My Last Book Series

In 2023, the History of Literature Podcast began a new special series, "My Last Book," starting with Episode 462, in which when Jacke talks with author Laurie Frankel about her "last book."

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 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 to them by their children, while others imagined listening to an audio recording of a childhood favorite read to them by a parent who had passed away.

The question resembles the  one about taking a book with you on a desert island, but it really differs in terms of context: your mortal life is ending. With no possible rescue, what book would you choose as your companion? Authors or books that guests have chosen include Shakespeare, Gustave Flaubert's Sentimental Education, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, George Eliot, Middlemarch, and Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. As you lay dying, what would you want your last book to be?