticking morphine needles into your face while you're reading it because it is so numbing, so genuinely sad, so genuinely absent. And it's even more impactful when you learn that Daai ended his own life shortly after writing this book.

[00:14:22]Now, it does have this very blatant blaring issue that the way the main character talks about women is like they are objects and animals. And that is not that great. It is a great commentary though I would say very probably accidental about the patriarchy and how oftentimes a patriarchy can very much hurt men just as much as it hurts women a lot of the time forcing them to be terrible and ruin their own life. The way I like to describe this book the most is if you bottled pure depression and spilled it onto paper this is the book that would emerge. That should not dishearten you from reading it. It definitely didn't dishearten me from reading it and I do not regret reading it. It is a great perspective to have.

[00:15:02]Ah, even more depression. We have crime and punishment. Now, I'm going to be open with you guys. I have not finished this book, and I think it's important for more people to talk about books they just haven't finished yet. But I do understand how important and powerful this book is. Crime and Punishment by Fodor Tostki. Yes, I already talked about his book, but I like saying his name like it's super grand, cuz it is.

[00:15:20]Crime and Punishment is a murder mystery from the perspective of the killer. So, it's not really a mystery, but that's how it's described. Ruskolnikov is the name of our main character and it follows him as he commits a murder and then tries to live his life after it.

[00:15:36]Now I would say the book is more of a commentary on everything to do with monetary issues whether it's poverty, uncleanliness, housings, political climates, caretakers, caretaking, sickness, illness, all of the above. And it comments on a lot of it, even specifically murder, but not at the behest of just saying Rascolnikov is this villain, this unbelievably bad person, when he made a decision solely in the form of I mean, the book might say that in the later half, but what I've gotten from it so far is that the book is just powerfully stating a lot of things and none of them are this man Rosolnikov is a murderer and therefore he is bad. I don't think that's what the book is saying at all. I'm thinking that from what I can tell, it's commenting on this economic crisis that was happening around the time where Russia was urbanizing a bunch and it made everybody very poor. So, I think it's commenting more on that. Now, I love I just love how this book is written. There are monologues in it that are just so unbelievably powerful. The first is from a drunk in a bar and it says so much about just people, the living conditions. Every single room you walk into in this story, you feel the wallpaper peeling off the walls. You feel the graininess of the wood underneath the shoes of the people living there. The sickness is so visceral when our main character is sick. It feels so real. The murder is so jarring and brutal when it happens. And still, even though you know there's going to be a murder, it is so jarring and unexpected. It is genuinely such a great atmosphere and such a well-ld story. Unbelievable. I can't wait to finish it. But apparently, according to a lot of people, the book kind of just declines over time. And I'm only about halfway through it. So, I could already say it is kind of very much slowed down from the first 100 pages. But anyways, more people need to read The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison. How do I even start?

[00:17:22]Should I just start by saying it's a it's a debut novel. I just think that's always such a cool fact. This is the perfect book to comment on racism. I don't know if I'll ever read a better book that comments on racism. It's literally unbeatable how well this book is written. And it's a debut. Holy [ __ ] The Bluest Eye is about Piccolola, a girl born into America, a country that hates her because she is a black girl.

[00:17:45]And from a very young age, Piccolola wants blue eyes because she is gifted dolls at a young age. Dolls that are white, that have blue eyes and everybody sees them as beautiful, so she wants blue eyes. It comments on many things aside from racism. It comments on generational abuse. It comments on how that can be started by racism. It comments on community and pedophilia in multiple facets and how that can be caused by racism and not caused by racism. Comments on motherhood in a country that hates you. It comments on fatherhood in a country that hates you.

[00:18:16]Is literally the perfect book about American racism. I don't know if it'll ever be beaten and more people need to read it. Now, a story that I hold very dear about this book is that I tried to read it two times before I actually sat down and finished it for the third time.

[00:18:29]I think it is very important for people to genuinely understand that they may not be ready to read a book. I was not ready at all whatsoever to read this book for the first time. The second time maybe a little closer, but I still could tell that I was gapping on a lot that I was reading and didn't really understand. When finally the third time I picked it up and it was just like butter. And it is important for people to really understand their limits when reading so they can get the most out of what they are reading. It's also important to remember that you never have to like finish a book you don't want to finish. I have a problem where I feel like I have to finish every book I read and it's maybe not the best for my mental health. But I do think that genuinely it's important for you to realize when there's a book you want to read and you're just not ready. Now, I definitely did get better at reading after I finished this, even though I was already good at reading. Because every book you read, no matter how easy it is to read or no matter how hard it is to read, will make you a better reader. So, I guess the overarching theme of this video is always just going to be to read more books. Crazy, I know. Next, instead of 1984, I decided to put Fahrenheit 451 on this list. A book about a tyrannical government. Now, this is a placeholder for just about any dystopian book, except for Brave New World. That book is hard to read. Definitely do not start there, but you could absolutely start your dystopian journey with either The Hunger Games, but we're talking about classics. That that book will be a classic eventually, I bet you. but instead we are talking about Fahrenheit 451. This is definitely the easiest one to read. That's why I picked it. But if you are a younger person or even a newer reader, this book will definitely make you a better reader. It is about Guy Montto, a firefighter, but he does not use a water hose. He uses a flamethrower to put out the fire of rebellion by burning books. This book is about book burnings, but almost kind of adjacently.

[00:20:14]The main character's job is to burn books. If there are ever books found anywhere in a house, they are to be burned immediately. This book is basically commenting on that idea of destroying knowledge for the safety of people, which is disturbingly wrong. And it follows Guy as he is already at the start of the book, which is one of my biggest gripes with it. But already at the start of the book, he is questioning society and why it is the way it is.

[00:20:34]when this girl appears out of nowhere and talks to him about it, which is almost insane in a world like this. This 60th anniversary edition might be the best version because it has all this stuff in the back that talks about the creation of the book, book burnings in history, Germany in World War II, book burning, and why and what they burn. And I love the imagery of this book. This book is almost less powerful than the imagery it actually creates. But I do have to say this used to be one of my favorite books. Now, not so much. I have grown away from it. And younger me would be like, "What? But it's so good cuz it is. It is a very good book. I just think it is absolutely for newer readers. And it's palatable in the way that you can understand it, but less palatable in what it's talking about, which is very jarring and saddening. And it's only about 150 pages, so you could read it in a day. Absolutely. It's a good book.

[00:21:20]It's just not my favorite book anymore.

[00:21:21]It's absolutely a good book, though. And if you are new to reading, you absolutely should read it. Two Kofka books in a row. All right. People sit down. I'm about a fanboy. Metamorphosis.

[00:21:30]Now, this is the entry point. Everybody talks about Metamorphosis. Everybody's like, "He turned into a bug." He doesn't say that. It's Nobody knows if it's a bug or a beetle. Okay. Kofka himself said, "Stop putting bugs on the book covers because he never said it was a bug. He didn't want it to be a bug."

[00:21:46]Apparently, if you don't know, what happens is Greor wakes up one morning metamorphosized into a vermin, an animal, a monster of some kind. But the book does not comment on his powers or his capabilities now as a monster. No, it only talks about how he is now ostracized. And his main concern is not that he has turned into some monster, but that he can no longer work. And that is a central point of a lot of Kofka's writings in that most people when they suffer some grave misfortune, their first worry is not of that misfortune, but of their ability to further make money and survive. And I love that commentary. Humans were not meant to be like, "Oh no, I broke my arm. I can't work anymore." It was supposed to be, "Crap, I broke my arm. I should chill out and let it heal." or something.

[00:22:30]Crazy idea, I know. I think Metamorphosis is a great entry point into dreamscapes and nightmarish styles of writing. And I think it's obviously the best introduction to Kofka because it's a shorter book. It's I think it's a novella or close to it. And it's semi-palatable. His writing is very precise and it's very long is the word that comes to mind, but I don't know if that's correct. I would say it's very punctual yet very described. That every word is very much like a jagged knife and that is so powerful and I enjoy that a lot. I am a big Kofka fan. Speaking of which, this book's great as an entry point, but if you are a crazy person like me, you can read this one first.

[00:23:08]The Castle, also by Kofka. This is my first Kofka book. It is also the first book to have ignited my passion for reading like a bonfire. I was so elated after I finished this. Not because this book is at all making me go, "Wow, I loved reading The Castle." No, it was holy [ __ ] a book can be like this. Speaking of which, the castle is about a village. In this village, there is this giant castle that seems to be ever further away. And it follows Kay, our main character, as he shows up in this town for the job of being a surveyor. He has been hired and sent letter to be here. But once he arrives, it becomes evident quickly that he may not actually have a job here. Or does he? Does he absolutely have a job?

[00:23:53]I don't know. You should talk to my supervisor. Oh, you can't? Well, talk to the guy below him then. Okay, that guy will send you to this guy and around to this guy. It is a metaphor for bureaucracy and how finding your way through this system of people who are just so corrupt with being lazy can be so mindnumbing. And I love how this book is told. It is told through this snowy hellscape of a town that is just so embedded in its ways and can never change for the betterment of anything.

[00:24:23]My man starving on the street. Ah, you got to talk to my boss. I just love the commentary on this book and the way Kay has to navigate this world. It's like every house feels like it's empty until it opens the doors and you meet some people who are just not people. They are such imaginations of people, but it's done so evidently on purpose that these people feel otherworldly and inhuman.

[00:24:45]And Kay goes through a lot of turmoil.

[00:24:47]He tries to get married. He tries to get a second job as a janitor. He tries to make his life work. And it just never happens because the book ends without an ending because Kofka died before he could finish this book. But this book is so hard to read. It is unfinished. It's Kofka's writing, like I said, the Jagged Knives. And it is just unfinished. It's so hard to read, but I think it's also a perfect masterpiece nonetheless. And if you are an audacious little fellow like me, you could do it. And next, in my opinion, the best book of this writer, but I've only read three of his books, so I'm not the best expert in it. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Ah, an epic, a modern epic about a family migrating from Oklahoma to California to find work in the Great Depression. And I just love how this story is told. A lot of people don't like it, but I think it's perfect. What it does is one chapter will be following of this family through the perspective of their middle child who went to prison for a little bit and he's out now. Every chapter will go from following that family to a grander description of what is happening in the world in the area that they are in. And I love it in this book. Often times I can feel a little disjointed when that is happening, but it is so ingrained in what is happening to the family in this book that I think it is perfect. And I also think the first two chapters of this book are also perfect.

[00:26:12]The main character as he has just left prison and is finding his way back to his home is you can taste the dust on things. It is so perfect. You can smell the characters which is oftentimes not a good thing. You can you can just feel the surroundings like you're there and the feelings of the characters are so palpable. You can taste them too. It's it's perfect. I think it is a masterpiece and I and and when I do eventually read East of Eden, I will go into it thinking how the hell could he top this and on the note of literacy which this video is about. This book is hard to read. Okay, it is pretty hard.

[00:26:44]It's very very huge. It is a grand scale book that follows one family. So that already is kind of contradictory. But I will say that you get so much out of this a perspective of the Great Depression which is almost kind of engineered to not be able to happen anymore. So thankfully and hopefully I think we won't have to suffer that ever again. But it gives you a perspective of it that is so personal. It's unbelievable. You feel the losses. You feel the gains almost viscerally. The brief gaps in their turmoils are so elating. It's it's a it's a masterpiece.

[00:27:16]It really is so worth how hard it is to read. All right, time to talk about it.

[00:27:21]Frankenstein by Mary Shel. Maybe my favorite classic to this day. Ah, I don't know. I don't know. And it's not perfect like The Grapes of Wrath almost is and it's definitely not going to make you a set as White Knights. And it's not better than The Hobbit, but I still think it might be my favorite. Nah, maybe The Hobbit. Actually, I think The Hobbit has edged it out at this point, but it used to be very much my favorite classic. It is about Victor Frankenstein. As a young boy, he decides to study science. But when he does eventually go to school, all of the scientists there laugh at what he has studied. They say it is unrealistic, untrue science fiction, which this is the first science fiction book. So that's kind of fun actually that in the book the characters are like that's fiction in science form and it's the first science fiction book. Wow, Mary Shel is so [ __ ] cool. She really is.

[00:28:06]You should look into it. But despite them all, he creates the creature through his crazy form of science. He makes something living, sentient even, but he fears it. And the story deals with the ideas of being born into a world without any caretaking, but also the ideas of playing God and how wrong it can be and what it can do to a man.

[00:28:30]There is no hero in this book. There is no true right and there is no true wrong. And that's what I find so interesting about it. Every character is morally gray. Every single one is morally gray except for the poor children. But I do think that this book genuinely made me so much better at reading after I finished it. It was like my first classic I had ever read. Like my first Penguin Classic, hard to read before the 1900s, you know, like it it's it was a big deal for me and it's very hard to read and it will absolutely make you a better reader. It'll be hard to understand. It'll be something you have to piece together as you read it. It's very fun. I would like to mention though, do not read this edition. It is out of order and it will confuse you.

[00:29:06]Find a different one. Not this one.

[00:29:08]Okay? Just saying. Just saying. There are parts that are supposed to be at the beginning of this book that aren't and later they are and it's very confusing.

[00:29:14]Anyways, second to last, we have Weathering Heights by Emily Bronty. God damn. Imagine imagine in the mid 1800s where nobody's talking about this stuff.

[00:29:23]You're like, I'm going to write a book about social politics, generational abuse, and racism all in a time when people thought all of that was just normal and okay. Revolutionary is what I would say to that. And that is what Emily Bronty is. Weathering Heights is such an important book. Oh my god, that movie sucked so bad. I I read it simply to compare it to that movie with Jacob Lord, if you even want to call it a movie. And holy crap, this book is literally billions of times better than that movie. And I don't think I'm exaggerating by saying that. Now, the movie is beautiful. That's it. That's the only good thing I will ever say about that movie. And anybody else who says anything else is wrong because this book comments on racism in the 1800s and that movie just got rid of it. It's un it's unbelievable. Anyways, go watch that video if you want to hear me yap about that. Anyways, Wthering Heights is about Heathcliffe as he is adopted by the Ernshaw family and it details how he grows up in this family as a non-white boy. He becomes very attached to the daughter of the family. So much so that they are almost entwined with each other. He becomes very distant from the eldest brother of the family, which comes back to hurt him when the father dies. Seeing as the father took great care of Heathcliffe and neglected his eldest son a little too much, making it when the eldest son was the caretaker of the house, the Weathering Heights, that he then took out his anger on Heathcliffe and abused him for his ethnicity and also for taking attention away from him. Now, the story follows as Heathcliffe devolves into a monster, the monster that everybody sees him as. And he is also very morally gray. He is not a hero. He's not the hero of this story.

[00:30:57]Is he justified? That's a grander conversation. But what I do think is that this story shows that as a person who is racist or abusive, often times those actions could come back to literally kill you. And I think that is so cool and interesting, especially from a book in the 1800s. The best part of this book, I think, is almost the intro where we follow this rich annoying douchebag as he enters Weathering Heights and is introduced to Heathcliffe and how scary he is, how disheveled his house is, how untaken care of everybody who lives there is. Genuinely a masterpiece. It is so well done.

[00:31:32]Unbelievable book. It's so good and it's so hard to read. Wow. Like Emily Bronty is an amazing writer. I'm not saying she's a bad writer, but I will say she is super hard to understand sometimes because of how extravagant her writing style is. But god, is it worth it to get through this book? It is unbelievably cool, powerful, and sad. It's great.

[00:31:52]Read Weathering Heights, people. Come on, read it. If there's anything that movie did that is good, it got people into Weathering Heights. So, yeah.

[00:31:58]Anyways, last book. Ah, I feel like I talk about it all the time, but you know what? I've read this book, so I can talk about it as much as I want. The Countmani Cristo. The Count of Monte Cristo will absolutely make you a better reader just from the fact that you will have to read 1,200 pages, 450,000 words of an old style of writing translated into English from French. That alone will make you a better reader. Now, what is it about? It's about Edmund Dantes, who is a sailor, a mere sailor. He's happy to live his small life and marry the woman he loves. But he suffers a grand misfortune, causing his life to become something he never expected. Now, I won't say anything else cuz I don't want to spoil it, especially for the people who genuinely want to read this book, which to you I say, Godspeed. This one's pretty crazy. I will say also that there is a controversy apparently about the count of money where Alexander Duma stole a lot of this from uncredited writers, but I don't exactly understand how copyrightiting worked in France back then. Like maybe because he created Edund Dantes, he also owns everything written about that character back in the day. So, I don't know. Maybe I don't know how it works. So, I'm not too bent out of shape about it. What I will say is that more people need to talk about this book. And the reason I have it on here is not just because by sheer number it'll make you a better reader. I think that there are not enough people critically talking about this book. The ending is stupid. What do you mean you mentally tortured somebody for a month because you could and you wanted to to make them a better person? [ __ ] off.

[00:33:27]Also, what do you mean you purchased a slave when they were 8 years old, raised them, and then married them? No. Like, there's a lot wrong with this book, and I don't see anybody ever talking about it. Like, this book, the first 400 pages are perfect literature. Honestly, genuinely unbeatable, perfect literature. But then it just devolves.

[00:33:48]It falls apart. It just freaks a little too hard. And I don't want to keep up because it's freaking the wrong direction. All right. A good freaking goes a long way is what I say. But but sorry, but this went in the wrong direction. I don't I don't know. I definitely after finishing this was a absolutely better reader for it. Like just more talented in reading. So if that's your sole goal, it will get you there. Without a doubt, it will get you there. Jesus, that was a lot of books.

[00:34:14]But that being said, just pick one. Just pick one of them. One of them that you think really resonated with you. The most important thing is that you want to read the book. that that it sounds interesting to you because that will propel you through the book faster than anything else. If you think one of the shorter ones will do better for you, go for it. If you think one of the longer ones will do better for you cuz it'll nail you down. There you go. I would like to thank my members. You guys are amazing. You're the reason I get to keep buying books, reading them, and talking about them. You I can't thank you enough. Thank you so much. Also, if you want to support the library and get featured in the title scroll, become a member. It'd be great. I would appreciate it so much. And even if you only do it for one month, you'll get to be in the title scroll for forever until the end of time, okay? And that's it. If you have any recommendations for what you'd like to see me make videos about, what categories of books, what specific books, anything like that, I would love to hear. And also, what do you think is a book that you're reading right now or have read that is very good for increasing the capability of a reader for making them more literate? Because I would absolutely love to hear your opinion and I'm sure a bunch of people watching this would like more recommendations, too. A longer TBR never hurt anybody, right? And that's the end of the video. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. And go read a book. Literally any book ever. Just go read, okay? Go read.

[00:35:32]Bye-bye.