I love Rilke as a poet and writer. He puts so much of himself into his work, his fears, his doubts, his passions. This book is about him meeting Lou Andreas-Salome. Their thunderbolt first meeting became a lifelong friendship and a strong artistic and human complicity. The score of letters drawn from the correspondences of Rilke trace the history of this unique bond up to the poet’s death in 1926. If you haven’t read any of Rilke’s works, I highly recommend you start with “Letters to a Young Poet”. My copy sits at my bedside.

For some time when I was in my twenties and thirties I’ve been trying to understand why human beings exist. This book helped me to understand a little bit better and certainly the great German author, Thomas Mann, has portrayed very perfectly life at its best and at its worst.

http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Mountain-Thomas-Mann/dp/0679772871

A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes explores the primary complaints and reflections of the lover. Alone in your journey in the most beautiful, inadequate and sentimental forms. I recommend it to you all. It’s truly a great literature.

www.amazon.com/Lovers-Discourse-Fragments-Roland-Barthes

From the recent exhibition The Red Book of C.G. Jung at the Rubin Museum of Art, Chelsea.

The Rubin has reprinted C. G. Junk’s The Red Book (1875-1961). While working on this book Jung developed his principal theories of archetypes, collective unconscious, and the process of individuation. It is possibly the most influential unpublished work in the history of psychology. The pages are beautifully filled with his own works.

http://www.rmanyc.org/theredbook

Kafka has totally penetrated me with his dreams, his feelings, struggles and triumphs in expressing himself as a writer.

I’m so proud that I was born in the same country as Marguerite Yourcenar. She left behind her Memoirs of Hadrian, one of the best books that I have read. Marguerite Yourcenar described the rise and fall of the Roman Empire from 117-138 ad during Hadrian’s reign. It is superbly written.

“Bonjour tristesse” by Francoise Sagan is a gem. It’s like winding your watch back softly, little by little. If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend that you get it.