The Bookening

"Man, in short, is to storm the heavens and overthrow the gods, or even to become a god himself. There is nothing outrageously improbable in such a conspiracy. Indeed, at a moment when a single atomic bomb – of a type already pronounced “obsolete” – has just blown probably three hundred thousand people to fragments, it sounds all too topical. Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous...

_WARNING: DUE TO THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF THE BOOK BEING DISCUSSED, THIS EPISODE CONTAINS MUCH MORE (AND MUCH MORE FRANK) DISCUSSION OF SEX THAN IS USUAL IN OUR PODCAST. LISTENER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. _ The advisory above is no joke. This episode is pretty much all about marriage, sex, and eroticism. Mostly because that's what That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis is pretty much all about. Well, tha...

  In this episode our heroes begin their discussion of C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength. They spend much of the time discussing Lewis himself--who he was, the larger context of his life and work, and whether he is a trustworthy influence on Christians today. You'll learn why the Space Trilogy actually shouldn't be called that, what kinds of trashy novels C.S. Lewis was a sucker for, and how Lewi...

On November 21, 1994 a film began production that would change the course of cinema--along with one young man's life--forever. The film was Amy Heckerling's immortal comedy classic Clueless _ _and the young man was Jake Mentzel.  Over twenty years have passed since that fateful day. Mentzel has earned well-deserved repute as an associate pastor of Clearnote Church and the executive director of War...

It's Jane Austen. She's the best. This is one of her novels. Our heroes talk about it. What else do you need to know? Click here to buy the book from Amazon.  Coming next month, maybe C. S. Lewis's weirdest, most violent novel?  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

A new episode of our podcast's here  Nathan and Brandon and Jake sit around  (Probably drank a whole gallon of beer  Based on the way that they started to sound) Reading the poems that were written by greats  Don't ask us why Jake had to say Dylan,  Or Nathan likes mystical bullcrap by Yeats  Or everyone cries when Brandon gets Milne in— That's how it goes when recording a show  Things will just h...

Don't worry, _Emma _is still coming. (!!!) It'll be up in the next few weeks, as soon as our heroes get through this emergency poetry series.  Why an emergency poetry series? Well, for one thing, these episodes do take a lot of work to produce, and our heroes have lives and full-time jobs and blah blah blah. Our heroes needed a little extra time to get into the grove of a novel-a-month again. Espe...

Per Wikiepdia , Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is "commonly thought to explore the themes of hypocrisy, jealousy, faith, fidelity, family, marriage, society, progress, carnal desire and passion, and the agrarian connection to land in contrast to the lifestyles of the city." Thanks for the help, Boys! (Their citation for that assertion is gradesaver.com—maybe we should just do our research there). Any...

2016 was a pretty great year here at The Bookening. We haven't been paying a ton of attention to what's going on in the outside world, but we assume everyone else loved 2016 just as much as we did. In any case here's our final episode of the year. Our heroes look back upon (and do some earnest bickering about) all the books they read this year. They also look ahead to the books they'll be reading...

With the Christmas season in full swing, and the New Year fast approaching our heroes spend some time looking back on the books they've read in 2016 and the things they've learned. Don't worry, it's not a clip show. What it actually is is an awards show. Each of our heroes surveys the fields of everything we read this year and announces his pick for such categories as Best Male and Female Characte...

Merry Christmas everybody! From Nathan, Jake, Brandon, and all your friends at Warhorn Media. :)  We start the New Year with Anna Karenina. Pay attention for some fun surprises before that though... ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

It's A Christmas Carol. Yay!_ _Merry Christmas from The Bookening! Today our heroes discuss that odious old sinner, Ebeneezer Scrooge—and the sinner who created him, Mr. Charles Dickens. Unlike the socially conscious entertainers of today (say, George Clooney), Mr. Dickens knew how to make his points so charmingly that you sort of want to go along with him—even when he's hammering you over the hea...

The epic conclusion of our series re: _Gilead _by Marilynne Robinson. Our heroes examine John Ames, Jack Boughton, the nature of true godliness, and cheap redemption versus earned redemption in storytelling.  Also ... WILL THE MYSTERIOUS PHANTOM PREVAIL??????????? Click here to buy the book from Amazon.  Coming in December,  _ A Christmas Carol _by Charles Dickens. And, hey, _Anna Karenina _is a b...

The Midwest was still a very new thing for me. I got a voice in my head. It was the funniest thing. I mean, [I’d] been reading history and theology and all these things for a long time. And then I was in Massachusetts, actually, just [waiting to spend] Christmas with my son[s]. They were late coming to wherever we were going to meet, and I was in this hotel with a pen and blank paper, and I starte...

It's another flesh-creeping festival of the uncanny, as our heroes discuss everything there is to discuss about Bram Stoker's Dracula. Just for fun, here's some snippets from original reviews of _Dracula _back in 1897, some of them complimentary, some of them not so much: Its strength lies in the invention of incident, for the sentimental element is decidedly mawkish. Mr Stoker has shown considera...

Without fear of contradiction, the most gripping, exciting, amazing, spine-creeping THING ever to reach the screen! "DRACULA" has held two generations in fascination and terror! Its daring will ASTOUND you! Its SUSPENSE will chain you to your seat! You'll never forget DRACULA! —from a one-sheet for Universal Pictures _Dracula _movie of 1931 It's October, Nathan's favorite month of the year! And as...

I think “Macbeth” the one supreme drama because it is the one Christian drama; and I will accept the accusation of prejudice. But I mean by Christian (in this matter) the strong sense of spiritual liberty and of sin; the idea that the best man can be as bad as he chooses. You may call Othello a victim of chance. You may call Hamlet a victim of temperament. You cannot call Macbeth anything but a vi...

Yes, sir, this is an episode of The Bookening about _Macbeth. _In it our heroes discuss _Macbeth. _You should listen to it. It's good. You'll learn lots about Macbeth. Which is a surprisingly thorny play to discuss. After all, just what is so great about a play re: some thug and his castrating shrew of a wife murdering a bunch of people and then feeling bad about it and making a bunch of speeches?...

In this episode we discuss the monsters in Beowulf , Grendel, his mother, and the dragon. Why monsters? Why fight them? Is the modern urge to feel sympathy for Grendel justified? Then we figure out What It All Means. Is Beowulf some kind of elaborate Christian apology? Or is it just a cool poem about a bro fighting some demons or whatev? After that, Jake goes to battle with Brandon again, in an at...

In today’s episode of The Bookening, we discuss how poems differ from novels, the character of Beowulf as a dudely dude, and the appropriate time to brag about how many sea monsters you’ve killed. Then Brandon and Jake go to war in an epic kenning-guessing context. It’s intense. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Monsters, mothers, dragons, oh my! Our heroes plunge boldly into the poem that have been the inspiration for every video game ever made, what with the multiple levels (Heorot Hall, The Haunted Marsh, etc), each one ending in a big monster fight.  They (spoiler) love the Seamus Heanny version, but find themselves in the unenviable position of doing bloody (but respectful, we hope) battle with the D...

It's get-down-to-brass-tax time. What is the deal with the crummy last 19515905890 chapters of_ Huck Finn_? Why does the last section go on so long? Why is Tom allowed to be such a brat? Why doesn't Jim have any self-respect at all? Why doesn't Huck, for that reason? What happened to Huck's big epiphany? Where's the big point about racism or southern society or whatever?  What the heck was Mark Tw...

_I have written 400 pages on it—therefore it is very nearly half done. It is Huck Finn's Autobiography. I like it only tolerably well, as far as I have got, & may possibly ... burn the MS when it is done—_Mark Twain in a letter to William Dean Howells In part 2 of our series on Huckleberry Finn, our heroes begin a journey down the river with Huck. But first they have no other choice but to add...

It is with heavy hearts that our heroes reconvene to discuss Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. What was once the glorious trio of Nathan, Jake, and Brandon is now the sad, pathetic, useless duo of just Nathan and Brandon.  For alas, Jake lies moldering in the ground, shot by a stray bullet from Brandon's gun. Without Jake's heart, without Jake's wit, without Jake's wisdom, how will our remaining hero...

Yes, it's part two of our testosterone-soaked series on For Whom the Bell Tolls, this time with 100% more rants about sex! Also rants about discernment, rants about Old People, rants about Kids Today—this episode is just full of rants.  But how could it not be, given that our wise and noble heroes begin the episode by talking about Maria, certainly the most problematic character they've encountere...