Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and a new book discussion series! This month, Angelina and Thomas will be covering Richard Adams' Watership Down. Beginning of their commonplace quotes, they talk about the background of this book and what type of story this is, as well as how Angelina is approaching this first read. Thomas gives some biographical information on Richard Adams, including the publishing challenges facing Adams. Angelina highlights the epigraphs beginning each chapter and their significance. Some of the other topics Thomas and Angelina share their thoughts about include the classical references in these chapters, the allegory of the journey of the soul, and the archetypes and obstacles that we may see in the rest of the book. Join us again next week for chapters 11-21!

Don't forget to check out everything going on over at HouseofHumaneLetters.com to stay up to date on all the upcoming new summer classes and webinars.

To view the full show notes for this episode, please visit https://theliterary.life/340.

This week on The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks return from their summer break with a fun "Ask Us (Almost) Anything" episode. The questions they answer include the following:

• How does Mr. Banks choose the poem for the end of each episode?
• How do they go about finding sources of good secondary research or literary criticism?
• How did Angelina first learn about alchemy in the literary tradition?
• Is Mr. Banks any relation to the sculptor Thomas Banks?
• Can you give a brief definition of each of the building blocks of stories?
• What exactly is the "objective correlative"?
• Is re-reading important in the literary life and, if so, what makes it profitable?
• How do you keep up with the many images when reading?
• How should an author approach trying to write in the literary tradition?
• How do you deal with reading slumps?
• What is your favorite book?
• How do you defend an education in the humanities in an age obsessed with STEM?
• How many books do you own?
• Does Angelina actually hate John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress?
• And more….

Don't forget to check out everything going on over at HouseofHumaneLetters.com to stay up to date on all the upcoming new summer classes and webinars.

View the full show notes for this episode, including quotes, book links, and this week's poem at https://theliterary.life/339.

Welcome to the final episode of our summer series on short stories and essays! Today your hosts Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins are joined once again by Thomas Banks for their discussion of Samuel Johnson's essay "The Vulture." Before getting into the meat of the essay, Angelina talks about why she disagrees with her own commonplace quote on the purpose of poetry. In the process, she gives us a brief history of literary periods from the classical to the neoclassical and enlightenment.

Thomas shares some more biographical information on Samuel Johnson and his work. Cindy highlights both the important place and the danger of satire, which is a popular neoclassical form and the one used in Johnson's essay. The discussion ends with thoughts on why Johnson's essay was finally not included with the others in The Idler collection, as well as what his purpose may have been in writing "The Vulture."

To check out the current offerings at The House of Humane Letters, as well as Thomas Banks' poetry webinar mentioned in this episode, please visit HouseofHumaneLetters.com.

And for the full show notes on this episode, please visit our podcast website at https://theliterary.life/338.