50 Short Classics you should try
Vložit
- čas přidán 23. 07. 2024
- You can join the book club here: links.fable.co/ruby-granger 😊
Follow Me Elsewhere:
instagram: @_rubygranger
tiktok: @rubygranger8
goodreads: Ruby Granger
My Stationery Company: bit.ly/3wgsR85
Frequently Asked Questions:
😇 How old are you? 22
📝 What are you studying? I just finished studying English Literature at the University of Exeter. But we are students for life, and I hope that I will continue learning even though I am out of structured education.
📚What are your favourite books? • 200 book recommendatio...
📝 Have you written a book? My life goal is to be a published author and make a living from writing and I am using this year to gain experience, build up a portfolio and work on a book with my agent. I have just finished the final draft of that book, as you can see in this video. I did self-publish a book about bullying when I was seventeen which is available on Amazon (amzn.to/3mdJKLm), but I'm slightly embarrassed by it now!
🎃 Do you have merch? I don't have merch in the traditional sense (I can't imagine selling something with my face or name on haha!), but I do have a stationery company where I sell planners for students. These are all designed with students in mind and follow models which I've used when planning my studying. Our products are printed in pastel colours on recycled paper: bit.ly/3wgsR85
Timestamps (kindly contributed by spalanai)
0:00 Intro
0:44 I'm starting a book club! (ad)
5:03 A Christmas Carol
5:54 The Greengage Summer
6:15 Animal Farm
6:48 Breakfast at Tiffany’s
7:16 De Profundis
7:44 The Stranger
8:36 Bartleby, the Scrivener
9:15 A Room of One’s Own
9:55 The Great Gatsby
10:23 The Diamond as Big as the Ritz
11:13 Songs of Innocence and Experience
11:23 Macbeth
12:17 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
12:43 Fahrenheit 451
13:05 The Hound of Baskervilles
13:41 The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
14:16 Ariel
14:53 Picnic at Hanging Rock
15:09 The Nutcracker
15:24 The Tell-tale Heart
16:06 On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts
16:27 The Pleasure of Hating
16:50 The Metamorphosis
17:32 The Professor’s House
18:05 Death in Venice
18:49 Meditations
19:21 Meno
19:42 Hero and Leander
19:50 Frankenstein
20:27 Gulliver’s Travels
20:46 Nature
21:04 The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
21:29 Blithe Spirit
21:39 The Woman in Black
21:55 The Problems of Philosophy
22:10 Of Mice and Men
22:27 Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
23:02 Don’t Look Now and Other Stories
23:21 Song of Myself
23:38 The Secret Garden
24:01 A Little Princess
24:40 The Sandman
25:12 The Waste Land
26:21 A Night to Remember
26:40 The Painter Modern Life
26:57 The Yellow Wallpaper
27:20 Peter Pan
27:38 I Am David
28:17 Outro
If anyone wants a reference to the book titles to come back to here you go! i know i always love it when someone does this under book rec videos. (though you should really watch the video ruby talking about books is always so fun )
-
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
- The Greengage Summer
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
-Breakfast at Tiffany's
-De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
- The Stranger/ The Outsider by Albert Camus
- Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville
-A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Diamond as Big as the Ritz by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Songs of Innocence and Experience
- Macbeth
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
-Fahrenheit 451
- The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Ariel by Sylvia Plath
-. Picnic at Hanging Rock
- The Nutcracker
- The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
- On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts
- On the Pleasure of Hating
- The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
- The Professor's House
- Death in Venice
- Meditations by Descartes
- Meno by Plato
- Hero and Leander
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
- Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
-The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas (and other short stories) by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Blithe Spirit
-The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
- The Problem of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- Oranges are Not the Only Fruit
-Don't Look Now (and other short stories) by Daphne Du Maurier
- Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
-The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffmann
-The Waste Land by T.S. Elliot
- A Night to Remember
- The Painter of Modern Life by Charles Baudelaire
- The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
- I am David by Anne Holm
if i missed some please let me know and ill add them on !
Thank you so much for taking the time to do this!
Thank you!
Oh thank you so much
14:47 😢 14:48 😢 14:55 😢😢😢 14:57 😮😮😮😮
Who else would've been all for a 50 minute book video? Ruby, if you're reading this, when it comes to books, long videos are pure tea with some dark chocolate eaten with it.
5:03 A Christmas Carol
5:54 The Greengage Summer
6:15 Animal Farm
6:48 Breakfast at Tiffany’s
7:16 De Profundis
7:44 The Stranger
8:36 Bartleby, the Scrivener
9:15 A Room of One’s Own
9:55 The Great Gatsby
10:23 The Diamond as Big as the Ritz
11:13 Songs of Innocence and Experience
11:23 Macbeth
12:17 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
12:43 Fahrenheit 451
13:05 The Hound of Baskervilles
13:41 The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
14:16 Ariel
14:53 Picnic at Hanging Rock
15:09 The Nutcracker
15:24 The Tell-tale Heart
16:06 On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts
16:27 The Pleasure of Hating
16:50 The Metamorphosis
17:32 The Professor’s House
18:05 Death in Venice
18:49 Meditations
19:21 Meno
19:42 Hero and Leander
19:50 Frankenstein
20:27 Gulliver’s Travels
20:46 Nature
21:04 The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
21:29 Blithe Spirit
21:39 The Woman in Black
21:55 The Problems of Philosophy
22:10 Of Mice and Men
22:27 Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
23:02 Don’t Look Now and Other Stories
23:21 Song of Myself
23:38 The Secret Garden
24:01 A Little Princess
24:40 The Sandman
25:12 The Waste Land
26:21 A Night to Remember
26:40 The Painter Modern Life
26:57 The Yellow Wallpaper
27:20 Peter Pan
27:38 I Am David
Do correct me where I am wrong or if I have missed any! Also, thank you Ruby
Thank you so so much for this!!
@@RubyGranger8 a pleasure!
Thank you✨️
I have read 27 books from the list.
Ruby be taking a spin into booktube territory and I love it. She's done a lot of book videos in the past but it seems to be a regular thing now and I am all freaking for it.
ah I'm so pleased you do! I just love talking about books so much!
@@RubyGranger8 Thank you so much for the hearts and the reply! You clearly do love talking about books, it shows. I truly believe books are one of the most rewarding and happiest ways to spend one's time.
@@RubyGranger8 I love your book videos Ruby. I have never taken a book recommendation from you that was disappointing
I like that you put in a lot of philosophy works. Great philosophy is usually great literature!
I completely agree!
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is *not* Jeanette Winterson's memoirs. It is a novel. It is metafiction novel that is autobiographical, yes, but still a novel. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal is her memoir. They do tie together though.
I’m reading both now -you’re correct of course and I highly recommend them 🎉
My absolute favorite thing about your book vids is how your eyes literally light up with excitement when sharing your thoughts on these wonderful stories. A fantastic list of recommendations, I took copious notes! 🙂
Enchanted April is one of my top 10 films of all time. It always felt like a mini vacation, soul-soothing, and at the end felt like I was there. I read the book after seeing the movie which made the imagery so much more vibrant for me. Looking forward to reading it again!
Voltaire’s Candide is another great classic, and it’s only just over 100 pages. Super underrated imo, and it’s surprisingly funny.
We wish you well, Ruby. We appreciate your effort and hard work through the years.
I loved this video, Ruby. You are so articulate and have reawakened my interest in some of these books, as well as introducing me to new ones.
YES Steinbeck. Glad he made the list. He has quite a bit of short books. The Pearl and The Red Pony are also great books by him.
This made me realize I had read a lot more of the (shorter) classics than I thought! I, unfortunately, should reread a few as I had a poor English professor who dampened my love of reading for a time when I read most of them
Hi Ruby I found your channel recently and I like your content very much. I like the classical Anglo-American literature much and you speak about it in a very motivational way. Also your house and family are nice to watch. Your love for books and enthusiasm about old England are quite captivating. Keep the good work 👏
i wish you well too ruby. i am so happy for you. your a hard worker ❤
Your videos are really therapeutic 🧡
thank you for putting so much effort and love into making these videos ❤
Loved this video so so much! I always adore hearing you talking about books, Ruby! One of the many books that particularly interested me was Camus' The Stranger, and then I realised that I will be studying it for my French A-Level next year, which will be so exciting to compare between French and English! ❤
Yessss finally Ruby's book club I've been waiting for✨️
Once again, you made my day!!! Heading to Fable now! Then I'll come back and make a list of the classics that I haven't read on your list!!! Thank you, Ruby!
One of my favorite videos of yours so far! Thank you for the recommendations.
I've read Sherlock Holmes & The hound of Baskervilles. Such a good book, can confirm it's worth the read
Absolutely. It´s by far the best Sherlock Holmes novel there is, in my opinion. There are some short stories i find even better, " The Yellow Face" for example or "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" but the Hound of the Baskervilles is definitely one of the best pieces of writing by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Loved this video! So many wonderful books 🤍
I'm envious of your hardcover books!
Such a useful video! Thank you, Ruby
Great video idea! Thanks, Ruby! 😊
This kind of bookish video is what I crave for. So many new book recommendations. Thank you
That was a great video idea! I will get the books from the library and read some of your recommendations😊
Thanks for this. Took lots of notes and will be picking up several of these books.
so amazing thank u ruby
Watching your videos takes my anxiety away❤. Love you.
Love love love all your videos. 💜
I love listening to you AND your recommendations. I soo wish I could go back in time and study literature, I hated reading as a child but now at 58 cannot be without a book and like you very much like Classics. Wish my English was as good as yours, you would make such a good teacher 📚
F451 was the book that made me start reading adult literature when i was 13, after that i just needed more! i just picked up anne carson’s translation of the bacchae yesterday which is only about 90 pages as well
Amazing reading recommendation! Thanks a lot
Lol, this is my favourite list of books to read Ruby! I love shorter, novella type books. Great list :)
So excited to read some of these over the summer! Thank you for all the recommendations, Ruby! :)))
Let me know what you think if you try any of these :)
@@RubyGranger8 Thank you so much for the reply! I absolutely will :)))
Thank you Ruby ❤
Hi, Ruby! I just subscribed to your channel. I recently started a BookTube channel and also happen to be reading The Enchanted April right this moment. Thank you for the great recommendations. I have several added to my TBR! : )
Thank you Ruby! :)
I wasn't expecting to find Fahrenheit 451 on this list but I'm glad you included it! 🥹🥹 Bradbury is one of my fav authors 💙
I've added a few other titles to my tbr :)
☕Very interesting list Ruby. Thank you🍵
Thanks for the list. I've just finshed bartelby and it's great and just in time for me so i wanted to thank you 🌻
Great video I was actually watching one of your video's 😘❤
Hi Ruby I could never read as much as you do, but I love hearing you talk about the books you have read. I love to read literature occasionally but I don't have a big capacity for reading. Your critiques of the books you've read are like my window into the wider world of literature. I now go to sleep and wake up listening to the audio of your videos and vlogs, as well as watching them during the day when I'm not busy. And it's been amazing watching you start at Oxford this year when I know you have wanted to go there for so long. -Paul
This is a great video to watch when you are enjoying the spring sunshine in your kitchen while having your morning coffee 🙂 I never hide the fact I LOVE rubys book review/recommendation videos. I even have a playlist to listen to while I do my chores 🙂 also, I went in a charity shop not long ago- and was looking through the books-and found huck Finn, got all excited and said to myself, what would Ruby do, smiled to myself, and I bought it 🙂 so now, the tradition is when you see a book, say WWRD, and then buy it 🤣
Also, Mary Shelly write Frankenstein at 17? Geez, I didn’t know that! That’s madness!! How can a 17 year old be that good? Crazy!!!! I still can’t believe I lived a 5 min walk from her resting place when I was 20.
Also, have you seen the woman in black original version of the movie from 1989? It’s soooooo much better than the remake. When Alice’s the woman in black walks through the graveyard - it’s so scary!
What a lovely collection of classics. This definetly lenghened my books to read list. I already have read a bunch of these books and can only recommend it. For this year I set myself the goal to read many classics and it is going very well so far. As a german I have to add Faust by Goethe (we had to read it in school and even though I wasn t super enthusiastic in the beginning I ended up loving it, though I liked Iphigenie on Tauris better), Dürrenmatts plays, the visit and my favorite the Physicists, which are both rather short and very exiting, I also am a big fan of Hermann Hesse. There a books for each season, I am reading the spring one right now. The edition I own even has paintings by Hesse in it. If you are interested in Dracula, but it seems intemitating, try Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. From the same author as the Sandman I loved Mademoiselle de Scuderi. It is a criminal story set in the 16th century Paris and very investing. Speaking of criminal stories we cannot forget the queen of crime Agatha Christie. While she has plenty phenomenal stories, I started my Christie reading journey with Murder in the Vicaragy. I love about it, that while Ms. Marple is an important character it is told from the pov of the priest. A book I read for a class in just one night was the novella Linewalker Thiel. It is almost set up like a fairytale, but super tragic and dark. I just love the allover vibe of it. That is all I can think of right now. I am not sure, if all of them are under 200 pages, but I read all of them in just some days, or even one evening, so I believe they should be about that long. Have fun reading.
Love this ❤❤
I am reading Jane Eyre at the moment and i have a feeling that it's going to be a new favorite😍
Thanks for the video! I may have to read The Sandman. It sounds as though it has some great sleep remedies in it. All the best Ruby!
Love your content
Hi Ruby. Great reading recommendations. I love your video. I've started writing letters recently. Greetings from Poland.
Hello Ruby, thanks for introducing me to Fable, I don’t read as much as I’d like and I just started using the app but getting other people’s opinions on each chapter will probably make my attention span a little less short 😅
I would also recommend Sam Selvon's 'The Lonely Londoners'. It's a modern classic and comes in at 160 pages. It follows Jamaican immigrants who arrive in London to help rebuild the city after WW2 and describes their experiences of racism as well as more comical cultural adaptations. I recommend this book to everyone. The Jamaican patois it is written in really draws you into Moses' narrative, yet it isn't hard to read. TLL is the first book in the 'London' trilogy.
Wow thanks a lot!
Great list! Some old favorites and some I've been wanting to read but didn't realize how short they were. Excited to find someone else who knows The Yellow Wallpaper - I think I've met one other person who remembers it! Which is sad with how often I manage to reference it.
So glad you mentioned Fahrenheit 451, Ruby! Read it recently and it left me speechless. A world where books are forbidden and burnt? Sounds like a horror story for me. Anyway, the book was brilliant - made me think a lot about people and the world we have today.
Ah, great! Your book videos are helpful. If you enjoy making them, I'd be happy if you made more. ^-^
And my tbr list expands and expands 🤓
It's a danger, honestly!
@@RubyGranger8 tbrs are always going to be large. lol
Hi Ruby!! I haven't watched you in a while, and even though we don't know each other, immediately when I clicked on this video, I missed you!! I love your content, and it makes me so happy when you post.
I’ll be honest, I hadn’t heard of some of these but ordered them once I heard you talking about them (especially the sandman!! Ohhh creepy!) hope you have a wonderful week!
Hi Ruby! I've been watching your videos for some time now and what you said about loving reading and the changing of seasons made me think of the perfect book recommendation for you. Nagori by Ryoko Sekiguchi. She's a Japanese author but wrote the original book in French. I think you can find it in English as well. It's a short book about the changing of seasons and certain Japanese words they use to describe it. I encourage you to read it 🩷🩷
If anyone here is interested in classic literature where the topic is vampires, I heavily recommend reading Carmilla!
It’s quite short, but so fun to read, and it’s widely known as being the story that inspired Dracula.
Hi Ruby. Any chance you could do a video like this for some of your favourite nonfiction books? Something for us nonfiction readers. Many thanks. 👍
Very nice video, Ruby! ... Btw. Today, I finally understood what the word "daunting" exactly means. I was so confused about this word for a long time, but now I know what it means exactly. Cool. Thanks!
Hope your book club goes well for you Ruby. 📚🤓
That's such a lovely video!!! Thank you so much!!😊❤ Random Question: Do you know what you want to do after your masters? And would you do a second bachelors if you have the opportunity to?
Oooooo you do like quite dark books 👍
I'm literally reading the enchanted April right now😊
love this list. will definitely check these out 😊
You said “seasonal book club” and I dropped EVERYTHING
I love the woman in black, if you ever get the chance to see the play its a must. Very cleverly done with just 2 actors and the woman in black.
I think I'd find it too scary to be honest haha! I've heard it's terrifying!
@@RubyGranger8 that's what I had read too, but I was really curious how they could achieve this effect on stage. So I went to an afternoon performance. Makes it less scary to walk back alone afterwards 😅 There are a few jump scares, but it's not that it will traumatize you for years. It's such a great acting and stage design performance. It feels like you've become an Edgar Allan Poe character. 😀
Nature and the written word are my two main passions too. You've got to read Emily Dickinsons Gardening Life: The Plants and Places that Inspired the Iconic Poet, by Marta McDowell.
I love The Secret Garden and seen the film of Peter Pan, but never read it. Great suggestions.
I wanted to ask you (if I may) about the edition of The Secret Garden by Walker Books, the one illustrated by Inga Moore, have you read it? And if so what are your impressions about it?
I have that edition of Alice in Wonderland. I enjoy that one often- especially on lazy rainy days.
Hope you have a productive week
Thanks boss🏹🧚♀️💄🌺⚘🌠💘
I have a lot of catching-up to do; I've only read two of the books on this list: The Great Gatsby and Gulliver's Travels.
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is not a classic though, even if JW is very highly regarded in the literary world. I think the "sequel" (Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal) is even better.
so nice
Very good list. Personally, I'd also add:
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
- Heidi by Johanna Spyri
- The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
- Winnie-The-Pooh by A. A. Milne
- The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen (no, not a novel, but long enough for me to recommend it, and a very beautiful story)
Also, for anybody that wants to get technical, I'll point out that, depending on text/font size, formatting, illustrations placement, etc, some editions of these books might actually be more than 200 pages.
Also, for any foreign language works, you really have to be careful which translation you get because some translations can absolutely break the book you're reading. I'm not aware of every foreign language book in this video, but for The Nutcracker I personally recommend either the Alex Ewing translation (public domain) or the Ralph Manheim translation (copyrighted). Both are excellent. I recommend avoiding the Mrs. St. Simon translation (unfortunately this is the one on Librivox and Wikisource) and the Joachim Neugroschel translation. Both are stunted and don't read smoothly. Also make sure that you're getting the original Hoffmann version and not the Dumas adaptation. Out of my additional book recommendations I recommend the Marian Edwardes translation of Heidi and the Mrs. Henry H. B. Paul translation of The Wild Swans (both are in the public domain).
Also note that some of these books have illustrations that go with them officially. Especially Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Make sure whatever copy you buy has the original John Tennial illustrations, as they enhance the story. Same with Winnie-the-Pooh and the E. H. Shepard illustrations. Most of the other books don't have official illustrations, but I personally recommend reading Heidi with Jessie Willcox Smith's illustrations and The Wind in the Willows with E. H. Shepard's illustrations. Neither of those are official illustrations for those stories, but you'll likely compare all other illustrators' art for those stories to those particular ones. They're the standard IMO.
Youre so pretty ✨️
"Hello it's Ruby"??? Yes we know! 😂😂
Nice 👍👍
I can't believe you left out:
- The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
6:22
Animal Farm. I cannot get over how the ending of that book messed me up lol. Like, it was really chilling to me.
7:16
I read De Profundus last spring in a Victorian life writing course. It was there that I found out how the charges against Wilde were dropped like 5 or 6 years ago.
Edit: I meant to say he was pardoned.
Its the worst book
These books are perfect for me since I’m so slow at reading classics. This has given me so much motivation to read more!!
I really recommend animal farm is short but incredible. Actually just recommended it to a 12-year-old like a week ago and they loved it. I hear that not to indicate it’s a book meant for children one bit but rather to share it’s easy to get through give it a read if you do let me know how you like it. Also I am legally black
Malory towers is about education at boarding school after wartime in Cornwall which the TV series was filmed at beautiful spot and manison
You are my favorite ❤😊
I'd love to join the booclub ❤this sounds great x
I've got about two weeks left in the semester. I'm gonna revisit this once the summer starts. I haven't been able to read recreationally since last semester and I'm heartbroken 😿
I didnt realize all these movies were turned into books.
I would like to recommend plays by the Czech author Karel Čapek. For example, R.U.R. - Rossum's universal Robots, from which the word robot comes. Then also The Mother from 1938 and Power and Glory from 1937. He was a philosopher and journalist and his plays and other works are really great. You might like them.
Also thank you for all the recommended books.
I really expected vanity fair on this list , Its a short classic and the story is really good ....
Can I recommend "The Little Prince" by Antoine Saint-Exupéry? It was written in 1943 and is one of the most translated works of literature (after the Bible). I'm sure most people have heard about it or have read it already, but it has philosophy on the way children vs. adults think and it's perfect for all ages.
Oh it’s beautiful!!! I can’t believe I didn’t include it on this list! Thank you for mentioning it 😊🤍
I loved this list but if I may I'd like to recommend Leone Leonie, by George Sand it's only 164 pages but its so worth it. I've read it twice but still consider it to be in my top ten. Also The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.
I want to read more shorter books because ive been reading this chunky 500 600 page fantasies which take 3 weeks for me to listen. Thanks for the recommendations
Fabulous, could you recommend any contemporary books(Brutish English)?
Hey Ruby could you please make a video on how to write a thesis statement for argumentative essay please a detailed video
I would add “Letters to a young poet” by Rilke ❤
i loved matilda the musical movie i am half way through the film