The thing about recording these long literary podcasts is this:
They take a lot of time.
I wish I had more hours in the day. But the syntopic reading, researching, speaking, editing, and producing all adds up to a lot of hours invested.
So I’ve got a bunch of different shows at various stages of production. I’ve extensively outlined notes for some and I just need 1-2 hours of distraction-free time where I turn on the mic and gush. Others have been half-recorded and need to be completed. Others are in the editing pipeline and they need the audio cleaned up. Plenty more exist only in my mind and are forming a cohesive whole after many years of reflection, conversation, and cross-pollination.
I’m excited. And when you see the books we’ve got scheduled for release, you’ll be excited too.
Season One of Hardcore Literature already has 7 episodes released:
Gibran’s The Prophet, Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, The Poetry of Rumi, Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde, and a deep dive into Aristotle’s virtues of courage, temperance, and generosity.
There’s also a few videos on poetry by Ted Hughes and Robert Browning.
Seeing as each season is going to be 10 episodes long, there are 3 more episodes to come before moving onto a bigger better season 2.
Here’s what you’ve got to look forward to in the rest of season 1:
- A Journal of the Plague Year (Daniel Defoe)
- The Silence of the Lambs (Thomas Harris)
- Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
And what’s coming to season 2?
- The Book of Job.
- On Liberty by John Stuart Mill.
- Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung.
- The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
- Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche.
We’re talking epics like Homer’s Iliad, Yoshikawa’s Musashi, and Melville’s Moby Dick.
We’re talking great Shakespeare plays like Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth.
We’re talking big post-modern masterpieces like Delillo’s Underworld, Heller’s Catch-22, and McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.
We’re talking short stories from great craftsmen like Denis Johnson, D.H. Lawrence, and Alice Munro.
We’re talking poetry from Browning, Whitman, and Dickinson.
I’ll also be working on getting some great guests to join me.
I’ve got a dream-team list drawn up. Between you and me, there’s a translator of Catullus and Rilke I’d love to get on the show. There are also a handful of specific public figures who I admire greatly, and I would be tremendously happy if I could get at least one of them on to talk about their favourite books.
If you know anyone that might be up for what would be part-interview, part-biography, part-book review, let me know. I’ll contact them.
It’s going to be a lot of fun, so get involved.
Let me know what you’re reading, what you recommend, what you think would make a good deep-dive for the show, and any questions you might have for works slotted into the programming schedule.
If you want to recommend a book for the show (which I would highly appreciate), here’s the criteria for consideration:
- You believe the book has wisdom you can practically apply to your life. Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is a masterpiece, but how does that improve your wealth, health, and love life?
- You believe the book hasn’t been served in a way that does it justice. I believe that many great books have been the focus of English Lit classes for decades, but have yet to be given a half-decent analytical treatment.
- You want to hear a discussion about a book that has changed your life and wish to share the book with the world. I did my part to spread the word about Viktor Frankl and Aristotle. Who do you want to see in the literary limelight?