hi I'm Kailey and I am here to tell you
the do's and don'ts of reading classics. so I have read a lot of classics over many
many years and I have my favorite authors and my favorite books. and I've tackled some
pretty large classics and some small ones. I'm kind of picky about what I call a classic. to
me anything that was written before World War one is a classic. anything was written after
World War one is a modern classic. there's a definite shift in the way that books were written
righ
t around World War one. so 1914 1915 right in there is kind of the cutoff to my mind anyway. so
while the tips and advice I'm about to give you certainly apply to modern classics as I wrote my
list of do's and don'ts I was thinking of classic classics from before World War one. so I'm sure
that many people have different ideas of what a classic means to them. I'm just telling you what
a classic means to me. so my very first piece of advice is don't bite off more than you can
chew. if you're
not used to reading classics do not start with war and peace. do not start with
Moby Dick. those are massive books and they're very dense. start with something small and short.
and something that's you know a little easier to read. just because it isn't war and peace doesn't
mean that it doesn't have value, and doesn't mean that you shouldn't be proud of yourself for having
read that classic. number two, do find an author that you like and then read all of their books.
so if you read one D
ickens book and you find, hey I really like Dickens, go and find some more
of his books and read more of his stuff. or if you read Sir Walter Scott and you decide, man I
just love the Walter Scott. I gonna read all his stuff. please do that. because you found you know
you found your bliss and so just follow it. just read it all. number three, don't get bogged down
in the language. a lot of the time with classics, the language even the sentence structure can be
kind of complex. don't let tha
t intimidate you. a lot of the time they're trying to get across
a pretty simple idea, but they're just using really big flowery language. so you don't have to
understand every single word. as long as you get the general gist of what's going on, then you're
fine. you know the story. you understand what's happening. just because there's a few words
that you know they're not in your vocabulary, that's okay . you don't have to know every word.
number four is do get a dictionary app. I love lea
rning new words and expanding my vocabulary. so
if you're sitting there reading a classic ,and you come across the word you don't understand, that
is awesome. just whip out that app on your cell phone, and look up the word. on my cell phone
I have a Webster's dictionary. and it doesn't take up very much memory. and I love that thing.
it can be really helpful to have a dictionary app right at your fingertips. you come across
words you don't know. and boom! you just learned something new .num
ber five is don't read too fast.
a lot of the time there's very dense writing in classics. and the story can be very complex. the
story structure is all over the place. and you have to take your time. don't expect that you're
going to read a classic at the same rate that you normally read. it's probably going to take a
little bit longer, because classics tend to be longer books. and then because the writing tends
to be more dense. the plots tend to be a little more complex. there's a lot mo
re going on in the
plots than maybe we're used to in modern writing. so don't go into it thinking, oh I'm just going
to read this in three days. you know even I don't do that. don't be afraid to just take your time.
take a month and read it . take you know a while longer than you usually would read it. and don't
get frustrated when it takes longer. classics just take longer. number six is do take a break. if you
start getting bogged down and you're starting to get frustrated, and the classi
c just feels like
it's way too long. take a little break. go read something else that's fluffy and fun for a few
days. and then come back to the classic. and that little break will refresh you. you'll be ready to
dive back in. number seven is don't give up! yes, take a break. but don't completely give up.
make sure you actually come back and finish reading the classic. trust me there are so
many classics: they start out really slow, and then finally in the middle things will start
to pick
up, and the ending is so worth it. please please don't give up on classics. it is worth
it in the end, I promise. and number eight is do explore different types of classics. some
people think all classics are made alike. and I'm here to tell you, they're not. you can
explore different genres, different eras. I mean classics from different centuries and different
decades will be completely different from each other. different authors will have completely
different writing styles. not all cla
ssics are made alike. so the best thing that you can do is
explore different types of genres, and authors, and eras until you find your thing that you
really love. and then you are well on your way to enjoying reading classics. please leave a
comment down below and let me know, what are your favorite classics? and what was it that first got
you loving reading classics? The link to a little quiz where you can send me some feedback about
my channel has been taken down. It is no longer availab
le. The charity for the missionary kids
has been closed down. please subscribe. thanks for watching. and remember the right book in the right
hands at the right time can change the world.
Comments