Episodes

Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood... sure we know the stories, but do we know their origins? What do they tell us about the "Germans" of the nineteenth century - and how do they compare...

Yes, John Milton was important, and yes, Paradise Lost has been part of the canon since the 17th century - but why should we read anything by John Milton today? Do we imbibe his poetry like medicine? Is it a slog through cere...

Jacke had big plans to make this episode all about the poetry of William Butler Yeats...and then listener feedback to the last episode overtook him. So instead of lazing about on the Lake Isle of Innisfree, he returns to the ...

As the Artistic Director of Theater of War Productions , Bryan Doerries has joined his colleagues in using dramatic readings and community conversations to confront topics such as combat-related psychological injury, end-of-l...

Born in Wales to parents of Norwegian descent, Roald Dahl (1916-1990) grew up to become one of England's most famous writers. Although Dahl was an accomplished writer of short stories for grownups, he is today known best for ...

Dragons! From ancient civilizations to modern-day movies, humans have spent millions of hours imagining these popular mythological creatures - and millions of words describing them. Jacke's guest, Scott G. Bruce has compiled ...

Poet Robert Hayden (1913-1980) surprised Jacke with his description of freedom in his sonnet "Frederick Douglass"; in this episode, Jacke considers the nature of freedom and attempts to determine exactly what Hayden meant. PL...

In this episode, Professor Scott G. Bruce shares one of his favorite passages about the underworld from The Penguin Book of Hell , which he edited. Then Jacke talks to author Matthew Sturgis about his new biography, Oscar Wil...

Following Jacke's discussion with Stephen Mitchell about the first Christmas, Jacke takes a look at a special letter by Rainer Maria Rilke (which Stephen Mitchell translated). In this letter, written in Rome on December 23, 1...

Stephen Mitchell has translated or adapted some of the world's most beautiful and spiritually rich texts, including The Gospel According to Jesus, The Book of Job, Gilgamesh, Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, The Iliad, The Odysse...

Jacke talks to Mike Palindrome about his work on the "Tolstoy Together" project sponsored by Yiyun Li and A Public Space, along with some other thoughts about reading great books on Twitter. THEN Jacke responds to the incredi...

The English novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) was regarded by many as the most brilliant satirical novelist of his time. A self-proclaimed curmudgeon, for whom the Conservative Party was not conservative enough, Waugh convert...

Your humble podcaster-squirrel is back! Jacke considers the legacy of Charles M. Schulz, creator of Charlie Brown and Peanuts , and reflects on the difference between being "best known for" and "known for" an artistic endeavo...

What happened in the Sixties? How did singers of popular music transform from mere entertainers to the poetic bards of their generation? Were these songs literature? If so, what does that mean? And if not, what exactly are th...

Born into a remarkable family full of talented artists, the Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats (1865-1938) nevertheless stood out. Deeply immersed in mysticism and the occult - along with Irish politics, the devel...

Jacke talks to journalist Tom Roston about his new biography of Kurt Vonnegut, The Writer's Crusade: Kurt Vonnegut and the Many Lives of Slaughterhouse Five . PLUS Jacke reads excerpts from one of Vonnegut's most famous speec...

Feeling grateful, Jacke rummages through the literary storage trunk to find works on gratitude by five poets and essayists: Maya Angelou, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sharon Olds, Henry David Thoreau, and W,S. Merwin. Enjoy! Help sup...

It's a good day for cooking! First up: Scott Carter, author of the play Discord: The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy , joins Jacke for a look at the gospel as updated by Leo Tolsto...

During her stormy and mysterious life, Eliza Haywood (1693?-1756) was one of the most prolific writers in England. Her "amatory fictions" were unapologetically sensationalistic, earning her the opprobrium of her mostly male c...

In her new book Read Until You Understand , beloved professor Farah Jasmine Griffin entwines memoir, history, and art in exploring the culture of Black genius and the lessons and legacies of Black lives and literature. In thi...

It's a literary feast! National bestselling author Bethany C. Morrow joins Jacke for a discussion of her novel So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix , in which four young Black sisters come of age during the American Civil...

"I could not write a girls' story," Louisa May Alcott protested after a publisher made a specific request that she do so, "knowing little about any but my own sisters and always preferring boys." But she agreed to try, and th...

Brilliant and contentious, the Swiss-born political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1768) is one of the key figures of the Enlightenment, with a fame and influence that continues to this day. But although we know him ...

Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure Treasure Island gave the world a number of familiar pirate tropes, like parrots on shoulders and X marks the spot. But it also helped lock us into a somewhat limited view of life on ...