Hello, this Sundus from Saudi Arabia. I just started watching your channel and have spent the previous days watching your videos and listening to your calm voice even if I am busy in the background. Your words are simple and easy to understand , but they extremely powerful. You convey the message in such a way! I have been thinking about studying literature for years, but I could not take the first step toward finding the right university and conducting money or apply for scholarships. After watching your channel, I gave it some serious thought. I turn 29 in December and thought I was too old to study, but after watching your content, I am excited to learn. Please keep posting videos; you are truly inspiring. Lots of love from Saudi Arabia ❤❤❤
3 дні тому+19
I was wondering, how do you read? Do you take notes while reading? Writing in the margines? Do you highlight themes, literary devices etc? Or you dont do anything like that?
I find it comforting to listen to you discuss literature - it’s a reminder for me that art can transcend the contemporary madness of civilization. I have a feeling I’ll be taking frequent refuge in the classics during the next four years of chaotic government here in the US….
I love it that you feel welcomed to sing on Christmas Eve for your family - they must be wonderful to produce such a wonderful you. Like so many others here, I adore your thoughts on anything. Now we have your singing voice to add to the pleasure of your company. Thanks for the reading journey. Bonne Année, Marie!
The Fantomas rec came out of nowhere. Was not expecting that after the first two movie mentions. You have exquisite taste. Appreciate the video. Cheers.
Dear Maria, I love watching your videos on grey, foggy evenings. You always manage to brighten the haze with light and tenderness. Wish you all the happiness of the world 🎉
I really love the way you choose to make this video! See how you love literature and have a beautiful relationship with your readings is so inspirational. ❤
Thank you for sharing your wonderful singing at the end. I really love your videos, as everyone else mentions ;) you have a calming influence. I listen while I’m painting. Have a wonderful new year
Great list of books! I really want to conquer Magic Mountain. I tried reading it early this year and put it down because I wasn't gelling with it. I feel like If I committed, I would like it. My favorite book of the year was Stoner, by John Williams Yes, please read Zola!!! I would start with Thérèse Raquin - short but packs a punch. Also, Germinal is another one I would recommend. I'm' glad you included movies. My standout favorite was Wong Kar Wai's " In the Mood for Love". I am currently obsessed with watching video essays on the movie and if you don't care about spoilers, I would recommend watching some video essays first then the movie. I must check out Les Choristes ! Happy New year to you and good to see you are safe and sound back home
There is something so impeccably beautiful about Baldwin’s prose. Nice stacks of books you discussed, Maria. So glad to see you back in Austria. And hey, did I say how soothingly pleasant your singing is? A happy new year to you, Maria! Sending love as always.
I must start at the end. The short glimpse of you performing the song in front of the Christmas tree! What a lucky family! The effect is sublime. Such a confluence of beauty in that moment. Thank you so much for sharing. I too love Umberto Eco. When I visited Austria in 2022 I went to Melk Abbey. The library is beyond stunning. They say the library at Melk is the inspiration for the library in the monastery in Name of the Rose. Also, they just released a documentary on Umberto Eco's library. Its a wonderful and inspiring little film. You summarized these books in a way that not only told us about the books but also told us you have had a fertile year of literary growth. Hold on - 'Fertile year of literary growth' sounds stale and woefully fails to capture Paris, Proust, all the essays and adventures and at times (I'm thinking of the fence climbing) misadverntures. This wasn't a year of fertile literary growth - it was more -- it was a year in which you put together a world class literary menu, went to the experts in the middle of the best literary restaurant (Paris) and you went there and feasted with abandon on all sorts of sumptuous literary delights for four glorious months. Yes, this was a rip roaring deep dive into the best the world has to offer a lover of literature and a lover of life. Well done, Maria!
Hello dear Maria! Lovely to hear from you again and to see you back in your own warm and pretty reading nook! I so enjoyed listening to your thoughtful reviews and quotes, and loved your beautiful song at the end ❤️🎄❤️ Wishing you a very happy and most fulfilling new year! Enjoy writing with your awesome little Liliput!!! ☺️😘😘😘
Thanks for taking us through your year of reads! It's been great to follow your journey, especially how you kept up reading through your studies. I'm hoping that my 2025 will have a similar flow to how you read this year. Have a great new year! PS: Lovely singing and guitar playing! You're putting me to shame with how many instruments you can play 😁
Thanks for this great and very interesting video! This year, Thomas Mann's book "Magic Mountain" was also a literary discovery for me. I have read all of Umberto Eco's books before, but they are worth rereading. Also, the discovery of the year for me was the book of the philosopher René Guénon "The Crisis of the Modern World" - it was written almost 100 years ago, but it is very relevant. Among the non-fiction books, I liked: "Future Crimes" by Marg Goodman and "Economics on a Plate" by Ha-Joon Chang. Clive Lewis' fantastic books "Beyond the Silent Planets" and "Perelander" were also a revelation for me. In the future, I want to read the book "Abominable Power" by this author. I take this opportunity to congratulate you on the upcoming New Year and send greetings from unconquered Ukraine!
Wow! How serendipitous! I am currently reading the first third of 'The Name of the Rose' too. I was also really looking forward to getting around to it, and so far it has been a wonderfully luxuriant novel that houses so many other references and allusions to other literature, as you said, but also evokes different mediums of art like films it influenced and singular authors like Jorge Lui...I mean, Jorge of Burgos.
I'm currently on a book buying ban (I own so many unread books!), but you inspired me to read The Name of the Rose :) I'm going to buy a copy once my personal challenge is over.
I’m currently reading the Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. I wish sometime I can read it in German, a language that I strongly like. Thanks for your videos Maria.
Danke, Maria, interessantes Video. L'assommoir von Emile Zola hat mir gut gefallen. Seine Beobachtungsgabe und sein Einfühlungsvermögen im besonderen. Der Zauberberg, wie überhaupt Thomas Mann, erschließt sich mir erst beim 2. und 3. Lesen , manchmal nach vielen Jahren, und mit viel Recherche. Aber es lohnt sich. Victor Hugo auf französisch ist Poesie, auch wenn ich nicht alles verstehe. Alles Gute für dich im nächstes Jahr.
Don't read for stats. Read for individual pleasure, learning purposes, immersion into invented worlds of the human imagination to discover just what is possible ✅ That said, it does look like you've had a very productive year Maria🌞and it gifted you with Umberto Eco's "In the Name of the Rose"🌹All the best for the new year!
Very good selection! I am fond of those kind of non meetings that make life interesting. For example I knew a good friend of Italo Calvino - he was my lecturer Guido Almansi . The bookseller in Paris who personally sold Umberto Eco lots of rare books he loved - I drank with the owner in an Algerian bar a few buildings down the road. I met someone who was the nephew of one of the men Marcel Proust knew well, and one of his translators. Sydney Alfred Schiff, he and his wife organized a dinner in 1925 at which Joyce and Proust attended with many others. I also corresponded with George Painter who was one of Proust's first biographers in English. It makes one feel closer and so far away at the same time! I think that is how I love literature, because it conjures up many other avenues of experience! Certainly that is the joy of lists. I might be wrong but didn't Proust make a list or two?
On Zola: Only some of his books are set in Paris. Two that are, and that I'd recommend, are 'The Belly of Paris' about the food market of Les Halles. He puts you right there: what it looked like, what it sounded like, what smells there were. His great ability is his descriptive power. Also 'Au Bonheur des Dames' about the first department store to open in Paris, describing its sense of abundance of fabrics and fashions, and explaining how much this changed shopping habits and began what we now call 'The Consumer Society' - a great piece of sociology as well as an engrossing read.
It's so good you had the opportunity to study in France! As for Notre Dame de Paris the biggest moment for me was when I realized that Hugo's novel seemed very much like the novel described in Balzac's Lost Illusions. Of course I cannot prove it to be true I believe he was its inspiration. It's my favorite Balzac novel, who I prefer to Zola, a writer University professors adore. As for Proust, without getting into too much detail: You can think of the character, Marcel, in Chercher Les Temps Perdue in a new light if you change the ending of the 7th book (edited and published posthumously) so that there's an 8th book with the character changing his name to Leopold Bloom and moving to Dublin. [Although I think that's a funny and clever joke I accept the possibility that no one else will : ( ] Usually I prefer more dynamic main characters so Shakespeare's Richard II, Flaubert's Charles Bovary, Proust's Marcel, and Joyce's Leopold Bloom make me wonder what's the point of making them the center of a story. However, such people do exist I suppose, and perhaps their stories are as important as those of Winston Smith and Dr. Faustus? I don't know, but I did enjoy your presentation. Have a happy new year.
The only novel I've read by Zola is "Nana," which is dark enough, but interesting. A novel I read recently that is very entertaining and rather profound and that I think you'd like is Iris Murdoch's "The Bell."
I just stumbled across your channel. I really enjoyed this video! Thank you. Was hoping that you could write out the name of the fountain pen you received. I think I'd like to maybe obtain one and maybe give one to someone. I *kind of* heard the name when you said it but it wasn't totally clear. Thanks a lot. 😊 I wrote down all the movies you recommended and plan on seeking them out. "Name of the Rose" intrigues me as well.
Thankyou Maria for sharing your insights on the sublime celestial world of Literature. As always, your videos are those that make our life a little larger than the Universe . Currently, I am reading Proust and enjoying this meditative journey through time. Simultaneously contemplating on Samantha Harvey's Orbital . Some of my unexpected book discoveries this year are : The Making of Poetry by Adam Nicholson Yuganta by Irawati Karve The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver Sometimes, a book just happens to be there like a good friend -- with a warm cup of tea and a brilliant third eye.
If you liked Name of the Rose you should watch conclave movie before the Pope bans it. KAWECO Lilliput is for Guilliver , I think it is cute but not practical for writing you are going to fill that frequently. 😂 May be good for taking short notes on the go or signing paperwork. I would highly recommend Thérèse Raquin too.
Did you see what Umberto Eco had to say about why he owned so many (around 50,000) books? :) “It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticise those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones. “There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion. “If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That’s why you should always have a nutrition choice! “Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity.”
Some masterpieces there! Nice to see you back in your cozy apartment, musing lucidly about all things literary. You’re the best!
Hello, this Sundus from Saudi Arabia. I just started watching your channel and have spent the previous days watching your videos and listening to your calm voice even if I am busy in the background. Your words are simple and easy to understand , but they extremely powerful. You convey the message in such a way! I have been thinking about studying literature for years, but I could not take the first step toward finding the right university and conducting money or apply for scholarships. After watching your channel, I gave it some serious thought. I turn 29 in December and thought I was too old to study, but after watching your content, I am excited to learn. Please keep posting videos; you are truly inspiring. Lots of love from Saudi Arabia ❤❤❤
I was wondering, how do you read? Do you take notes while reading? Writing in the margines? Do you highlight themes, literary devices etc? Or you dont do anything like that?
I find it comforting to listen to you discuss literature - it’s a reminder for me that art can transcend the contemporary madness of civilization. I have a feeling I’ll be taking frequent refuge in the classics during the next four years of chaotic government here in the US….
I feel relax when I listening to you, so thank you so much.
I love it that you feel welcomed to sing on Christmas Eve for your family - they must be wonderful to produce such a wonderful you. Like so many others here, I adore your thoughts on anything. Now we have your singing voice to add to the pleasure of your company. Thanks for the reading journey. Bonne Année, Marie!
The Fantomas rec came out of nowhere. Was not expecting that after the first two movie mentions. You have exquisite taste. Appreciate the video. Cheers.
Dear Maria, I love watching your videos on grey, foggy evenings. You always manage to brighten the haze with light and tenderness. Wish you all the happiness of the world 🎉
I really love the way you choose to make this video! See how you love literature and have a beautiful relationship with your readings is so inspirational. ❤
Thank you for sharing your wonderful singing at the end. I really love your videos, as everyone else mentions ;) you have a calming influence. I listen while I’m painting. Have a wonderful new year
Great list of books! I really want to conquer Magic Mountain. I tried reading it early this year and put it down because I wasn't gelling with it. I feel like If I committed, I would like it.
My favorite book of the year was Stoner, by John Williams
Yes, please read Zola!!! I would start with Thérèse Raquin - short but packs a punch. Also, Germinal is another one I would recommend.
I'm' glad you included movies. My standout favorite was Wong Kar Wai's " In the Mood for Love". I am currently obsessed with watching video essays on the movie and if you don't care about spoilers, I would recommend watching some video essays first then the movie.
I must check out Les Choristes !
Happy New year to you and good to see you are safe and sound back home
Stoner is one of my all time favorites. In the top five, I'd say.
There is something so impeccably beautiful about Baldwin’s prose. Nice stacks of books you discussed, Maria. So glad to see you back in Austria. And hey, did I say how soothingly pleasant your singing is? A happy new year to you, Maria! Sending love as always.
I love when you share quotes and passages from your reading. It invites us in to your reading with you. Thx for the video! Cheers 💜
I absolutely love Umberto Eco! So glad he made your list
I must start at the end. The short glimpse of you performing the song in front of the Christmas tree! What a lucky family! The effect is sublime. Such a confluence of beauty in that moment. Thank you so much for sharing. I too love Umberto Eco. When I visited Austria in 2022 I went to Melk Abbey. The library is beyond stunning. They say the library at Melk is the inspiration for the library in the monastery in Name of the Rose. Also, they just released a documentary on Umberto Eco's library. Its a wonderful and inspiring little film. You summarized these books in a way that not only told us about the books but also told us you have had a fertile year of literary growth. Hold on - 'Fertile year of literary growth' sounds stale and woefully fails to capture Paris, Proust, all the essays and adventures and at times (I'm thinking of the fence climbing) misadverntures. This wasn't a year of fertile literary growth - it was more -- it was a year in which you put together a world class literary menu, went to the experts in the middle of the best literary restaurant (Paris) and you went there and feasted with abandon on all sorts of sumptuous literary delights for four glorious months. Yes, this was a rip roaring deep dive into the best the world has to offer a lover of literature and a lover of life. Well done, Maria!
Hello dear Maria! Lovely to hear from you again and to see you back in your own warm and pretty reading nook! I so enjoyed listening to your thoughtful reviews and quotes, and loved your beautiful song at the end ❤️🎄❤️ Wishing you a very happy and most fulfilling new year! Enjoy writing with your awesome little Liliput!!! ☺️😘😘😘
It’s amazing to see your love for literature!
This was great to watch through, i enjoyed the categories you chose.
Thanks for taking us through your year of reads! It's been great to follow your journey, especially how you kept up reading through your studies. I'm hoping that my 2025 will have a similar flow to how you read this year.
Have a great new year!
PS: Lovely singing and guitar playing! You're putting me to shame with how many instruments you can play 😁
Glad you made it home safely. Happy Holidays!
Thanks for this great and very interesting video!
This year, Thomas Mann's book "Magic Mountain" was also a literary discovery for me.
I have read all of Umberto Eco's books before, but they are worth rereading.
Also, the discovery of the year for me was the book of the philosopher René Guénon "The Crisis of the Modern World" - it was written almost 100 years ago, but it is very relevant.
Among the non-fiction books, I liked: "Future Crimes" by Marg Goodman and "Economics on a Plate" by Ha-Joon Chang.
Clive Lewis' fantastic books "Beyond the Silent Planets" and "Perelander" were also a revelation for me. In the future, I want to read the book "Abominable Power" by this author.
I take this opportunity to congratulate you on the upcoming New Year and send greetings from unconquered Ukraine!
Wow! How serendipitous! I am currently reading the first third of 'The Name of the Rose' too. I was also really looking forward to getting around to it, and so far it has been a wonderfully luxuriant novel that houses so many other references and allusions to other literature, as you said, but also evokes different mediums of art like films it influenced and singular authors like Jorge Lui...I mean, Jorge of Burgos.
I'm currently on a book buying ban (I own so many unread books!), but you inspired me to read The Name of the Rose :) I'm going to buy a copy once my personal challenge is over.
I’m currently reading the Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. I wish sometime I can read it in German, a language that I strongly like.
Thanks for your videos Maria.
If you want to read Emile Zola you should try reading “Therese Raquin” or “Germinal”. I highly recommend the two books. They’re both masterpieces.
Danke, Maria, interessantes Video. L'assommoir von Emile Zola hat mir gut gefallen. Seine Beobachtungsgabe und sein Einfühlungsvermögen im besonderen. Der Zauberberg, wie überhaupt Thomas Mann, erschließt sich mir erst beim 2. und 3. Lesen , manchmal nach vielen Jahren, und mit viel Recherche. Aber es lohnt sich. Victor Hugo auf französisch ist Poesie, auch wenn ich nicht alles verstehe. Alles Gute für dich im nächstes Jahr.
Great video! Loved the prompts.
Happy New Year 🎉
I can’t help but empathize with the desire you show for beauty in a world full of ugliness. All the best in the new year!
Don't read for stats. Read for individual pleasure, learning purposes, immersion into invented worlds of the human imagination to discover just what is possible ✅ That said, it does look like you've had a very productive year Maria🌞and it gifted you with Umberto Eco's "In the Name of the Rose"🌹All the best for the new year!
I loved "The Name of the Rose" but "Foucault's Pendulum" was mind-blowing.
Reason that right now... FP... Loving it so far!
I read „Der Zauberberg“ this year for the first time. It was a amazing experience.
Very good selection! I am fond of those kind of non meetings that make life interesting. For example I knew a good friend of Italo Calvino - he was my lecturer Guido Almansi . The bookseller in Paris who personally sold Umberto Eco lots of rare books he loved - I drank with the owner in an Algerian bar a few buildings down the road. I met someone who was the nephew of one of the men Marcel Proust knew well, and one of his translators. Sydney Alfred Schiff, he and his wife organized a dinner in 1925 at which Joyce and Proust attended with many others. I also corresponded with George Painter who was one of Proust's first biographers in English. It makes one feel closer and so far away at the same time! I think that is how I love literature, because it conjures up many other avenues of experience! Certainly that is the joy of lists. I might be wrong but didn't Proust make a list or two?
The Name of the Rose was my favorite read in 2023!
Fascinante, o UA-cam recomendou seu vídeo e eu amei.
🇧🇷
On Zola: Only some of his books are set in Paris. Two that are, and that I'd recommend, are 'The Belly of Paris' about the food market of Les Halles. He puts you right there: what it looked like, what it sounded like, what smells there were. His great ability is his descriptive power. Also 'Au Bonheur des Dames' about the first department store to open in Paris, describing its sense of abundance of fabrics and fashions, and explaining how much this changed shopping habits and began what we now call 'The Consumer Society' - a great piece of sociology as well as an engrossing read.
It's so good you had the opportunity to study in France! As for Notre Dame de Paris the biggest moment for me was when I realized that Hugo's novel seemed very much like the novel described in Balzac's Lost Illusions. Of course I cannot prove it to be true I believe he was its inspiration. It's my favorite Balzac novel, who I prefer to Zola, a writer University professors adore.
As for Proust, without getting into too much detail: You can think of the character, Marcel, in Chercher Les Temps Perdue in a new light if you change the ending of the 7th book (edited and published posthumously) so that there's an 8th book with the character changing his name to Leopold Bloom and moving to Dublin. [Although I think that's a funny and clever joke I accept the possibility that no one else will : ( ] Usually I prefer more dynamic main characters so Shakespeare's Richard II, Flaubert's Charles Bovary, Proust's Marcel, and Joyce's Leopold Bloom make me wonder what's the point of making them the center of a story. However, such people do exist I suppose, and perhaps their stories are as important as those of Winston Smith and Dr. Faustus?
I don't know, but I did enjoy your presentation. Have a happy new year.
The only novel I've read by Zola is "Nana," which is dark enough, but interesting. A novel I read recently that is very entertaining and rather profound and that I think you'd like is Iris Murdoch's "The Bell."
I just stumbled across your channel. I really enjoyed this video! Thank you. Was hoping that you could write out the name of the fountain pen you received. I think I'd like to maybe obtain one and maybe give one to someone. I *kind of* heard the name when you said it but it wasn't totally clear. Thanks a lot. 😊 I wrote down all the movies you recommended and plan on seeking them out. "Name of the Rose" intrigues me as well.
Which English translation of Molière’s The Misanthrope is the excerpt from?
Great video, thank you!!
Thankyou Maria for sharing your insights on the sublime celestial world of Literature. As always, your videos are those that make our life a little larger than the Universe .
Currently, I am reading Proust and enjoying this meditative journey through time. Simultaneously contemplating on Samantha Harvey's Orbital .
Some of my unexpected book discoveries this year are :
The Making of Poetry by Adam Nicholson
Yuganta by Irawati Karve
The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver
Sometimes, a book just happens to be there like a good friend -- with a warm cup of tea and a brilliant third eye.
Like your calm and pretty voice ❤
Zola: I recommend starting with Therese Raquin or l'assommoir 😊
Glückwunsch zum Kaweco Liliput. Schreiben mit Stil! Ein Objekt der Begierde!
😍
If you liked Name of the Rose you should watch conclave movie before the Pope bans it. KAWECO Lilliput is for Guilliver , I think it is cute but not practical for writing you are going to fill that frequently. 😂 May be good for taking short notes on the go or signing paperwork. I would highly recommend Thérèse Raquin too.
Did you see what Umberto Eco had to say about why he owned so many (around 50,000) books? :)
“It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticise those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.
“There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.
“If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That’s why you should always have a nutrition choice!
“Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity.”
When U talked of therapy you were lost a bit. It shows you have been through hard times.
Kim Peek didn't read quickly - his reading stopped time.
❤ 🎉 will you marry me?