Every lover of poetry remembers the poem that made them fall in love with the art. It’s usually not even an entire poem that makes us fall in love. Often it’s just one line. Sometimes one phrase or word. Stephen Fry, in the wonderful Ode Less Travelled cites an innocuous line from Keats’ ‘The Eve […]
Reading Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, Chapter One (Video)
I mentioned one of my passion projects was to read the entirety of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations aloud following the original serialised publication dates. Well, I’ve got started on that with the first two chapters, with chapter one released today. In an ideal world, I would have read this great work in front of a crackling […]
Why I Read (Video)
This is why I read. And this is why I started Hardcore Literature. Why do you read? This Is Why I Read Notes from the video: Reading sharpens your empathy Literature gives a great deal of joy A book is the soul of another human being You can predict the future by reading history Reading […]
How to Improve Your Writing with Copywork (Video)
Today we’re talking about a writing exercise that will improve your craft. You can learn everything from musicality and rhythm in language to character composition and expansion of rational arguments by copying your favourite great authors’ works out by hand. How to Improve Your Writing with Copywork
Analysing William Blake’s ‘London’ (Video)
We’re talking about oppression. We’re talking about victimisation. And we’re talking about vision, prophecy, and poetry. All this by studying, analysing, and lovingly picking apart one of my personal favourite poems: ‘London’ by William Blake. William Blake’s ‘London’ Poem Analysis
Drillers are Killers (Video)
This is my educational philosophy in a nut-shell: Drillers are killers. In this short video, I discuss the mindset that helped me go from floundering to flourishing student in my final year at Oxford, how to go from dumb and mute foreigner living in Japan to being conversationally fluent, and even how I improved my […]
The Seneca Podcast
Today we’re looking at the eighty-eighth letter from Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic. This is a shorter-form episode. I’m experimenting with content under 10 minutes long. Let me know what you think. I’ll likely turn this into its own long-running series, and we’ll deal with a different aspect from Seneca’s letters every now and then. Today […]
My Lockdown Reading Habits & Revelations
As I’ve had new books turning up at my door every day during lockdown, I decided a “lockdown reading habits” article was in order. Here are two huge reading revelations, followed by three reading habits. Huge reading revelation number one: we need to stop making Amazon a monopoly Amazon’s great for books and next day […]
The Nietzsche Podcast
We’re deep-diving into Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and talking about justice, revenge, power, virtue, and virtue signalling, taking examples from the current year. Difficult discussion – and only part one of what I hope to be a long Nietzsche-focused series – but don’t get it twisted. There’s stuff that sounds controversial, and Nietzsche has long been […]
June 2020 TBR – What Books I’m Reading This Month
You seem to love these monthly TBR lists, so I’ll keep doing them! I’m reading some great books this month. I’ve dipped into all of them and already highly recommend each volume. I’m so excited to keep reading them, and even more excited to share their essences with you in the form of book reviews, […]
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