My Last Book Series

For the past few years, the History of Literature Podcast has been running the special "My Last Book Series." The idea for the series started with a question in an email from a listener: "Dear Jacke," said the emailer. "What do you want your "last book" to be? This will be the last book you will ever read..."

Since then, Jacke has asked many guests of the show this question, and the responses have been amazing and varied. Some look back to childhood favorites, while others recall the book that helped launch a lifelong education and literary career. Some wanted to have a favorite book read aloud by their children, while others imagined listening to an audio recording of a childhood favorite read by a parent who had passed away.

The question resembles the one about taking a book with you to a desert island, but it really differs in terms of context: your mortal life is ending, without a possibility of a rescue or reprieve. Guests have chosen a Shakespeare play, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, George Eliot's Middlemarch, Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, among many other works from the past, present or imagined time. What "last book" would you choose as your companion? In the first episode of the series, Episode 462, Jacke talks with Laurie Frankel about her choice for the "last book" she will ever read. With special cameos from Dinitia Smith, Saikat Majumdar, Isaac Butler, and Anna Beer.