I’ll add a woman to the list - Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. This is a great one for beginners because it straddles the line of genre fiction and literary fiction. It is suspenseful and gothic but the writing is beautiful and atmospheric. The construction of the book re plot is expertly done. PLUS afterwards you can watch Hitchcock’s version of it, which is also great!

I love the point about adding your voice to the conversation! We need even more people open and willing to talk about literature.

Before I started I worried it needed to be some big thesis level comments on it, but I’m quickly realizing it just needs to be my thoughts, however they may come.

My first Toni Morrison was "Sula" - I think that is a good place to start with Morrison.

I would not recommend anything postmodern to someone looking to get into literature. The goal, I imagine, is to get them to start reading it and keep reading it. Too much difficulty too soon may deter a new reader from reading any more literature, which would sadden me. I think Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a great starting place because its language is very accessible and its plot fairly easy to follow, all while not sacrificing thematic depth. An impressive feat! It has an expansive interpretive capacity, which will allow readers to safely formulate their own reading while not having to worry too much about misinterpreting the novel.

I think you should ask the question, what kind of story interests you? Into sports: try The Natural; horror: The Haunting of Hill House, westerns: True Gritt; war: The Things They Carried; true crime: In Cold Blood; etc. Getting someone hooked in might be more about starting them with a topic they are interested in.

My list I think would be, James Baldwin's Go To Tell It On the Mountain. It's non-linear, beautifully written, and pretty easy to follow, especially if someone tells you that the story is taking place in a single day, and thus the transitions back to John in church and all that's happening there are the main story, and everything in part two  that's not that, are the family history (father and mother and aunt) to how they became the people they became. It's brilliant and beautiful and even though non-linear, easy to read. And one that used to be read in high school.  

The next book I would recommend to get people into literature, is John Irving, oft forgotten, not as hugely appreciated as he once was, John Irving's A World According to Garp is a marvelously entertaining novel that, though long, can be easily consumed. The story is goofy, interesting, and in depth. It's a modern day type of Dickensian literature with a real strange cast of characters. But perfect to introduce people to the world of literature.

My third book I would recommend for literature is Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Hidden within it's simple and easily read depth is a transformative experience on life, written by a Nobel Prize Winning author.  The interiority of the journey, the travel to achieve enlightenment, the intriguing cast of characters Siddhartha meets makes for a book that even those who haven't read in years, can easily and quickly get through it.  

The fourth is Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. This will get people into the Maximalist writing, while being very easy to consume, with a fun story. It's also an excellent introduction to magical realism.  The story breathes off the pages with the writing and the writing itself adds an entire layer to the story. Whereas the others have beautiful writing, this metafictional tale of a man writing the story of his family and life, while the love of his life reads it and learns about his life, let's people learn how the writing itself can be part of the experience and that literature (this one with children born with magical abilities, some helpful, some horrible) can be more than the ordinary day to day lives of people, and can be truly fantastical.

My final recommendation for getting into serious literature, and what sent me on that path, was Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace. His first novel. It's not a masterpiece. But for those interested in an easy to consume post modern experience, and to start analyzing the text, discovering subtext, this book was written as a Philosophy Dissertation around largely Wittgenstein, and so layered in the book is this focus on language and words (which he carries over to Infinite Jest) but in a deeper philosophical sense that a reader can research (but is not necessary to enjoy the book). So it gives you the ability to be entertained and enjoy the ride without understanding the philosophical underpinnings, or to explore said underpinnings. It wouldn't be a first book recommendation for getting back into reading (Siddhartha would be), but it's a great book for people to start learning and feeling the success of looking up allusions and metaphors and seeing the bigger picture of what the artist is trying to say.

I love your podcast so much! Really enjoy watching each one that comes out. My husband thinks it's funny I watch YouTube videos about reading. I told him it's my own personal book club. He thinks it's also funny because I talk to ya'll when I'm watching. I can't help myself 😜 always great content❤️.

18:52 I bought Hard Rain Falling after watching your 2024 end-of-the-year video. I absolutely loved it, and it has been my go to birthday present for friends.

Three words: Classic Adventure Novels.
Also, 10:22: The Best Literature for Beginners.

Great video. I particularly liked your thoughts on the 100 list being a good place to start and how everyone has a seat at the table. The 100 list has been my approach as a new reader… and then taking those books that move me most, to light the trail to the next intersection

This is a great episode. I have two books I think would be great gateways into literature.
1) A Chistmas Carol- Charles Dickens. Despite being a timeless holiday classic and promoting themes of charity and family, I think it is the perfect book to aquanted new readers with the writing styles of the mid to late 19th century due to the fact that people are so familiar with the basic story already from movie adaptations. The novel can set the stage for a further dive into dickens or help readers explore other 19th century writers like Mark Twain.

2) The Big Sleep- Raymond Chandler. I think Chandler's book blurrs the line between low literature and high literature as it is is able to combine a pulp plot marked with blackmail, murder and femme fatels with a poetic writing style and Chandler's examination of corruption, wealth, masculinity, and fatalism/cynancims. Also the novel was instrumental developing the hard boiled detective and noir movies which is, to a degree, an unique  American style.

You should read Ulysses. It's based on the Odyssey and has structural elements per episode, like literary genre,  colour etc. The guy who translated L'étranger into English wrote an essay explaining how Ulysses is structured. Stuart Gilbert. Maybe skip the big chapter in the middle first time round.

Just started reading-reading Moby Dick last week, what a coincidence.

A good place to start is Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca and Giovanni's room By James Baldwin. As for a Crime and Punishment the Pevar and Volohkensy (vintage press)  translation is super accessible.

Living in the South I often find myself recommending "Wise Blood" by Flannery O'Connor as a great place to start. Short, super readable, hilarious, and written by one of the all-time greats of American Lit. Once you've read "Wise Blood" it's not a long walk to Faulkner, Morrison, Hurston, even Krasznahorkai. So good on its own terms, but also a great gateway book to so many others.

If One Hundred Years of Solitude is considered the hardest books (so far, at the point I'm writing this comment) then I'm doing better than I thought! Started hitting the classics/more serious literature at the beginning of this year for... more or less, the first time, and One Hundred Years of Solitude was one of the first books I got to, and I read it twice back to back, and it's become one of, if not my absolute favorite book of all time.

Great episode.  Been a long time reader and read many of these, but those I haven't are on my radar now.  Thanks.

I have surprise book for you both, that I think you'll like, that most people overlook, because she is very well known as a cartoonist - but this book is a literary excursion for her.  She's written a couple book, but this one is especially good.  Her name is Lynda Barry, the book is called 'Cruddy' and its great.  The voice she captures, the story, all of it is a testament to the overlooked, to the vulnerable and to the people who fall through the cracks.  But the voice of it - oh the voice of it.  I recommend this book to you.  I think it might surprise you.

I love Moby-Dick, but I'm not sure I'd put it in a beginners list.  I'll throw this out, if someone wants to read a book you feel like name-dropping at a cocktail party but isn't particularly challenging:  Don Quixote.  Now, the key is the translation.  I heard that the John Rutherford (Penguin) translation did the best in providing the humor.  I read that one and laughed out loud throughout.  It also has small chapters so you can take small bites.   I'm very confident in saying that the right translation matters more for this book than others.  19th century translations are impossible.  Yes, it's long, but it comes in 2 "books" and feel free to have a long pause between the two.  The two "books" were written 10 years apart.  I've heard the Edith Grossman translation is fine too, fwiw, but I read Rutherford and loved it.

I would recommend one of Steinbeck's shorter books.