my 10 favorite books of all time

Overview

This video reflects on the creator’s “10 favorite books of all time,” emphasizing that the list changes as their tastes and life experiences evolve. For each pick, they share personal context—often praising specific writing styles—and explain what makes each book memorable, whether it’s its tone, characters, or themes.

Main highlights & standout moments

“East of Eden” (John Steinbeck)

• Presented as a “roots” book the creator returns to when they want to reconnect with reading at its best.
• Praised for beautiful language and powerful storytelling.
• Notes the common comparison to Hemingway, while insisting that Steinbeck remains an amazing storyteller.

Richard Stark / Parker series (“The Hunter” and more)

• Explores the Parker books as legendary crime fiction, highlighting the stylistic shift:
  • From Donald E. Westlake’s earlier work
  • To Stark’s harsher, drier, and more brutal style
• Parker is described as a ruthless, highly skilled sociopath—“fun to watch” because he’s so professional and terrifying.
• A vivid analogy compares Parker to “Michael Myers if he was trying to rob a bank.”

Key notes within the series:

• “The Seventh” is chosen as the best single Parker pick, capturing the series’ strengths:
  • spare-but-descriptive writing
  • Stark’s vivid, almost poetic depictions of violence
• The creator also points out a tonal twist over time across decades:
  • cash becomes harder to find later on
  • Parker never ages, creating new challenges (e.g., more surveillance)

“Old Goriot” (Honoré de Balzac)

• Called potentially one of the best novels the creator has ever read.
• Praised for Balzac’s “scientific” attention to social structure and early psychological realism.
• Especially admired:
  • detailed, time-accurate depiction of Paris
  • the class struggle and the poverty that follows aristocratic decline
• Framed as darkly tragic and surprisingly relevant today, while stressing how emotionally “sticky” its characters are.

“Five Decembers”

• A recent, award-winning WWII-era crime / historical mystery.
• Starts with a classic murder-investigation setup on Pearl Harbor.
• Expands into a sweeping, propulsive story that also includes a strong love story.
• The creator highlights how often recommendations lead to immediate positive reactions—people saying, “wow, you were right.”

“Wuthering Heights” (Emily Brontë)

• Strongly defended as intensely Gothic and disturbing, not romantic.
• Emphasizes a generational cycle of cruelty and escalation:
  • “there’s no way things could get worse… and it gets worse”
• Heathcliff is framed as one of fiction’s darkest characters.

“The Hamlet” (William Faulkner’s Snopes Trilogy)

• Chosen as the less-talked-about Faulkner masterpiece.
• Fleem Snopes is described as almost demonic, gradually taking over a town.
• The book’s power is attributed to its episodic structure, blending Faulkner’s strengths in short fiction into a larger novel.
• A key insight is framed as a “joke-reversal”:
  • the creator argues Faulkner is surprisingly funny
  • presenting twisted Gothic comedy alongside tragedy
• Snopes is also interpreted as an embodiment of capitalism’s cold takeover.

“Moby-Dick” (Herman Melville)

• Celebrated as deeply experimental, and broader than revenge madness.
• More like a sweeping snapshot of 19th-century America—mixing Shakespearean drama and dark humor.
• Recommends illustrated editions (notably Rockwell Kent).
• Highlights the famous chapter focused entirely on the whale’s whiteness.

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” (Gabriel García Márquez)

• Praised as magical realism at its best—beautiful, but potentially confusing due to repeating names.
• The creator suggests you may need a family tree chart.
• They express concern that a Netflix adaptation might not capture the story’s impossible-to-transfer feeling.
• Still calls the cumulative reading experience extraordinary.

Wallace Stevens (poetry collection)

• Treated as essential even though it’s not all narrative novels.
• Stevens is described as elusive and hard to interpret, but profound.
• The creator especially values later poems for plain language that captures overwhelming emotion and perspective.
• Mentions:
  • “The Idea of Order at Key West”
  • “Auroras of Autumn”

“Blood Meridian” (Cormac McCarthy)

• Positioned as challenging, weird, and disturbing—yet with language unlike anything else.
• The Judge is described as frightening, often horrifyingly funny.
• The final stretch (the last 100 pages) is claimed to be extraordinary.
• Includes a personal reading strategy:
  • reading in “bite-sized” daily chunks (about 15 minutes)
  • which made the dense book feel achievable
  • and changed how the creator approaches other difficult material

Jokes / tone

• The video’s humor largely comes from vivid analogies and strong character descriptions—especially:
  • comparisons of Parker to a rampaging horror figure
  • emphasizing that Heathcliff is one of the darkest characters
• The creator also frames some books as divisive or misunderstood, such as:
  • Wuthering Heights being labeled too dark or weird
  • Faulkner being considered only grim, until The Hamlet reveals his humor

Sponsor segment

• Midway through / near the end, the video briefly shifts into an ad for Brilliant.
• The emphasis is on interactive learning for math/programming, rather than passive video watching.

Final wrap-up

The creator reiterates that their tastes have changed over time, and that reading is intertwined with learning and growth. The video closes with thanks to patrons/supporters and viewers.

Personalities mentioned (or appearing)

• The narrator / creator (unnamed)
• William Faulkner
• Honoré de Balzac
• John Steinbeck
• Ernest Hemingway (as a comparison)
• Richard Stark / Donald E. Westlake (writing pseudonym / identity context)
• Cormac McCarthy
• Wallace Stevens
• Herman Melville
• Emily Brontë
• Gabriel García Márquez
• Referenced via comparisons/sponsor context (not appearing as real people): Orson Scott?, Michael Myers, King Lear, T. S. Eliot, MIT–Caltech–Google