The Bookening

Happy Valentine's Day! It's been six years. Can you believe it? Time for The Bookening to return to the book that started it all. Will our opinions have changed? Will we argue our former selves into the dust? Will we now HATE Pride and Prejudice???? Find out in this mega stuffed episode.

How is the Bookening moving forward after a 2021 that wasn't what we wanted? What are we reading in 2022? Was Ender's Game a good novel? The answers to all these questions and more in the mega-long super spectacular new episode!

Next week (Lord willing) Jake and Brandon will face off in the epic trial of Ender's Game. This week Jake prepares.

Ender's Game on, Bro!

A Room with a View by E. M. Forster. Will our heroes decide this book is romantic wish fulfillment? Or just really good? 

In which our heroes discuss E. M. Forster, a gay guy who lived his mom until she died at 90. But also wrote some great novels!

What do a great Russian novel, an iconic horror story, and some classic regency romance all have in common? They all appear on our list of books to buy even the most difficult people for Christmas this year. 

3 fetters that hold back 21st century style. 

ANOTHER EPISODE ABOUT HAMLET!

You didn't think we'd leave you hanging for Halloween did you? It's one of the most influential supernatural stories of the twentieth century, "The Call of Cthulhu", by H.P. Lovecraft. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Hamlet! We keep discussing it!

A classic episode of The Bookening in which eventually we talk about Hamlet. 

Some much needed context on William Shakespeare's Hamlet. 

Oh the rapture. 

This is one of those books never quite joins the canon, but also will never die. It's the quintessential modern gothic novel, featuring a lot of sexual tension, a protagonist the author seems to not like that much, and all kinds of questions for our heroic podcasters to answer. 

Of all the Daphne du Mauriers, Daphne du Maurier was the Daphne du Maurieriest. That's the lesson from today's sterling episode of The Bookening. 

Is Walter Wangerin's The Book of the Dun Cow a good book? What does it have to say about sin, depravity, judgement, and the anger that we sometimes feel at God? Should you read it? THE BOOKENING IS ON THE CASE!

Walter Wangerin passed away not too long ago, so what better time to talk about his life and the writing of The Book of the Dun Cow? Answer: THERE IS NO BETTER TIME, LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST! Bonus: our heroes read an all-time classic bad review inspired by their lack of blind devotion to C. S. Lewis. And they read some of Walter Wangerin's poetry. 

Our heroes begin to review the first book that was actually written in their current hometown, as Nathan and Jake discuss at length in this episode of THE BOOKENING.

Is Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones one of the great fantasy novels you've never read? Does its wit and consideration of human nature bear comparison with Jane Austen? Is the fantasy stuff just awesome? (A MOVING CASTLE!) ANSWERS TO ALL THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE! 

Move aside, Miyazaki! The Bookening is talking about the awesome Diana Wynne Jones novel that is Howl's Moving Castle. If you haven't read it, what are you waiting for? Brandon provides some much needed context in this episode. Plus Jake talks all about Harry Potter world. 

It's part 4 of our Watership Down discussion. Yay!

What makes Watership Down the perfect adventure story? ALL THREE MEMBERS OF THE BOOKENING are finally together to tell you all about it, in this CLASSIC episode of our fine, fine podcast. Enjoy. 

IS THIS THE END OF THE BOOKENING??!??!?

John Updike, Norman Mailer, David Foster Wallace, Dennis Johnson ... these are the people we talk about today for some reason. 

The Bookening talks anthropomorphic animal stories. Hopefully we'll have all 3 of us to finally LITIGATE Watership Down next week. 

In which a whole bunch of thoughts about Watership Down by Richard Adams are spilled into a microphone. Bonus ep with Nathan and Brandon coming later this week. 

Did we actually like this book? Our first episode on Watership Down by Richard Adams. Context. What else do you need to know? 

In which our heroes come up with a new Patreon motivator that's pretty exciting, talk about King Arthur stuff that happened after Sir Thomas Mallory, and other things. 

You asked for it! And Brandon's son ran over his internet cable. We have all the luck lately. But Nathan and Jake are talking audiobooks, baby! 

Nathan lost the episode. He stinks. 

SOME MUCH NEEDED CONTEXT FOR LA MORTE D'ARTHUR!!

Dark magic is always lurking at the edges of Christendom, trying to get in. That's one of the themes of the King Arthur stories, and the ways it plays out can be shocking. How does Sir Gawain and the Green Knight fit into the Arthur mythos? What does it have to tell us about storytelling without psychology? And, like we said, does it reflect a Christian code of morality and influence or a pagan one? All these questions and more answered in THIS EPISODE!

Was King Arthur a real dude? How has the Arthurian romance come down to us? Which cultures has it drawn from, and what has it picked up along the way? The Bookening discusses all these issues and more in the first of our Patron-sponsored mini-series on the tales of King Arthur. 

King Arthur next week we promise! Brandon had something come up, so Jake and Nathan talk about twelve books that will make you rich. 

We were tired. It was late. We had an hour of tech trouble before we could get going. Is this the greatest episode of all time????! 

Probably not. But enjoy. King Arthur next week! 

It's time to finally litigate it. Is Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison the great American novel? Or at least a great American novel? Should people read it in spite of the rough content? Does it have anything to say about race (or anything else) that's worth hearing? THE BOOKENING IS ON THE CASE!

Did Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man predict everything that's happened regarding race in the last few years? Also, is Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man the best novel about race in modern America? Yes it did and yes it probably is. Listen to this podcast to hear us discuss. 

Conservatives reject a lot of great twentieth century art by people of color for one simple reason. The Bookening discusses all this and more as Brandon provides some MUCH NEEDED context for Ralph Ellison's great novel, Invisible Man. 

In many ways, Klara and the Sun repeats all of Kazuo Ishiguro's favorite themes. But it differs in one crucial and very interesting way. Any guesses what that is? Nathan and Brandon discuss this in today's episode. And Jake stops by too!

(Forgive the tech issues, we're working to get back up to snuff.) 

Should you read a bad book or short story for your college class? The Bookening considers the age old question, in this VERY SPECIAL EPISODE (ONE OF THE POINTS THEY MAKE WILL SHOCK YOU!).

What makes a good children's book? Simplicity? Empathy? Revenge? Our heroes sort out all kinds of deep questions as they review Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. 

Roald Dahl ... children's author, fighter pilot, spy ... misogynist? Racist? Or does the internet like to blow these things out of proportion? In any case, he had one of the most interesting lives of anybody we've talked about in six years of this podcast. Listen to our episode to find out more. Yay! 

Jane Austen wrote six novels and we are discussing them all. Which one is the best? Who is the best villain? Best heroine? Best hero? What do you think? Let us know. We want to hear. (We more or less got it right though, right?)

Modern teenagers are no less in a fantasy world than Catherine Moreland in Northanger Abbey. That's one of the many amazing insights in this podcast. Listen today!

We're talkin' Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, y'all, and the life of its author. And solving some mysteries about Jane Austen along the way. Or, at least, we create some mysteries for ourselves and then solve them. 

What did we LIKE about The Brothers Karamazov? Can our heroes mount a defense of the novel? Or will they just pat it and the head and say "well, not everybody can be Tolstoy"? LISTEN TO FIND OUT!

Dostoevsky has ruined souls. Or at the very least, he's the sort of writer that ruined souls are attracted to. That's the contention of this episode, one of our more hardcore eps in a while. Will The Bookening say anything nice about The Brothers Karamazov? Listen to find out. 

The word "broken" gets tossed around a lot these days, but Dostoevsky was truly a broken man. Our contextual Texan tells the story of his life, among other things, as The Bookening provides some much needed context on The Brothers Karamazov and its author.

This is an important update on the show. We're announcing our next Patreon goal, which is one very near and dear to our hearts, and one that we hope you'll help us make happen ASAP.

2020. It was such a great year that our show is still remembering it, talking about the best scenes, biggest surprises and best books they read in 2020. WILL BRANDON FINALLY CONFESS HIS LOVE FOR DUNE??????

Who was the best hero of the year? Who was the best heroine? Who was the best supporting character? Probably one of the sandworms from Dune, right? Probably all the answers come from Dune. In any case, our heroes are looking back on every book they read in 2020 and singling out the best of the best. Gandalf, Natasha, Atticus Finch, and others are all in the running. YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS IT! 

What is the best Christmas passage in literature? Nathan attempts to determine this crucial piece of information, in discussion with famed Irish poet, Brandon. 

2020 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 2020 just as much as we did.

In any case here's a short episode with the list of books we'll be reading in 2021, and a bit of discussion about them. Yay!

Oh, fine, here's the list in written form:

January: The Brothers Karamazov 

February: Northhanger Abbey 

March: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 

April: Invisible Man (Ellison) 

May: Watership Down 

June: Howl’s Moving Castle + Ready Player 2 

July: Rebecca  

August: Hamlet 

September: A Room With a View or A Passage to India 

October: Spoooooky Stories 

November: Ender’s Game 

December: Fathers and Sons 

January: A Tale of Two Cities 

Brandon provides some much-needed context on Frank Herbert and Dune, and Nathan and Jake make their arguments for why this novel is pretty okay, if you like that sort of thing. With a very special emergency guest appearance by Brandon's young daughter, who knows exactly what the fox says. 

Fear is the mind-killer. Or is it this novel? One of our fearless trio might want to argue that. But two of us really liked it. WHO CAN THAT BE? AND WHAT EVIDENCE WILL THEY BRING? Like it or lump it, there's a reason why Dune is one of the seminal works of twentieth century sc-fi myth-making. And our heroes are figuring out why. Will Jake tie it to Star Wars? Will Nathan describe the plots of 109580580 Dune sequels? Will Brandon be ready-player-done with the whole thing? LISTEN TO FIND OUT!!!

This Giving Tuesday support great works of awesomeness like the Bookening RIGHT HERE!

BRANDON IS AN IRISH POET. Happy Thanksgiving. In today's minisode, Nathan discusses Thanksgiving with newly published Irish poet, Brandon. 

Is it true that women make the best party members? What did Orwell get wrong about sexual politics and the politics of sex? Is the character of Julia plausible? Is this book sexist? Is it good in general? Obviously, it's a good bit of political prophecy, but is it a good, y'know, novel? 

Was George Orwell a great prophet, or even a good one? Did he see the future of society accurately, or not so much? Those are the very issues that The Bookening is figuring out in this very episode, our second in a series on 1984. Our heroes talk about historical revisionism, doublespeak, all that good stuff. Fun times, fun times. 

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen..."

This is the episode in which we provide much needed context for George Orwell's 1984, a novel that may or may not have been prophetic about some things, maybe. Not gonna lie, this episode went a little crazy, as long time listeners will know does occur from time to time on our show. But we had fun and learned a few things about the life, times, and work of George Orwell (not his real name), and we hope you can, too. 

Patricia Highsmith was "the queen of unease," a Hitchcockian writer not of horror, but suspense and disquietude. Our heroes round out Spooktober discussing her best short story,  "When the Fleet was in at Mobile." Happy Halloween! 

Today we're talking about a bizarre piece of weird fiction, one of the most popular ones from the last twenty years. Not gory, not grisly exactly, but strange and unsettling-- "Singing My Sister Down", by Margo Lanagan. 

"All right, I’ll tell you why the Girl gives me the creeps. Why I can’t stand to go downtown and see the

mob slavering up at her on the tower, with that pop bottle or pack of cigarettes or whatever it is beside

her. Why I hate to look at magazines any more because I know she’ll turn up somewhere in a brassiere

or a bubble bath. Why I don’t like to think of millions of Americans drinking in that poisonous halfsmile.

It’s quite a story—more story than you’re expecting."

Nathan makes a noble attempt to defend a story that Brandon doesn't care about at all, as our heroes continue their October Halloween story series, discussing 'The Girl with the Hungry Eyes' by Fritz Leiber, the inventor of sword and sorcery.

Music: "Signs In The Fields" by Cinematicwaves, licensed by a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

'"Perhaps you've heard of the Packerhaus Method," she said. "Perhaps you've heard of it?"'

Spooktober continues with a discussion of a very weird short story "The Packerhaus Method" and its author, Gene Wolfe, the Herman Melville, or James Joyce, of fantastic fiction. The best author you've never heard of.

Music: "Signs In The Fields" by Cinematicwaves, licensed by a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

"TRUE! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story."

Our first Spooky Minisode covers "The Tell-tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe. Is this the most transgressive Poe story? What makes it feel so icky? Why is it so frequently anthologized? Should people read this thing for fun?

Music: "Signs In The Fields" by Cinematicwaves, licensed by a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

This month, we will be reading five tales of terror (one each Tuesday and Wednesday, until the end of October), and in this mini-sode we introduce them so you can read along, should you so perspire, er, desire.

They include "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe, "The Packerhaus Method" by Gene Wolfe, "The Girl with Hungry Eyes" by Fritz Leiber, "Singing My Sister Down" by Margo Lanagan, and "When the Fleet was in at Mobile" by Patricia Highsmith.

NO HALLOWEEN PUNS ALLOWED!

Music: "Signs In The Fields" by Cinematicwaves, licensed by a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Want to be able to define structuralism, deconstruction, semiotics, New Criticism, New Historicism, and more?  Than this is the episode for you! We're tracing the modern history of literary theory, and defining the major movies. By the end, you'll know what's good, what's bad, and what's just weird. And you'll hear a quote from Barthes's 'Death of the Author'! Yay! 

How do you make a kid love literature? Are some of them just not cut out for it? What sorts of things should students be looking for in a book or poem or story? How does a teacher guide them toward said things? How do you teach a story or poem about something kids haven't experienced yet? How do you give them an ear for style?

In last week's episode on teaching literature, our heroes gave a more general philosophy of teaching. This week they're tackling the literature aspect of it all. 

SORRY FOR THE AUDIO QUALITY. IT IS EXPLAINED IN THE EPISODE. In this impromptu episode, we talk about what separates a good teacher from a bad one, and how you can control a classroom and impart delicious knowledge to kids and people everywhere. 

In our new mini-series, learn to throw around words like "deconstruction", "post-colonialism", "semiotics", etc. with the best of them. 

Terms like these are easy to mock and equally easy to venerate. They're also easy to be intimidated by. Is there anything good that's come out of academic literary theory? What do all those fancy schmancy words mean anyway? Our heroes begin a journey through the history of literary criticism. By the end of it you will be able to talk about all of this stuff. First up, a brief history of everything leading up to the twentieth century.  

In which we conclude our discussion of The Lord of the Rings by talking about Book 6, the final part of The Return of the King and of the series as a whole. Tolkien manages to not kill off any of the major good guys ... and yet there's a real price to be paid for standing up to the ultimate evil. Our heroes talk a lot about that, and everything that happens after the ring is destroyed, and why it had to happen the way it did. Also they give summary thoughts on the series, on favorite characters, favorite books, things like that. Yay! 

Is book 5 of Lord of the Rings actually the worst of the lot (on a gradation of greatness, obviously)? Our heroes argue about that, and revise some of their previous opinions on Eowyn, and talk about what makes a great inspiring speech when you're leading men into battle, and why Aragorn's speech in the movie version was stupid. AND MORE. 

Our heroes dig into one of the great novels of the 21st century. Or is it? Listen to find out. 

Are you ready for Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguru, one of the novels that appears on everyone's list of the best of the 21st century (usually in 1st place, or at least in the top 10)? Our heroes dive in, providing much needed context on Ishiguru and the type of fiction that this is. Trying not to say too much here, spoilers definitely included in the episode. 

Did Shakespeare actually have a relatively small vocabulary? Yes he did, and we talk about why that matters in our third episode on the The War of the Roses plays. We also talk about why Shakespeare seemed to have such a chip on his shoulder about women in power, when he was in fact writing plays for a Queen who was very much in power. What was the deal with that? And how did our heroes like Series 2 of The Hollow Crown (hint: it was no series 1).

What exactly was the War of the Roses? Who was on what side? Why? What happened? The Bookening attempts to make sense of all this complicated English history before they read the rest of the William Shakespeare's plays on the subject. 

What is it that makes Shakespeare so darn great? It's time for The Bookening to discuss the immortal bard again! So our heroes are talking about William Shakespeare and providing some context for The Hollow Crown, which is the BBC adaptation of Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3. Plus Richard III. We'll be back next week with more historical context for The War of the Roses. 

Was J.R.R. Tolkien a racist? The answer is not a simple yes or no. So the Bookening is devoting an entire episode to the issue. Listen to it. It's Thought Christmas, y'all!

Who is the greatest monster in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien? What makes a good monster anyway? What does Gollum have to teach us about addiction? Is Gollum an entirely original character or does he have his roots in mythology somewhere? The Bookening answers all those questions and more as it considers the Frodo and Sam section of The Two Towers. 

Steven Millhauser is one of the coolest, most uncanny, weird, beautiful, mysterious writer's writers that a lot of people haven't heard of, kind of a cross between Borges and Poe and Leave it to Beaver. And today The Bookening is talking about one of his best story collections, Dangerous Laughter. 

Is Gandalf a Christ figure? Is it even good to look for Christ figures in literature? Or is there a point at which a wizard fighting a Balrog is just that ... a wizard fighting a Balrog? Brandon and Nathan (Jake was away on Important Pastor Business) discuss all this and also HELM'S DEEP, YES!

Our Lord of the Rings reviews continue, as our heroes talk The Two Towers. Ents, men, and Tolkien the Environmentalist are all subjects of discussion. Plus we get into an extended conversation about Tolkien's style and the tricksy way it morphs as the novel continues. 

It's our 200th episode. To """""celebrate""""", we watched Cats. This does give Brandon an excuse to talk about T.S. Eliot though. Yay! 

In our fourth (been a while since we've done that many) episode on Harper Lee's immortal To Kill a Mockingbird, our heroes discuss the characters. Is Atticus intended as a flawed human being? Is he one whether he was intended that way or not? Is this Jem's story or Scout's? Other intriguing questions you should listen etc. we love you. 

So it has come to this. Our heroes continue to address criticisms of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, using words like critical race theory, representation, and privilege. Was Harper Lee a coward for writing the novel the way she did? Did Tom Robinson deserve more book time? Listen on!

It's Part 2 of our discussion on To Kill a Mockingbird by the great Harper Lee. Our heroes provide some baggage, discuss whether this is THE great American novel, and handle some criticisms, including one by Flannery O'Connor. 

Oh boy oh boy. We're discussing one of the great American novels, starting today, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Brandon provides some much needed context on this work, managing to work in thoughts on the Civil Rights movement, the Harlem Renaissance, and where conservatives western canon types  get it wrong. Plus the drama surrounding Go Set a Watchman. And whether or not Truman Capote actually had anything to do with this novel or not. Hooray! 

Moria! Moria! Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria Moria! In this episode our heroes continue their discussion of Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien and talk about .......... Lothlorian! And Moria! And why it's hard for Americans to wrap their heads about elves. And other things! Hooray! Next week we start To Kill a Mockingbird. 

Oh brother. In this Dadaesque episode of The Bookening our heroes discuss Waiting for Godot by Samuel Becket. At least it is arguable that they do this, but it sounds like some sort of gas was released into the room. Or something. Anyway, along the way, they talk a lot about existentialism, Brandon makes a date with the Knight of Infinite Resignation, and a beloved new catchphrase is born based on Nietzsche's mustache. DON'T MISS OUT!  

Yessir, we're talking about The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham, that classic touchstone that everybody loves and has definitely heard of. Actually this is an interesting book, and Brandon gives an interesting context, discussing the idea of the artist as cultural high-priest, negative capability, and all kinds of fun stuff. Give it a listen. Would you be reading this if you were not going to?

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Um, what a weird book. The Bookening wraps their head around The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White. Or tries to. As usual (it seems) when we come to children's literature, we're a little unsure of what to say. What a weird book. 

We tried to get far in this episode. In fact, we got all the way from Tom Bombadil to the Council of Elrond. But there's still plenty of Fellowship of the Ring left to talk about, and we are not sad about this, as it is an awesome book! Yay! WHAT'S WITH THE BARROW WIGHTS? How did we like dem elves? What about the introduction of Strider? SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT!

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The Bookening is talkin' Lord of the Rings, namely The Fellowship of the Ring (Book 1) by J.R.R. Tolkien, a book that, in their opinion, holds up quite well. Subjects include: that fey, suggestive feeling Tolkien is able to inspire, the condescension or lack thereof with which Tolkien approaches the hobbits, whether the story takes too long to get going, the potency of the ring as a literary conceit, and whether Tom Bobadil is a good section or not. SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT.

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Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes. A book that every parent or teacher assigns and no kid likes. Well, The Bookening decided to actually read it as adults, and it turns out it may not be half bad. At least one of us is prepared to argue pretty staunchly for it. That's the topic of today's episode. LISTEN TO IT AND YOU WILL BENEFIT GREATLY. Next week, more Tolkien.

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Yes, it's the one where we really get into Sense and Sensibility. Is this one of Jane Austen's less mature works? Does it show any signs of being a first novel? Or is it completely perfect? How does it rank in the Austen oeuvre? How did
Austen grow as a writer in her later novels? These are just SOME of the questions that our heroes answer in this AMAZING podcast. Frailty, thy name is Brandon.

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Just a little check in. We're not going anywhere. Love ya all. 

In this second episode about Sense and Sensibility, our heroes spend some time talking about their various histories with Jane Austen (this is their fifth time doing that but somehow they have a lot of new things to say). Plus they talk abut Jane Austen's style and why it's so compelling. Plus some of the differences between this relatively early Austen work and some of the later ones. (S&S is great, but Austen also got better as she went, and our heroes talk about some of the days that is true. Plus they repeatedly play a clip from the Sense and Sensibility movie that bears on the character of one of the three podcasters. 

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But you know that Sense and Sensibility was not originally published under Jane Austen's name? The title page just said "By a Lady."

She was indeed a lady. And also a good novelist. And this is The Bookening's first episode on her first novel Sense and Sensibility. Brandon provides much needed context. Nathan attempts to rush through the intro. Jake sings Goo Goo Dolls. Listen today! 

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Oh boy, our heroes had to record this one late at night, after recording another episode, and their brains were fried. So if you like that kind of Bookening, this is The Bookening for you. But we got in some good talk about Mirkwood, the power of forests and woods, Smaug the dragon, how to make a good villain, and other Hobbity things. Next week, we'll finally get to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.

By the way, Nathan says something confusing about episode order at the end of the episode. What he means is not that Sense and Sensibility Part 2 is coming up next (skipping Part 1). But that we recorded out of order, so Part 2 will contain more compliments. If that makes sense. 

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Well, friends, here in another episode of The Bookening on The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. In this one we get a suprsing amount of discussion out of a simple question: was Tolkien a racist? Yes, kind of, but how should that affect your enjoyment of the story?

Also, why recount every riddle in the dark? What is the power of the cave section? That's what our heroes talk about in this episode! Yay! The Hobbit Part 3 next week!

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This is a very simple episode on the notion of how we approach genre, which may have ramifications for how we think through our year of Tolkien. The question is, do you approach a genre piece (like Lord of the Rings) as a work of fiction, holding it to all the standards thereby supposed? Or do you approach it as a genre piece? Do some people do one and some people do the other? Who is right? What does it all mean? Has the way people approach the fantasy genre changed?

Brandon couldn't make it to this recording session which was sad, and hopefully very unusual. But this is what we worked through. Enjoy.

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Here is our first full real Tolkien podcast where we are actually talking about a book. Bilbo Baggins! Gandalf! Thorin Oakenshield! Tolkien poetry!

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If you like The Bookening, you should like this episode of The Bookening. And it does contain some of the promised discussion of The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. But the fact is that we got off-topic a little bit and talked about literary style and talent, so we decided to save our more meaty discussion of The Hobbit for next week. But you should still listen to this episode. Love,

Us.

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Thanks, Patrons! We have unlocked the year of J. R. R. Tolkien, and this episode begins it all with our heroes discussing the baggage that they bring to Tolkien, and Brandon providing some much-needed context to Tolkien's life and work (if you can imagine that). You'll hear about Tolkien's wife dancing for him in a forest, the difference between philology and linguistics, Tolkien's experience of World War I, and so much, much more. And The Hobbit is coming next week. Enjoy!

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In this episode our heroes finally tear into the meat of War and Peace, talking about all those wonderful characters, Pierre, Natasha, Andrei, Boris, the professor, and Mary Ann. Many wise things are said. You should really read this book. Seriously. It's the best. Next week we begin a little Tolkien!

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Hey, folks! We're finally talking about the nitty gritty of War and Peace. First we open some absolutely great presents from a friend, in our patented mailbag segment. And then ... this episode is a little over a place, but it's because we love the book so much, we just kinda jump in and start gabbing about it. You'll hear our thoughts on which is better, Anna Karenina or the novel in question. And some of the best scenes and moments and insights and things that make Tolstoy the greatest writer of all time. We'll be back next week with some (slightly) more linear thoughts on all the same stuff. Love you.

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In this episode of The Bookening podcast, Nathan says something silly near the beginning, Brandon says something nerdy about a book  somewhere in the middle, and Jake says something impassioned and pastoral somewhere near the end. It's a pretty unique episode that way. What is the subject you ask? Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, Baby. One of the top three books our heroes have done on The Bookening. 

We'll be doing some Tolkien content here asap. Thanks to all our patrons for making the Year of Tolkien happen! 

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Leo Tolstoy was a colossal genius of the first order, and War and Peace is one of the best books that The Bookening has ever or will ever do. So that's why you should listen to this episode, in which Brandon provides some much needed context on Russian history, the life of Tolstoy, and more. Listen today. Yay!

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Support us here! You have six days to get the "year of Tolkien" thing we've been promising.

Merry Christmas! Our heroes read two Russian Christmas stories: Tolstoy's “Where Love is God is there also” and Dostoyevsky's “Beggar Boy at Christ’s Christmas Tree." Um, they weren't that great. But it's still a fun little Christmas episode with some discussion of short stories. So yay! Next week War and Peace, baby. 

What would happen if Jane Eyre teamed up with Reepicheep the Mouse, or the White Witch fought King Henry from Shakespeare? You'll find out in this very episode of The Bookening, as our heroes finish up their fantasy draft of different characters and objects and settings from 2019's booklist. Be sure to go to our Twitter or Instagram this Friday after 12pm to vote on which of the novels our heroes came up with is the best.

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Our heroes announce their entire booklist for 2020. Yay! Then they begin an awesome fantasy draft of all the characters and objects from the novels this year. It's a lot of fun, don' skip it. 

Here's our list: 

Feb—Sense and Sensibility

March—Johnny Tremain/ Trumpet of the Swan 

April—Moon and Sixpence 

May—Waiting for Godot 

June— To Kill a Mockingbird 

July— Dangerous Laughter 

August — The Hollow Crown, Part 2 

Sept — Never Let Me Go 

October — horror stories (TBD) 

November — 1984

December—Brothers Karamazov

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Let's get this out of the way. This episode was recorded late at night and is fairly slaphappy. But once it gets going, our heroes do discuss their individual top 7 things about Narnia, and, we daresay, provide some good insight into what makes Narnia so darn magical.

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A novel that's profane and silly and over the top and pretty much a masterpiece--Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. Our heroes have plenty of thoughts about this one, as they finally delve into the nitty gritty. Is this an angry novel? Is it political? Is it good for Christians to read the darn thing? Will it become part of the canon? Why does Brandon like it so much? Listen to find out.

Next week, we'll wade into Narnia one last time, and then we've got some stuff to wrap up the year before 2020 begins with War and Peace (a wonderful novel that is totally worth the effort, by the by).

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It's part 2 of Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. Kind of. Also the story of how Nathan got married.

You'll hear a disclaimer at the beginning of this show. Not because there is anything bad, but because we ended up spending an hour being friends and getting all personal and stuff. This book holds a dear place in more than one of our lives, for reasons you will hear. So, yeah, not a lot of literary analysis in this one, but if you like Nathan, Brandon, and Jake, and want to hear some stories about important things that may or may have happened to them, you should like this episode. Plenty of analysis of Midnight's Children next week.

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Now with audio glitch corrected!

The Bookening discusses one of the most important books of the latter half of the twentieth century, and one that they are pretty excited to talk about, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. Postmodernism, magical realism, the history of India, and more inform a Contextual Texan that Brandon had a lot of fun preparing, and you should have an equal amount of fun listening to. Listen now! And here's the interview with Rushdie that Brandon recommended.

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Okay, so, let's get this out of the way. There is a huge run of positive energy coming up very soon with Midnight's Children, War and Peace, and then Sense and Sensibility. But today is not that day. Today our heroes are discussing midcentury theater, as represented by two behemoths, The Crucible by Arthur Miller and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. Yay!

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Our heroes recorded this episode at the end of a long session and they may or may not have been a little stir crazy, as you'll hear. However ...

Now THIS is how you write a horror story. After a weeklong foray into scary short stories, our heroes finally hit gold with Algernon Blackwood's much-anthologized "The Willows." And believe us, it's much-anthologized for a reason. The reason being that ... it's great! It taps into real fears, with subtlety and taste. Nice to end our week Spook-tacular on a high note.

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Music: Signs In The Fields by cinematicwaves licensed by a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

"Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and dismal chambers with brown hangings and maddening rows of antique books, or upon awed watches in twilight groves of grotesque, gigantic, and vine-encumbered trees that silently wave twisted branches far aloft."

Oh brother. It's Part 4 of our Halloween Spook-tacular, and we're reviewing H.P. Lovecraft's "The Outsider", which, really, is not a very good representative example of Lovecraft's work. Oh brother.

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Music: Signs In The Fields by cinematicwaves licensed by a Creative Commons 3.0 license. 

Sredni Vashtar went forth,

His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.

His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.

Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.

Happy All Hallow's Eve Eve, fiends! Here's a truly weird little item for ya! In this episode The Bookening reads Sredni Vashtar by Saki (H. H. Munro). It's a good story by a good writer who people aren't as familiar with as they should be.  It's also part 3 of our weeklong Spook-tacular!

Support us here, today, right now, if you want us to march around the courthouse dressed like swans, blowing trumpets!

Music: Signs In The Fields by cinematicwaves licensed by a Creative Commons 3.0 license. 

"Lo, there ye stand, my children," said the figure, in a deep and solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. "Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race."

Puritans! Witches! Old Mr. Scratch! Oh my! That's right folks it's ... PART 2 OF OUR WEEKLONG HALLOWEEN SPOOK-TACULAR! Our heroes discuss Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne. SO SCAAAAAARY! DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LISTEN TO THIS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!

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Music: Signs In The Fields by cinematicwaves licensed by a Creative Commons 3.0 license. 

"And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."

Our special Monday to Friday foray into short horror stories begins with Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe. Jake and Brandon lack the intelligence to appreciate this story properly. Meanwhile, Nathan wrote this blurb.

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Signs In The Fields by cinematicwaves licensed by a Creative Commons 3.0 license. 

In this episode of The Bookening, our heroes discuss Henry V. It is a good episode. Listen to it.

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Hooray, it's our episode on William Shakespeare's Henry IV. Which part you ask? We're doing both parts in one amazing episode. You'll hear our heroes' theories on whether Hal was faking it or he really loved Falstaff, whether Falstaff is still funny in 2019, and whom to reward and whom to punish when you suddenly become king, or manager of McDonalds for that matter. Plus Brandon goes to Washington, Jake works in Apple and Microsoft somehow. All in all, it's an episode of The Bookening. Yay! Listen now.

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Yay, it's our longest episode ever! (Pretty sure.) And we're closing the loop on C. S. Lewis (for now at least) and Narnia, discussing The Last Battle. Did our heroes like The Last Battle? Spoiler alert, they liked it a lot. They didn't even mind the depiction of heaven at the end. So settle in for our final thoughts on Lewis, those who can't handle criticism of Lewis, and the wonderful land of Narnia. Next week, Shakespeare!

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The Bookening really enjoyed The Magician's Nephew. That's right, they liked it a ton. Did you know this was the last Narnia book that C. S. Lewis wrote? Even though it was the second to last published, and now some dumb publishers label it as the first book that kids should read? Well, it was. And you can tell, because it feels like C. S. Lewis has the kinks worked out, and is just chillaxed and ready to tell a great Narnia story. Which he does. And we really liked it. Because we do like C. S. Lewis from time to time. Actually lots of the time. Just listen. Thank you.

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Thanks, Patrons! The Bookening is returning to Narnia with The Horse and His Boy, a book that is a personal favorite of many a boy and girl. But will it be the personal favorite of The Bookening crew? Our heroes also provide their final thoughts and rankings for The Silver Chair. This could be a controversial episode, beware! But also a big, good, fun one. In our humble opinion. Listen right now.

Warhorn Media (employer of both Nathan and Jake) could use help making payroll this month. Make a one-time donation here.

And then sign up to support us on Patreon so we can hit that $1000 mark by October 31st, dress as swans, and do Tolkien next year.

In this episode our heroes discuss Richard II. More specifically The Hollow Crown version, which they find to be absolutely delightful and awesome and, in a word, good.

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Our heroes take what they hope is a very short hiatus from Narnia, and begin discussing the Henriad by one William Shakespeare. They will be talking about Richard II, Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V, specifically keying off 'The Hollow Crown' production that the BBC did a few years ago. Onward and upward!

Our heroines (what???) review Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

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Thank you to everyone who helped us continue our Narnia series. Now, our heroes talk about The Silver Chair. The heroic optimism (yeah, optimism) of Puddleglum, claustrophobia in stories about caves, Neo-platonism, the dumbness of Pascal's wager as it related to C. S. Lewis, and more.

Support us here! No, seriously, we could use your support these days. Thank you in advance!

Jake really loves this book. Brandon does not as much. Thus disagreement stalks The Bookening crew in this episode, as Brandon goes on the attack against some of the more, shall we say, mystical elements of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. And, after about 45 minutes, Jake goes on the defense, because he just really likes the boy's adventure of this book. All this and more.

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Our heroes discuss Prince Caspian, a novel that they really liked, except for some weird pagan stuff at the end. What was Lewis doing there and why? Our heroes have plenty to say about that. But first they talk about many of the great things about the book, which may not rank that highly among Narnia rankers, but our heroes agree is a good one. LISTEN NOW!

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Our heroes discuss The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis's 'supposal' theory of allegory, whether these books ARE allegory or not, what the book gets wrong and right about the resurrection, the importance of discipline in children's literature, which character Jake may or may not have named a kid after, and more ...

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In which our heroes try to clean up some mess regarding C. S. Lewis and some of his more interesting opinions. And then talk about the baggage they bring to Lewis and Narnia. And predict which Narnia books they will like the most, and which they will like the least this time around. 

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The Bookening provides some much needed context on C. S. Lewis, as our heroes embark on their multipart quest to talk through all The Chronicles of Narnia. Also, our heroes court a little controversy by having their usual issues with Lewis. But also, they really like him and are looking forward to talking through his books. But on the other hand, he has some issues that are, shall we say, problematic. But on the other hand, he's pretty great. LISTEN TO THE EPISODE!

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Brandon and Nathan hammer home their recent forays into poetry by reading and examining three poems together: The Wild Swans at Coole, The Art of Losing, and Digging. Next week Jake will be back and we'll start on Narnia!

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Brandon is still recovering from ACL surgery, so Nathan, Jake, and Dubstep Dani (the mom who's a bomb of reading) review Witness for the Prosecution, the wonderful 1957 feature film starring Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich. 

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Chillax and join us for a mellow summer episode. After teaching you how to make the perfect margarita (no, seriously), Nathan walks you through his top ten summer reads. What about Brandon and Jake you ask? Well, one of them is on vacation and one is recovering from surgery. So Nathan decided to do this ultra-rare solo outing. The good news is you get to hear about a great detective, spoooooky psychology, an inimitable humorist, plus Jordan Peterson and Stephen King? Oh my. 

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Do women like poetry? Our heroes answer this horribly sexist question in this episode. And then Brandon at long last gives us a linear discussion of poetry. 

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We're gonna go ahead and call this a bonus episode instead of a real one. It was recorded on a crazy late night in Brandon's kitchen without the best sound quality. But we thought it was worth releasing because there's some good discussion and a good lead in for next week's real poetry episode. Plus you get to hang out with the women of The Bookening.

Support us here! So close to reading Narnia and making Jake wear elf ears.

Oh dear. It's another thing that Nathan didn't particularly like. But also it's a pretty good thing at being what it is. Our heroes discuss it in this episode. 

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After playing "Guess the literary quote", our heroes answer some email and end up talking about why they do the show the way they do the show. 

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In this episode our heroes continue to discuss Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. They have good things to say about it. This is a quality episode of The Bookening. You should listen to it, and benefit from it.

Support us here! Our heroes provide some much needed context for The Old Man and the Sea. 

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Apologies, no new episode this week. Our heroes will be back next week with Old Man and the Sea. In the meantime, here is the first episode of our new podcast Sanity at the Movies. It happens to feature Nathan, Jake, and Brandon, so it's pretty much like an extended Bookening ep. Only about a movie. If you already heard it, there's a new ep of that podcast coming out tomorrow, which you subscribe to here, Apple users. (Also available wherever you get your podcasts.)

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After a visit from Dusty the Magical Podcast Elf, our heroes discuss Of Mice and Men. Is this a book that is ruined because everyone knows the twist?

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Our heroes talk Steinbeck, literary snobbery, and Of Mice and Men. Also they talk about the mice and cats for some reason.

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Our heroes have a huge disagreement about Catcher in the Rye and don't come to consensus at the end. It's weird.

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Hey, in this episode our heroes provide some much needed context for Catcher in the Rye. It looks like this book might be a big disagreement between them?

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Jane Eyre's view of sexuality is all messed up, yo. This podcast discusses it.

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The Bookening is talking about Rochester in Jane Eyre in this episode, and the weird crazy ways the book goes off the rails. Oy vey.

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Our heroes talk about the first part of the novel Jane Eyre. Is Mrs. Reed a straw (wo)man? Is Helen Burns too good to be true? Will our heroes compare the novel to Harry Potter?

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Brandon provides his patented context on Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.

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Our heroes discuss Alice in Wonderland, the place of surrealism in art, and whether you should read this book to your kids given Lewis Carroll's ... troubling history.

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No new episode today. But you can always listen to this little bit of content and write us a nice review on iTunes or something.

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In part 3 of their discussion regarding one Jane Austen's Persuasion, our heroes discuss Jane Austen's Persuasion. They say many things about it. All of them wise.

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Our heroes continue to discuss Persuasion. Is it the most romantic of Austen's novels? The most mature or the least? Was Anne right to turn down Wentworth?

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In which Brandon provides some much-needed context on Jane Austen's Persuasion. And Jane Austen herself. And we discuss Jane's nephew's memoir of her. It's fun. And educational.

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Our heroes get practical as they discuss how to read. Should you underline? If so, pen or pencil? Audiobooks--yes or no? Is skimming okay? Etc. Etc.

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Today, by special request of a person they love very much, our heroes are talking about how to read. How should you approach a book and why? Part 1 of 2.

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In his Wikipedia page, Leonardo DiCaprio is wearing one of those newsboy hats. He also stars in The Great Gatsby. Our heroes review this film. They are grumpy.

Sponsored by our good friends at Bibliofiles.

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Was Gatsby a real figure or a cipher? Was Daisy a good woman or lost? Why can't any of our heroes remember the novel? Is that a feature or a bug?

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Nathan has some happy news, and Brandon has some good context on The Great Gatsby.

Our heroes review the year they just had and announce the booklist for 2019.

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Hey, it's part three of the show where we discuss Bleak House with Dani. Help Dani's kids not starve HERE.

Our heroes continue to discuss Bleak House. Now with their pal Dani.

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It's a special MUSIC FREE episode as our heroes begin a discussion of Bleak House.

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Hey, way back 10 thousand years ago, our heroes said they were going to discuss King Lear (by one William Shakespeare) some more. And now they are. Hooray!

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It's not a full episode today, sadly, due to circumstances beyond our control. But we do have something to tide you over until next week.

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Our heroes have been circling the same questions with Flannery O'Connor for two episodes now, and they're finally ready to land on some of them. Is her brand of violent catharsis actually useful or good? Or is it counterproductive? LISTEN TO FIND OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What's this? Our heroes have a guest! And from a rival podcast, Close Reads (check them out here!). It's David Kern, who has a lot of great thoughts about Flannery O'Connor and her story "Good Country People." We'll be back to finish our discussion of Flannery O'Connor and A Good Man is Hard to Find next week!

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Yes sir, Brandon provides some MUCH needed context on Flannery O'Connor in this episode. A good man isn't so hard to find after all ...

Spook-port our fear-oes fear! (Support our heroes here :| )

Our heroes review the original Boris Karloff Frankenstein film that has a lot more to do with how we think of Frankenstein than Mary Shelley's book does.

Our heroes argue about Frankenstein, its merits (if any), and its place (if any) in the canon and our children's education. Will they reach a consensus??????????????????? (Support us here!)

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Today our heroes begin their spooooooooooooky look into Frankenstein with a discussion of Romanticism, feminism, and all the isms that went into forming Mary Shelley and her creation. Also there are Halloween puns!!!!

Support us here! Last Lear episode, we didn't even get around to talking about King Lear. This time we do. Brandon has more context, and also the terrible Anthony Hopkins movie is discussed. By us.

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Hey! This is a fun little item. Our heroes got to do their first live show as a fundraiser for Charis Classical Academy in Madison, WI, hosted by Red Village Church. (If you're in the area, you ought to check both of 'em out!) And you can listen to it. If YOU want to book The Bookening, get in touch. We are totally down. Here's the description from the ad copy of what our heroes did:

THE BOOKENING PRESENTS!
Art In Art’s Place: Lessons from Shakespeare, Austen, and Tolstoy On How to Stop Being a Pretentious Poser and Start Making a Difference.

Christians love to talk about redeeming the culture through art. The Bookening Live Show is here to tell you that's a lot of hooey, Jack. Probably you're not changing much of anything through art. At least nothing super big and theoretical. But if you put art in its proper place, you might be able be a little helpful to some people. You might even end up changing the culture by accident. Need some proof? Come hear what William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Leo Tolstoy each have to teach us.

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The or the? That's one thing our heroes discuss. Also Brandon provides his patented awesome context for William Shakespeare. A good time is had by all. Listen to this episode.

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In this episode our heroes talk about Blood Meridian and why none of them actually finished the silly thing.

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In this episode our heroes attempt to do another fun little trial episode to close out their Harry Potter series, and somehow it turns into a weightier late night discussion. At the end, nothing is decided but everyone is still friends (spoilers).

We're still doing our HP books vs movies next week! Meanwhile, our heroes take on detective author Robert Galbriath aka ... J. K. Rowling, with a little help from their good pal Dani M. (support the McNeilly ministry here so Dani can afford food for little Moses). Brandon is away buying his wife a car, but he manages to roll in at the very end to help with Donor Shout Outs.

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Our heroes answer some listener mail and continue their discussion of the morality of Harry Potter. Plus our good friends Ben and Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaia help with donor shout-outs for some reason.

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In this episode our heroes discuss the morality of the Harry Potter universe, or lack thereof??????????

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At long last, our heroes actually talk about the book series Harry Potter in their Harry Potter series. Yay! There's a lot to unpack about Potter, and our heroes do it with their customary wit and wisdom.

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Should Christians read Harry Potter? Last week, our heroes did their best to argue that no, they should not. This week they do their best to argue it's mostly fine. Will they succeed or will this series end here??????????????

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Should Christians read Harry Potter? Our heroes make a decent case today that they should not. But hopefully that's not the last word on the subject or we will have to cancel this series.

Yes, it's our 100th episode. Thanks to everyone who listens and everyone who supports. Couldn't do it without ya!

To celebrate, our heroes are doing the most requested book (series), about the boy who lived himself, Harry Potter. Brandon gets to context in under 3 minutes, and our heroes begin what promises to be a lively discussion about all things Potter with Brandon waving his magic wand of context and filling us in on Rowling, school stories, myth, and more.

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Next week: SHOULD CHRISTIANS READ HARRY POTTER???????????

Our heroes don't have a good track record with movies. In fact, they've never liked one in a completely unqualified manner. But now they're watching a stone cold classic, Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep. Will this break the Bookening movie curse????????????????

00:01 Nathan forgets to introduce us
03:53 We watched The Big Sleep!
05:11 Nathan gives some context
10:00 Nathan continues to rant
15:26 Dead bug on Brandon's shoulder
16:00 Sexiness of Bogart
18:30 American manliness
22:00 Old movieness
26:12 Where was the grit?
28:28 Just add sex
30:18 Why does grit help the morals?
36:30 Movie Vivian vs. Book Vivian
37:49 Don't get excited about Faulkner
40:13 Coveted LSOA
42:47 Donor shout-outs!
46:15 Nathan introduces us!
48:00 The show continues for some reason

This time it's personal.

No, really. It is. Yep, Nathan has a relationship with this one. You'll hear all about it. Also donor shout-outs come at the very end. So that's a thing.

Support our heroes here, and experience the joy of the following chapters:

00:01 General awesomeness
02:50 Baggage
09:45 Nathan doesn't want to talk about Chandler
12:09 Succeeding in a formula
15:44 Modern poetry
18:04 Marlowe
20:12 Depraved characters
24:16 Old grittiness
26:55 Jake proves definitively that Chandler is better than Flannery O'Connor
35:00 Too racy?
40:59 Donor shout-outs!

Sorry, those of you who like long episodes, this one came in a little short. But on the plus side .... THE BOOKENING TALKS ABOUT THE GREATEST AUTHOR OF ALL TIME!!!!!!!!!!!

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CHAPTERS:

00:00 Pleading introduction
07:50: Contextual Texan begins
09:13 Biography
18:20 Theme
21:52 Detective novel
24:51 A brief break for donor shout-outs!
28:30 Revenge of the Pulps
42:38 Down these mean streets, a man must walk

In this special bonus announcement episode, our heroes reveal what beloved book they're reading for their 100th episode celebration. Then a special guest shows up and threatens to derail their plans. It's complicated but basically we have several episodes on, yes, Harry Potter planned but we MUST get over $500 on Patreon in order to release them. Sign up to support us today!

Here we are, continuing our discussing of The Odyssey. You probably knew that. Support us here!

This is an interesting episode because at a certain point it kinda sounds like we're beating up on the classical movement. But actually we're not doing that, exactly, so just bear with us here and don't get offended, because we obviously weren't talking about YOU. :)

02:22 Donor Shout-outs
07:05 Mythological history
11:25 Rome was not a fan
12:25 Is Odysseus a good guy?
17:16 Just 'cause it's old don't make it moral
26:00 Classical education
37:15 Homer was a greek
39:00 Redemptive sacrifice
44:58 What age should boys read it?

Our heroes dig into The Odyssey in this episode, say smart things, and begin their dissertation on how the whole thing is about hospitality.

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3:58 Donor Shout-outs
07:32 Lawrence of Arabia
09:16 Structure
13:20 Baggage
18:20 Blue flippin' stick
20:10 Page-turner
28:16 Characters that are dynamic (yeah yeah, you try and write these chapter marker titles)
32:00 Did the suitors deserve to die?
38:13 Hospitality
45:00 Xenia

Finally! Our heroes are discussing The Odyssey! Sing to me, O Contextual Texan!

00:29 Nathan does none of his normal schtick + AVENGERS SPOILERS
05:25 Donor Shout-outs
10:04 Contextual Texan begins
12:05 An intro to Homer
18:00 He never existed?
22:48 Who did folks used to say Homer was?
25:00 Greece
29:00 Higher criticism
36:10 Homeric question
44:00 We continue to debate who wrote the darn thing ...
50:14 Epic
52:35 Translation

AVENGERS SPOILERS AT ABOUT 20:00 Our heroes are prepping for a big discussion of The Odyssey. It turns out their old nemesis (?) C.S. Lewis had lots to say about epic poetry, so they begin there. Also they answer a listener query about their Remains of the Day episode. A certain important Pastor who is a Master of Reading is notably absent from this episode, but we promise this will NOT become a thing.

03:00 Donor Shout-out
06:49 Brad asks about Remains of the Day
18:37 Exciting announcement!
19:15 The best thing C.S. Lewis ever wrote
20:00 AVENGERS SPOILERS
21:30 Preface to Preface to Paradise Lost
22:15 Lewis recap
25:00 How to judge an work
34:00 What's an epic?
37:00 No, seriously, what's an epic?
40:58 Poets use common vernacular
42:50 Ritual
44:00 Glory and fate
46:05 What's missing from Homer
49:10 Aside about T.S. Eliot
50:46 Imagination boasters
52:55 The repetitions

Well. It's come to this. It would be a pleasure to burn ... HBO's terrible movie of Fahrenheit 451. It was really bad. And our heroes recorded an episode detailing all the ways that it stunk. Then ... the episode had technical problems. So (because schedules were tight) we recorded this slightly shortened redo. Sorry, it couldn't be longer, but frankly ... it got what it deserved.

Our heroes thought it would be fun to review the new Fahrenheit 451 HBO movie, which is something they will do, assuming it's not too HBOy. But in order to justify doing that, they had to review the book, which they didn't particularly have fond memories of. But it may or may not have held up better than they remembered. Listen!

Help Jake build a mechanical hound!

00:00 Sundry matters
06:25 Donor Shout-outs
08:30 A great sentence
11:08 Baggage check
22:15 A good first novel
24:10 Parables
28:00 Un-self-conscious writers
33:00 Swinging for the fences
34:56 Mysterious nails!
36:00 Yuck, Ernest Cline
37:35 Yuck, Madeline L'engle
38:03 This book doesn't suck up to you
40:32 Hope
41:55 Weak character writing
44:50 Maturity

Our heroes very much liked this book, and in this episode they talk about it, contrasting it with some of the other, lesser children's books they've read.

00:00 The show begins
03:43 Jake's baggage
05:03 Brandon's baggage
10:20 Bookening baggage
13:45 Nathan's baggage
14:45 Fundamentals!!!!
20:37 What makes this book so great?
24:33 Irony done well
30:29 Nathan closes the loop
33:06 Representative details
38:00 Sentiment free
39:57 Great literary spiders and existentialism
46:30 Donor Shout-outs!

Jake's children need shoes!

This is kind of a weird episode, as Jake is MIA, and Nathan and Brandon have an extended discussion of what constitutes good style, using E. B. White's classic Elements of Style as a jumping off point. So that's pretty much what happens. If you're the sort of person who wonders where our heroes get off saying Ready Player One has BAD style, this is the episode for you!!!! No table of contents, but our heroes talk about style and they start talking about style pretty quickly by their standards, and donor shout-outs are at the very end.

Due to some horrible computer error, all the chapter markers got wiped out, so no chapter markers for this one. Sorry about that. But suffice to say, our heroes really like Charlotte's Web, and Brandon starts doing context for it about five minutes into the episode, and our heroes use that as jumping pad for lots of interesting things, and then the episode is done. Thanks for listening! :)

Buy our heroes a more reliable computer!

Help Brandon pay his gambling debts!

Hey. It's a movie review of a movie that our heroes surprisingly (to them at least) didn't like all that much. Here are the things that happen:

00:00 The show begins
01:04 Operatic donor shout-outs
04:08 We were disappointed by this movie
07:11 Lame ambiguity resolution
12:33 They Hollywooded it!
18:46 Lame tension resolution
23:04 Anthony Hopkins
25:34 Emma Thompson
28:04 The father
30:54 Heroism added???
32:59 Downton Abby
34:34 Context
36:29 Who SHOULD they have cast?
39:11 Half-hearted Seal of Approval ...
42:13 ... or not!

Buy Nathan socks!

In this episode, our heroes continue to discuss Remains of the Day. It's a pretty great book. Our heroes have wise insights and stuff. Here is your table of contents:

00:00 The episode begins
03:12 Donor Shout-outs
08:00 Diary form
11:49 Useful naval gazing?
13:10 The right choice of form
14:18 Nice little analog metaphor
15:00 Endings
16:27 Gradesaver quiz
26:42 Dignity
31:02 Self-justification and culpability
33:36 Is Darlington evil?
36:10 Guilt
39:44 Willful blindness
43:46 We're all English butlers
45:21 Uh-oh, we're talking about CS Lewis again
46:52 Sophie's choice
49:17 Your hands aren't clean!
51:46 More questions
56:00 Self-knowledge fail
58:57 Ralph Fiennes syndrome
01:02:22 Unreliable narrator
01:05:49 Is it too late?
01:06:51 A bold symbol
01:08:34 CS Lewis tangent
01:10:22 Bookening Seal of Approval
01:13:12 Modern authors

Don't let Jake and Brandon's kids go hungry!

In this episode our heroes discuss Remains of the Day and decide it is even better than Close Reads. Sorry, Close Reads! :)

00:00 General Awesomeness
03:55 Donor Shout-outs
05:47 Apology for donor shout-outs that just happened
06:47 Context begins
10:38 Biography
11:54 Between two cultures
19:38 Setting
21:47 Influences
24:31 "Process"
27:37 Emotional truth
28:41 Post modernism
34:27 Post-colonialism
36:13 Keira Knightley's cheeckbones
37:10 Baggage check!
43:37 Modern morbid self-obsession
44:47 Nothing literary happens after this point

Make sure our heroes can afford to go to crummy movies for years to come!

This is a podcast in which our heroes review the film Ready Player One. One of them liked it, one of them was ambivalent, and one was almost as grumpy about it as he was about the book.

Click here to make sure Jake and Brandon's kids don't starve!

WARNING: This episode contains frank talk about some of the gross sexual stuff from the book. It's nothing makes us think we need to mark this episode as "adult" or anything, but it may not be the best one to listen to with your kids in the car.

Anyhow, trouble was a-brewin' on last week's episode, as some of our heroes like Ernest Cline's Ready Player One and some of them did not. Today they are putting it on trial. Nathan is judge. Brandon is the prosecutor, and he is out for blood. And Jake "Atticus" Mentzel is the defense. If you listen really hard, you can hear some parts where our heroes are actually a little annoyed with each other, but it's okay. They're all still friends.

Table of Contents:

00:00 Preliminary Matter and Donor Shout Outs
03:34 The Trial Begins
04:07 Opening Statement of the Prosecution
09:44 Opening Statement of the Defense
14:16 Character matters?
16:35 Scenes that Tolstoy doesn't have
21:52 Approach the bench
27:12 A Perfect Validation Fest
29:54 A waste of time?
34:00 What makes a book worthwhile?
36:13 Jake the Lawyer
39:45 Popcorn that aspires to be steak
43:16 Poor Brandon
45:01 "This is actually getting real now"
47:25 Good trash
48:30 She got all my references
51:11 A great sandbox
55:21 What's at stake is stupid
57:00 Impartiality goes bye-bye
1:01:00 Closing Arguments - Jake
1:04:01 Closing Arguments - Brandon
1:10:00 The Verdict

Music: "The Pirate And The Dancer" by Rolemusic is licensed under an Attribution License.

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THIS WILL NOT, WE REPEAT, THIS WILL NOT BE A REPEAT OF WRINKLE IN TIME, EVEN THOUGH IT SOUNDS LIKE IT MIGHT BE EARLY ON. SOME OF US MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE ACTUALLY LIKED THIS BOOK.

Our heroes discuss Ready Player One, a book that may or may not end up being the impetus for one of the bigger disagreements in Bookening history. They also discuss sci-fi in general, and indulge in some gnarly 80s nostalgia.

Suffice to say, some of our heroes liked it and some did not. As a matter of fact, next week we're putting the book on trial, with a judge and prosecutor and everything. You may even hear a raised voice or two. In the meantime, here are the things that happen in this episode:

00:00 Bit-music theme song thing
00:59 Our Heroes Love the 80s
04:03 80s Donor Shout-Out
07:38 Jake summarizes the book
09:28 Context!
09:42 Ernest Cline's life
14:22 Poetry Slams
15:29 Awkward self-conscious idiots who think they're big men because somebody told thme about Nietzsche and Schopenhauer one time
17:59 We're not going to beat up on this book (Well not all of us)
21:07 Fanboys
22:31 Bidding Wars
23:36 The Brilliant Idea for Ready Player One
24:20 Science fiction
25:22 The coining of the term sci-fi
26:45 Vantage points
28:41 Different schools of sci-fi
30:58 Today
33:34 Science is magic stripped of the supernatural
37:18 Fan fiction
38:26 Experiment in Criticism
43:34 Down with Marxism!
44:19 Baggage check!

Music: "The Pirate And The Dancer" by Rolemusic is licensed under an Attribution License.

It's another episode of The Lookening!

Happy Ides of March Eve! (Assuming you're listening to this on the day it comes out). In this episode our heroes nobly and humbly undertake a task that made sense when they decided to do it. And that task is to review A Wrinkle in Time. Not the book. They already reviewed that. Just last episode. No, they're reviewing the movie. They love you and work hard for you. Even when that work is difficult and involves Oprah. Appreciate them. Support them on Patreon.

Support our heroes here!

Our heroes review Madeleine L'Engle's beloved (by some) fantasy novel A Wrinkle in Time. They'll do the movie next week.

Strangely enough, this is the second novel our heroes have discussed that was published in 1962 and features temptation, supernatural evil, emasculated fathers, coming of age, and love conquering all. The other one was Something Wicked This Way Comes and it rocked. Listen to find out how A Wrinkle in Time compared. Don't skip the opening, which provides an explanation for the episode that follows it. Here are things that happen in this episode.

00:00 Our heroes discuss their methods
06:41 Opening remarks
10:41 Donor Shout-outs (with lots of commentary on the book mixed in)
21:45 Context
27:19 Worse than Dan Brown
31:14 Baggage
37:54 The First Page
41:52 Charles Wallace Must Die
58:18 Scholastic Guide to the book

If Pride and Prejudice is a book that every young person who is dating should read, Mansfield Park is a book that every parent should read. It's full of wisdom, yo! So is this episode, thanks to the efforts of our heroes! Here are the things that happen:

00:00 Music, our heroes introduce themselves, etc.
02:18 Donor Shout-Outs
06:58 Mansfield Park is a book for parents
08:46 Manners vs. morals
11:16 If you don't have sympathy for Fanny, reread the beginning
16:22 Less Common Acquirements
17:32 Severity Vs. Indulgence
19:05 All he had to do was smile
21:27 The perfect pharisees
22:58 Parents who won't "run the risk of investigation"
25:18 Mediated discipline
27:48 The uses of outward conformity
30:15 Sir Thomas is not a villain
31:47 The importance of parental unity
34:30 Show affection to your kids!!!!
38:26 Pride
41:05 When all that's left is verbal abuse
42:52 Don't be a jerk because you're recovering authority, Dad

In this special bonus clip that we're posting today for some reason, The Mysterious Phantom and Virginia Woolf attempt to discredit Jane Austen's greatness. Fortunately Jake and Brandon are having none of it!

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Mansfield Park is a thorny novel. It plays with the form in challenging ways. It takes some discernment to read it properly. Today our heroes talk about these challenges, as well as the question of why Henry and Mary suck. Because they do suck, dear listener. Here are some things our heroes discuss in this amazing episode:

00:00 Our heroes are awesome
06:21 Donor Shout-outs
10:35 Genius Structure
21:34 Test Your Discernment
22:19 Complaints about the ending
25:17 Respect Your Literary Elders
27:49 Mary Crawford =/= Lizzie or Emma
30:17 Character will out
32:09 Everything is in play
36:40 Nature vs. nurture
40:58 Mr. Yates
43:25 Sobriety
44:58 The church scene
54:40 Our heroes talk about barbecue during the end credits for some reason

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Happy Valentine's Day, Bookeners!

Fanny Price is not a popular heroine. She's weak, passive, and afraid for most of the novel. She achieves her victory through something almost like diffidence. And yet, our heroes at The Bookening unreservedly love her. They think she's kinda great. In today's episode, they attempt to convince you of the same thing. Also we decide if Nathan should marry a LIzzie or a Fanny, with copious love advice from Dr Mentzel.

In so doing, the following things occur:

02:15 Donor Shout outs!!!!!!
 05:20 Nathan spits some awesome bars
 06:56 Baggage check!!
 12:31 The Price is wrong??????
 13:54 The Price is right!!!!!!
 14:19 Fanny is damaged, yo
 19:06 Shades of early Dickens
 21:11 Fanny's faults
 22:40 The play!
 24:06 The clergy!
 27:21 Feminine virtue =/= shutting up all the time
 29:55 Feminine virtue = gentle and quite spirit
 33:11 Fanny is awesome!
 34:26 Edmund
 35:30 Don't trifle with women's hearts!
 38:30 Stockholm syndrome!
 43:15 Love advice with Dr Mentzel

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FANNY FOREVER!

This is an episode of the greatest literature podcast ever on the subject of Mansfield Park by the one and only Jane Austen. This first episode includes the following things:

00:00 Nathan says something silly while the music starts to play
00:43 The music stops playing and our heroes talk of many interesting things
08:32 Donor Shout-outs!!!!!!!!!
14:02 Contextual Texan Begins
16:10 Jane Austen's Evening Prayer
18:32 The non-irony of Fanny Price
20:15 Jane Austen's Life
27:20 The weird transitional literary time she lived in
29:15: Romanticism! Emotions! Cliffs!
34:48 Free Indirect Style
36:53 The Peerage System
40:39 Slavery
42:47 Landscape Development
44:26 Sublimity is the worst
45:35 A mixed critical response :(
47:41 A Feminist Marxist reading
50:24 Controversy!
51:41 Sorry, Virginia Woolf

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What's this??? An episode of The Lookening!!!! Aka our heroes are reviewing a movie. What is said movie you ask? It's Shadowlands.

According to our pals at Wikipedia, "Shadowlands is a 1993 British biographical drama film about the relationship between Irish academic C. S. Lewis and American poet Joy Davidman, her death from cancer, and how this challenged Lewis's Christian faith. It is directed by Richard Attenborough with a screenplay by William Nicholson based on his 1985 television film and 1989 stage play of the same name. The 1985 script began life as I Call It Joy written for Thames Television by Brian Sibley and Norman Stone. Sibley later wrote the book, Shadowlands: The True Story of C. S. Lewis and Joy Davidman."

Here's some things that happen in this episode:

00:30 Our heroes are the coolest
06:23 Pig Latin Donor Shout-outs
11:00 Semi-colons are; the worst
12:15 Shadowlands is a movie we are discussing!
14:29 Things happened in this movie
15:36 Ugly crying
19:03 A Grief Observed
21:22 Lost!
24:32 Baggage check
26:13 Things the movie got wrong
32:03 Britishness prettified
33:58 British acting vs. Method acting
38:27 Offensive American Stereotypes
41:21 Why did Lewis fall in love with Joy? This movie has no clue
43:37 Quotable Lewis vs. Real Lewis
48:37 CS Lewis wrap-up
55:28 The Not-So-Great Divorce

Our heroes continue their epic journey through all the books they read in 2017. They award prizes for the best line, best setting, worst book, best book and more!

Nathan makes it sound like next week is Mansfield Park but that is actually the first week of February. Next week is somethin' special.

Enable Brandon's gambling addiction by supporting us on Patreon here!

Support us on Patreon!

Our heroes are looking back on all the books they read in 2017 and awarding the coveted Bookening awards of excellence in such categories as:

Coolest male character
Coolest female charcter
Worst female villain
Worst male villain
Most evocative image.

... And more!

Our heroes continue to discuss Til We Have Faces, and decide that the ending freaks them out. Here's some things that happen:

1:15 Donor Shout-outs
3:24 Our heroes introduce themselves
6:09 Our heroes discuss Master and Commander for some reason
8:36 Our heroes discuss terrible children's movies, specifically Shrek, for some reason
10:20 Our heroes are still bitter about Winnie the Pooh
10:46 We are ambivalent about this book
12:00 The shadowy, puppety characters
14:24 It was a fun book to read
15:17 The journey vs the destination
15:47 The virtue of flat characters
18:24 The vice of flat characters
20:29 A psychologically real novel?
23:41 People who say this novel is great are weird
28:00 Things We Liked
33:27 Why do certain people like this book?
35:17 The false gospel of CS Lewis
38:00 Lewis's conception of holiness
45:47 How it should have ended
48:37 A rationalist with no faith
50:00 Bookening Seal of Approval ????

Our heroes dig into the semi-wonderful, but also kinda icky story of CS Lewis , and his final novel Till We Have Faces.

Things that happen in this episode:
00:36 Our heroes are awesome
05:40 Donor Shout-outs
11:12 Contextual Texan
14:33 Biography
17:05 The Irish Influence
19:38 Childhood
22:10 Weird Unmentionable Things About Lewis's Past
26:26 WAR!
27:25 Back to Oxford
30:59 Til We Have Faces
32:56 Cupid and Psyche
35:19 Lewis's Wacko Mysticism
37:12 The Inklings Were Crazy, Yo
41:37 Owen Barfield and the Occult
44:48 Preface to Paradise Lost
45:32 Baggage Check
01:06 Guys with Something to Say Vs. Guys with a Story a Tell

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This episode requires a bit of explanation. What happened was that our heroes gathered together to record their 2017 year-in-review. But, as you'll hear, one thing led to another, and before they knew it, they had recorded an episode on Star Wars, and why this new movie (with its abandonment of the traditional Star-Warsian mythological underpinning) is probably a death knell for the franchise. We do still plan on doing a 2017 Redux, but it will be later in January, after Til We Have Faces. Warning: Spoilers abound, even apart from in the part that Nathan says contains spoilers.

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Drumroll ... our heroes reveal the complete book list and talk about what to expect on The Bookening Season 3 for 2018.

Full list here!
Support us here!

Our heroes continue to discuss Dubliners by James Joyce, which they didn't care for, plus "Araby" and "The Dead" which they did. Sorry for the weirdness with Brandon's microphone 1/3 of the way in. That was a thing that happened.

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00:00 Short introduction thing
00:45 Somebody from something else is here
04:52 Donor Shout Outs
08:12 Epiphanies, or Lack Thereof
17:55 Realism, or Lack Thereof
32:01 Joyce the Exhibitionist
33:58 "Araby"
40:21 "The Dead"
52:41 The Bookening Seal of Approval, or Lack Thereof

Apologies, we were going to do our 2018 booklist this week, but for boring behind-the-scenes reasons it ended up making more sense to do Dubliners first. However, if you want to get reading for 2018, we're doing CS Lewis's Til We Have Faces in January and Mansfield Park by Jane Austen in February.

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THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN THIS EPISODE:

00:45 Our heroes are awesome!
10:52 Donor Shout-outs
18:02 Context begins
19:09 Nathan gives a caveat for Brandon
20:37 Introduction to James Joyce
24:02 Joyce's History
27:27 Ireland
33:36 Joyce's place in Irish History and Culture
35:57 Joyce's depravity
40:15 Wrapping up Joyce's Life
44:27 The theme of Paralysis
49:00 Epiphany
52:05 Baggage check

Our heroes are joined by old pal Dani McNeilly to have some fun and give their thoughts on the Kenneth Branagh movie of Murder on the Orient Express. The actual film discussion starts around the 19:00 mark, but our heroes discuss lots of VERY important things before that, and give an actual up-to-date list of donor shout-outs.

If you want to check out the world's only competing Christian podcast on literature, do so here.

If you want to support a fine gentleman and manful poet, do so here.

If you want to support the McNeilly's ministry, do so here.

And finally, if you want to support The Bookening do so here.

We're taking this week off to be with our families and all that sort of crap, but here's twenty minutes of our heroes attempting to make the announcement that we're taking this week off to be with our families and all that sort of crap. Enjoy! And happy Thanksgiving! We are thankful for all our awesome listeners!

This episode is a second episode about Martin Dressler. Things that happen include:
00:00=EVERYTHING IS AWESOME
2:45=DONOR SHOUT OUTS
4:44=MARTIN DRESSLER AS A DUDE
9:45=ART AND THE AMERICAN DREAM AND STEVE JOBS AND WALT DISNEY
25:30=WHAT ON EARTH WAS MILLHAUSER DOING WITH THIS NOVEL?
30:16=THE WOMEN IN THE NOVEL
40:49=IN WHICH OUR HEROES ADDRESS THE CONCERNS OF ANDREW HENRY, WHO THINKS MILLHAUSER TAPS INTO THINGS AS A WRITER THAT HE PERHAPS SHOULDN'T, WITHOUT EVER SAYING ANDREW HENRY'S NAME FOR SOME RANDOM UNKNOWN REASON, EVEN THOUGH ANDREW WAS JUST ON THE SHOW.

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IT'S WHAT EVERYONE HAS BEEN WAITING FOR THE WHOLE YEAR, OUR DISCUSSION OF MARTIN DRESSLER BY STEVEN MILLHAUSER, WAHOOOOOOO!!!! That's right, our heroes are talking Steven Millhauser, that poet of the uncanny creeping at the edges of the mundane (he' s not actually a poet). This is one of Nathan's favorite books we read this year ... BUT SHOULD IT BE???????? Over the next couple weeks, our heroes intend to find out.

Our heroes are awesome (00:00)
DONOR SHOUTOUTS! (05:00) (Newer donors, you should all be included by the time our heroes do Dubliners)
The Contextual Texan Talks Millhauser + Post-Modernism (08:15)
Why People (Including Andrew Henry) Have Trouble With Millhauser's Hypnotic Effect (17:07)
Magical Realism (28:52)
Baggage Check (35:05)
Jake And His Family Went To a Cool Museum One Time (51:03)

Throws us a couple bucks on Patreon!

Our heroes and friend Andrew conclude their epic discussion of the one and only Ray Bradbury

In this episode our heroes discuss the short stories of Ray Bradbury with their pal Andrew Henry. Andrew has 10890591805098 good insights on Ray Bradbury (example: Bradbury was really good at describing smells) and 150815180 good insights on fiction and writing in general. So, if you do the math, what that means is: whether you like Ray Bradbury or don't like Ray Bradbury, this is a good episode for you to listen to. Actually our heroes talk directly to a listener who isn't a huge Bradbury fan, so even if you don't like Bradbury, this one's for you. So stop reading this and listen to it.

Things that happen in this episode: Halloween puns! (00:00) The depiction of EVIL (06:00). Daddy issues. (28:00).

Fun fact: per some random article by the Imaginative Conservative, SWTWC touches on the following (from a list of the 102 Great Ideas that Mortimer Adler says a great novel can touch upon): Beauty, Being, Cause, Chance, Change, Citizen, Courage, Custom and Convention, Desire, Duty, Emotion, Eternity, Evolution, Experience, Family, Fate, God, Good and Evil, Habit, Happiness, Honor, Immortality, Judgment, Knowledge, Law, Life and Death, Love, Man, Memory and Imagination, Mind, Nature, Opinion, Opposition, Philosophy, Pleasure and Pain, Prudence, Punishment, Reasoning, Relation, Religion, Senses, Sign and Symbol, Sin, Soul, Temperance, Theology, Time, Truth, Virtue and Vice, Will, Wisdom, and World.

Eat your heart our, Marilynne Robinson!

In this episode our heroes have an extended discussion of Ray Bradbury's style in Something Wicked This Way Comes. It's archaic, it's overwrought, it's hyperbolic ... AND THEY LOVE IT! (See what we did there?????) That part begins at 17:53, Time-Code Fans! Before that, our heroes discuss their (in Nathan's case, copious) Bradbury baggage, beginning at 6:00. Before that, there are various shenanigans, screaming, a children's poem about mauling people, etc., you know how this show works.

Click here to support The Bookening.

Our fear-oes begin their extra spooky Halloween series on Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. Brandon Chast-fiend offers some much needed context on Bradbury's life (7:52), even including a die-scription of the "slush" pile from which short stories were selected by magazines like the New Gore-ker in those days (17:45). Our heroes admit to mixed feeling about Scare-en-heit 451 (20:00), discuss whether Bradbury was really a die-ence fiction writer (24:15). Chast-fiend gives us a run-down on said genre (33:15). Nathan gives us a run-down on the pulps and horror at the time. (40:45). Meanwhile Jake Mentzkiller keeps threatening to lie down on the floor and go to sleep if a certain other fear-o won't stop it with the Halloween puns.

Our heroes continue to discuss GK Chesterton, including what makes him great (2:40), the famous quote he never said (13:00), and why nobody should try to rip off his style (14:00). This expands into a discussion of style and creativity in general, but, as usual, our heroes bring it all home with aplomb. Also just for kicks they play an audio clip of Chesterton (48:18).

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Our heroes express their love for the Prince of Paradox himself, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, while also tackling some thorny questions such as whether Chesterton was a racist (pretty much) and if his fiction is any good (not according to at least one grouchy podcaster).

Next week more Chesterton and then Something Wicked This Way Comes.

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Sometimes a man sets out to write a good episode description for an episode of The Bookening about My Antonia and he just doesn't have it in him. Not that it's a bad episode or a bad book, mind you. But sometimes even the best podcast episodes about the best books don't really inspire one to write a good podcast blurb. Life is weird like that. Deal with it.

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Having apologized profusely for some recent meanderings last episode, our heroes engage in no such hogwash/balderdash/poppycock this go around. At no point do they discuss Nathan's recent endoscopy, or awesome roller-coasters, or anything like that. Nor do they spend a bunch of time trying to figure out if it's AnTONia or ANtoNEEa or what have you. It's just straight-ahead collegiate-level book discussion all the way. Mrs. Mentzel and Mrs. Chasteen will be ever so proud. And some hot single chick will probably listen to this fall in love with Nathan (which, hot single chicks, if you're reading this, let's face it, Nathan is not a hard guy to get a hold of).

In any case, there is plenty to ponder about the great Willa Cather's My Antonia. Our heroes discuss whether Cather was a lesbian and how much that matters, how a sense of place informs one's reading of a book, whether Jim was a weirdo for obsessing about Antonia all those years, and more!

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First up, Nathan and Jake have some thoughts on last week's episode they wish to share. Then we're taking the week off, so sorry about that! We did include a bonus episode from another fine Wahorn podcast for you to enjoy, if you haven't already heard it. Our heroes thank you for the breather!

Please click here to support The Bookening for a low monthly amount and help us continue making the podcast. Thank you!

_"[O]ne touch is added which makes the play colossal. Theseus and his train retire with a crashing finale, full of humour and wisdom and things set right, and silence falls on the house. Then there comes a faint sound of little feet, and for a moment, as it were, the elves look into the house, asking which is the reality. “Suppose we are the realities and they the shadows.” If that ending were acted properly any modern man would feel shaken to his marrow if he had to walk home from the theatre through a country lane." --_GK Chesterton on _A Midsummer Night's Dream. _

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare is a surprisingly difficult play to talk about. What do you say about a weird supernatural relationship comedy set in a Greece that feels more like the English countryside? Are there deeper themes to dredge up or is it just supposed be fun? What were you thinking, William Shakespeare? Are our heroes up to the task of talking about it? Will Nathan work in extended references to Gilligan's Island? The answers await you, Dear Listener!

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This is technically part 1 of our series on Midsummer Night's Dream, but it also serves as a good primer on all things William Shakespeare, as Brandon leads our heroes through the tangle of what we know about the Bard, what we don't, and how we should feel about it. Plus, our heroes discuss life in Elizabethan times, and Jake goes mano a mano with some philosopher named Aristotle on the origin of comedy. 

Please click here to support The Bookening for a low monthly amount and help us continue making the podcast. Thank you!

 When a damsel in distress feels oppressed by a not-completely-crazy-and-almost-kinda-reasonable article on why Christians shouldn't read fiction, our heroes jump to her rescue!  

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Murder on the Orient Express! Our heroes ponder whether it is ever acceptable to take the law into your own hands, answer questions from Schmoop, and solve their very own murder mystery. WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END WILL SHOCK YOU! Featuring MVP guest star, Dani McNeilly.

Give a trillion dollars to the McNeilly's campus ministry to Indiana University. 

Please click here to support The Bookening for a low monthly amount and help us continue making the podcast. Thank you!

Music Credit: Undertale Remix - Megalovania (Chime Electro / Dubstep Remix) - GameChops Spotlight (Used by Creative Commons Attribution license)

Agatha Christie --  expert plot mechanic or good storyteller? Our heroes attempt to solve this mystery with a little help from their pal Dani McNeilly. Nathan is dubious about "good storyteller", until Dani points out some things which (it's easy to take for granted, but) Christie does really well. 

See if Dani will let you follow her on Instagram, then go and give a trillion dollars to the McNeilly's campus ministry to Indiana University. 

Please click here to support The Bookening for a low monthly amount and help us continue making the podcast. Thank you!

Our heroes invite a woman on the podcast and chaos ensues. Also they discuss Dame Agatha Christie and _Murder on the Orient Express. _Co-starring the wonderful Dani McNeilly.

Please click here to support The Bookening for a low monthly amount and help us continue making the podcast. Thank you!

Please click here to support The Bookening for a low monthly amount and help us continue making the podcast. Thank you!

Here's something different for those of you who like different things. Our heroes conclude their discussion of _Heart of Darkness _by interviewing their good friend Pastor Lucas Weeks, who actually grew up in the Congo. He's played with monkeys, seen terrifying native tribal dances, and been escorted from his home by US Marines while machine gun fire echoed in the distance. So arguably he can bring more perspective to _Heart of Darkness _than even the Mysterious Phantom did. 

Next week Dame Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.

Please click here to support The Bookening for a low monthly amount and help us continue making the podcast. Thank you!

Let's face it. Nathan, Brandon, and Jake are probably the three bravest men ever to have walked the face of the earth. So it shouldn't come as any surprise that in this episode, our heroes delve fearlessly into the murky depths of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, asking tough questions like "was Marlowe wrong to lie to that lady at the end?" and "Is Joseph Conrad a 'bloody racist?'"

It's also entirely possible that a very special guest shows up near the end of the episode, someone who has some very particular bones to pick with our heroes. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT WILL SHOCK YOU!!!!!!!!!

Next week more Joseph Conrad's_Heart of Darkness. _

Coming thereafter Dame Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.

Please click here to support The Bookening for a low monthly amount and help us continue making the podcast. Thank you!

This week Nathan, Jake, and Brandon begin their journey into ... THE HEART OF DARKNESS! (Nolanesque musical sting). Our heroes discuss Joseph Conrad's journey from Polish orphan to French sailor to English novelist, why King Leopold of Belgium was a real jerk, and whether Jake's shoes glow in the dark. 

Next week more Joseph Conrad's_Heart of Darkness. _

And soon thereafter Dame Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.

Please click here to support The Bookening for a low monthly amount and help us continue making the podcast. Thank you!

Kids certainly do say the darndest things, and given that 3 of our heros' kids had read N.D. Wilson's _Boys of Blur (_and what's more, loved _Boys of Blur), _we figured they'd have the darndest things to say about it. Spoiler: we weren't wrong.

Special thanks to Elissa, Eliot, and Peter for a fun and fascinating ep! Tell all your friends and family to support us A.S.A.P, so they'll get their Skittles bribe.

Yes, next week we're finally getting to Joseph Conrad's_Heart of Darkness. _

Please click here to support The Bookening for a low monthly amount and help us continue making the podcast. Thank you!

In today's episode, our heroes (sadly sans Brandon) continue their discussion from the Newbery ep about why reading is not some kind of big inherent virtue like so many educators and pundits make it out to be. As our heroes point out:

1. Reading, like any discipline, requires actual work. Sometimes mundane work. It is not (merely) a glorious series of transcendent moments and discoveries, like, y'know _Reading Rainbow _kinda makes you think.
2. Reading (or any art) is not the ultimate point of the well-lived god-honoring life.
3. If you're one of those Christians who thinks he's going to redeem the culture through it engaging it with the arts, you're pretty dumb.

CORRECTION: Nathan very well may be wrong at the end of the episode when he says that next week we start Joseph Conrad's_Heart of Darkness. _If all goes according  to plan, next week we hope to have a Very Special Episode to finish out our discussion of children's literature. After that, Conrad, baby!

_Mr. Popper's Penguins. _

Call It Courage.

Maniac Mcgee.

_The Bridge to Taribithia. _

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

What do these books have in common you ask? They're Newbery Medal winners of course, and in this episode our heroes use Newbery as a springboard into a discussion of the invention of kids lit and young adult fiction, and whether kids should be taught to read what they enjoy ... or enjoy what they read.

One thing is for sure. Everyone hates _Johnny Tremain. _

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Next week we begin Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

_ _

Music Credit:
 "Loping Sting" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
 Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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