Podcast Episodes
Back to Search91 In Which John Donne Decides to Write a Poem About a Flea
John Donne (1572-1631) may have been the most wildly inventive poet who ever lived. But that doesn’t mean he was the most successful. Dr. Johnson, wr…
9 years ago
90 Mark Twain’s Final Request
In 1910, the American author Mark Twain took to his bed in his Connecticut home. Weakened by disease and no longer able to write, the legendary humor…
9 years, 1 month ago
89 Primo Levi
Primo Levi (1919-1987) lived quietly and wrote with restraint. An Italian Jewish writer, professional chemist, and Holocaust survivor, he was, said I…
9 years, 1 month ago
87 Man in Love: The Passions of D.H. Lawrence
The Edwardian novelist D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) lived and wrote with the fury of a thousand suns. His novels Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Sons and Lover…
9 years, 1 month ago
86 Don Juan in Literature (aka The Case of the Red-Hot Lover)
From his earliest days as a popular legend, through many appearances in drama and poetry and fiction and film, the sexual conquistador Don Juan has b…
9 years, 1 month ago
85 Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
In 1813, a young author named Jane Austen built on the success of her popular novel Sense and Sensibility with a new novel about the emotional life o…
9 years, 2 months ago
84 The Trials of Oscar Wilde
In February of 1895, the playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) continued an astonishing run of theatrical success with the opening of his artistic maste…
9 years, 2 months ago
83 Overrated! Top 10 Books You Don’t Need to Read
Life is short, and books are many. How many great books have you read? How many more have you NOT read? How to choose? Mike Palindrome, President of …
9 years, 2 months ago
82 Robinson Crusoe
In 1719, a prolific author and political agitator named Daniel Defoe published a long-form narrative about a shipwrecked sailor stranded on a desert …
9 years, 2 months ago
81 Faust (aka The Devil Went Down to Germany)
Have you ever wanted something so badly you’d sell your soul to get it? Youth? Wealth? Sex? Power? Knowledge? We call it making a deal with the devil…
9 years, 3 months ago