Showing titles in Literary History & Criticism

James Gleick's story begins at the turn of the 20th century, with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book, an international sensation: The Time Machine. A host of forces were converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological - the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks.

Voice medicine to soothe your soul, from freedom worker, poet, author, and spoken word artist Dr. Jaiya John. Bedtime bliss. Morning meditation. Daytime peace. Comfort. Calm. Soul food. Come, gather around the fire. Let me read for you... Books online wherever books hang out. Learn more at jaiyajohn.com.

Death is not for the faint of heart, and sometimes the best way to cope is through humor. No one knows this better than comedian Laurie Kilmartin. She made headlines by live-tweeting her father's time in hospice and her grieving process after he passed and channeled her experience into a comedy special, 45 Jokes About My Dead Dad. Dead People Suck is her hilarious guide to surviving (sometimes) death, dying, and grief without losing your mind.

The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Raising Children for Fun and Profit is a hilarious (though not scientifically tested) wink at the time-honored mysteries of parenting. For anybody who has ever had a kid or has ever known one, knows that the experience is neither fun nor profitable - so, you might as well laugh!

What made the Romans laugh? Was ancient Rome a carnival, filled with practical jokes and hearty chuckles? Or was it a carefully regulated culture in which the uncontrollable excess of laughter was a force to fear-a world of wit, irony, and knowing smiles? How did Romans make sense of laughter? What role did it play in the world of the law courts, the imperial palace, or the spectacles of the arena?

Just two demigods who love Percy Jackson. Join Erin and Manasa as we dive into the canon of the Percy Jackson universe, a few chapters at a time. We'll be going through not only Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but also Heroes of Olympus, Trials of Apollo, and the companion books. Get ready for lots of speculating and dorky jokes! Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/camp-half-pod/support

A definitive collection of wisdom on every style of writing and a celebration of the transformative power of the written word from one of the most influential writers and thinkers of the modern age, C. S. Lewis, the beloved author of the Chronicles of Narnia series, Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and other revered classics.

Some of us were lucky enough to have one passionate, funny, inspiring English teacher who helped us fall in love with books. Add a lifetime of teaching Dharma - authentic, traditional approaches to meditation and awakening - and you get award-winning author Dean Sluyter. With droll humor and irreverent wisdom, he unpacks the Dharma of more than twenty major writers, from William Blake to Dr. Seuss, inspiring listeners to deepen their own spiritual life and see literature in a fresh new way: as a path of awakening.

The First World War laid waste to a continent and brought about the end of innocence — and the end of faith. Unlike a generation of young writers who lost faith in the God of the Bible, however, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis found that the Great War deepened their spiritual quest. Both men served as soldiers on the Western Front, survived the trenches, and used the experience of that conflict to ignite their Christian imagination.

Why Shakespeare? What explains our continued fascination with his poems and plays? In Living with Shakespeare, Susannah Carson invites 40 actors, directors, scholars, and writers to reflect on why his work is still such a vital part of our culture.

Welcome to Immerse: Prophets! An Immerse Bible Reading (and listening!) Experience Chronicles–Ezra–Nehemiah, Esther, Daniel Immerse: Chronicles is the sixth and final installment in Immerse: The Bible Reading Experience featuring the New Living Translation (NLT) Bible text. Chronicles contains the remaining First Testament Books: Chronicles–Ezra–Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel. These works were all written after the Jewish people fell under the control of foreign empires and were scattered among the nations. They remind God’s chastened people of their identity and calling to faithfully ...

Enjoy our collection of hundreds of Children's StoriesView our entire collection of podcasts at https://www.solgoodmedia.comAll Librivox recordings are in the public domain

Shusaku Endo's novel Silence took visual artist Makoto Fujimura on a pilgrimage of grappling with the nature of art, the significance of pain, and his own cultural heritage. His artistic faith journey overlaps with Endo's as he uncovers deep layers of meaning in Japanese history and literature, expressed in art both past and present. He finds connections to how faith is lived amid trauma and glimpses of how the Gospel is conveyed in Christ-hidden cultures.

The saga of John Kennedy Toole is one of the greatest stories of American literary history. In Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin draws on scores of new interviews with friends, family, and colleagues as well as full access to the extensive Toole archive at Tulane University, capturing his upbringing in New Orleans, his years in New York City, his frenzy of writing in Puerto Rico, his return to his beloved city, and his descent into paranoia and depression.

When Brian Doyle passed away at the age of 60 after a bout with brain cancer, he left behind a cult-like following of devoted listeners who regard his writing as one of the best-kept secrets of the 21st century. Doyle writes with a delightful sense of wonder about the sanctity of everyday things, and about love and connection in all their forms: spiritual love, brotherly love, romantic love, and even the love of a nine-foot sturgeon.

A relation of cruel optimism exists when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing. Offering bold new ways of conceiving the present, Lauren Berlant describes the cruel optimism that has prevailed since the 1980s, as the social-democratic promise of the postwar period in the United States and Europe has retracted.

In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde brings to life the playful and disruptive side of human imagination as it is embodied in trickster mythology. He first visits the old stories—Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others—and then holds them up against the lives and work of more recent creators: Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and Frederick Douglass. Twelve years after its first publication, Trickster Makes This World has taken its place among the great works of modern cultural criticism.

Ted Hughes, poet laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. With an equal gift for poetry and prose, and with a soul as capacious as any poet in history, he was also a prolific children's writer and has been hailed as the greatest English letter writer since John Keats. His magnetic personality and insatiable appetite for friendship, love, and life also attracted more scandal than any poet since Lord Byron.

On August 3, 1845, young Emily Dickinson declared, "All things are ready" - and with this resolute statement, her life as a poet began. Despite spending her days almost entirely "at home" (the occupation listed on her death certificate), Dickinson's interior world was extraordinary. She loved passionately, was ambivalent toward publication, embraced seclusion, and created 1,789 poems that she tucked into a dresser drawer. In These Fevered Days, Martha Ackmann unravels the mysteries of Dickinson's life through 10 decisive episodes that distill her evolution as a poet.

Fall asleep with your favorite comfort bedtime stories: the complete Sherlock Holmes in timeline order. In each episode, a section of a Sherlock Holmes story will be read aloud in a soothing text-to-speech voice set to relaxation music, to help you get to sleep. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sh-bedtimestoriespodcast/support