Podcast Episodes
Back to Search788 John Ruskin (with Bob Blaisdell) | My Last Book with Francesca Wade
Episode 788
Nineteenth-century art critic and polymath John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a visionary thinker and influential social commentator who revolutionized how …
2 months ago
787 Why Poetry with Matthew Zapruder Encore
Episode 787
In his book Why Poetry, the poet Matthew Zapruder issued "an impassioned call for a return to reading poetry and an incisive argument for its accessi…
2 months ago
786 Cherokee Novelist and Poet John Rollin Ridge (with Travis Franks)
Episode 786
A member of the Cherokee nation, John Rollin Ridge (1827-1867) lived a dramatic life full of contradictions. He also became the first Native American…
2 months, 1 week ago
785 Literature in an Age of Anti-Immigration Sentiment (with Daniel Olivas) | My Last Book with Janet Todd
Episode 785
Daniel A. Olivas, the grandson of Mexican immigrants, is a fiction writer, poet, playwright, book critic, and attorney. In this episode, Jacke talks …
2 months, 1 week ago
784 Marcus Aurelius: Philosopher-King (with William O. Stephens)
Episode 784
In the fourth century B.C., Plato famously posited a philosopher-king as the ideal ruler for his imagined Republic. Five hundred years later, the Rom…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
783 Southern Imagining (with Elleke Boehmer) | My Last Book with John McMurtrie
Episode 783
The world has a northern bias: our politics, culture, and literature all tend to view the northern viewpoint as the default position, leaving the far…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
782 Consent in the Regency Novel (with Zoë McGee)
Episode 782
Ever since the novel was invented, women have used it as a platform for sharing ideas about sexual consent. In this episode, Jacke talks to Dr. Zoë M…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
781 Laurie Frankel's Enormous Wings | My Last Book with Rhodri Lewis
Episode 781
"And one man in his time plays many parts," wrote Shakespeare in As You Like It, "[h]is acts being seven ages." We all know the feeling of passing fr…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
780 Chekhov on Writing (with Bob Blaisdell)
Episode 780
In an 1886 letter to his brother, Anton Chekhov delivered some advice about truthfulness in writing. "Don't invent sufferings you have not experience…
2 months, 4 weeks ago
779 Ernest Hemingway and The Sun Also Rises (with Mike Palindrome) RECLAIMED
Episode 779
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was one of the most famous American writers of the twentieth century. His plain, economical prose style--inspired by jou…
3 months ago