The Literary Life Podcast

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we bring you another fun Literary Life of…episode. Angelina, Thomas, and Cindy's guest today is Lia Techand, our first international guest on the podcast. Lia, a German born in Kyrgyzstan, currently serving with her husband as a missionary in Australia, along with their two book-loving children. We start off the interview hearing Lia tell about her young lif...

Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas are back on The Literary Life Podcast today with another discussion in our series on Aristotle's Poetics . Sharing their commonplace quotes leads into the conversation about why reading this work still matters to our understanding of how to read literature. Thomas and Angelina talk about the problem of literary critics who claim Shakespeare violates Aristotle's "rules"...

On The Literary Life podcast this week, our hosts continue their series of discussions on Aristotle's Poetics . Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas share some pertinent commonplace quotations to open the episode, then dive into this week's text, beginning with Aristotle's definition of "tragedy." Thomas expands on the idea of catharsis, and Angelina outlines Aristotle's necessary elements of a story. Cind...

On this episode of The Literary Life podcast, our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks open a new series of discussions about Aristotle's work on story, Poetics . After sharing this week's commonplace quotes, Thomas gives us some background on Aristotle and his time. Angelina points out the importance of differentiating between Aristotle's work Rhetoric and Poetics and how they...

This week on the podcast, we bring you another of our "Best of The Literary Life Podcast" episode replays. On today's episode we delve into the literary life of the mysterious Mr. Banks. Cindy begins the interview asking Thomas about his family background and the influence of his parents on his own reading life. He shares about many of the books he loved in childhood and how that shaped his tastes...

Welcome to another episode in our "Best of The Literary Life Podcast" series. Today on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins tackle the topic of fairy stories, discussing the what, why and how of reading them. Angelina shares the distinctive characteristics of fairy stories in contrast to other types of stories, such as myths. They deal with the question of whether fairy t...

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, we have another installment in our "Best of The Literary Life Podcast series. This week's replay is a special chat our hosts Angelina and Cindy had with Wendi Capehart. Wendi passed away in 2022, and this episode is in honor of her memory. Wendi was an adventurous mom of many and lived throughout Asia for many years. She spent the last several years enjoying the...

Welcome to this episode in our "Best of The Literary Life Podcast" series, this time replaying our very first episode! In this inaugural episode, Cindy and Angelina introduce the podcast and what they mean when they talk about having a "literary life." Each of them share how stories have shaped their personal lives, as well as how they believe stories have the power to shape culture. You can find...

On The Literary Life podcast today, our hosts look back on their reading lives over the past year. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas each share a commonplace quote, then they each share a little about how they approach reading in a way that fits with the demands of their busy lives. Each of our hosts talks about their literary surprises, their most outstanding reads of the year, disappointing books they...

On The Literary Life podcast this week, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are joined by Atlee Northmore to talk about film adaptations of Bram Stoker's Dracula . Atlee guides us through the timeline of Dracula film adaptations and, together with our hosts, talks about why these have fallen short of the book and how they have distorted people's view of this story. Head over to the HouseofHumaneLetters.com...

This week on The Literary Life podcast our hosts introduce the 2023 Reading Challenge ! Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are excited to share with you about all the categories on this year's Literary Life Bingo Reading Challenge! You can download your own copy of the challenge here , as well as check out our past reading challenges. Scroll down in the show notes to see a list of the links and books ment...

On The Literary Life podcast this week, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas are back to wrap up their series on Bram Stoker's Dracula . They open with their commonplace quotes then begin diving into the major plot points and the connections being made. Angelina and Cindy discuss what happens to Mina, especially in relation to the idea of the New Woman versus the Angel in the House. Thomas and Angelina talk...

Our hosts are back on The Literary Life podcast today to continue our series on Bram Stoker's Dracula . This week we are covering chapters 12-17, and in the introduction to this episode, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas discuss the purpose of the Gothic novel in reorienting us to realize there is more to the world than the physical and empirical. As they cover the plot in these chapters, other ideas sha...

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast today and our series on Bram Stoker's Dracula . This week Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks cover chapters 8-11 of the book. Angelina explains both the "New Woman" and "Angel in the House" ideas of the Victorian era and makes some observations about Dr. Seward's interactions with Renfield in contrast to the nuns ministrations to Jonathan H...

On The Literary Life Podcast this week, our hosts continue with part 2 of their series on Bram Stoker's Dracula . After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas begin discussing how to properly read Dracula and other books written in this tradition. (Hint: It's not the Freudian or psychoanalytical approach!) Angelina argues that Bram Stoker was trying, among other things, to re...

On this week's episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford is joined as always by Thomas Banks and Cindy Rollins for the opening of their series on Bram Stoker's Dracula . Today our hosts focus on the background and historical context for this piece of literature, as well as going over the highlights of the first two chapters. They talk about the question of the role of the monster in...

On The Literary Life Podcast this week, our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks sit down for a special conversation with Jason Baxter, author of The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis . Jason is a speaker, writer, and college professor who writes primarily on medieval thought and is especially interested in Lewis' ideas. You can find out more about him and his books at JasonMBaxter....

On this week's episode of The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts wrap up their series on Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Angelina opens the conversation about the book by highlighting Dickens' masterful ability to tie up all the loose ends in his stories. They cover not only the major plot points here at the end of the book, but talk about the craft of Dickens and continue to teach us how to read thi...

On The Literary Life this week our hosts cover the next section of Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Angelina opens the conversation highlighting the structure of the book and the storytelling devices Dickens uses in this book. Cindy talks about the failure of educational systems in general, and the confrontation between Louisa and her father. Thomas shares a little about Jeremy Bentham and his utili...

Welcome back to The Literary Life this week and the continuation of our series on Hard Times by Charles Dickens. After some autumnal chit-chat, our hosts Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas dive into the plot of the end of Book 2. They open discussing Stephen's fate and Tom Gradgrind's destructive, devouring nature. They highlight Mrs. Sparsit and her similarities to a harpy and other imagery surrounding...

The Literary Life Podcast's new episode this week continues our series on Hard Times by Charles Dickens. After Angelina ties up a few loose ends from Book 1, Thomas leads us into Book 2 and introduces us to Mr. Harthouse. Cindy highlights the dangers of not allowing children learn self-government as illustrated in the character of Tom Gradgrind. They then look again at Stephen Blackpool and his po...

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts continue their series on Charles Dickens' Hard Times . Angelina, Cindy and Thomas open the conversation with their commonplace quotes, which all lead into the discussion of Hard Times. They start out highlighting once again the fairytale and allegory aspects of this story, including the setting of Coketown. Together they talk about the two sides of Sis...

On this week's episode of The Literary Life, we begin our fall series on Charles Dickens' Hard Times .  Angelina, Cindy and Thomas start out the book chat by covering some of the differences between this book and other novels of his, as well as how to approach Dickens in general. They also discuss misrepresentations of Dickens as a social reformer, the allegorical and fairy tale elements of his wo...

Today on The Literary Life Podcast we bring you another fun episode in our "In Search of the Austen Adaptation" series. Hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks are joined by resident film aficionado, Atlee Northmore to discuss film adaptations on Sense and Sensibility . The conversation opens by revisiting the question of what makes a good adaptation of a book when translating it f...

This week on The Literary Life podcast with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks, we have a very special episode for you. Our hosts are joined by guests Dan Bunting and Anthony Dodgers, both of whom are pastors, for a discussion on why pastors should read fiction books. Dan is also host of the the Reading the Psalms podcast . Angelina starts off the conversation by asking why these me...