Classics Considered

Hi all!  This is just a note to announce I am wrapping up Season 1 of Classics Considered and taking a little break. Over three months, our auditory "voyage" has spanned a variety of topics, from dystopia to historical fiction and from reviews to not-so-rhetorical questions .  Thanks to all who have been listening along the way!  I've enjoyed sharing books I like and some I didn't, and it's been lots of good fun, technical difficulties included. In April, I plan to release one or two special episodes, so please stay tuned for that.  Otherwise, watch for Season 2 the first Monday in May , which will hopefully - like every good TV series - exceed Season 1 in quality and entertainment educational value.

"Classic" - this word holds so much weight, yet what does it really mean?  Today we discover Kazuo Ishiguro's novel A Pale View of Hills and examine the different facets of what makes a classic book. Sources / Further Reading: "The Definition of a Classic in Literature" by Esther Lombardi "In Literature, What Makes a Classic?" (NPR) Kazuo Ishiguro and Malcolm Bradbury, in conversation (Interview, plus discussion of A Pale View of Hills ) "Kazuo Ishiguro becomes Nagasaki honorary resident" (NHK) The Buried Giant - My thoughts

What makes Alice in Wonderland a beloved classic?  This week, I review one of my childhood favorites and some of its creative film adaptations. Links Mentioned: "Pig and Pepper" - Disney concept "In a World of My Own" - Diana Panton  

My goodness, I repeated myself quite a bit in this one...  Well, I got very excited about this week's topic - buying books ( and saving money)! Links Mentioned / Resources: Budget Paperbacks: Wordsworth Classics - also on Amazon Dover Thrift Editions Barnes and Noble Classics - also on Amazon Free Ebooks: The Literature Network Project Gutenberg Lithium - EPUB reader - Forgot to mention this in the episode, but I've just recently started using this app for Gutenberg .epub books on my Android tablet.  It has note-taking, highlighting, and bookmarking features like a dedicated e-reader, which really brings Gutenberg .epubs to a whole new level! OverDrive Internet Archive Wikisource Free Audiobooks: Basil Rathbone reads "The City in the Sea" by Edgar Allan Poe   LibriVox   Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis - David Barnes G. K. Chesterton's The Club of Queer Trades - David Barnes R. L. Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and ...

Two runaways, two worlds, and the pursuit of freedom.  This week's episode covers Anthem and Breakfast at Tiffany's , two American classics with surprising similarities. Sources / Further Reading: Biography of Ayn Rand (Gale) Biography of Ayn Rand (Encyclopedia Britannica) Biography of Truman Capote (Encyclopedia Britannica) "The Legendary Friendship of Harper Lee and Truman Capote" About Truman Capote (PBS)

Our journey leads us to a castle in Hungary and Sándor Márai's short but stirring novel, Embers . History takes center stage in the life of the old General, who wakes up one day to take revenge on the man that haunted him for forty-one years. Sources / Further Reading: Biography of Sándor Márai (San Diego House of Hungary) Biography of Sándor Márai (Random House) Biography of Sándor Márai (Wikipedia)

Great books can make great movies (and, in some cases, better ones).  This week's topic features some of my favorite costume dramas inspired by classics. Editor's note: In my excitement and haste, it seems I mispronounced Wodehouse's name and called videos VCRs... whoops!  (Oh, and The Young Victoria was 2009, not 2012.  Time does fly.) The Questions: First literary drama miniseries you ever watched? Last literary drama you watched? What media forms do you prefer to use when watching period dramas (i.e. purchased DVDs, rented/borrowed DVDs, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu)? Favorite literary drama soundtrack(s)? Favorite literary musical? Literary drama you'd recommend to anyone? If you could have a new adaptation of your favorite classic book, what would it be and who would star? A favorite pair of literary drama friends? A favorite pair of literary drama enemies? Movies or miniseries with the best costumes? Where I found the questions: Old-Fashioned Ch...

Looking for your next great read?  This episode features six little-known classics and why I feel they should be famous.

An ancient family heirloom - and a mother's call for vengeance - sends young Leo Vincey and his adoptive father on a quest to find a mysterious sorceress, Ayesha, or She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed .  In this episode, I review H. Rider Haggard's She , a novel which influenced the fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. Sources / Further Reading: How to Pronounce Ayesha? (Sci-Fi StackExchange discussion) Biography of H. Rider Haggard "The Annexation of the Transvaal" ( The Spectator archives) - Haggard directly participated in this political event. "Fawcett's Deadly Idol" Article on Percy Fawcett's disappearance (The History Channel) The Lost City of Z , by David Grann - My parents read and were fascinated by this nonfictional story of Percy Fawcett and his obsession with lost cities.  We also watched the movie by the same name , but it wasn't very well done... skip it and go straight to the book!

In this episode, we meet William Faulkner through one of his most famous novels, The Sound and the Fury . Resources: Faulkner Pronouncing "Yoknapatawpha"

Our voyage takes a detour through that hardest of decisions: how to rate a novel.  I share my four personal guidelines for rating classics and show some examples of how this works in practice.

We wrap up the Space Trilogy with That Hideous Strength , Lewis's dystopian thriller which takes place on our very own planet Earth.

Here we uncover another dystopian classic: Robert Hugh Benson's little-known novel from 1907, Lord of the World . Sources / Further Reading: List of Dystopian Literature (Wikipedia) Article on Benson by The Catholic World Report Summary of papal statements (Wikipedia) Interview with Pope Francis by Catholic News Agency (2015)