Podcast Episodes
Back to Search778 A History of Aphorisms (with James Geary) | My Last Book with Paul Chrystal
Episode 778
For thousands of years, writers from ancient China to contemporary meme-makers have demonstrated the power of the short, witty, philosophical phrases…
3 months, 1 week ago
777 T.S. Eliot's "Preludes" | "The Story of the Marquis de Cressy" by Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni (with Kate Deimling)
Episode 777
Jacke kicks off the episode with an analysis of T.S. Eliot's underappreciated poem of urban alienation, "Preludes." Then scholar and translator Kate …
3 months, 1 week ago
776 Mary Shelley in Bath (with Fiona Sampson) | My Last Book with D.G. Hampton
Episode 776
As fans of the novel know, Frankenstein began with a flash of insight during an ill-fated holiday near Geneva in the summer of 1816, when the young w…
3 months, 2 weeks ago
775 Celebrity Authorship in the Nineteenth Century (with Sarah Allison) | My Last Book with Emily Van Duyne
Episode 775
When assessing the literature of an era, we tend to think of the works that have made it into the canon - but in so doing, we're in danger of overloo…
3 months, 2 weeks ago
774 Robert Louis Stevenson (with Leo Damrosch)
Episode 774
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) suffered from poor health for most of his life, and yet he possessed immense vitality. In this episode, Jacke talk…
3 months, 3 weeks ago
773 The Films of Rob Reiner (with Mike Palindrome) | My Last Book with Matt Abrahams
Episode 773
In mid-December 2025, the world was shocked by the horrible and tragic news that beloved film director Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle Singer Reiner…
3 months, 3 weeks ago
772 Thucydides and The History of the Peloponnesian War (with Polly Low and Robin Waterfield) | My Last Book with James West
Episode 772
The Ancient Greek historian and general Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE) called his history of a war between Athens and Sparta "a possession for all time.…
3 months, 4 weeks ago
771 Shakespeare and the Generation of Genius - The Role of Performing Arts in education (with Robin Lithgow) - RECLAIMED
Episode 771
Robin Lithgow spent her life immersed in the performing arts, including a childhood in the theater and decades spent as an educator and arts administ…
4 months ago
770 Shakespeare and Civility (with Indira Ghose) | Robert W. Service and "The Cremation of Sam McGee"
Episode 770
Civility can help a society overcome tribal loyalties and cooperate for the common good--and when political and religious factions threaten to break …
4 months ago
769 The European Byron (with Jonathan Gross) | The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (#3 GBOAT)
Episode 769
The Romantic poet Byron (1788-1824) was more than just the scandal-ridden celebrity who was famously dubbed "mad, bad, and dangerous to know"--he wa…
4 months, 1 week ago