The Reader and the Writer

Welcome to Middlemarch , Book Six. It’s hard to believe there’s only two books left! We’re definitely going to make the most of them. In this episode, Shari and Rhea discuss all the unsaid saying that is happening throughout this section, and all the gossip, too. They talk about how Eliot uses these communication gaffs to her narrative power, to develop and reveal characters, and express themes sh...

Welcome to our final episode of Hannah Coulter , by Wendell Berry. In this episode Rhea and Shari explore questions surrounding expectations versus hope, what we owe our children, what the culture tells us we owe our children, and what the price is for leaving the Membership. They talk about “failed love,” eternity happening now, and the experience of “waking up dead.” They talk about the prodigal...

But you may have a long journey to travel to meet somebody in the innermost inwardness and sweetness of that room. You can’t get there just by wanting to, or just because the night falls. The meeting is prepared in the long day, in the work of years, in the keeping of faith, in kindness. (p. 110, on the room of love) Welcome back to Hannah Coulter , by Wendell Berry. In this 2nd episode, Rhea and...

“This is my story, my giving of thanks.” —Hannah Coulter (p. 5) Welcome to Hannah Coulter , by Wendell Berry. In this episode, Rhea and Shari discuss the power of Wendell’s work in and for their lives. They talk about his way of seeing every single thing that opens up to us a story that, as Hannah writes in the beginning: weighs upon us, presses against us and fills all our senses to overflowing (...

“The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.” —Sixo to Paul D. Only this woman, Sethe could have left him his manhood like that. He wanted to put his story next to hers. Welcome to our final episode of Beloved, by Toni Morrison. In this episode, Shari and Rhea discuss the first images, and...

“What is it you gentlemen are thinking of when you are with Mrs. Casaubon?” “Herself,” said Will…. When one sees a perfect woman, one never thinks of her attributes—one is conscious of her presence.” (409) Welcome back to Middlemarch. In this episode, Shari & Rhea discuss beauty and love from multiple characters’ perspectives. What is love and beauty according to Will Ladislaw? Lydgate? Rosamond?...

Welcome back to Beloved . In this episode, Rhea and Shari discuss the way this section of the story has a sense of suspendedness to it in ways that are hard to understand or explain. They discuss this phenomena through the unique p.o.v.’s: Baby Suggs (beyond the grave), the “four horsemen,” and Stamp Paid. They discuss the moments of “communion” happening and what each one is signifying, pointing...

Welcome back to Beloved , by Toni Morrison. In this episode, Shari and Rhea discuss the novel in a bit of a different way, that is, in the way of movement. What is the push and pull of each character? Where is the status quo that each is continually striving for and what is the continual element disrupting that design? Where and when and to who is each character saying yes , or no to, and what is...

Welcome to our first episode of Beloved , by Toni Morrison. In this episode, Shari and Rhea introduce their four week reading of this powerful novel by way of poetry. Rhea discusses how poetry has helped her digest the intensity of the narrative by reading poetry along the way. They talked about Morrison as a writer, her beliefs about fiction, narrative, and the participatory compact she makes wit...

Most happy she that most assured doth rest, But he most happy who such ones love best —Spenser (from epigraph in ch 37) Welcome back to our year(ish) long read, Middlemarch , by George Eliot. In this episode, Shari and Rhea discuss all the ways Book Four feels pivotal; the story lines begin to really boil in “Three Love Problems,” and there is no shortage of curiosities to go with it. First, they...

Welcome to our final episode on Anne of Green Gables ! In this episode, Shari and Rhea discuss the Scripture in these last chapters, hidden in plain sight. They talk about how this Great Conversation serve the narrative turn of the novel toward its fullness: in Anne’s character, and as a human being into wholeness. They talk about the way ambition seems to be the theme-thread running strong throug...

Welcome back to Anne of Green Gables. In this episode, Shari and Rhea discuss the narrative shape that this story is taking in ways that are different than the traditional story arc structure. They talk extensively about goodness, Anne’s ideas of it, the ways her ideas are limiting and how much of the community seems to help foster those limits. They discuss goodness as in ideal versus goodness as...

“Dear me, it’s only been three weeks since she came, and it seems as if she’d been here always. I can’t imagine the place without her.” —Marilla Welcome back to Anne of Green Gables . In this episode, Shari and Rhea spend time discussing our narrator: When does she pop out from behind the book to talk to us? What effect does this have on our experience of the story? Our feelings about the characte...

“It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it? But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have to stop and that hurts. When the Lord puts us in certain circumstances He doesn’t mean for us to imagine them away. Welcome to our first conversation on Anne of Green Gables ! In this episode, Shari and Rhea can’t get enough of Anne with an ‘e’. They share their favor...

Welcome back to Middlemarch ! In this episode, Shari and Rhea think long and hard about our narrator: by what tactics is she (he?) getting us to see? Where are our eyes turned? On what do we gaze? And how does this gaze serve Eliot’s purposes for expressing her greater themes? They also talk about the symmetry in the story lines of Book Three, and the elegant arc they make. Of course, they discuss...

“Survival, it is called. Often it is accidental, sometimes it is engineered by creatures or forces that we have no conception of, always it is temporary.” —p. 324 Welcome back to Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. In this episode, Shari and Rhea find themselves without words… more than once…! They talk about Charity’s way of controlling everything to the very end, and how still after all that,...

“Order is indeed the dream of man, but chaos, which is only another word for dumb, blind, witless chance, is still the law of nature.” (p. 191) Welcome back to Crossing to Safety , by Wallace Stegner. In this episode, Shari and Rhea talk (somewhat obsessively) about Charity Lang and her extreme need to control, and how it affects, well, everything! They talk more about Larry, the long-view narrato...

And so, by circuitous and unpredictable routes, we converge toward midcontinent and meet in Madison, and are at once drawn together, braided and plaited into a friendship. (p. 96) Welcome back to Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. In this episode, Shari and Rhea continue their discussion of the long-view narrative style of the story’s first person narrator, Larry Morgan. They discuss his gener...

Welcome to R&W’s next 2026 read: Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. In this episode, Rhea and Shari discuss the powerful beauty they see already this story of the mundane that makes both marriage and friendship lasting and gold. They talk about Stegner’s great influence on the American literary canon—both through his own work, and his teaching of those literary giants who followed him, Shari’s...

Welcome back to Middlemarch , our year-ish long read. In this episode, Rhea and Shari discuss what it means to be old and young, to have desire and duty, and the making of a person and a marriage. They talk about the various relationships in Middlemarch and how they are continuing to shape into being. They spend considerable time discussing the “big-hearted” narrator, and all they appreciate about...

Welcome to our final episode of Frankenstein. In this episode, Shari and Rhea revisit the nesting narrative, also called framing. They examine each frame through the lens of several different themes and motifs. They ask what ideas they see repeatedly, and how the characters express the various themes. They talk about Shelley’s exploration of love through the pairing of different characters togethe...

Welcome to Middlemarch, Book One. In this first “reading” episode of Middlemarch , Rhea and Shari dive headlong into the world of early-1800’s provencial England. They spend a great amount of time discussing the story’s witty, critical, big-hearted narrator. They examine the text for understanding how they are meant to feel about Casaubon, though they already know exactly how they feel about Casau...

Welcome to R&W’s second episode of Frankenstein , by Mary Shelley. In this episode, Shari and Rhea dive deeper into the complexities and questions begged by the nested narrative style of the story, Shelley’s use of nature as a metaphor and motif, the use of counterpoints in every character as they relate to Victor, the many Great Conversations embedded in Volume 2, a continued study of humans’ dut...

“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, that he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.” —Victor Frankenstein to Capt. Walton (p 41, 1818 version) Welcome to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , R&W’s first deep read for 2026. In this episo...

Welcome to Middlemarch ! In this episode, Shari and Rhea lay the groundwork for R&W’s first yearish-long read. They discuss the author, George Eliot, the origin story of Middlemarch , and all the things they will be looking for while they read. Oh, and they try and figure out exactly what “provincial” means. To find the reading schedule, bookmarks, and other resources mentioned in the podcast, vis...