Hello! Nice to meet you, and welcome!
My name’s Benjamin McEvoy, but you can call me Ben.
I’m the host, lecturer, and creator of the Hardcore Literature Book Club. The HLBC is a guided tour across the best literature even written. We have an amazing community of literature lovers from all over the world deep-reading and discussing the Great Books together.
Hardcore Literature Book Club
We currently have 700+ lectures, posts, and bookish discussions in the back catalogue available instantly on demand at Patreon. Here are just some of the reading journeys we have taken together: the complete works of William Shakespeare, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Lady Murasaki’s The Tale of Genji, Dickens’ Bleak House, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, James Joyce’s Ulysses, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Dante’s Inferno, DFW’s Infinite Jest, Milton’s Paradise Lost, the poetry of William Blake, the epics of Homer, and many more.
You are guided through each book with long-form lectures, reading assignments, and community discussion. The best thing of all is that the video and audio lectures are always there (and so is the discussion), so you are encouraged to self-pace your reading journey.
Check out the schedule and contents page for the book club:
If you’re looking for a book club diving into great literature, you’ve found it! Joining the “Proust Tier” gives you instant access to all of the great content (over 100 exclusive long-form posts at this point), and you will be warmly welcomed.
Hardcore Literature Podcast Episodes
Hardcore Literature is currently in its seventh season, with ninety episodes and great reviews from all over the globe. You can listen to this podcast on the great books on iTunes and Spotify.
We have episodes deep-diving into great works from Shakespeare, Montaigne, Molière, Goethe, Wilde, Aeschylus, Kafka, Freud, Nietzsche, and many more.
We also have episodes walking you through how to read world literature, how to appreciate poetry, how to heal your trauma with bibliotherapy, how to do shadow work, guides to scriptural wisdom literature, and much more.
YouTube Videos
Most of my videos are over at the Book Club, but the YouTube channel has some nice guides and book discussions. You can find my ‘how to read’ introductory videos that kick off our latest lecture series over at the channel – so be sure to subscribe if you love content about the Great Books. We are also building a beautiful community both at the channel and the book club with the most insightful, deep, and nuanced comments you’ll find anywhere online.
Want to connect with me?
If you want to talk about literature and reading the Great Books, the best way to connect with me is through the Hardcore Literature Book Club where I spend a lot of my time. I’m also engaged over at the YouTube channel and would love to share appreciation for great literature with you.
If you have a business request, please note that my schedule is currently full, but I am working on freeing up time for some new exciting projects in the near future.
My Favourite Topics to Lecture Upon
I love literature to the deepest parts of my marrow, and find my every thought consumed with the Great Books. When I’m not voraciously inhaling literature or planning long-form lectures, I’m talking with fellow passionate readers from all over the world.
A few of my favourite areas to lecture upon include: Shakespeare and Elizabethan theatre production, Nietzsche’s philosophy of eternal recurrence, ekphrasis in poetry and novels (from Keats’ Odes to Melville’s Moby Dick), Freudian readings of Proust and Proustian readings of Freud, the development of psychologically complex complex characters in history (from Don Quixote to Anna Karenina), and how the first readers experienced the Great Books.
Having lived all over the globe, I’m particularly passionate about world literature and the art of translation. As a new father, I’m also keenly interested in the history of great children’s literature and the philosophy of education. On top of that, I also find it fascinating to bring disparate art forms, from music to painting to film, into our literary appreciation.