The Reader and the Writer

On this OAI bonus episode, Rhea and Shari discuss a chapter excerpt from Shannon Reed’s latest book, Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries, and Just One More Page Before Lights Out. You can access a PDF of that chapter here . Reed, with much humor and humility, describes the first time she taught Lincoln in the Bardo to her Readings in Contemporary Fiction class at Pitt, and goes on to describe how...

This week Rhea and Shari begin their deep read of Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. It’s a weird one! But so worth the effort, as Rhea and Shari discuss in this first episode. They talk about Saunders’s unorthodox way of telling this story, how the novel reads almost like a play—but then again, doesn’t. They talk about the opportunities and limitations of this odd story-telling style, new w...

In this final episode of Arabian Nights Tales, Rhea and Shari discuss O. Henry’s short story, “ A Madison Square Arabian Night .” They talk about all the ways this story conjures the Arabian Nights atmosphere through word play, character development, metaphor, mystery, and—inverted sentence structure…?? Rhea talks about how this story compares in style to O. Henry’s other short stories, and Shari...

Rhea and Shari continue their deep reading of the Arabian Nights tales. In this episode they look closely at “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” a tale that comes to the Arabian Nights through the French tradition. They talk about the differences between the stories they’ve been reading v. this, first of the French tales they’ve explored, all the questions they have about the characters and their de...

This week Rhea and Shari continue their exploration of Yasmine Seale’s new translation of The Annotated Arabian Nights. Their discussion focuses on the Three Women of Baghdad story. They talk about the crazy (R rated) beginning to the tale, the power and allure of the women over the men and the wild way the tables turn right at the end. Next week, they will be discussing the story: “Aladdin and th...

We’re spending the next several episodes exploring The Annotated Arabian Nights translated by Yasmine Seale, and edited by Paulo Lemos Horta. In this episode, we talk about the origin and history of the Arabian Nights, the tradition of Persian oral story telling, the merchant class, the difference between the Arabian Nights and European fairy tales, the frame tale of Shahrazad and her murdering hu...

This week on the R&W, Rhea and Shari bring their discussion of ESU to a close. They talk about the magic of Persian storytelling, shepherds, sheep, what the truest thing about a person is, and the one thing that is the truest thing of all. Our next book will be selections from The Annotated Arabian Nights , translated by Yasmine Seale. We’ll be discussing the Intro. - p. 158 on Sept. 10th. Thanks...

It’s a bonus episode on the R&W! For this OAI, Rhea and Shari discuss Joel J. Miller’s article, “Protesting the Decline of Reading,” published May 25, 2024, on his Substack, Miller’s Book Review. The article is about the decline of reading amongst college students and how it is effecting their ability to do complex thinking and expression of subject matters in both the classroom, and the culture....

In this episode, Rhea and Shari continue their discussion of Everything Sad is Untrue, by Daniel Nayeri. They talk about food and poop, memories, hospitality, what makes us friends with Daniel now, whether or not writing poetry makes you brave, and whether we want a God who talks or a God who listens? Links: * Daniel and his mother baking * Everything Sad is Untrue Thanks for reading The Reader &...

This week we begin a new book! Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri is astonishing, even from its opening pages. On this episode, Rhea and Shari talk about Daniel Nayeri the author and character in his own autobiographical novel that is also a memoir and also true… mostly. We talk about refugees, being good guests and good hosts, Schehrazade and her thousand tales, the coiling of stories, our...

This week’s episode begins a new experiment on the Reader & the Writer, where Rhea and Shari discuss articles we find interesting on the topics we love. These are one-off episodes that we will intersperse between our regular episodes where we do careful, slow-ish readings of stories well told. For this first O.A.I (I can’t help it, I was a military wife for 14 years), we’re discussing a 2021 artic...

This week on The Reader & the Writer, Rhea and Shari bring their discussion of Cloud Cuckoo Land to a close. It is a long, winding conversation on everything from being human and part of the problem, the beauty of our broken lives, understanding that what we already have is almost always better than what we think we need, and—finally—the eternal beauty of pursuing the best kind of fool’s errand. N...

This episode is all about captivity. Shari and Rhea discuss each of the characters’ movement into being held captive—in some cases literally, and always within themselves. We’d love to hear from you! * Email us at: readerandwriterpodcast@gmail.com * Follow us on Facebook: The Reader and the Writer * Subscribe to the podcast on Substack and these major platforms: Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon Than...

We’re continuing our close reading of Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, and, as Rhea says, i t’s all about captivity . How are each of the characters being held in captivity—both outwardly and inwardly? What is holding them there? Is every idea they are held captive by bad? What about us? What are we being held captive by day in and day out? And what about poor Aethon? His story isn’t turning ou...

Hello Reader & Writer listeners! This week, Rhea and I are beginning a new book: Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. In this episode we spend considerable time talking about Anthony Doerr and his “theory of everything” masterfully contained inside this book. We dive into the story’s strange structure: three time periods, five protagonists, and the magical myth of Aethon running throughout. We talk...

Here we are, at the final episode for North Woods. This was, by far, our favorite section of the story. Just when we thought it couldn’t be anymore of a delight to read, Mason pulls all the threads through in a most magisterial way. In this episode Shari and Rhea discuss the nature of mental illness (a motif that shows up throughout the story), mementos and their meanings, transcendence, construct...

We are in the middle of North Woods and things are getting wild. In this episode, Shari and Rhea spend a lot of time discussing the heart of the artist: the tension between vision and expectation, who one makes art for, and getting out of the way of what wants to be made. We also talk about confessing to the earth, all the ways Mason continues to bring this north woods alive for us: the wonder of...

This week Rhea and Shari begin North Woods by Daniel Mason. In this episode they discuss their first impressions of the story and give an overview of the characters and action in these beginning sections of the book. They talk about elegant writing, playfulness with prose, and the way Daniel Mason is masterful at creating movement and transcendence throughout the narrative. Of course, there are ch...

On this episode, Shari and Rhea wrap up their discussion of David Copperfield. They explore all the side stories and whether they were so much of “side stories” after all. They compare mother - child relationships, notice the many subtle—and not so subtle—Biblical connections, and recognize all the ways Dickens is plain old havin’ fun in this section: the theatrics, dramatic monologues, romanticis...

On this episode, Shari and Rhea discuss lots of “big picture” topics they are recognizing as they read: deep dives into character comparisons between David Copperfield and Demon Copperhead; recurring imagery and how theses things are telling a story behind the story; developing themes; and… why we even bother to spend the time reading and writing stories at all. Oh, and a long and winding discussi...

Much is happening in this middle section of David Copperfield! So, we’ve decided to divide this middle section of the story into two parts. In Part 1 of this section, Rhea and Shari discuss the specifics of the story: development of characters, ways the story is coming into its own and separating itself from Demon Copperhead in our minds, and how much we’re enjoying the movement happening here. Mu...

Welcome back to our discussion of David Copperfield! In this episode, Rhea and Shari discuss Chapters 1-22 of David Copperfield. They do a deep dive into the various characters that have been introduced so far and compare them (because they can’t help it) to their dopplegangers in Demon Copperhead. Beyond this, however, they discuss the peculiarities of the time and place of David Copperfield that...

This week Shari and Rhea begin reading David Copperfield . In this episode, they do a “warm up” to the reading; that is, an introduction to the time and place in which Dickens is writing. They share some of the more surprising struggles they’ve had while reading David Copperfield, and wonder if they’ve made a mistake in reading it back-to-back with Demon Copperhead. They talk about the difference...

This is our last episode on Demon Copperhead . Rhea and Shari talk about all that this story invited them--indeed, forced--them to consider in life: the difference between pity and compassion; how economic stability, or lack thereof, is directly connected to the dignity of the individual and a community; the evocation of Demon's character through his voice; the difference between focusing on probl...

In this episode of The Reader & the Writer , Rhea and Shari finish their close reading of Demon Copperhead. These are hard times for Demon, and they were difficult to read. Rhea and Shari will compare characters, discuss what causes the "wanting disease," and talk about that long dénouement and why it felt unusual to us both. Thank you for listening to The Reader & the Writer. This post is public...