tier-ranking classic books (so you know which ones to read) -- part 2 📚

the source material is great and normally this is a space on the internet reserved for Charles Dickens slander this did the job I think it's really good it's a Christmas staple.

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are the kind of doll is my absolute hero growing up and it's going up there no [ __ ] Sherlock.

I genuinely think this book is just unreadable because of how hideous and awful the language is like normally I think there's you know we have to read Classics and think about them in the context of when they were written but this just aged like milk in the Sahara Desert it's an okay story but like to read today I just simply wouldn't bother sorry.

this is Unforgettable I always think about the quote I didn't know I was black until I came to America it's about being ostracized and treating as an other in American society specifically as a black woman hair is a huge theme in this book and you know what it made my hair stand on end it's going to the top.

if you like peaky blinders you will love this book it's like the original peaky blinders but it's these kids who are gangsters in Brighton if it has a million fans I'm one it has 100 fans I'm one it has zero fans and I'm dead because this book is great I'll always be a fan of it.

this is a master class in writing a plot twist you just have to read this I'm sorry I you just have to.

it's this stunning story with completely mesmerizing characters we follow this family in a kind of reenactment of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel and it's very readable and captivating but it is a commitment because it's so long.

Giovanni's room is magical it's just gorgeous it's so good and so it's bopping its way to the top.

goodbye to Berlin by Christopher and the Berlin stories brought us the character Sally Bowles they brought us the inspiration for the musical Cabaret and they're good fun it's about scandalous behavior and sexual Liberation in Berlin and there's a great cast of like weird and wacky characters.

obviously six out of 5 Stars it's about magic but the experience of reading it is exactly that as well the whole Wizarding World is genius and you know it made so many of us readers for life and for that I think it's utterly iconic.

Howard's end it's almost like I planned it how satisfying is that this deserves its place as a cloth bound classic.

it's very impressive that she did that but it's not my favorite of her works and so cloth band classic it deserves everything it's got.

obviously this book is so unique and Brilliant and textured she's an icon she's a legend and she is the moment.

he would write about women who kind of sell their bodies to make money and have a ton of babies like he uses the fact that the woman has a baby is like a plot Point constantly so every time the narrative starts to slow down he's like oh she's pregnant again it's constantly telling you the exact amount of money she has in her purse I lost track of how many children she'd had and I literally I didn't care not approved by me.

Mrs Dalloway is about post-war trauma and it's set over the period of 24 hours while this woman is preparing for and then hosts a party and Virginia Woolf was just the goat right she's just so good that's where she belongs.

this gave us the quote Beauty will be convulsive or it will not be at all and for that it's at least gonna be a cloth band classic right aside from that I don't think it's really massively mind-blowing but I there are some good quotes.

I'm personally of the opinion that Charles Dickens got all the praise that Elizabeth Gaskell deserved it's way better than his books it's genuinely interesting it's about a woman who moves from Hampshire with her family to the industrial north of England there's a lot story but it's also about capitalism and the treatment of workers and it's really great.

Northanger Abbey has one of the best villains ever I love how Jane Austen could write a character that you just absolutely despise with every piece of your being John Thorpe in this book is like the original [ __ ] boy he's awful and I think it's such a talent to be able to make the reader feel so strongly so that's why my jaw is on the floor.

the book is actually really good it follows a character who was years ago persuaded not to marry someone that she loved because he wasn't a gentleman but now he's had this military experience and he's come back and he's highly celebrated she reunites with him like eight years later and it's basically a second shot at happiness for her now she has agency Jane Austen was super ahead of her time on this.

I love books that are kind of like in conversation with other books like I just recently read my dark Vanessa which is kind of in conversation with Lolita by nabakov and season of migration to the north really seems to be in conversation with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness but it's like a reversal so it's about going up the Nile towards the UK and so it's sort of about imperialism and colonialism and how people who came from colonized lands to the UK were treated as super exotic and wild and fascinating and they were kind of objectified because of that this book is really great.

personally this is my least favorite Jane Austen book but it's one flop not a flop error you know it still deserves its position as a classic it's just I'm not going to be shouting about it from the rooftops.

Siddhartha follows one man's journey to spiritual fulfillment and ultimately that's through self-discovery Hermann Hess did what needed to be done.

Silas Mana is the perfect book to read if you want to read something by George Eliot but you don't fancy Middle March the sheer Lane and size of that book is so intimidating but Silas Mana is quite sure actually it's about a man who has all his money stolen and eventually adopts a little girl and it's good it's yeah it's it's good I respect it.

Slaughterhouse Five is one of the craziest books I've ever read it's about the trauma of a man who is a prisoner of war in Dresden during World War II but he perceives all of this and his trauma makes him remember all of this as like an alien invasion an alien abduction it's totally Unforgettable and genius and I'm scraping my jaw off the floor as we speak.

sons and lovers is basically a book about mummy issues yeah it's fine.

this book has an iconic opening line a memorable Central protagonist it's completely absurd it's got all the ingredients.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer however which is you know part of Mark Twain's same sort of series I much preferred it's so much better you can argue with the ball on that one in fact argue with the fence so in the cover of this picture you can see someone painting a fence and that's because in the book Tom Sawyer has to do chores and he like has to paint the fence and all the other boys in the neighborhood start laughing at him then he's like wait why are you laughing I'm having so much fun and they're all like wait if it's really fun then I want to have a go by the end of the day he's got the whole neighborhood painting the fence for him and he's just sitting back and relaxing and now we call that the Sawyer effect it's the idea that if you are introduced to something as being fun you won't see it as work whereas if you're introduced to something as work you will never see it as being playful and fun Tom Sawyer was the original gaslighter and for that reason cloth band classic.

now I read this kind of out of curiosity I guess but I am literally a pacifist this is a case of me picking up a book that I inevitably wouldn't enjoy it's basically like ancient Chinese military strategy but a lot of the sayings and idioms that are featured in this book have actually trickled down into modern Chinese language in Mandarin so it still has a huge impact on Chinese culture and society as far as I know so I think you can kind of apply the teachings here in a modern context but I don't really have enemies aside from like Daniel Defoe and Charles Dickens but Strokes wiped them out they've been taken care of so even if I did have enemies I simply would not think about them enough for me to have to think about the Art of War so meh.

it is completely and utterly outrageous that this is a debut piece of fiction because it's just so good it's one of the books that I read like most recently on this list and it's still with me Toni Morrison was just such a Powerhouse and it's about how the extremity and severity of external racism causes internalized racism too in this young girl who basically she's a young black girl but she dreams of having blue eyes just like those of her classmates this is so great and yeah deserves a spot right there.

the color purple which is heartbreaking and wonderful and essential reading the characters are so memorable and we follow these two sisters and it's about domestic violence and the struggle and bravery of African-American women at the time.

I said the first Lord of the Rings book was just a bunch of creatures walking. I stand by it.

this is about the caste system in India and it kind of focuses on how small events or seemingly unimportant occurrences and actions can actually shape people's lives it is stunningly written and is a great alternative to the Crusty Dusty white European Canon and I think it deserves its spot at the top.

the perfect example of an unreliable narrator the character is essentially convincing you the whole time that he is not implicated in the events that occur but like he's kind of suss you know they walk among us.

it is the sequel to The handmaid's Tale which I absolutely do think is classic and I put in the top tier last time.

I actually loved how's that for a plot twist baby I enjoyed the World building in The Hobbit the little Maps the little language the little songs.

I think this deserves to be considered amongst the big dystopias like 1984 and Brave New World that kind of thing because the wall that creates is so fascinating especially in a modern context and the first two books are Elites.

which should come with a little warning on the front that it might make you SOB it should come with protective waterproof Pages because your tears May stain them otherwise it's about guilt and Redemption and atonement father-son relationships friendships wow talk about running you should be running to the bookstore to get a copy of this it's so good.

the Narnia Chronicles are just utterly captivating and spellbinding and mesmerizing so imaginative you already know it's up there but also I do think that I don't remember being absolutely obsessed with every single one of the books.

disclaimer I think this book just went completely over my head like nothing went in here it's not you it's actually me and I recognize that I think when I read this I wasn't in the right headspace to fully appreciate it I know that I need to come back to this book and reread it because it is incredibly confusing and the first time that I opened it I just I don't know it just didn't land but I can see the potential.

The Old Man and the Sea is the poor man's Moby Dick and I'm the poor man it's the Moby date for people with the attention span of a tick tock and I fit the criteria I fit the bill for that one so I think it deserves its classic status.

the prime of Miss Jean Brody is a severely underrated classic 10 out of 10 11 out of 10 12 out of 10 this is so great with so much texture it's about the Scottish reformation and Calvinism and predestination now Michigan Brody is this teacher who believes in kind of pre-determination and we watch as the kids in her class which is kind of like assigned different identities to grow up and how they think about her as adults as well as children and I think about this book regularly.

the prince by Machiavelli is really boring it's so dull I read it so that I had permission to sound like a smart ass and say that things are Machiavellian.

this will make you want to book the next flight to Paris it follows a bunch of people who ultimately realize that their goals and aspirations whether that's marriage or wealth or notoriety or spiritual enlightenment maybe won't actually bring them fulfillment and satisfaction in the end and you know that's a gross simplification of what this book is about but it is brilliant so I like it a lot.

now it's no secret that I love this book it's actually having kind of like a Renaissance right now on Tick Tock which I'm absolutely here for it's basically this book about an elitist snobby horrible group of people who have this kind of society because they are infatuated by Classics and pretty much everyone in this book is completely insufferable and there's nothing I like more than reading flawed and unlikable characters.

The Talented Mr Ripley on the other hand is so great it's about identity theft and queer performance and also a beautiful European summer The Vibes are Immaculate it's a page Turner with great pacing but it's also really well written it's a big guess for me now.

The Testaments literally shattered the handmaid's tale for me it's like badly written fan fiction it's so obviously a cash grab there was no need for a sequel to The handmaid's Tale the original book ends perfectly Ambiguously it's perfectly open-ended you can tell from the first book a sequel was not planned and it should have stayed that way because this is written by the same author I think it actually devalues the original book and that is why I'm actually getting annoyed.

I just think has so much potential and is such a disappointment because it's about a hugely important subject area which is the slave trade and slavery in general and slave narratives are so important for us to hear about and read about but this one is so poorly executed the characters are so one-dimensional they're never developed one character disappears for like half the book and it's just never really mentioned why it does it's just so bad I honestly think this is terribly written.

this is a book that I want to do the opposite of gate keep I literally want you and your family and your friends and everyone you've ever interacted with to read this book it's one of my favorite books ever it's silly it's frivolous and it's a roaring good time.

I had to read this for my degree and I absolutely hated it and all I remember really is that every other book that I read for the remainder of my literature degree if I was really hating it I'd be like well at least it's not as bad as Wyland and for that reason it shoots it from a literal Cannon get it gone get it away from me.