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The sweatshirt. 🥹

dude, i’ve also been reading some Borges this year. he’s blowing my mind man haha. i feel like i wouldn’t be able to read two of his short stories in one day because my brain would literally explode hahaha. though i will respectfully disagree with conrad! heart of darkness is one of my favorites ever. glad you had a great year man, and happy to have found your channel this year!

World according to Garp ...an incredible book. Unforgettable.

Looking forward to this one! Last year I read Soul by Platonov and it was one of the most unique, dark, beautiful stories I've ever read.

How much is the price for joining the book club and can I have a list of the books u mentioned.

I’ll have to wait on this one. Just started W&P to be followed by Solenoid. Considering I average 30 minutes of reading per day, all other reading projects are off until these are finished 😁

I read Platonov's novels for the first time in Georgian. I realized that there was something incredibly powerful. Only Kafka could have caused such a shocking delight as he did. Then my father told me that reading Platonov in translation makes no sense :) And when I read Platonov in Russian, that's when I understood what Brodsky meant when he said: "The language into which Platonov can be translated will be destroyed." He is perhaps the greatest stylist of language of the twentieth century.

Love the sweatshirt.

I am starting reading this novel right now!

If no one mentioned, read the afterword in that edition of The Foundation Pit first. There's a lot of great information in there that would have helped me in advance. It's great nonetheless.

The way she described selfishness isn't conventional egocentrism but rather having the self-confidence to not sacrifice your own happiness for that of others. I think there is a strong truth in that in terms of relationships. In fact, I never really understood the phrase "Love yourself first if you want to be loved" until I heard her way of describing it, and I have to respect her for that because it saved me from a manipulative relationship. The problem is that it's very devoid of context and requires the privilege to already have the needs to help yourself, and how strong of a philosophy can it really be if it doesn't apply to everyone the same way? And for the record, it is certainly NOT a good standpoint to put into political or economic terms, that's something I can't defend her on.

Nice job. It was pleasing to hear a young man review Pride and Prejudice. You are on the right track, and Austen has many layers to her books, which is why her fans reread them so frequently. Pride and Prejudice may be the least nuanced. I was also pleased to see someone speak about The Idiot. Mind-blowing how free of shame Dostoevsky is when he describes delusional mental and emotional states. You would almost think he had experienced them all.

Murakami is my favourite author, I loved "killing commendatore"

I really liked The Library of Babel by Borges. Then I read the novella A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck which is based off Babel. Great stuff. I'm interested in the Pedersen Kid. Added it to my Bookmory.

Have you heard of Michael Lentz's novel Schattenfroh, whose English translation is going to be published in August 2025? If you like Solenoid and Blinding, you may also like this weird novel.

Mumu is really good story, when we studied it in school everyone in my class read it even those who didn't love to read

Great to see the short story form being given the treatment! Knowing that you’re a connoisseur of both short fiction and Russian fiction, I wonder whether you’ve read George Saunders’s excellent book on the craft of writing short stories, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain? Saunders is a Pulitzer Prize winner and he’s taught in the famous Syracuse MFA program for like a million years. He collates his best workshops on Tolstoy, Chekhov et al-and he lays out a sensitive but systematic close-reading (from a craft perspective) of the chosen stories. It’s a really wonderful resource! Keep up the superb work. Happy to have found your channel!

The Pederson Kid was great! Need to check out the others. Five of my favorites: -A Rose For Emily: Faulkner -A Good Man Is Hard To Find: O'Connor -The Yellow Wallpaper: Gilman -The Paperhanger: Gay -The Death of Ivan Ilyich: Tolstoy

An alpha wouldn’t need validation or chase validation he would just be an alpha and not give a shit

I have many favorite short stories, but for me the most important one is Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges. It is deeply complex and at the same time an allegory about how fiction can create reality. Without a doubt, Jorge Luis Borges is the master of short stories.

Thanks for the great video as always. I’m only now starting to appreciate short stories but favorites so far are: 1. The Garden of Forking Paths (Borges); 2. The Night Face Up (Cortazar); 3. Le Maison Tellier (Maupassant); 4. The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (Hemingway); 5. Good Old Neon (Wallace) I could’ve just listed all stories in Ficciones and The Aleph but that would’ve been an uninteresting list!

Being There sounds hilarious! I've not heard of any of these, and each one sounds excellent!

My favorite short story: Barn Burning by William Faulkner. It started my journey into the wild and crazy world of Faulkner.

Haven’t heard of this one. Thanks for describing it

All new to me, thanks!

Happy New year! I'd consider all of them novellas rather than short stories (word count seems to be the breakipoint between the two). I'm not a fan of Gass and have been putting off reading his ON BEING BLUE for years, but that's my problem. I see Citizenkane in the comments has already listed many of my favorite authors short story writers, including Millhauser, Trevor, Carver, and Cheever. I'd also add the short stories of Jane Gardam and T.C. Boyle, among more recent authors, and Henry James among the ancients.I have a volume of George Saunders' short stories awaiting reading on my nightstand, along with the Penguin edition of Chekhov's LADY WITH A LAPDOG. Coincidentally, I just finished Milan Kundera's (novel/novella) SLOWNESS (156pp with largish type), and he mentions an interesting French novel that I enjoyed reissued by NYRB, Vivant Denon's NO TOMORROW. It pairs well with another of my favorite novels, LES LIAISONS DANGEREAUSE. Give both of them a shot!

The Death of Ivan Ilytch by Tolstoy; In the Penal Colony by Kafka; A Good Man is Hard to Find by O'Connor; Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree, Jr (sci fi).

Thanks

My favorite short story writers, William Trevor and John Cheever, were, IMO, much better short story writers than novelists. I think that writing short stories takes a different skillset than writing novels. That said, John Updike and Steven Millhauser wrote great short stories and great novels, and Millhauser's short story "Rain" (not to be confused with Somerset Maugham's colossal masterpiece [is that the greatest short story ever written?], to which it bears not the slightest resemblance, is surreal and completely unforgettable. Raymond Carver was also at the pinnacle of short story writing. I've yet to try Chekhov and Hemmingway, but they're on my list for the new year.

From your recommendation I purchased 'Solenoid' from the Kindle bookstore. It was $11.99 that day. I didn't realize I had so much in delayed shipping credits on Amazon and got the book for .99 cents. I'll aim to read it later this year. After I read the current book I'm reading and then one more, I'm jumping into 'War and Peace'-my only reading goal this year.

You should read The Garden of Forking Paths and The Circular Ruins by Borges. Both are less than 10 pages and introduce concepts that you will be familiar with from Solenoid or similar works. (Ideas of a Micro-Macrocosm as well as an infinite web of time that diverges and bifurcates at times) The Secret Miracle is also one of my favorites!

My fav collection of short stories is The Witch by Shirley Jackson

My top five: 1. "Master and Man" - Tolstoy 2. "The Aleph" - Borges 3. "The Bear" - Faulkner 4. "Metamorphosis" - Kafka 5. "Ward Number 6" - Chekhov

I fully watched this video and will see part 2! I'm from Portugal and I super like your style and books, it's not very common to have this type of library, congrats on that!

Bartleby The Scrivener, by Herman Melville. I could mention a dozen more, but I would prefer not to. 😂

Cool. My library is now inside my Kindle after moving to a smaller beach condo. Every square inch of space is at a premium when one downsizes. You have great books in your possession.

I'll have to keep these in mind. A bizarre short story that's stuck with me is 'Good Country People' by Flannery O'Connor. Not only is it a bizarre interesting read there is also a whole lot of underlying issues brought to the forefront.

My favorite short story so far has got to be Nick Joaquin's sentimental yet devastating masterpiece "The Mass of St. Sylvestre". It tells a tale of a man who is so obsessed with immortality that he devises a plan to attend a once in a life time "divine" mass to complete his wish. The way Nick Joaquin describes the story is aesthetically breathtaking yet thematically heartbreaking as he attempts to piece together what remains of his childhood in war torn Manila after aggressive American bombings levelled the city for 1 month (February to March, 1945) to destroy any last remnants of Japanese occupation from the city.

Master and Man by Tolstoy and The Snowstorm by Tolstoy are both 🎉🎉🎉

My favourite is REM by Cartarescu, very close to perfection for me.

The correct pronunciation is ablomov.

Get ready to grow. This is my new year resolution: read books. I'm brand new to reading regularly. Wish me luck.

I'm new to Dostoevsky and have only read his short stories so far. I'm following the "Youthers" edition- is it good? And also please mention your edition as well.

I just finished the 4 Joseph Conrad books that are narrated by Marlow (Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, Youth: A Narrative, and Chance). Youth: A Narrative is a crack-up and so true. It takes place on a ship, but the broader experience is so universal! After all, we have all been young. It's only 46 pages, so your commitment wouldn't be much. Lord Jim has a slow pace, but it has stuck with me for months. I agree that the Heart of Darkness was the least engaging of the four, and I even read that book twice, several months apart, to see if that second reading allowed me to get more out of it. Yes, that helped. Being so short, I read it too quickly the first time around, so the ideas and images didn't have time to stick, especially the ones that only took a sentence or two to convey. But maybe I've just been exposed to some of those ideas and images in other places.

ooh Murakami on the list, nice! 🥰

This list is definitely inspiring me to read more Russian literature!! I'll have to check some of these out. I'd like to recommend a book I just finished reading, The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth. It's a sort of satire of colonial Maryland, very thoroughly researched, a LOT of twists, has some philosophical ramblings, and can be funny at times as well. It's the only book by Barth I've read but it's considered his best, and I thought it maybe started a little slow but got very good by the end. I thought it might be an interesting suggestion because it's sort of an unusual book and seems pretty different from a lot of the books on your list, and also I just genuinely enjoyed it.

Hero of Our Times by Turgenev is a must. Enjoyed your video very much. Thanks and Happy New Year

Looking forward to you sharing your experience with this one. 😺✌️

Personally, if Ayn Rand had advocated things like how it's okay to put yourselves first, especially if not doing so is very detrimental to you & your overall wellbeing, I don't think she'd be as polarising today The problem is that she advocated that philosophy at every level of government & society Life is better when we do things in moderation The sanctity of the individual is important, sure But, so is working together as a society to make life better for the next generation Unfortunately, there are people out there who expect to reap all the benefits of a prosperous society, without fulfilling their end of the social contract That being, we look after each other