Caleb Can't Read

Send us Fan Mail Emily Dickinson could only be described as a Livewire within poetry.  Someone who Blasted the competition out of the water.  Unfortunately, her reclusive lifestyle led to her having no real fame until after her death, where her Mountain of works were finally published to universal acclaim.  Join us as we go through her ghostly presence and her most famous works, while exploring th...

Send us Fan Mail What a long road it's been.  And that road is filled with androids dressed as Romans looking to kill you in a plot 2000 years in the making.  Join us as we try to unravel the final years of history's most insane or prophetic writer (depending on what you believe).  Time to head on down to the bus stop and yell at wind, we're discussing the ending saga of Philip K. D...

Send us Fan Mail TW: Rape, Suicide; Sex!  Drugs!  Drugs!  Rock n' Roll!  Drugs!  Well, maybe not so much the sex and Rock n' Roll but at least we got drugs!  Philip K. Dick is certainly one of those authors that you know from the hundreds of adaptations you've seen on TV, whether you're aware of it or not, including "The Man in the High Castle", "Do Androids Drea...

Send us Fan Mail You know how to piss off a fanbase?  Tell them the truth.  Join us as we go into the rest of Jane Austen's life, as she produces satire after satire that seems to go over 50% of the population's head.  If she lived longer than she did, there's a good chance she would've finally told the world herself, but unfortunately, we're left with a lot of speculation...

Send us Fan Mail Miss us?  Don't answer that it'll make me sad.  Well we took an impromptu mid-season break by mistake but we're back!  Come join us as we go over the early life and works of a very misunderstood lady, someone who's known today for the kind of work that she was actually making fun of in the first place, Jane Austen!

Send us Fan Mail TW: Pedophilia; Jesus Christ this guy.  For some of you, this will for sure be a sad goodbye, as we delve into the remaining years of William S. Burroughs and his works, including his magnum opus, "Naked Lunch".  For those of us with a disgust for beatniks, it couldn't come soon enough.

Send us Fan Mail TW: Child Abuse, Pedophilia; Now have we dealt with some real pieces of shit here on Caleb Can't Read?  Boy have we.  Conmen, torturers, literal Nazis...  But William S. Burroughs is a special kind of bastard.  Come join us as delve into perhaps the most infamous writer of the Beat Generation and the making of his first novel, "Junkie", as well as what cost him his...

Send us Fan Mail If there were ever a superhero that could drown a man in piss and make you question why you ever called on them in the first place, Francois Rabelais would be the PeePee PooPoo Man.  (The 'P' symbol on his chest stands for 'hoPe'.)  Since Chaucer's invention of words used on Caleb Can't Read today, there was a man in the 1500's that put such a vo...

Send us Fan Mail For a man such as Roald Dahl, author of "The BFG", "Matilda", and "The Fantastic Mr. Fox", what can you say about him?  That he was problematic?  A bit creepy with his erotica and kind of shitty to his kids?  That he said some problematic things and was a hypocrite when it came to the messages he wrote for children but didn't do himself? Yes.

Send us Fan Mail TW: Child Abuse, Dead Kids; To those of you familiar with Roald Dahl's life, you may remember his beginnings as a severely abused child, an ace fighter pilot, and a sexual secret agent.  To those of you who are unfamiliar with Roald Dahl... well... we have some surprises for you.  Join us today as we delve into the early life of the man behind "James and the Giant Peach&...

Send us Fan Mail TW: Dead Kids; Welcome, you bunch of animals!  Come delve into the heyday of Rudyard Kipling, from his surprisingly non-racist classic "The Jungle Book", to his questionable masterpiece "Kim", and alllll the way through his problematic hit "The White Man's Burden".  For a man who loved to literally invent new slurs, will he be able to redeem hims...

Send us Fan Mail Ah, Kipling.  A brilliant poet.  A wonderful storyteller.  A hell of a racist.  Join us as we discuss the early life of English literature's most troubling slur creator!

Send us Fan Mail Kept you waiting?  Well we've been dealing with a lot of illnesses lately, which oddly enough is the theme for this episode and Jose Saramago's remaining works.  Come join us as we delve into his remaining catalogue, such as "Blindness", "Death With Interruptions", and "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ"!

Send us Fan Mail TW: Child abuse; For what would have been his 100th birthday, we are presenting you with the early life of Jose Saramago, arguably (by me-- I argue this--) Portugal's best writer.  Join us as we delve into his shitty childhood, his bizarre family, and his early works which would later gain a cult following, including "Manual of Calligraphy and Painting", "The L...

Send us Fan Mail Look, we are not experts.  I swear to God, if ever we did a live show, people would have to sit through a good 20 minutes before we actually get to the source material, based solely on the fact that one of us hated how we opened the episode, and were quicker at pressing the 'stop' button than the other could cover it with their hand.

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the show, folks!

Send us Fan Mail TW: Abuse, Dead Kids, Suicide; For our Season 4 finale, we bring to you a lot of sad.  For real, there's like 3 different people who die by their own hand in this.  But anyway, Sylvia Plath has become an authority in the poetry world since her passing, and her brilliance is something that must to be reiterated.  Again though, if you're going through some shit right now,...

Send us Fan Mail Bet you didn't see this one coming!  Huh?!  Haha, yeah...  Anyway, this guy's a fuckin' fraud, and we're here to tell you all about it.  Come listen to us discuss the bullshit prophecies of one of the most infamous conmen, Nostradamus!

Send us Fan Mail TW: Alabama; It's our 50th episode!  And to celebrate, we're going over the sad sad tale of Helen Keller, most well-known for overcoming her blind and deaf disabilities to become a prolific author and Socialist activist, and not as well-known for her weird religion and once flying a whole goddamn plane.

Send us Fan Mail Come join us as we discuss the life of Louis Braille, the man who invented a system for the blind to read while he was only 15!  And also sharing a bathroom with 120 other men.  Yes, the 1800's were a pooey time, especially if you were blind before Braille, which we'll also talk about.  Seriously, you were like town jester if you had a disability.  Not like today, where...

Send us Fan Mail TW: Torture; Welcome to perhaps the most pretentious Latin American writer there ever was, Roberto Bolano!  Come learn the backstory of the man who witnessed more than one atrocity in several countries, paving the way for him to create the two novels that one hipster chick was telling you about before her Marxist idealization turned you off, "2666" and "The Savage D...

Send us Fan Mail TW: Rape; You may know him as "Geoffrey Chaucer", but we know him as "Geoffrey Chaucer, God of Farts".  Welcome to our episode on the man who quite literally invented the word, and perfected the ass-craft with his most famous stories-- and the precursor to the entire English literary scene-- "The Canterbury Tales"!

Send us Fan Mail TW: Rape; Good goofin' God we're back in Nebraska.  Come join us as we go over the greatest works of Willa Cather; including "Death Comes for the Archbishop", "My Antonia", and "One of Ours", as well as the last years of her life, fraught with pain and loss.  Yay!

Send us Fan Mail We hear you, and your prayers have been answered: you want more Nebraska.  Well today we have for you the embodiment of Nebraska itself, the author of "The Prairie Trilogy", and famous derby-hat-wearer, Willa Cather! 

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to our finale of Herman Melville folks.  The end of his depressing, destructive life, and yet the birth of Billy Budd, the "Handsome Sailor", a man so thicc with love, that he climaxes our hearts.  Anyway, we'll be covering some of his most memorable stories here as well, including "Bartleby" and "Benito Cereno" as well.  High school Engl...