Thank you kindly ❤️

I don't know about you, Bud, but to me, this sentence is the perfect ending, and the longer I think about this story, the more I realize its depth. I loved it for the language and the vivid descriptions, a story that I saw unfold before my inner eye while I read it. After really thinking about it, I love it even more. What would we do if we had access to an accelerator like this? Would we use it to do the necessary things, and by doing those, basically spend even more of the time given to us on things that we *have* to do instead of spending it on things that make life worth living? A brilliant thought experiment. I like it a lot.

"Father will be proud"... I'll tell you something: My father is dying. This is what his doctors told me today. He will probably not make it through the weekend. I sat next to him at his hospital bed today. He looked at me and said "Soon. It won't take very long". My uncle (my dad's brother) sat opposite me and said to the nurse: "You know... my nephew here, my brother's son, did everything he could do so that my brother gets all he needs" And I wondered, whether I really did. If I could have done more. A couple of hours later, I see your comment. "Father will be proud" (even though your comment, of course, had a very different context and meaning. Still... There are no coincidences. Thank you!

Love this! Thank you very much for sharing. I will definitely try this. It is really a beautiful and very insightful comment. I did this recording very early, and didn't know yet where this "project" is going, what's going to happen. I was thinking for a while now to do different interpretations of poems that I already read. And now, I will attempt this :)

Thank you very much 😊

Thank you so very much! I am really glad :) Doing the different characters and trying to come up with variations is so much fun to me. Thank you for listening and thank you for taking the time to comment. I really appreciate it

Thank you so much 😀

And a most wonderful evening, morning, noon, and midnight to you :) Thank you so very much. It is a spooky poem, indeed, and the perfect Halloween poem. I thought so as well, and put on my list of poems to read but then ... well... I loved it so much that I just simply had to read it. And the word "Summerween" will be in my active vocabulary now. Thank you :D

I'm glad :D I love this story, too. I'm glad that I stumbled over it. Happy that you like it, too :)

Thank you so very much 💚 I appreciate your words more than you can imagine.

Thank you so very much. I'm glad, you liked it 😊

I'm glad you liked it, Bud 😁 It's a great story. With - just as you said - some quite interesting ideas 😆

Thanks so much 🙏🏻

😄 thank you! 😊 🙏🏻 I did whisper in the end, the noise reduction plugin that I had to use apparently filtered it out, though. But I liked the silence as well, so I kept it. And thanks bunches. It's indeed a milestone. The subscription count goes up and down, I saw in the statistics that it used to be even at 1001 for a day. So, yeah... it's awesome 😁

Thank you very much :)

🙏🏻

I'm glad I'm not alone :D That's a wonderful thing you do. Learning together with your kids must be great. And thank you so very much! I can't even express how much it means to me that what I do here is both enjoyable AND helpful. All the best to you. And thank you for taking the time to share this :) Edit: I forgot: I hope you will enjoy Dracula ad nicht as I did. It's a marvelous book. I'd be happy if you'd let me know what you think of it

Thank you so very much!

Of course I remember :) Thank you for saying "hi". How is college going?

@@iReadBooks AWESOME! No problem man. College is super fun, I am meeting so many new people and discovering all of my strengths and weaknesses as a person haha. My grades could do a little work though... its been a rough transition but next year I will know what to do. How about you? How is life treating ya?

I can absolutely imagine that the transition from high-school to college is not that easy. It's a very different way of learning. It's awesome that you like it 😀 I'm very glad for you, and I'm sure you'll get the hang of it and in no time this will reflect in your grades. Meeting new people is always exciting. Life is okay on my side. Thank you for asking. There were a couple of rough patches here and there in the last month, but... hey... such is life, right? I've been doing improv classes for the last one and a half years and took part in an improv show not too long ago. This was real fun and very exciting. I would have never guessed that improv is something I'd be capable of. And I also wouldn't have - not even in my wildest dreams- imagined that it's that much fun. So, yeah... I am pretty sure that I will continue this. So much for strengths and weaknesses. It's astounding what we are capable of 😊

Thank you :) And, yes! Absolutely. I've always been a very curious person. Since nobody was really able to "quench my thirst for knowledge", I started reading books and later dabbled into science and philosophy. Newton is a great example. And Blackwood himself is one, too. The lines between the natural and the supernatural always have been very blurry, and some of the greatest stories live exactly on these lines, don't they?

@@iReadBooks you probably know the story...but a classic example is how phosphorus was first discovered/isolated. In an alchemists workshop, in a German city. In early modern times.....

It's the story of Hennig Brand, isn't it? A great example, indeed. The search for the philosopher's stone has brought forth a lot of fascinating endeavours. Wasn't the invention of porcelain a quite similar story? If I remember correctly, it was something avoid trying to turn lesser materials into gold? I have to check it out again.

@@iReadBooks I think your correct on both counts. Lots of interesting stuff. The porcelain thing - the so called quest for 'white gold' is a good one. Then again some people think Devinci's intrest in running water 💦 was a kind.?...of intuitive quest for a 'unified principle' of living things - a kind of instinctively thought out sense that DNA existed. In literature I would say that M R James - "count magnus'....is a sinister tribute to the power of early modern thought. And the dangers.

Oh, I didn't know about the running water thing. Thank you for pointing me towards it. I'll certainly read up on it. The whole transition from natural philosophy and alchemy towards what we now call science is such an incredibly fascinating subject, and literature from especially the 19th century is so rich with hints and ideas. There is so much to explore

Thank you kindly!

Thank you kindly! :)

Thank you so very much

Absolutely agreed. Aladdin is probably my favourite Disney movie of all times, and most certainly one of the funniest. Hamburg is a wonderful city. I really love northern Germany a lot. It was our second visit and we just strolled around all day and took photos and visited visited "Kunsthalle". The musical was the highlight, though. As for the readings: I really enjoy reading more short stories and will continue this. But I want to get into novel readings again. I don't want to clutter the channel, so what I will try, is to post a whole novel reading at once with chapter makers, or post the reading in two or three parts with a couple of chapters each. I'm curious how this will work out. 😊 How are you, my friend? All good on your side?

@@iReadBooks Sounds fantastic! Casually strolling around is my favourite way of exploring a city as well. I haven't been to Hamburg in a long time, although part of my extended family lives in the area. Bremen is another gem! Love the architecture and the foggy air ... ⛵🫖 Thanks for asking! I'm quite well, although busy finishing my dissertation - which, along with Kathrin's endeavors, is one of the reasons why our podcast has been on hold for over a year now, sadly. Hopefully the monsters will reappear once we are done with our projects. 🐲🎭 As for your readings, I enjoy poems and short stories equally, but a classic novel has the greatest appeal, because I can immerse myself in the imaginary world for a longer time and - thanks to your excellent readings - listen to books I would otherwise probably not find the time for. Your new way of structuring the readings makes a lot of sense to me, and of course, it's great to see you experimenting with different presentation and editing styles. Very excited to see what you're cooking up next!! Oh, by the way, you're about to hit 1000 subscribers soon! More than deserved! Keep on rockin'! 🔥📚🎉

Oh, we haven't been to Bremen yet, sure this will be one of our next destinations. Crossing my fingers for your dissertation. Awesome! I'll be waiting patiently for my favourite podcast to return, in the meantime :) Since we're still not done completely with the apartment, and everything is still a mess here, I haven't been able to get back to my posting-rhythm but I'm positive that this will be resolved soon. Once everything is done (or... well... at least the majority of it), I will have so much more freedom to do more visually and creatively ambitious things. Currently it's: Moving a whole bunch of stuff from one end of the room to the other, sit down, read, move the stuff back and then edit. This is tiresome. The plan is to have everything set up so that I just have to sit down and read and then edit. Yeah, I totally miss reading novels. There are some great ones on my list. And - as I wrote - I'm currently recording a reading, and I so much enjoy it. Staying focused on one story, being able to "shape" the characters over a longer period of time and really dive in. That's satisfying. As for the subscribers... Yeah, it's awesome (and also a bit scary tbh. More awesome than scary though ;) I'm really looking forward to read more and also experiment more :) All the best to you and to Kathrin. Have great time and much success!

@@iReadBooksThanks a lot!! I'm so glad you are keeping your enthusiasm despite all the obstacles! It really shines through. Hope you finish the renovation of the appartment soon. I'm surely not the only one waiting to hear more tales from the crypt and finally see your skull collection! 😅💀

@vernunftgeheuer thank you 😊 there will be more tales. And (but don't tell anyone), I already started filming the skulls video. I tossed my original script in the bin and I'm currently writing a new one and have some of the b-roll already "in the can" 😁

Thank you so very much 😊 I'm glad. I hope that you will like the next stories, too. I think, I found some fascinating ones 😊

Thank you very much 😊

Thank you so very much! I'm glad, you enjoy my reading. I absolutely fell in love with this book while reading it the first time and I'm thrilled that this communicates. Thank you for listening and taking the time to comment. I really appreciate it

Thank you kindly!

So glad, you enjoyed it 😊😊😊

Thank you so much 😀

Thank you kindly!

Thanks again :)

So glad! :) And thank you very much!

Congratulations! If I can help you by putting a reading of one of your works on my small channel, I'd be honored to do so. You can email me any time. The email address is on my channel info page (I don't want to put it here due to spam problems)

I haven't yet. I got into Machen's work not too long ago. "The Great God Pan" is definitely one of the next books, I'll read. The concept behind it is fascinating, and when I first read about it, I got a copy immediately, and your comment makes me even more anxious to read it. Thank you :)

Thank you kindly! I really appreciate it :)

Thank you kindly

Thank *YOU* 😊

Awesome, thank you! :) I'm glad

Thank you 😊

I am very glad! Thank you :)

Thank you so very much! It means a lot. I am very glad you liked it. Thanks for listening and for taking the time to comment!

Thank you very much! :)

Thank you :)

I will do my very best! Thank you for listening, for the kind words and for taking the time to drop a comment :) I appreciate it