The Reading Hour

Episode 35 is only the second of season 2's episodes not to include a reading from Sarah Orne Jewett's A Country Doctor , which concluded in Episode 34; the full hour is devoted to "The Allegash and East Branch," in which Thoreau and his companions begin to return from their north-most excursion, making their way toward then along the headwaters of the Penobscot River's east branch.

Because we conclude A Country Doctor therein, Episode 34 begins with Jewett then rounds out the hour with additional pages from the third essay of The Maine Woods , in which Thoreau enters Apmoojenegamook (the largest of the Allegash lakes) and then the Allegash River itself, heading north.

Episode 33 continues with Thoreau and his companion striving to navigate the carry to Mud Pond on foot then catalogues the molesting insects encountered before concluding the day with observations about the loon; the climactic, penultimate chapter of Jewett's A Country Doctor follows.

In Episode 32, Thoreau paddles through narrow waterways and seeks to carry his sixty-pound sack to Mud Pond by a path more swamp-like than muddy; we then conclude the 19th "Friends and Lovers" chapter of Jewett's A Country Doctor , the second half which registers Nan's perspective on her relationship with George Gerry.

Episode 31 continues with Thoreau's third adventure in the Maine woods, during which he interests himself in his Indian guide's sensibilities regarding how to conduct oneself on a Sunday; the episode concludes with the first half of A Country Doctor 's 19th chapter, in which the young Dunsport lawyer recognizes ponders the degree to which his affection for Nan is reciprocated.

Episode 30 continues our reading from "The Allegash and East Branch," wherein Thoreau wakes in the night to discover "phosphorescent wood," which delights him; following a re-cap of Nan's adventures with George Gerry on the river, we then eavesdrop upon "A Serious Tea-Drinking" at Mrs. Fraley's in ch. 18 of A Country Doctor.

In Episode 29, we venture further up Moosehead Lake with Thoreau and Joe Polis to camp and do a bit of botanizing at Mount Kineo, which rises on a peninsula within the lake. We then continue with Nan's visit to Dunport in chapter 17 of A Country Doctor.

Episode 28 introduces the third, final essay of Thoreau's The Maine Woods , "The Allegash and East Branch," then continues Jewett's A Country Doctor with its 16th chapter, in which Nan acquaints her Dunport aunt and a new friend with her vocational plans.

In Episode 27 (2.15) we conclude "Chesuncook," the second of three essays in The Maine Woods , where Thoreau stirringly expresses how an ecological regard for the wild may promote the health of a democracy. The episode's second half is devoted to chapter 15 of Jewett's novel, in which Nan finally becomes acquainted with her aunt during an extended visit to Dunport.

In this episode, Thoreau tries to determine from several Native Americans in a Maine camp what some of the Abenaki place names mean; then, in ch. 14 of A Country Doctor , we move to Dunport and make the acquaintance of Nan's aunt, Miss Anna Prince.

Episode 25's substantial reading from Thoreau's "Chesuncook" includes some of the most moving prose of the essay as Thoreau moralizes about hunting and poetry; he also expresses Transcendentalist enthusiasm for "the living spirit of the [pine] tree." The episode concludes with Jewett's thirteenth chapter of A Country Doctor , "A Straight Course."

Episode 24 (2.12) includes only a short passage from Thoreau's second essay in The Maine Woods , "Chesuncook," to leave time for the whole of Jewett's long chapter 12.

Episode 23 offers a long passage from Thoreau's "Chesuncook," much of it concerning the tracking and hunting of moose, and the short chapter 11 of Jewett's A Country Doctor .

Episode 22 includes only a short passage of Thoreau's second essay from The Maine Woods so that the long tenth chapter of Jewett's A Country Doctor may be shared in full.

With Episode 21 (2.9), we begin the second of the three essays comprising The Maine Woods, "Chesuncook," in which Thoreau navigates from Boston to Bangor, then travels by wagon to the foot of Moosehead Lake, then by canoe to its head, before porting to the Penobscot River. The episode concludes with the second half of Jewett's long ninth chapter, "At Dr. Leslie's."

Episode 20 concludes the first of The Maine Woods' s three essays, "Ktaadn," then begins the 9th chapter of Jewett's A Country Doctor .

Episode 19 takes us up Mount Katahdin with Henry David Thoreau, whose essay "Ktaadn" delivers its rhetorical climax in today's reading. By extending the episode beyond its usual length, we make time for two chapters of Jewett's A Country Doctor .

Episode 18 presents more of Thoreau's long essay "Ktaadn" and chapter 6 of Jewett's A Country Doctor.

In Episode 17, we continue our readings from Thoreau's "Ktaadn" and Jewett's A Country Doctor .

Episode 16 continues our reading from "Ktaadn." Thoreau's mention of poisoning wolves is the occasion for sharing a Tuckerman sonnet that addresses the topic as well as the 19th-century American poet's well-regarded pastoral ode, "The Cricket." The episode concludes with more of Jewett's A Country Doctor .

Episode 15 picks up where we left off with Thoreau's trek northward toward Mr. Katahdin in The Maine Woods . Then, having so far presented only the short initial chapter of Sarah Orne Jewett's A Country Doctor , The Reading Hour forges into the story of young Nan Prince.

In episode 14 (2.2), we begin two longer works related to Maine: Henry David Thoreau's nonfictional account of his adventures in the state, The Maine Woods (1864), and the York County author Sarah Orne Jewett's novel A Country Doctor (1884). Because "Ktaadn," the opening essay of Thoreau's three-part book, quotes from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," that poem is read aloud i...

Episode 13 (or season 2, episode 1 = §2.1) introduces Henry David Thoreau's ecological prose to The Reading Hour with the essay "A Winter Walk" (1843) and serves us as a preface to the longer Thoreauvian work to come: The Maine Woods (1864). The hour concludes with two of Thoreau's poems: "Sic Vita" and "Conscience is instinct bred in the house").

Episode 12 concludes our reading of Woolf's To the Lighthouse then presents two short essays that Ralph Waldo Emerson published in The Dial between 1840 and 1844: "The Tragic" and "The Senses and the Soul.".

Episode 11 opens with interpretive remarks about Woolf's project and several of her characters' concerns in To the Lighthouse 's final part; chapters 8-11 of "The Lighthouse" are then presented.