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Surprise! We’re jumping into your podcast feed with a special bonus episode this week. Ian recently interviewed Leslie and Carey Bustard, the masterminds behind the recently published essay collection, Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children from Square Halo Books. Leslie and Carey talk about their vision for encouraging others to share God’s kingdom in all of its beautiful variety with the children in their lives through good books and thoughtful reading. Visit their website to get a hold of this beautiful book (which includes an essay from our very own Missy Andrews!) for yourself. (P.S. Watch out next week for a special announcement about our upcoming second season!) Learn more about Leslie and Carey, and Square Halo Books: – https://www.squarehalobooks.com/ – Carey Bustard on Instagram @taxicab – Cultivating Project Online Journal – Story Warren – Poetic Underpinnings – Calla Press – The Square Halo Podcast – Anselm Society We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing i.andrews@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.

The CenterForLit crew wraps up our first official season of the new and improved BiblioFiles with a look back at where we’ve been. We talk about the relationship between questions and answers in literature, and how that relationship influences the way we approach contemporary works of art. Be sure to stay tuned to the end to find out what you can expect from season 2! Join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/333790777396633 Referenced Works: – The Buried Giant and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro – Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab – Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan – The Genius Under the Table by Eugene Yelchin – Pelican Society Membership Shop BiblioFiles: www.centerforlit.com/the-bibliofiles-shop We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing i.andrews@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.

For our last Great Question this season, we’re taking up “What is love?” and we promise not to hurt you. We look over a variety of love stories from vastly different periods in literary history, and are surprised to find a common thread through them all. Join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/333790777396633 Referenced Works: – Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy–Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis– Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers– Miranda (2009-2015), written by Miranda Hart– The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien– The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis– Modern Love (2019), Amazon Prime– A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken– The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri– The End of the Affair by Graham Greene– Fiddler on the Roof, music and lyrics by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick– Crazy, Stupid Love (2011), written by Dan Fogelman–“Who Are We Fooling?” by Brooke Fraser–The Odyssey by Homer– Ulysses by James Joyce Shop BiblioFiles: www.centerforlit.com/the-bibliofiles-shop We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing i.andrews@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.

Our next Great Question leads us on a romp through some old CenterForLit favorites. We’re asking, “What is friendship?” And we look at some of the best friendships in literature, adding a couple of contemporary examples along the way, in pursuit of identifying what C.S. Lewis meant when he said friendship “has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” Join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/333790777396633 Referenced Works: – “On Friendship” in The Prophet by Khalil Gibran – The Office (2005-2013), NBC – The Professor and the Madman (2019), directed by Farhad Safinia – The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester – The Wind and the Willows by Kenneth Grahame – The Chosen by Chaim Potok – The Sandlot (1993), directed by David Mickey Evans – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis – Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Shop BiblioFiles: www.centerforlit.com/the-bibliofiles-shop We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing i.andrews@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.

In this episode the CenterForLit crew looks at what is perhaps the most universal of all the questions: the problem of pain. It goes something like this, “If we live in a world governed by a good and just God, why do innocent people suffer?” We trace a common desire for justice and revenge in works of art old and new, and look for signs of hope that one day our wrongs will be righted. Join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/333790777396633 Referenced Works: – You’ve Got Mail (1998), directed by Nora Ephron – While You Were Sleeping (1995), directed by John Turteltaub – Man Up (2015), directed by Ben Palmer – That Awkward Moment (2014), directed by Tom Gormican – The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), directed by Clint Eastwood – Philadelphia Story  (1940), directed by George Cukor – The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis – Amadeus (1984), directed by Miloš Forman – Jacob Collier/Chris Martin Sparks performance – The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevksy – Inglorious Bastards (2009), Django Unchained (2012), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) and 2 (2004), Pulp Fiction (1994) by Quentin Tarantino – Between Noon and Three by Robert Farrar Capon – Quentin Tarantino and Philosophy: How to Philosophize with a Pair of Pliers and a Blowtorch, edited by Richard Greene and K. Silem Mohammad – Hamlet by William Shakespeare – The Book of Job – Straw into Gold and Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt – Pelican Society Membership Shop BiblioFiles: www.centerforlit.com/the-bibliofiles-shop We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing i.andrews@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.

It had to come up eventually. In this episode, the CenterForLit crew tackles the question, “What is a good death?” But what could easily have become a morose conversation quickly becomes an occasion for joy and laughter with a little help from the Christian tradition. Join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/333790777396633 Referenced Works: – Pride and Prejudice (1995), screenplay by Andrew Davies – The Bishop’s Wife (1947), directed by Henry Koster – Enchanted April (1991), directed Mike Newell – Midnight in Paris (2011), directed by Woody Allen – Harry Potter (2001-2011), Warner Bros. Pictures – “Prediction-based neural mechanisms for shielding the self from existential threat” by Zidermanm, Lutz, and Goldstein – “The Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” by Sam Bush – “An Ode to Middle Age” by James Parker – The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy – Peace Like a River by Leif Enter – The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis – The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien – Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White – A Quiet Place (2018), directed by John Krasinski – Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis – The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright – A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens – Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand – Paradise Lost by John Milton – “Death be not proud” by John Donne Shop BiblioFiles: www.centerforlit.com/the-bibliofiles-shop We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing i.andrews@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.

In today’s episode, the CenterForLit crew tackles the next question in our series of conversations about the Great Questions of art and literature. This time we’re asking, “What is a good life?” Nobody wants to come to the end of their life and feel it has been wasted. But how can we be sure we’ll be satisfied? We look for answers in all kinds of places as we meditate on the significance of this question. Join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/333790777396633 Referenced Works: – Teaching the Classics: A Socratic Method for Teaching Literature – “Why Georgia”  by John Mayer – Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry – The Moviegoer by Walker Percy – Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), written by John Patrick Shanley – The Queen’s Gambit (2020), created by Scott Frank and Allan Scott – The Life You Imagine: Life Lessons for Achieving Your Dreams by Derek Jeter – Middlemarch by George Eliot – Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Shop BiblioFiles: www.centerforlit.com/the-bibliofiles-shop We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing i.andrews@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.

Scripture tells us that God made man in his image, but what does that mean? If man is not god, what part of human nature reflects his creator? The CenterForLit crew dives into another of the tradition’s great questions, and the answers they suggest might not be what you expect. Join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/333790777396633 Referenced Works: – Bladerunner (1982), directed by Ridley Scott – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick – Westworld (2016-present), created by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan – I, Robot by Isaac Asimov – The Terminator (1984), directed by James Cameron – The Great Tradition, edited by Richard Gamble – “On Education for Children” by Erasmus – The Secret History by Donna Tartt – Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh – Rope (1948), directed by Alfred Hitchcock – Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis – A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle – Beowulf – “To Build a Fire” by Jack London – The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton – In Tune with the World: A Theory of Festivity by Josef Pieper – A Theology of Reading: The Hermeneutics of Love by Alan Jacobs Shop BiblioFiles: www.centerforlit.com/the-bibliofiles-shop We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing i.andrews@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.

Our season on “The Great Questions” continues with an episode in which we ask, “What is man?” As our attention turns from the heavens to earth, Shakespeare is a natural companion, and we find some new and unexpected voices to add to the conversation along the way! Join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/333790777396633 Referenced Works: – Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), directed by Wes Anderson – “Every Riven Thing” by Christian Wiman – Rev. (2010-2014), created by Tom Hollander and James Wood – “That Nature is a Herclitean Fire and of the comfort  of the Resurrection” by Gerard Manley Hopkins – Hamlet, King Lear, and  Henry V by William Shakespeare – The Pelican Society Shop BiblioFiles: www.centerforlit.com/the-bibliofiles-shop We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing i.andrews@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.

In the second episode of our series on “The Great Questions,” we ask the natural follow-up question to “Is there a god?” If there is a god, what is he like? We talk about humanity’s obsession with this question and where it comes from, discuss literature’s particular relationship to contemplating the nature of God, and look to examples old and new to see how artists have wrestled with the question through the ages. Join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/333790777396633 Referenced Works: – The Truman Show, directed by Peter Weir – “Holy” by Justin Bieber – “False God” by Taylor Swift – “God is a woman” by Ariana Grande – Between Noon and Three: Romance, Law, and the Outrage of Grace by Robert Farrar Capon – Miranda (2009-2015), written by Miranda Hart – Frankenstein by Mary Shelley – The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde – Moby Dick by Herman Melville – Teaching the Classics Shop BiblioFiles: www.centerforlit.com/the-bibliofiles-shop We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing i.andrews@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.

We’re opening our season on “The Great Questions” by asking the most important question of them all: “Is there a god?” In this episode, the CenterForLit crew talks about why this question is important, even if someone already believes they have the answer. Then they look to works of art, new and old, to see how culture wrestles with the problem now, and how we have wrestled with it in the past. Join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/333790777396633 Referenced Works: – “The ‘I Surrender’ List by Ethan Richardson, The Faith & Doubt Issue – “I Wake Close to Morning” by Mary Oliver – Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri – The Young Pope (2016), directed by Paolo Sorrentino – The Power and the Glory by Graham Green – Godric by Frederick Buechner – The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky – War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – The How to Eat and Elephant podcast Shop BiblioFiles: www.centerforlit.com/the-bibliofiles-shop We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing i.andrews@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.

BiblioFiles is coming back! On Friday January 14, 2022, we’ll be debuting the first of ten episodes from our new season on “The Great Questions.” In this trailer, Ian and Emily explain the thought process behind the updated version of the show and what you can expect going forward.