I really appreciate hearing from you, Jennifer! I totally empathise on not having time to read outside one's studies. And we're only "living the dream" insofar as we don't have written submissions due. 😂 I know I'm commenting long after the video has been posted, but anyway, best wishes on your studies. I'm so happy that you're happy. 💗
Really lovely to watch your catch up and I admire all your studies and language learning so much! And fantastic that you're reading In Memory of Memory. Such a fascinating book. And that is SO COOL you studied with Gospodinov! Yellow Star, Red Star sounds so interesting. Thanks for adding to my TBR! 😅📚
Eric! I've been liiiving for your International Booker coverage this year. Got a kick out of seeing your pictures with Gospodinov--for two people who have never met in person, our degrees of separation are always getting smaller and smaller )
So wonderful that you are back. You were the smartest and best of the book tubers and then disappeared. Keep posting until school overwhelms you again, please.
Hey, I finally got around to watching this! Loved hearing you catch up. Your workload makes library school look like somewhat of a joke lol I’m glad you’re enjoying it and I’m excited to catch up with you soon!! 😄
oh, wow! so good to see you again! thought of you the other day and was worried you'd been eaten alive by grad school. (it happens.) glad to hear that things are going well-if a lil crazy. looking forward to another update when you have time-maybe about your time in the C/R. and that orange cat is living his best life-we should all aspire to follow such an example.
Sounds like you're really making the most of your time studying, exhausting but in a great way! Hope you continue to enjoy it, it sounds like you are thriving
Welcome back! Your first grad school year sounded incredible, and your summer courses will be intense and rewarding. Definitely want to read Time Shelter. I'm going to check out Black Earth. Last year I read his Bloodlands. Looking forward to reading The Fawn (saving it because it's the last one I have of hers). Earlier this year I finished Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad and Life and Fate (Life and Fate was my favorite), Anne Applebaum's Gulag, Svetlana Alexievich's Secondhand Time. Last year read Sovietistan which I found fascinating.
It was a pleasure to see your face again and to hear about your classes/studies. I plan to check out the books you mentioned in your video. Here is a list of some of the books I have read or am reading that are translations- 'The Story Of A Life' a memoir by Konstantin Paustovsky Translated By Douglas Smith 'Solenoid' A Novel by Mircea Cartarescu Translated By Sean Cotter 'The Hooligan's Return' A Memoir by Norman Manea 'Danube' Central European History by Claudio Magris Translated from the Italian by Patrick Creagh 'Journey To The South' A Novel by Michal Ajvaz Translated by Andrew Oakland 'The Fifth Impossibility: Essays On Exile And Language' by Norman Manea
Solenoid has been such a big book this past year, I hope I'm able to get to it next summer after my program! Also very intrigued by the Magris book you mention here
Hi! Welcome back! I've switched my book buying habit (mostly) to a library habit. Which is good, but I've also ended up with a giant stack of library books. The upside and simultaneous downside is that if I don't read them on time they have to go back. But I can always check them out agin, so I guess it's not a real issue. The last four books I've read and loved were; A Certain Hunger, by Chelsea G. Summers, The Book of Form and Emptiness, by Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Goose, by Yiyun Li, and Bunny, by Mona Awad.
Joy to the world, Jennifer is come. Let Booktube receive her Queen. I was pretty sure you wouldn't leave forever without saying goodbye, and you didn't, hooray! Keeping up with your reading on Goodreads is alright, but it always brings me joy to see your face. You can describe taking a full course load and *two* languages, with such a peaceful manner, as "good stress", but stress is still stress and for myself I can't imagine how you managed. This is still further evidence to my theory that you have a time-turner. But truly, congratulations on all that accomplishment. I enjoyed the visual of the lists of books you bought over the years, they were both informative and a trip down memory lane. Actually, all these books sound remarkable. Mon Deg Reen sounds remarkable, as does its author. So far as tbr, whilst it's considerable and I have no idea how long it'll take me to climb that mountain, part of the joy for me is the fun of buying books and the quiet pleasantness of seeing them on my shelves. I may have only read Autumn, the first of Smith's seasonal quartet, but they look so freaking gorgeous together, these are some of the most beautiful jackets in existence, props to the painter and the cover designers. Summer vaca is coming, and I plan to read like a librarian marooned her books on a desert island. It was good to see you quite happy and seemingly your studies are going well. It's also good to hear about the books you're reading and are on your tbr again, it always makes life feel more complete, more lovely. This familiar feeling of a new Jennifer video was wonderful, the guarded honesty, the occasional amusing bits, the remarkable range of books. I concur with one of the other commentors, "She's back and all is right with the world." As ever, all my fondness to you.
Welcome back! I'm going to check out a bunch of the books you mentioned (Alexis Peri has been on my wish list for a while). My favourite easter European read so far this year has been Babi Yar, by Anatoly Kuznetsov, about the Nazi occupation of Kyiv.
Hahaha I was just to about to comment I couldn't hear anything of what you were saying because my eyes were just continuously drawn to the deliciously cute stretches and toe bean spreads in the background and then you pivoted the camera 😁❤️
Sure! Some major people we read for my sociology class were Rory Finnin (short article of his here: www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/a-divided-ukraine-europes-most-dangerous-idea), Volodymyr Kulyk, and Olga Onuch. Their academic papers aren't always easily accessible (it's so frustrating the way research is paywalled), but anything from them is very high quality! And here's the citation for another paper I really liked that brought together a lot of major concepts from our class: Boichak, O., and Jackson, S. (2020) "From National Identity to State Legitimacy: Mobilizing Digitally Networked Publics in Eastern Ukraine." in Media, War & Conflict
Yay! It's so fun to see a video from you again! This made my day :) Your program sounds so fascinating and challenging in a really good way. It's truly gratifying to hear about someone enjoying their graduate program so much and getting so much out of it. I recently graduated with my Masters and was left feeling kind of disappointed with the experience. It was definitely a practical move and not something I had any real passion for and my program was not very rigorous or challenging. I've recently been toying with the idea of going back to school for something that actually interests me and seeing your passion and drive for your field is truly inspiring me. I'm so curious what you hope to do with your degree, it's such a fascinating field. You've introduced me to so many books and authors from Central and Eastern Europe that I otherwise would never have seen so thank you! I hope we get to see you again soon! Happy studying!
Hi there! I still remember you from Třebíč 😁 Its nice to hear that you are going to visit Czech republic again 😀 I study in Brno for now, so, maybe we come accross each other 😉 Anyway, have a nice day 😁
sorry ! I've been AWOL for almost a year (and not reading) but now I'm back and first thing is to check if you have had the time to post and you have ! merci !
funny I started to learn Korean and yes as an adult and with a language which has absolutely no European roots, it's tough ! I went to Budapest and this country also has its own non-Slavic language and my brain couldn't connect any word, that was funny ! Hope you have a nice time in Brno !
and I'm also finishing my 3rd book, thank God LOL I didn't set any GR challenge either ! Love seeing that "dead body" lying on your couch LOL Time Shelter has been on my radar for a long time - slava Ukraïni !
Ahh, City of Torment! So cool to see that one, I’ve been really keen to read it and haven’t heard anyone talking about it. I really love your videos because I’m also learning Czech and very interested in literature/history from the region - so happy you’ve posted again 😊 I really wish you had a blog or something where you listed everything you’ve read for your classes! I’m so curious 😄 But for now, I’ll just use these lists of books you’ve purchased as recommendations haha
I tried to get my life together enough to make my usual yearly video about all the books I read from Central & Eastern Europe last year (including all the ones from my Czech lit class), but life had other plans for me. In the meantime, here are some of the major things that were on that syllabus! Jiří Weil, Life with a Star (1949); Věra Linhartová, “The Room" and “The Road to the Mountains” from Space for Differentiation (1964); Zdena Salivarová, Summer in Prague (1972); Bohumil Hrabal, Too Loud a Solitude (1976); Jiří Kratochvil, “The Story of King Candaules;" and Irena Dousková, B. Proudew (1999)
So good to see you back!! Love your enthusiasm and that you're grabbing all the opportunities this phase of life is giving you with both hands! And all the languages! Good luck with the Hungarian, I hear that's extra(tough)fun.
For real, Hungarian is going to be TOUGH. I have no illusions that I'll be able to learn all that much in a year, but I'd even just love to be able to pronounce Hungarian names correctly and to grasp how a lot of the grammar functions, you know? I was also considering Ukrainian, but I think adding another Slavic language at this point would be a recipe for mixing them all up beyond repair tbh
Welcome and good to see you I got some good ideas from your list of recommendations. Here’s a couple of things you may like. Clouds Over Paris The Wartime notebooks of Felix Hartlaub. A guy made a notebook when he was an occupying officer in Paris. Astra Magazine a magazine of English and translation only 2 issues came out and still find them. Finally Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov translated by Boris Dralyuk. I don’t remember if it was translated from Russian or Ukrainian but was a simple insightful story.
I read Grey Bees last year and really liked it, so I'd say your recommendations are right on track. Kurkov is a Russian-speaking Ukrainian writer and has always been a really vocal and eloquent advocate for writers from the eastern part of the country, who are generally underrepresented in the cultural sphere
Hey Jennifer, I just graduated as an EngLit student and did my Masters dissertation on Siberia. I’ve been quietly watching your channel because you and I seem to have similar interests vis-à-vis the East-European bloc. So many of the books you read are ones I myself have an eye on (although I don’t read them quite as soon as you do and am certainly one of those readers whose physical TBR is obnoxious). Anyway, I’m writing all this to get some guidance or something from you. Im from India and will be pursuing my education here but it always helps to get a sense of what’s going on in that part of the world. I don’t know if I’m making much sense but I wanted to make my presence known regardless. Hope we can talk outside UA-cam xx
This was a really good video, so timely. I just finished watching Timothy Snyder's class on Ukraine, here on youtube. I have learned so much. I also recently finished Bloodlands by Snyder.
I'm so glad you're back Jennifer! Ever since I returned from college for the summer, I eagerly awaited another video. So glad the wait was worth it. As always, you remind me how great and empowering it is to learn and remain curious, despite all this darkness. The War Within sounds particularly fascinating... adding that to my list. So glad you're doing so well!
I had no idea there was a new Szabo translation. Have read the four novels previously translated into English and loved them all. Hungarian fiction is the best (Szerb, Kristof, Kosztolányi, Szabo, Krasznahorkai, Banffy). Reading Time Shelter just now, but I'm in a reading slump and this is not a book for that (though clearly very good), so now I'm reading The Firm (and feeling like someone who has went to Mcdonalds after a swanky meal).
Wow, what a lovely coincidence! In addition to Gospodinov, one of my other professors this semester was Bulgarian (Alexander Kiossev), and the head of our graduate program is also (Valentina Izmirlieva) :)
I love your enthusiasm for your classes. Good luck with all those languages, I can't even imagine! Your summer plans sound busy but fun! I'm doing an around-the-world reading project in alphabetical order. Just finished the G's, so Hungary is up soon. Do you have any recs for a book that has a Hungarian author, and ideally set in and/or about Hungarian people (fiction or nonfiction, doesn't matter)? I was thinking something by Magda Szabó but not sure which one, or if there's another author to recommend! Take care!
Magda Szabó is a great choice! The Door is my favorite of hers, and one that I always recommend starting with when it comes to her books, but Abigail is also a very interesting crossover adult/YA novel with an unconventional WWII narrative. Another Hungarian novel I absolutely love is Embers my Sándor Márai--published in 1942, has some very subtle commentary on Hungary in the post-WWI (post-Austro-Hungarian Empire, post-Treaty of Trianon) era, and reads like a dream
Hi there, I just discovered your channel. I live in the U.S., and my neighbors are Ukrainian refuges. Would you recommend some books for their 13 year old son? Preferably published in his native language, but ok in English. Maybe some books about immigration and fleeing a war-torn country? Memoirs or novels?I imagine my neighbors’ son is having a terrible time adjusting to life in America and I want to open up to him the idea that he could someday write a memoir about his experiences. Thanks in advance.
This is a great idea! I'm not sure if your neighbor's native language is Ukrainian or Russian, and I'm not sure if the Ukrainian books I've read would be the most appealing thing for a 13-year-old. But in general, this is a really comprehensive list of books from Ukraine that are available in English (so presumably they're also available in their Ukrainian/Russian-language originals): uk.bookshop.org/lists/ukrainian-literature-1894-2023
No, I don't speak Russian, and personally, there are a few other regional languages (Hungarian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian etc.) that I'd much rather learn before Russian!
Gina it's SO hard, every day I look at them and ask "how am I supposed to live my life with you being this CUTE all the LIVE LONG DAY?" and so far they have no answer for me
THE BOOKTUBE QUEEN IS BACK 🫨
She's back and all is right with the world
I really appreciate hearing from you, Jennifer! I totally empathise on not having time to read outside one's studies.
And we're only "living the dream" insofar as we don't have written submissions due. 😂
I know I'm commenting long after the video has been posted, but anyway, best wishes on your studies. I'm so happy that you're happy. 💗
I just discovered your channel. Brilliant analysis and I'm so glad to find someone sharing Eastern European works!
So infectiously earnest and enthused! This video was just a delight
Really lovely to watch your catch up and I admire all your studies and language learning so much! And fantastic that you're reading In Memory of Memory. Such a fascinating book. And that is SO COOL you studied with Gospodinov! Yellow Star, Red Star sounds so interesting. Thanks for adding to my TBR! 😅📚
Eric! I've been liiiving for your International Booker coverage this year. Got a kick out of seeing your pictures with Gospodinov--for two people who have never met in person, our degrees of separation are always getting smaller and smaller )
You made my night by posting! I've missed you. You are as smart and engaging as ever.
It’s so cool to hear how connected you are to the program and languages. It’s clearly hard work, but I see your passion and would love to find that.
What have I done to deserve such a treat in a form of a new video from You?
So wonderful that you are back. You were the smartest and best of the book tubers and then disappeared. Keep posting until school overwhelms you again, please.
So happy to see you back, Jen!
How lovely to get an update from you!
You’re back!! ❤
So happy to see you back in my subscription box!
Hey, I finally got around to watching this! Loved hearing you catch up. Your workload makes library school look like somewhat of a joke lol I’m glad you’re enjoying it and I’m excited to catch up with you soon!! 😄
oh, wow! so good to see you again! thought of you the other day and was worried you'd been eaten alive by grad school. (it happens.) glad to hear that things are going well-if a lil crazy. looking forward to another update when you have time-maybe about your time in the C/R. and that orange cat is living his best life-we should all aspire to follow such an example.
So happy to see you back! I could listen to you talk about your grad program all day.
I'm so happy you posted again! I love, love, love your videos!
I’ve missed you! 🎉
Sounds like you're really making the most of your time studying, exhausting but in a great way! Hope you continue to enjoy it, it sounds like you are thriving
good to see you back!
Oh just cat paws casually dangling off the couch. We need more! These books have gorgeous covers!
Your eloquence is very impressive. Happy to see you making a video again.
Lovely to hear from you!! Your Czech is superb!! Good job 😁💚
Děkuju :). My Czech is far from superb but I do try really hard!
Welcome back! Your first grad school year sounded incredible, and your summer courses will be intense and rewarding. Definitely want to read Time Shelter. I'm going to check out Black Earth. Last year I read his Bloodlands. Looking forward to reading The Fawn (saving it because it's the last one I have of hers). Earlier this year I finished Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad and Life and Fate (Life and Fate was my favorite), Anne Applebaum's Gulag, Svetlana Alexievich's Secondhand Time. Last year read Sovietistan which I found fascinating.
Grossman has been on my list for a long time, I'd love to read Life and Fate one of these days (one of these years more like) :)
I'm just here for the cat belly. :D
It was a pleasure to see your face again and to hear about your classes/studies. I plan to check out the books you mentioned in your video. Here is a list of some of the books I have read or am reading that are translations-
'The Story Of A Life' a memoir by Konstantin Paustovsky Translated By Douglas Smith
'Solenoid' A Novel by Mircea Cartarescu Translated By Sean Cotter
'The Hooligan's Return' A Memoir by Norman Manea
'Danube' Central European History by Claudio Magris Translated from the Italian by Patrick Creagh
'Journey To The South' A Novel by Michal Ajvaz Translated by Andrew Oakland
'The Fifth Impossibility: Essays On Exile And Language' by Norman Manea
Solenoid has been such a big book this past year, I hope I'm able to get to it next summer after my program! Also very intrigued by the Magris book you mention here
Hi! Welcome back! I've switched my book buying habit (mostly) to a library habit. Which is good, but I've also ended up with a giant stack of library books. The upside and simultaneous downside is that if I don't read them on time they have to go back. But I can always check them out agin, so I guess it's not a real issue. The last four books I've read and loved were; A Certain Hunger, by Chelsea G. Summers, The Book of Form and Emptiness, by Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Goose, by Yiyun Li, and Bunny, by Mona Awad.
Joy to the world, Jennifer is come. Let Booktube receive her Queen.
I was pretty sure you wouldn't leave forever without saying goodbye, and you didn't, hooray! Keeping up with your reading on Goodreads is alright, but it always brings me joy to see your face. You can describe taking a full course load and *two* languages, with such a peaceful manner, as "good stress", but stress is still stress and for myself I can't imagine how you managed. This is still further evidence to my theory that you have a time-turner. But truly, congratulations on all that accomplishment. I enjoyed the visual of the lists of books you bought over the years, they were both informative and a trip down memory lane. Actually, all these books sound remarkable. Mon Deg Reen sounds remarkable, as does its author. So far as tbr, whilst it's considerable and I have no idea how long it'll take me to climb that mountain, part of the joy for me is the fun of buying books and the quiet pleasantness of seeing them on my shelves. I may have only read Autumn, the first of Smith's seasonal quartet, but they look so freaking gorgeous together, these are some of the most beautiful jackets in existence, props to the painter and the cover designers. Summer vaca is coming, and I plan to read like a librarian marooned her books on a desert island. It was good to see you quite happy and seemingly your studies are going well. It's also good to hear about the books you're reading and are on your tbr again, it always makes life feel more complete, more lovely. This familiar feeling of a new Jennifer video was wonderful, the guarded honesty, the occasional amusing bits, the remarkable range of books. I concur with one of the other commentors, "She's back and all is right with the world." As ever, all my fondness to you.
I don't comment often, but just wanted to pop in and say it is great to hear from you again! I missed your videos.
Lovely to see you and your enthusiasm back. I recently read Time Shelter which I enjoyed.
Glad to see you back🎉greetings from Poland!
Dzień dobry i dziękuję :)
Welcome back! I'm going to check out a bunch of the books you mentioned (Alexis Peri has been on my wish list for a while).
My favourite easter European read so far this year has been Babi Yar, by Anatoly Kuznetsov, about the Nazi occupation of Kyiv.
Yay you're back! 🎉😁
Hahaha I was just to about to comment I couldn't hear anything of what you were saying because my eyes were just continuously drawn to the deliciously cute stretches and toe bean spreads in the background and then you pivoted the camera 😁❤️
So good to see you again!! 🥰
Uhhh I wanna take all of your classes! Can you share the reading list for some of them? The sociology ones seem so interesting 🤩
Sure! Some major people we read for my sociology class were Rory Finnin (short article of his here: www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/a-divided-ukraine-europes-most-dangerous-idea), Volodymyr Kulyk, and Olga Onuch. Their academic papers aren't always easily accessible (it's so frustrating the way research is paywalled), but anything from them is very high quality!
And here's the citation for another paper I really liked that brought together a lot of major concepts from our class: Boichak, O., and Jackson, S. (2020) "From National Identity to State Legitimacy: Mobilizing Digitally Networked Publics in Eastern Ukraine." in Media, War & Conflict
Yay! It's so fun to see a video from you again! This made my day :) Your program sounds so fascinating and challenging in a really good way. It's truly gratifying to hear about someone enjoying their graduate program so much and getting so much out of it. I recently graduated with my Masters and was left feeling kind of disappointed with the experience. It was definitely a practical move and not something I had any real passion for and my program was not very rigorous or challenging. I've recently been toying with the idea of going back to school for something that actually interests me and seeing your passion and drive for your field is truly inspiring me. I'm so curious what you hope to do with your degree, it's such a fascinating field. You've introduced me to so many books and authors from Central and Eastern Europe that I otherwise would never have seen so thank you! I hope we get to see you again soon! Happy studying!
Just finished Phaedra. Working through Under the Wave at Waimea & John Truby’s Anatomy of Story.
Hi there!
I still remember you from Třebíč 😁 Its nice to hear that you are going to visit Czech republic again 😀 I study in Brno for now, so, maybe we come accross each other 😉
Anyway, have a nice day 😁
sorry ! I've been AWOL for almost a year (and not reading) but now I'm back and first thing is to check if you have had the time to post and you have ! merci !
funny I started to learn Korean and yes as an adult and with a language which has absolutely no European roots, it's tough ! I went to Budapest and this country also has its own non-Slavic language and my brain couldn't connect any word, that was funny ! Hope you have a nice time in Brno !
and I'm also finishing my 3rd book, thank God LOL I didn't set any GR challenge either ! Love seeing that "dead body" lying on your couch LOL Time Shelter has been on my radar for a long time - slava Ukraïni !
Ahh, City of Torment! So cool to see that one, I’ve been really keen to read it and haven’t heard anyone talking about it. I really love your videos because I’m also learning Czech and very interested in literature/history from the region - so happy you’ve posted again 😊 I really wish you had a blog or something where you listed everything you’ve read for your classes! I’m so curious 😄 But for now, I’ll just use these lists of books you’ve purchased as recommendations haha
I tried to get my life together enough to make my usual yearly video about all the books I read from Central & Eastern Europe last year (including all the ones from my Czech lit class), but life had other plans for me. In the meantime, here are some of the major things that were on that syllabus!
Jiří Weil, Life with a Star (1949); Věra Linhartová, “The Room" and “The Road to the Mountains” from Space for Differentiation (1964); Zdena Salivarová, Summer in Prague (1972); Bohumil Hrabal, Too Loud a Solitude (1976); Jiří Kratochvil, “The Story of King Candaules;" and Irena Dousková, B. Proudew (1999)
@@InsertLiteraryPunHere Thanks!
Yay, you're back! I've an idea regarding your summer, I'll be sending you a long message through Goodreads directly, hope that's ok :)
Sounds good, send away :)
@@InsertLiteraryPunHere I added you to friends on GR :)
So good to see you back!! Love your enthusiasm and that you're grabbing all the opportunities this phase of life is giving you with both hands! And all the languages! Good luck with the Hungarian, I hear that's extra(tough)fun.
For real, Hungarian is going to be TOUGH. I have no illusions that I'll be able to learn all that much in a year, but I'd even just love to be able to pronounce Hungarian names correctly and to grasp how a lot of the grammar functions, you know? I was also considering Ukrainian, but I think adding another Slavic language at this point would be a recipe for mixing them all up beyond repair tbh
Your Polish pronunciation is immaculate! I want to read all these books, can’t wait to hear more about the remaining 17 reads :)
Thank you! I really struggle to make my l's soft enough in Polish, they're very difficult for me
Welcome and good to see you I got some good ideas from your list of recommendations. Here’s a couple of things you may like. Clouds Over Paris The Wartime notebooks of Felix Hartlaub. A guy made a notebook when he was an occupying officer in Paris. Astra Magazine a magazine of English and translation only 2 issues came out and still find them. Finally Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov translated by Boris Dralyuk. I don’t remember if it was translated from Russian or Ukrainian but was a simple insightful story.
I read Grey Bees last year and really liked it, so I'd say your recommendations are right on track. Kurkov is a Russian-speaking Ukrainian writer and has always been a really vocal and eloquent advocate for writers from the eastern part of the country, who are generally underrepresented in the cultural sphere
Hey Jennifer, I just graduated as an EngLit student and did my Masters dissertation on Siberia. I’ve been quietly watching your channel because you and I seem to have similar interests vis-à-vis the East-European bloc. So many of the books you read are ones I myself have an eye on (although I don’t read them quite as soon as you do and am certainly one of those readers whose physical TBR is obnoxious).
Anyway, I’m writing all this to get some guidance or something from you. Im from India and will be pursuing my education here but it always helps to get a sense of what’s going on in that part of the world. I don’t know if I’m making much sense but I wanted to make my presence known regardless. Hope we can talk outside UA-cam xx
Lovely to hear you pronouncing Polish surname with a Czech accent :) but Pilsudski pronunciation was pretty decent.
This was a really good video, so timely. I just finished watching Timothy Snyder's class on Ukraine, here on youtube. I have learned so much. I also recently finished Bloodlands by Snyder.
I'd highly recommend watching Beanpole which is about Stalingrad siege and women within it
I'm so glad you're back Jennifer! Ever since I returned from college for the summer, I eagerly awaited another video. So glad the wait was worth it. As always, you remind me how great and empowering it is to learn and remain curious, despite all this darkness. The War Within sounds particularly fascinating... adding that to my list. So glad you're doing so well!
I had no idea there was a new Szabo translation. Have read the four novels previously translated into English and loved them all. Hungarian fiction is the best (Szerb, Kristof, Kosztolányi, Szabo, Krasznahorkai, Banffy). Reading Time Shelter just now, but I'm in a reading slump and this is not a book for that (though clearly very good), so now I'm reading The Firm (and feeling like someone who has went to Mcdonalds after a swanky meal).
Your McDonalds comment made me laugh!
Hello from Brno, Czech Republic :)
Wow, dobrý den!
Omg, I live in Brno! I'm not Czech, though, I'm Bulgarian. If you need a friend when you come over, shout out.
Wow, what a lovely coincidence! In addition to Gospodinov, one of my other professors this semester was Bulgarian (Alexander Kiossev), and the head of our graduate program is also (Valentina Izmirlieva) :)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I love your enthusiasm for your classes. Good luck with all those languages, I can't even imagine! Your summer plans sound busy but fun!
I'm doing an around-the-world reading project in alphabetical order. Just finished the G's, so Hungary is up soon. Do you have any recs for a book that has a Hungarian author, and ideally set in and/or about Hungarian people (fiction or nonfiction, doesn't matter)? I was thinking something by Magda Szabó but not sure which one, or if there's another author to recommend!
Take care!
Magda Szabó is a great choice! The Door is my favorite of hers, and one that I always recommend starting with when it comes to her books, but Abigail is also a very interesting crossover adult/YA novel with an unconventional WWII narrative. Another Hungarian novel I absolutely love is Embers my Sándor Márai--published in 1942, has some very subtle commentary on Hungary in the post-WWI (post-Austro-Hungarian Empire, post-Treaty of Trianon) era, and reads like a dream
@@InsertLiteraryPunHere Ah, thanks much - will add these options to my spreadsheet!
"let my eyes rest from that butt ugly interface" hahaha literally
Hi there, I just discovered your channel. I live in the U.S., and my neighbors are Ukrainian refuges. Would you recommend some books for their 13 year old son? Preferably published in his native language, but ok in English. Maybe some books about immigration and fleeing a war-torn country? Memoirs or novels?I imagine my neighbors’ son is having a terrible time adjusting to life in America and I want to open up to him the idea that he could someday write a memoir about his experiences. Thanks in advance.
This is a great idea! I'm not sure if your neighbor's native language is Ukrainian or Russian, and I'm not sure if the Ukrainian books I've read would be the most appealing thing for a 13-year-old. But in general, this is a really comprehensive list of books from Ukraine that are available in English (so presumably they're also available in their Ukrainian/Russian-language originals): uk.bookshop.org/lists/ukrainian-literature-1894-2023
Hello there hey
gosh I really want to intensively study Polish & Czech. Do you also speak Russian?
No, I don't speak Russian, and personally, there are a few other regional languages (Hungarian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian etc.) that I'd much rather learn before Russian!
OMG, how do you manage to get ANY work done with those cutie patootie cats around?!
Gina it's SO hard, every day I look at them and ask "how am I supposed to live my life with you being this CUTE all the LIVE LONG DAY?" and so far they have no answer for me
Interesting.. You even look ethnic.
I just discovered your channel. Brilliant analysis and I'm so glad to find someone sharing Eastern European works!