Classics Considered

On Monday, the podcast returns for Season 3!  I have quite a line-up planned, with plenty of variety, so stay tuned for that. As a sneak peek - Monday's episode features two French authors: Jules Verne and Albert Robida. Both authors wrote futuristic, coming-of-age novels set in the 20th century.  I'll talk about their predictions in the episode, but for now, check out these illustrations by Robida: An air-yacht A floating casino A house in the clouds Dueling journalists Taking the tube

Portrait of James Thomas Fields (1817-1881), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), and William Davis Ticknor (1810-1864). Over on Instagram , I'd mentioned I've been getting into Hawthorne's short stories again.  He's a favorite author of mine, and when I read the collection Twice Told Tales (already five years ago, wow!), I was blown away by the craft of his shorter works.  I finally broke down and bought the complete Tales and Sketches, and for my first reading chose "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," one of the more famous ones. The story is set up simply enough: a young man and clergyman's son, Robin, sets out one day to seek his fortune.  More specifically, he leaves the countryside and arrives in Boston in order to get in touch with Major Molineux, a relative who had once offered to help him get started in life. It's a dark, gloomy night in Boston.  Robin goes from door to door, inquiring for his kinsman.  Everyone laughs at him, while he wand...

This week's Top Ten Tuesday challenges us to come up with to-be-read books by our favorite authors... 1. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter Yes, I probably sound like a broken record, but I still haven't read this one. 2. Joseph Conrad: Nostromo 3. Franz Kafka: Diaries Diaries...that's a little awkward.   4. Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon 5. Agatha Christie: The rest of the Poirot series It's been over a decade since I read it, so I might just start over. 6. Charlotte Bronte: The Professor and Emma 7. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Firm of Girdlestone This is getting obscure, but Doyle's lesser-known works rarely disappoint. 8. J. R. R. Tolkien: The Fall of Gondolin 9. Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment 10. Soren Kierkegaard: The Concept of Anxiety My biggest takeaway from this list is that, barring Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard, I've scarcely discovered any new favorite authors in the past 6–8 years.  Pretty sad. 

I first heard of this book from Cirtnecce at Mockingbirds, Looking Glasses & Prejudices... She wrote so highly of Dear Mrs. Bird that I couldn't wait to get my hands on a library copy.  Three months later, it finally arrived! It's London in the middle of the Blitz, and twenty-something Miss Emmy Lake wants desperately to leave her dull desk job and become a War Correspondent.  Opportunities are scarce, especially for young women, so when she spies a job opening at The Evening Chronicle , she takes it, no questions asked. Unfortunately, it turns out Emmy has agreed to become a typist for a ladies' magazine: Woman's Friend .  The eminent yet stringent editor, Mrs. Henrietta Bird, runs an advice column for women.  To her disappointment, Emmy has not been hired to get the scoop on the latest War developments - in fact, her job is merely to type up Mrs. Bird's responses to readers' questions, on topics ranging from the absurd to the tragic. What seems ...

If you missed it in last Monday's episode, I mentioned Episode 30 was the last installment of Season 2.  I've also decided to take the rest of August off, as well as the whole of September, before coming back for Season 3 in October . This break gives me a chance to make improvements to the podcast, diversify my reading, and work on other projects such as writing.  It also happens to be a good time personally, since I'm going through some sudden changes at work which will need more of my attention (and energy). In the meantime, be sure to catch up on older episodes, suggest new books or topics, and follow me on Instagram ( @classicsconsidered ).  There is a lot of new content coming to this site as well, so watch for more updates in the coming weeks!

I gave up on Moby-Dick the first time - even after getting halfway! Two weeks ago , I mentioned I was reading The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux.  Well...I'm still reading it, and I'm not even halfway. For a story about a family moving to the jungle, this book is extremely slow.  I keep thinking "I'm finally getting into it!" only to get bogged down by endless descriptions of Allie's (the dad) smart-aleck comments and ego bigger than the commune he's founding.  So yeah, I'm thinking about calling it quits. It irritates me to give up on a book...I'm a completist by nature.  Since 2012 (when I started keeping track), I've given up on 14 books, which spread out over 6 years is still more than I'd like.  On the other hand, there have been books I wish I'd given up on (Kafka's The Castle ) but for whatever reason just couldn't bring myself to do it. With that in mind, which are the 14 that made the unlucky cut?  In roughly reverse-...

In A Room of One's Own , Virginia Woolf takes us through a history of women in fiction, from the unknown poets of Elizabethan times to 18th and 19th-century writers like Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë.  This little book is not only for feminists, but for anyone interested in the life and classic writings of female authors. Apologies for the intermittent background noise, near the beginning of the episode.  It was probably me leaning on my "lectern" - i.e. a white cabinet on wheels, which may not be the most stable setup...  I'll be taking extra precautions in the future! Sources / Further Reading: "Virginia Woolf Was More Than Just a Women’s Writer" - Humanities magazine Virginia Woolf's suicide note (Wikisource) Napoleonic Code (Encyclopedia Britannica)