Listen Now

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts explore the popular Agatha Christie mystery novel, Death on the Nile. This discussion will contain spoilers, so if you haven’t read or listened to the book yet, stop this episode! But before we get to the book chat, we want to announce that our brand new The Well Read Poem podcast is now live! Also, head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to check out the Winter Webinar Series and Kelly Cumbee’s class on King Lear. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas begin the book discussion with a comparison of the authors known as the “Queens of Crime.” They also talk about the form of detective novels and how Christie in particular plays with the form to keep readers on their toes. Thomas notes the similarities between Death on the Nile with Henry James’ novel The Wings of the Dove. In addition to covering the plot of the story, our hosts walk us through the ways in which Christie writes in order to keep us guessing. If you haven’t heard it before, please go and listen to Episode 3: The Importance of the Detective Novel. Commonplace Quotes: The sacrifices of friendship were beautiful in her eyes as long as she was not asked to make them. Saki (pen name of H. H. Munro) Pious worshipers, whether or mortal or immortal artists, do their deities little honor by treating their incarnations as something too sacred for rough handling. They only succeed in betraying a fear lest the structure should prove flimsy or false. Dorothy Sayers “Once I went professionally to an archæological expedition–and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do–clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth–the naked shining truth.” Hercule Poirot, Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie When We First Met by Robert Bridges When first we met, we did not guess That Love would prove so hard a master; Of more than common friendliness When first we met we did not guess. Who could foretell the sore distress, This irretrievable disaster, When first we met? -- We did not guess That Love would prove so hard a master. Book List: Beasts and Super-Beasts by Saki (H. H. Munro) The Toys of Peace by Saki The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie Agatha Christie Ngaio Marsh Margery Allingham Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers The Wings of the Dove by Henry James Leave It to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse Tim Powers Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we are excited to delve into the literary life of the mysterious Mr. Banks! But before we get started, we do want to let you know that we have posted the reading schedule for January-March, and you can view it on our Upcoming Events page. Also, Blue Sky Daisies Publishing is running a fun contest for kids involving our new Commonplace Books, so you will want to head over to their website and check that out! Finally, be looking out for The Well Read Poem podcast coming to a podcast app near you on January 18, 2021! Cindy begins the interview asking Thomas about his family background and the influence of his parents on his own reading life. He shares about many of the books he loved in childhood and how that shaped his tastes in literature. He also talks about how he approached school learning as opposed to his personal reading. Angelina asks Thomas to tell about how he fell in love with poetry and how he ended up going to college even though that was not his original goal. He also shares more about his reading as an adult, as well as his habit of commonplacing quotations. Commonplace Quotes: …but I was glad to sing again too; it had been a greater loss that I realized in that particular wintering which saw the waning of my voice. It wasn’t about the vanity of being able to trill out a fine song; it was about the joy of singing for its own sake. Katherine Ma Michael explains to Adam in the last book of Milton’s Paradise Lost, that tyranny exists in human society because every individual in such a society is a tyrant within himself, or at least is if he conforms acceptably to his social surroundings. Northrup Frye The Gods that are wiser than Learning But kinder than Life have made sure No mortal may boast in the morning That even will find him secure.   from “A Rector’s Memory” by Rudyard Kipling Time, Real and Imaginary by Samuel Taylor Coleridge On the wide level of a mountain’s head, (I knew not where, but ’twas some faery place) Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails out-spread, Two lovely children run an endless race, A sister and a brother ! This far outstripp’d the other ; Yet ever runs she with reverted face, And looks and listens for the boy behind : For he, alas! is blind! O’er rough and smooth with even step he passed, And knows not whether he be first or last. Book List: Wintering by Katherine May The Double Vision by Northrup Frye Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carol Beatrix Potter books Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling Oxford Book of Children’s Verse Praeterita by John Ruskin The Golden Treasury of Myths and Legends The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by J. R. R. Tolkien Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis The Saga of the Volsungs by Anonymous The Adventures of Tintin by Herge Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott Julius Caesar by Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare The Complete Poems of John Keats Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy Hardy the Novelist by David Cecil The James Bond Dossier by Kingsley Amis The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Mishima 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we are bringing you our year end review of our own reading lives. Angelina kicks off the conversation by asking Thomas and Cindy how they would describe their reading lives this year. They talk about their favorites and highlights in books this year, as well as a few books that fell flat for them in 2020. They share about some authors they had not read before that they enjoyed this year. Finally, they tell us how they did with their own 20 for 2020 Reading Challenge lists. Don’t forget to check out the upcoming reading challenge for next year, the Literary Life 19 Books for 2021 challenge! If you missed it, you will want to go back and listen to the previous episode full of ideas for each challenge category. Also, there is still time to order Literary Life Commonplace Books before the new year and begin recording your plans, progress, and favorite quotations! Commonplace Quotes: Our fathers find their graves in our short memories and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. Thomas Browne “But, my, my! We don’t learn easy!” he chuckled mournfully. “Not to learn how to live till we’re about ready to die, it certainly seems to me dang tough!”. . . “But, papa,” she said, to console him, “don’t you think maybe there isn’t such a thing as a ‘finish’, after all! You say perhaps we don’t learn to live till we die, but maybe that’s how it is after we die, too–just learning some more, the way we do here, and maybe through trouble again, even after that.” Booth Tarkington Charlotte Mason says that books are one way that we grow, not for ourselves, but beyond ourselves. Where does she suggest we start? Here’s her list of suitable “Instructors of Conscience”: 1.Poetry, preferably spending time with one poet 2. Shakespeare’s plays 3. Novels, with characters who “become our mentors or our warnings” 4. Ever-delightful essayists 5. History, including ancient history 6. Philosophy, to allow reason to work upon knowledge 7. Theology, including the Bible 8. The things of nature 9. Science, so that “we no longer conduct ourselves in this world of wonders like a gaping rustic at a fair” (p. 101) 10. Art, approached “with the modest intention to pay a debt…” 11. Sociology and Self-Knowledge Our aim is not to become know-it-alls, but rather to gain a sense of the Ought in all this, why we owe it to God and to the world to become people who observe carefully and think clearly, “with gentle, large, and humble thoughts.” And the ultimate result is not graduation, but gratitude, to the One who created “the beauty, glory, and fitness above our heads and about our feet and surrounding us on every side!” Anne White Ring Out, Wild Bells by Alfred Lord Tennyson Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more, Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) Urn Burial by Thomas Browne Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington Honest, Simple Souls: An Advent Meditation with Charlotte Mason by Anne White Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze Cover Her Face by P. D. James Margery Allingham Ngaio Marsh Towards Zero by Agatha Christie Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie Range by David Epstein The Company They Keep by Diana Pavlac Glyer Poet’s Corner ed. by John Lithgow The Year of Our Lord 1943 by Alan Jacobs The Narnian by Alan Jacobs Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol The Stricken Deer by Lord David Cecil Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff Stephen Fry’s Greek Myths series The Centre of Hilarity by Michael Mason The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery Tenebrae by Geoffrey Hill The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Circe by Madeline Miller G. R. Stirling Taylor William Morris by Alfred Noyes The Devil Takes a Holiday by Alfred Noyes The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amos Terry Pratchett The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima Saving the Appearances by Owen Barfield David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Four Quartets by T. S. Elliot Good Things Out of Nazareth by Flannery O’Connor Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on the podcast, your hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks take a deep dive into the Literary Life 19 Books for 2021 challenge! This episode is full of ideas and book suggestions to help inspire your #LitLife192021 reading, so be sure to scroll down in your podcast app to view the comprehensive book link list! They not only give reasons behind each category and suggests for the adult reading challenge, but many titles for the kids’ version of the challenge, as well! Also, don’t forget that our Literary Life Commonplace Books are now available to order via Amazon! These high quality journals are perfect for recording what you are reading, as well as all your favorite quotes, and we have both adult and children’s versions. Our publisher, Blue Sky Daisies, is providing us with a fun giveaway, so head over to their Facebook page, our Facebook group, or our Instagram to find the social media image to share and find all the details! Cindy’s List of Literature of Honor for Boys Cindy’s List of Books for Fortitude linked at The Redeemed Reader Commonplace Quotes: In anything that can be called art, there is a quality of redemption. Raymond Chandler The right teacher would have his pupil easy to please, but ill to satisfy; ready to enjoy, unready to embrace; keen to discover beauty, slow to say, “Here I will dwell.” George MacDonald It is difficult for a moneylender to grow old gracefully David Mathew Christ’s Nativity by Henry Vaughan Awake, glad heart! get up and sing! It is the birth-day of thy King. Awake! awake! The Sun doth shake Light from his locks, and all the way Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day. Awake, awake! hark how th’ wood rings; Winds whisper, and the busy springs A concert make; Awake! awake! Man is their high-priest, and should rise To offer up the sacrifice. I would I were some bird, or star, Flutt’ring in woods, or lifted far Above this inn And road of sin! Then either star or bird should be Shining or singing still to thee. I would I had in my best part Fit rooms for thee! or that my heart Were so clean as Thy manger was! But I am all filth, and obscene; Yet, if thou wilt, thou canst make clean. Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no more This leper haunt and soil thy door! Cure him, ease him, O release him! And let once more, by mystic birth, The Lord of life be born in earth. Book List: The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald The Great Tudors ed. by Katharine Garvin The Oxford Book of English Verse ed. by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch The Classic Hundred Poems ed. by William Harmon The Top 500 Poems ed. by William Harmon Letters to An American Lady by C. S. Lewis Selected Letters of Jane Austen ed. by Vivien Jones Lord Chesterfield’s Letters ed. by David Roberts The Habit of Being by Flannery O’Connor The Iliad by Homer The Odyssey by Homer D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar D’Aulaire Mythology by Edith Hamilton Metamorphoses by Ovid Heroes by Stephen Fry Mythos by Stephen Fry From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun The Educated Imagination by Northrup Frye Silas Marner by George Eliot The Warden by Anthony Trollope Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Hard Times by Charles Dickens Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Leaf by Niggle by J. R. R. Tolkien The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad The Shooting Party by Anton Chekov Kristen Lavrensdatter Trilogy by Sigrid Undset The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell Milton by Rose Macaulay Chaucer by G. K. Chesterton Churchill by Paul Johnson Napoleon by Paul Johnson The Enchanted Places by Christopher Milne Joseph Pearce The Narnian by Alan Jacobs Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn The Awakening by Kate Chopin My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok The Chosen by Chaim Potok The Natural by Bernard Malamud The Brothers K by David James Duncan Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Á Kempis Edmund Burke Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler Doomsday Book by Connie Willis Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays by William Hazlitt The Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas Macaulay Imaginary Conversations by Walter Savage Landor Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg P. G. Wodehouse Gerald Durrell A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson How the Heather Looks by Joan Bodger The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz Paul Thoreau Travels with a Donkey by Robert Louis Stevenson The Lawless Roads by Graham Greene The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell What I Saw in America by G. K. Chesterton The History of the Second Boer War by Winston Churchill The Heroes by Charles Kingsley A Wonder Book by Nathaniel Hawthorne Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne The Children of Odin Padraic Colum Diane Stanley Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling Men of Iron by Howard Pyle The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson Kate Douglas Wiggin E. B. White Betsy-Tacy Treasury by Maud Hart Lovelace All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Opal Wheeler American Tall Tales by Adrian Stoutenberg Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff The Children’s Homer by Padraic Colum The Golden Fleece by Padraic Colum The Tale of Troy by Roger Lancelyn Green Tales from the Odyssey by Mary Pope Osborne Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald J. Sobol Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfield The Adventures of Tin-tin by Hergé The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green King Arthur Trilogy by Rosemary Sutcliff Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by E. Nesbit Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we wrap up our series on George MacDonald’s Phantastes. Today Angelina, Cindy and Thomas discuss chapters 20-25. Thomas opens the conversations giving his impressions of the ending of this fantasy. Angelina talks more about the symbolism of death and rebirth, as well as the themes of the quest, the shadow self, and the presence of more dual images. Cindy shares some of her thoughts on this reading as well as the moment she first read the ending passages of this book. Don’t forget to check out the upcoming reading challenge for next year, the Literary Life 19 Books for 2021 challenge! We will be back next time with an episode full of ideas and book suggestions to help inspire your #LitLife192021 reading. Also, we are pleased to be bringing you Literary Life Commonplace Books, perfect for recording what you are reading, as well as all your favorite quotes. Commonplace Quotes: People say that life is the things, but I prefer reading. Logan Pearsall Smith A great public position may create false values, endow its holder with gifts that are not his own, and make a great philosopher out of a corrupt lawyer. Alfred Noye And yet there are people who say that Shakespeare always means “just what he says”!…He thinks that to find over and undermeanings in Shakespeare’s plays is to take unwarranted liberties with them is like a man who holds the word “spring” must refer only to a particular period of the year and could not possibly mean birth, or youth, or hope. He is a man who has never associated anything with anything else. He is a man without metaphors. And such a man is not man at all, let alone a poet. Harold Goddard Joseph by G. K. Chesterton If the stars fell; night’s nameless dreams Of bliss and blasphemy came true, If skies were green and snow were gold, And you loved me as I love you; O long light hands and curled brown hair, And eyes where sits a naked soul; Dare I even then draw near and burn My fingers in the aureole? Yes, in the one wise foolish hour God gives this strange strength to a man. He can demand, though not deserve, Where ask he cannot, seize he can. But once the blood’s wild wedding o’er, Were not dread his, half dark desire, To see the Christ-child in the cot, The Virgin Mary by the fire? Book List: Two Worlds for Memory by Alfred Noyes The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold Goddard The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller   Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our series on George MacDonald’s Phantastes continues. Today Angelina and Cindy discuss chapters 15-19. But before they get started, they announce the upcoming reading challenge for next year, the Literary Life 19 Books for 2021 challenge! Also, we are pleased to be bringing you Literary Life Commonplace Books, perfect for recording what you are reading, as well as all your favorite quotes. Angelina and Cindy open the book discussion with the idea of the “other world” structure in fantasy writing, as well as how influential MacDonald was on writers who came after him. They also go in depth with the concept of the Holy Spirit as the originator of creative thought in conjunction with MacDonald’s thoughts on the imagination. Angelina gets excited about the metaphorical descent into Hades in this section of the book. She and Cindy talk about the importance of the hope of redemption, the platonic ideal versus reality, and learning to let go instead of grasp at things. They also return to the idea of true education being noble unrest introduced in last week’s episode. Don’t forget to check out the Advent and Christmas resources our hosts have ready for your holiday season. As mentioned before, Cindy’s new edition of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah is available now, and it is not to late to start if you purchase the Kindle version. Check our CindyRollins.net for more information. Also, Thomas and Angelina have a sale going on for an Advent Bundle of their popular webinars, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and The Poetry of Advent. Additionally, Kelly Cumbee will be teaching a webinar series called “Seeking the Discarded Image: Nature.” Commonplace Quotes: Thomas Merton recognized at once when he wrote in his journal for July 18, 1964, “I began it this morning, studying it as a tract on monastic life, the myth of pilgrimage, the quest for the impossible island, the earthly paradise, the ultimate ideal,” for it is above all liturgical prayer and liturgical time that provide the structure of the journey as it unfolds around the two key anchor points: the Easter cycle, spent in the environs of the island of sheep, and the Christmas cycle with the monastic community of Alba. Esther de Waal I never could believe that a man who did not find God in other places, as well as in the Bible, ever found Him there at all. To find God in other books enables us to see clearly that He is more in the Bible than in any other book or in all books put together. George MacDonald Nightingales by Robert Bridges Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,     And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom                         Ye learn your song: Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,     Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air                         Bloom the year long!     Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:     Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,                         A throe of the heart, Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,     No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,                         For all our art.     Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men     We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,                         As night is withdrawn From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,     Dream, while the innumerable choir of day                         Welcome the dawn. Book List:W The Celtic Way of Prayer by Esther De Waal At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood by George MacDonald A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers Parents and Children by Charlotte Mason Adam Bede by George Eliot Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks continue their series on George MacDonald’s Phantastes, covering chapters 10-14. Angelina and Thomas open the book chat talking about disorientation and how MacDonald is using the mirror images to help us enter into Anados’ feelings. Some of the topics covered in these chapters are disenchantment and demystifying the world, the child of mysterious origin, seeing and not seeing, romanticism and the dark imagination. Don’t forget to check out the Advent and Christmas resources our hosts have ready for your holiday season. As mentioned before, Cindy’s new edition of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah is available now, and you can access the replay of her special live event if you visit her website. Check our CindyRollins.net for more information. Also, Thomas and Angelina have a sale going on for an Advent Bundle of their popular webinars, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and The Poetry of Advent. Additionally, Kelly Cumbee will be teaching a webinar series called “Seeking the Discarded Image: Nature.” Commonplace Quotes: He extended the boundaries of the world, but he never shifted its center. Alfred Noyes "Absolute attention is prayer." When May Sarton quoted those words of Simone Weil in her journal, she went on to say, "I have used that sentence often in talking about poetry to students, to suggest that if one looks long enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a stone, the bark of a tree, grass, snow, a cloud, something like revelation takes place. Something is given." Simone Weil, May Sarton, Esther de Waal For repose is not the end of education; its end is a noble unrest, an ever renewed awaking from the dead, a ceaseless questioning of the past for the interpretation of the future, an urging on the motions of life, which had better far be accelerated into fever, then retarded into lethargy. George MacDonald The Palm and the Pine by Heinrich Heine Beneath an Indian palm a girl Of other blood reposes; Her cheek is clear and pale as pearl Amid that wild of roses. Beside a northern pine a boy Is leaning fancy-bound. Nor listens where with noisy joy Awaits the impatient hound. Cool grows the sick and feverish calm, Relaxed the frosty twine.– The pine-tree dreameth of the palm, The palm-tree of the pine. As soon shall nature interlace Those dimly-visioned boughs, As these young lovers face to face Renew their early vows. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) William Morris by Alfred Noyes The Well at the World’s End by William Morris The Celtic Way of Prayer by Esther De Waal The Imagination: Its Functions and Its Culture by George MacDonald William Morris Textiles Coloring Book Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams The Four Men by Hilaire Belloc Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carol The Arabian Nights translated by Sir Richard Burton The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne Frankenstein by Mary Shelley The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare   Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and the second episode of our series on George MacDonald's Phantastes, covering chapters 5-9. Angelina and Thomas kick off the book chat sharing some thoughts on the Duessa-type character in this section. Cindy mentions the connection she made to James Russell Lowell's poem, "The Vision of Sir Launfal." They go on to discuss the parallels between this section and the Pygmalion myth. Other mythological references abound throughout the story, as we will see. Our hosts go deep exploring the themes of deception, the fall, doppelgangers and spiritual death in these chapters. Don’t forget to check out the Advent and Christmas resources our hosts have ready for your holiday season. As mentioned before, Cindy’s new edition of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah is available now, and she has a live celebration even happening on November 19, 2020. Check our CindyRollins.net for more information. Also, Thomas and Angelina have a sale going on for an Advent Bundle of their popular webinars, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and The Poetry of Advent. Additionally, Kelly Cumbee will be teaching a webinar series called “Seeking the Discarded Image: Nature.” Be back next week when we will cover chapters 10-14. Remember to join the discussion in our Literary Life Discussion Group. Commonplace Quotes: A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg School isn’t supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world. Richard Louv Milton’s point in Paradise Lost is that free man can be instructed only by the non-compulsive forms, whether vision, parable, or drama. Hence Paradise Lost is a series of interlocking visions, Adam warned by the cathartic contrapuntal vision of satanic fall, and fall through vision of Eve. To fall is to choose an illusion, not a wrong reason. Northrup Frye When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be by John Keats When I have fears that I may cease to be     Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,  Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,     Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;  When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,     Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,  And think that I may never live to trace     Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;  And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,     That I shall never look upon thee more,  Never have relish in the faery power     Of unreflecting love—then on the shore  Of the wide world I stand alone, and think  Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv Notebooks on Renaissance Literature by Northrup Frye The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carol Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouquée Faust (Parts One and Two) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and the beginning of our series on George MacDonald’s Phantastes. Before our hosts, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas begin the book chat, though, we wanted to let you know about some Advent and Christmas resources ready for the upcoming holiday season. As mentioned before, Cindy’s new edition of Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah is available now. Also, Thomas and Angelina have a sale going on for an Advent Bundle of their popular webinars, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and The Poetry of Advent. Cindy shares a little about her past reading of many of MacDonald’s books and the effect they had on her. Angelina and Cindy also give some pertinent biographical information about MacDonald and put him in his Victorian context. Angelina brings out the connections between Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and MacDonald’s Phantastes, including the questing element. In answer to Cindy’s question about the German word “Maerchen”, Thomas shares some ideas about what sorts of stories are included in that term. In this discussion, Angelina points out all the big themes of fairy tales and stories in general that we see right away in this story. Cindy highlights the role of the grandmother in this and other MacDonald stories. In light of the Faerie Queene connections, Thomas wonders if there will be a true woman and a false woman in this story. Angelina and Cindy go on to explore so many more of the ideas and themes presented in these chapters. Be back next week for chapters 5-9. Commonplace Quotes: There is no truth, however overpowering and clear, but men may escape from it by shutting their eyes. Cardinal John Henry Newman Hurry is a sort of violence on the soul. John Mark Comer I should have been shocked in my teens if anyone had told me that what I learned to love in Phantastes was goodness. But now that I know, I there was no deception. The deception is all the other way round–in that prosaic moralism which confines goodness to the region of Law and Duty, which never lets us feel in our face the sweet air blowing from “the land of righteousness,” never reveals that elusive Form which if once seen mus inevitably be desire with all but sensuous desire–the thing (in Sappho’s phrase) “more gold than gold.” C. S. Lewis Maerchen by Walter de la Mare Soundless the moth-flit, crisp the death-watch tick; Crazed in her shaken arbour bird did sing; Slow wreathed the grease adown from soot-clogged wick: The Cat looked long and softly at the King. Mouse frisked and scampered, leapt, gnawed, squeaked; Small at the window looped cowled bat a-wing; The dim-lit rafters with the night-mist reeked: The Cat looked long and softly at the King. O wondrous robe enstarred, in night dyed deep: O air scarce-stirred with the Court’s far junketing: O stagnant Royalty — A-swoon? Asleep? The Cat looked long and softly at the King. Book List: Amazon affiliate links are used in this content. The Princess and The Goblin by George MacDonald Lilith by George MacDonald Hallelujah by Cindy Rollins The Christmas Stories and Poems of George MacDonald by George MacDonald The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer George MacDonald by C. S. Lewis The Diary of an Old Soul by George MacDonald At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald Hard Times by Charles Dickens Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert Adam Bede by George Eliot The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis The Purple Island by Phineas Fletcher Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins tackle the topic of fairy stories, discussing the what, why and how of reading them. Angelina shares the distinctive characteristics of fairy stories in contrast to other types of stories, such as myths. They deal with the question of whether fairy tales are “escapist”, the influence of the Grimm brothers scholarly work on interpreting fairy stories, and allowing the story to unveil its deeper truths without forcing meaning onto it. Angelina gives an illustration of how to see the gospel messages in fairy tales by talking us through the story of Sleeping Beauty. She refutes the ideas that fairy tales are about human romance or are misogynistic. She also highlights some of the Enlightenment and Puritan responses to fairy tales that still linger with us today. Cindy and Angelina also discuss some common concerns such as the magical, weird, or scary aspects of fairy tales. Angelina also makes a distinction between folk tales, literary fairy tales, and cautionary tales. Be sure to be back next week for the beginning of our series on George MacDonald’s Phantastes. Commonplace Quotes: After a certain kind of sherry party, where there have been cataracts of culture but never on word or one glance that suggested a real enjoyment of any art, any person, or any natural object, my heart warms to the schoolboy on the bus who is reading Fantasy and Science Fiction rapt and oblivious of all the world beside.  C. S. Lewis Children are not deceived by fairy tales. They are often and gravely deceived by school stories. Adults are not deceived by science fiction. They can be deceived by stories in women’s magazines. C. S. Lewis Both fairy stories and realistic stories engage in wish fulfillment, but it is actually the realistic stories that are more deadly. Fairy stories do awaken desires in children, but most often it is not a desire for the fairy world itself. Most children don’t really want there to be dragons in modern England. Instead, the desire is for they know not what. This desire for something beyond does not empty the real world, but actually gives it new depths. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods. The reading makes all real woods a little enchanted. C. S. Lewis Ancient History by Siegfried Sassoon Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain,    Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees;   Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees,   He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain;   ‘He was the grandest of them all—was Cain!    ‘A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire;   ‘Swift as a stag; a stallion of the plain, ‘Hungry and fierce with deeds of huge desire.’ Grimly he thought of Abel, soft and fair— A lover with disaster in his face, And scarlet blossom twisted in bright hair.   ‘Afraid to fight; was murder more disgrace? … ‘God always hated Cain’ … He bowed his head— The gaunt wild man whose lovely sons were dead. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) The World’s Last Night by C. S. Lewis An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” by C. S. Lewis The Princess and The Goblin by George MacDonald Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts Angelina and Cindy chat with Cindy’s longtime friend and, according to her, the “smartest woman on the internet,” Wendi Capehart. Wendi is an adventurous mom of many and has lived throughout Asia. Now she lives the life of an at home librarian caring for her disabled daughter and spending time with her 15 grandchildren. She also serves on the AmblesideOnline Advisory board. Angelina starts off the conversation asking Wendi about her reading life beginning with her childhood memories of reading. Wendi talks a little about how books helped her survive and heal from the trauma of living in an abusive situation. They also discuss what the difference was for Wendi in leisurely reading and reading for school. Wendi shares some of the reasons she began homeschooling her own children, as well, and how she kept reading voraciously even after she became a mother. Angelina and Wendi talk about the brain and changing your reading habits to digest and enjoy more challenging books. Wendi shares how she built a library while one a military budget and moving frequently. They talked about too many things to mention in this summary, but you can scroll down for the many book titles mentioned in this episode! Commonplace Quotes: “We’re all fools,” said Clemens, “all the time. It’s just we’re a different kind each day. We think, I’m not a fool today. I’ve learned my lesson. I was a fool yesterday but not this morning. Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a fool today too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we’re not perfect and live accordingly.” Ray Bradbury Where science does not teach a child to wonder and admire it has perhaps no educative value. Charlotte Mason Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth, a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with tremendous difference–that it really happened–and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth, where the others are men’s myths. That is, the pagan stories are God expressing himself through the minds of poets, using such images as he found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through real things. C. S. Lewis If Only I Were King by A. A. Milne I often wish I were a King, And then I could do anything. If only I were King of Spain, I’d take my hat off in the rain. If only I were King of France, I wouldn’t brush my hair for aunts. I think, if I were King of Greece, I’d push things off the mantelpiece. If I were King of Norroway, I’d ask an elephant to stay. If I were King of Babylon, I’d leave my button gloves undone. If I were King of Timbuctoo, I’d think of lovely things to do. If I were King of anything, I’d tell the soldiers, “I’m the King!” Book List: The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas Gene Stratton Porter The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton Jane Austen The Little Prince by Antione de Saint-Exupéry The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson The Heroes by Charles Kingsley The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham Kim by Rudyard Kipling The Chestry Oak by Kate Seredy The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis The Rescuers by Marjorie Sharp The Borrowers by Mary Norton Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome Booth Tarkington Ben Hur by Lew Wallace The Bears of Blue River by Charles Major Thornton W. Burgess Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life Podcast we have our final installment of the series on C. S. Lewis’ masterpiece Til We Have Faces. This week, our hosts finish up with Part 2, Chapters 1-4. Opening the conversation, Angelina shares some of her feelings on just having finished the book. She points out the importance of understanding the Cupid and Psyche myth. Cindy brings up the concept of a “sin-eater” in relation to Orual’s taking on of Psyche’s trials. They talk about the ways in which Orual begins to see more clearly and remember things differently at this point in the story. The theme of selfish love versus self-sacrificing love comes full circle as the book closes. Orual’s symbolic death and rebirth are key topics, and the allusions to Christ and the Gospel throughout this story are truly exciting. Join us next week for a special interview with Wendi Capehart on her literary life! Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes: I can’t say I learned nothing, at St. Charles Borromeo. I learned bladder control; which is good for women, useful in later life. The second thing I learned was that I had got almost everything terribly wrong. Hilary Mantel We read Dante for his poetry and not for his theology because we have already met the theology elsewhere. W. H. Auden In the twinkling of an eye, in a time too small to be measured, and in any place, all that seems to divide us from God can flee away, vanish, leaving us naked before Him, like the first man, like the only man, as if nothing but He and I existed. And since that contact cannot be avoided for long, and since it means either bliss or horror, the business of life is to learn to like it. That is the first and greatest commandment. C. S. Lewis from “Autumn Journal” by Louis Macneice In a week I return to work, lecturing, coaching, As impresario of the Ancient Greeks Who wore the chiton and lived on fish and olives And talked philosophy or smut in cliques; Who believed in youth and did not gloze the unpleasant Consequences of age; What is life, one said, or what is pleasant Once you have turned the page Of love? The days grow worse, the dice are loaded Against the living man who pays in tears for breath; Never to be born was the best, call no man happy This side death. Conscious – long before Engels – of necessity And therein free They plotted out their life with truism and humour Between the jealous heaven and the callous sea. And Pindar sang the garland of wild olive And Alcibiades lived from hand to mouth Double-crossing Athens, Persia, Sparta, And many died in the city of plague, and many of drouth In Sicilian quarries, and many by the spear and arrow And many more who told their lies too late Caught in the eternal factions and reactions Of the city state. And free speech shivered on the pikes of Macedonia And later on the swords of Rome And Athens became a mere university city, And the goddess born of the foam Became the kept hetaera, heroine of Menander, And the philosopher narrowed his focus, confined His efforts to putting his own soul in order And keeping a quiet mind. And for a thousand years they went on talking, Making such apt remarks, A race no longer of heroes but of professors And crooked business men and secretaries and clerks Who turned out dapper little elegiac verses On the ironies of fate, the transience of all Affections, carefully shunning the over-statement But working the dying fall. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) Hallelujah by Cindy Rollins Giving Up the Ghost: A Memoire by Hilary Mantel The Dyer’s Hand by W. H. Auden The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs Descent into Hell by Charles Williams The Private Memoires and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast! This week, our hosts are covering chapters 16-21 of C. S. Lewis’ masterpiece Til We Have Faces. Also, to celebrate Cindy’s re-release of her book Hallelujah: Cultivating Advent Traditions with Handel’s Messiah, she is doing a social media giveaway over the next four weeks. To enter to win a copy, post about the book release with hashtag #hallelujahadvent. They begin the conversation about Til We Have Faces with an examination of Lewis’ personal journey and its similarity to Orual’s own in this story. This opens up a discussion of education, Lewis’s schooling, and Charlotte Mason’s philosophy. Angelina then goes on to talk about the three types of veils worn by Orual, and Cindy and Thomas explore the idea of veils and their role in relationship and power. Orual’s friendships with Bardia and the Fox further highlight her continued blindness to her own disordered affections. Join us next week for the last installment in our series on Til We Have Faces. The following episode will be a special interview with Wendi Capehart on her literary life! Commonplace Quotes: Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophesy, and religion. All is one. John Ruskin Since then I have always been addicted to something or other, usually something there’s no support group for. Semicolons, for instance, I can never give up for more than two hundred words at a time. Hilary Mantel The two hemispheres of my mind were in the sharpest contrast. On the one side, a many-islanded sea of poetry and myth; on the other, a glib and shallow “rationalism.” Nearly all that I loved, I believed to be imaginary. Nearly all that I believed to be real, I thought grim and meaningless. C. S. Lewis Moonlight by Walter de la Mare The far moon maketh lovers wise In her pale beauty trembling down, Lending curved cheeks, dark lips, dark eyes, A strangeness not their own. And, though they shut their lids to kiss, In starless darkness peace to win, Even on that secret world from this Her twilight enters in. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) Hallelujah by Cindy Rollins Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin Giving Up the Ghost: A Memoire by Hilary Mantel The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life, our hosts discuss chapters 12-15 of C. S. Lewis' masterpiece Til We Have Faces. Don't forget that Thomas will be teaching a mini-class series on Shakespeare's Roman Plays in October. You can find out more and register at HouseofHumaneLetters.com. We are giving away one spot in the class to someone who shares about the class publicly on social media and tag it #houseofhumaneletters. The winner will be announced on October 2, 2020 on the House of Humane Letters Facebook page! Angelina opens the discussions with the point that Lewis changes the story of Psyche throughout the book, especially in this section. Cindy shares how the last couple of chapters in this week's reading made her feel and the tension of wanting to choose sides. In these scenes, we see again the theme of disordered loves and the rift in the relationship between Orual and Psyche, as well as Orual's descent further into self-deception. Be back next time when we cover chapters 16-21. Commonplace Quotes: This is what I recommend to people who ask me how to get published. Trust your reader, stop spoon-feeding your reader, stop patronizing your reader, give your reader credit for being as smart as you at least, and stop being so bloody beguiling: you in the back row, will you turn off that charm. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Hilary Mantel He had an outstanding gift for attracting hatreds. Rene Pichon The first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship, from a corkscrew to a cathedral, is to know what it is–what it was intended to do and how it is meant to be used. C. S. Lewis The Laws of God, The Laws of Man by A. E. Houseman The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me; And if my ways are not as theirs Let them mind their own affairs. Their deeds I judge and much condemn, Yet when did I make laws for them? Please yourselves, say I, and they Need only look the other way. But no, they will not; they must still Wrest their neighbor to their will, And make me dance as they desire With jail and gallows and hell-fire. And how am I to face the odds Of man’s bedevilment and God’s? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made. They will be master, right or wrong; Though both are foolish, both are strong. And since, my soul, we cannot fly To Saturn nor to Mercury, Keep we must, if keep we can, These foreign laws of God and man. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) Giving Up the Ghost: A Memoire by Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel A Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis Paradise Lost by John Milton God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life, we continue our series on C. S. Lewis’ masterpiece Til We Have Faces, and our hosts discuss chapters 8-11 today. Before we get started, we want you to know there is still time to sign up for Cindy’s Morning Time Q&A on September 23. Register at CindyRollins.net today! Also, Thomas will be teaching a mini-class series on Shakespeare’s Roman Plays in October, and you can find out more and register at HouseofHumaneLetters.com. Angelina starts off the conversation asking for everyone’s impressions of this section of reading, and Thomas and Cindy bring up the melancholy nature of much of this story. Themes discussed in this episode include: seeing and not seeing, reason’s response to faith, the dream motif, the similarities with the story of Iphigenia, baptism and crossing the river, and the ways relationships change over time. Another topic our hosts highlight is the tension between mysticism and rationalism and the truth that transcends the inadequacy of these. Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes: “Self-consciousness is a great barrier to faith. A. B. Simpson It is a mark of true folklore that even the tale that is evidently wild is eminently sane. G. K. Chesterton The poet’s job is not to tell you what happened, but what happens: not what did take place, but the kind of thing that always takes place. Northrup Frye Requiescat by Matthew Arnold Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes; Ah, would that I did too! Her mirth the world required; She bathed it in smiles of glee. But her heart was tired, tired, And now they let her be. Her life was turning, turning, In mazes of heat and sound. But for peace her soul was yearning, And now peace laps her round. Her cabin’d, ample spirit, It flutter’d and fail’d for breath. Tonight it doth inherit The vasty hall of death. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies by Robert Kirk St. Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton The Educated Imagination by Northrup Frye The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast our hosts Angelina, Cindy and Thomas discuss chapters 6-7 of C. S. Lewis’ mythical retelling Til We Have Faces. Before we get started, we want you to know about Cindy’s Morning Time Q&A on September 23. Register at CindyRollins.net. They open the discussion this week talking about Lewis’ writings on love and jealousy. Angelina points out similarities to this story and other classical myths and even Spenser’s Faerie Queene. They also talk about Orual’s desires as opposed to Psyche’s expectations. Cindy mentioned Peter Kreeft’s talk on Til We Have Faces a couple of times. Here is the link to that audio for those who are interested in listening to that. Commonplace Quotes: The stage is an epitome, a better likeness of the world, with the dull part left out. William Hazlitt The motto was Pax, but the word was set in a circle of thorns. Pax: peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort, seldom with a seen result; subject to constant interruptions, unexpected demands, short sleep at nights, little comfort, sometimes scant food; beset with disappointments and usually misunderstood; yet peace all the same, undeviating, filled with joy and gratitude and love. “It is My own peace I give unto you.” Not, notice, the world’s peace. Rumer Godden If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. . . . I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; . . . I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same. C. S. Lewis A Woman Homer Sung by William Butler Yeats If any man drew near When I was young, I thought, “He holds her dear,’ And shook with hate and fear. But O! ’twas bitter wrong If he could pass her by With an indifferent eye. Whereon I wrote and wrought, And now, being grey, I dream that I have brought To such a pitch my thought That coming time can say, “He shadowed in a glass What thing her body was.’ For she had fiery blood When I was young, And trod so sweetly proud As ’twere upon a cloud, A woman Homer sung, That life and letters seem But an heroic dream. Book List: Affiliate links are used in this content. In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden Christian Behavior by C. S. Lewis The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis Oedipus Rex by Sophocles The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome back to our series on C. S. Lewis’ mythical retelling Til We Have Faces here on The Literary Life Podcast. Today Angelina, Cindy and Thomas discuss chapters 3-5. Angelina opens the book chat with an exploration of the tensions that are becoming evident in this first part of the book. Cindy talks about the character of the Fox and our changing perspective on him as the story develops. Thomas highlights the priest and the ways that we as moderns struggle with the religion presented here. Another topic expounded upon is the relationship between the sisters and the affects jealousy as the story progresses. Angelina also brings up the idea of terrifying holiness as presented in these chapters. Our hosts share their thoughts on the tension between the elevation of logic and reason and the devaluation of superstition and mystery. (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) Commonplace Quotes: Riddle: I have eaten the Muses, yet I have profited nothing. Answer: A bookworm. Symphosius He insists upon the point: under no circumstances will he leave his home or violate his routines in order to facilitate an investigation. The exceptions are few and remarkable. Instead of spreading the principles of order and justice throughout his society, Wolfe imposes them dogmatically and absolutely within the walls of his house–the brownstone on West Thrity-fifth Street–and he invites those who are troubled by an incomprehensible and threatening environment to enter the controlled economy of the house and to discover there the source of disorder in their own lives. The invitation is extended to readers as well as to clients. J. Kenneth Van Dover In our culture of betrayal, we are quick to impose our own views on layers of established systems. Thus, even a work of art is to be distrusted. Rather than trying to “under-stand” the work, we stand over it and dismiss it as unreadable. Or worse yet, we impose a critical ideology upon it without first allowing the work to affect us. Makoto Fujimura Selection from “Ode to Psyche” by John Keats Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane          In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,          Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: Far, far around shall those dark-cluster’d trees          Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep; And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,          The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull’d to sleep; And in the midst of this wide quietness A rosy sanctuary will I dress    With the wreath’d trellis of a working brain,          With buds, and bells, and stars without a name, With all the gardener Fancy e’er could feign,          Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same: And there shall be for thee all soft delight          That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,          To let the warm Love in! Book List: Refractions by Makoto Fujimura The Hundred Riddles of Symphosius by Symphosius At Wolfe’s Door: The Nero Wolfe Novels of Rex Stout by J. Kenneth Van Dover Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis Reason and Imagination in C. S. Lewis by Peter Schakel The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame   Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life, our hosts Angelina, Thomas and Cindy have a special guest on the podcast. Gina Dalfonzo is an author whose work has been featured in First Things, The Atlantic, Christianity Today, The Weekly Standard, National Review, The Gospel Coalition, and more! Gina has written a new book called Dorothy and Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis which is the topic of discussion on today’s episode. Angelina opens the conversation asking Gina to share how she came to write this book exploring the relationship between Lewis and Sayers. (Affiliate links are used in this content.) Other topics explored in this episode are the following: the influence of Oxford in Dorothy Sayers’ life and work, how Dorothy and Jack finally met one another, Lewis’ personal distaste for detective novels, and his praise for Sayers’ other work. They also talk at length about how Sayers and Lewis support each other in pushing the boundaries of their literary careers. Find Gina Dalfonzo: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ginadalfonzo.author Twitter: https://twitter.com/ginadalfonzo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gina.dalfonzo/ Dickensblog: https://dickensblog.typepad.com/ Commonplace Quotes: For life in general, there is but one decree: youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret. Benjamin Disraeli There’s always surrender to humiliation and crucifixion, an emptying, before the glory. There’s no way around it. For my own part, I wish there were. Emptiness comes before fullness. We have to empty ourselves of anything that crowds out the life or grace of God in our lives. When we cooperate with the Spirit in this way, we become receptacles of grace. Marlena Graves People of former times had convictions; we moderns only have opinions. And it needs more than a mere opinion to erect a Gothic cathedral. Heinrich Heine When the pioneers of university training for women demanded that women should be admitted to the universities, the cry went up at once: “Why should women want to know about Aristotle?” The answer is NOT that all women wwould be the better for knowing about Aristotle–still less, as Lord Tennyson seemed to think, that they would be more companionable wives for their husbands if they did know about Aristotle–but simply: “What women want as a class is irrelevant. I want to know about Aristotle. It is true that most women care nothing about him, and a great many male undergraduates turn pale and faint at the thought of him–but I, eccentric individual that I am, do want to know about Aristotle, and I submit that there is nothing in my shape or bodily functions which need prevent my knowing about him. Dorothy L. Sayers They Told Me Heraclitus by William Johnson Cory They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, A handful of grey ashes, long long ago at rest, Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake; For Death, he taketh all away, but these he cannot take. Book List: Dorothy and Jack by Gina Dalfonzo The Gospel in Dickens by Gina Dalfonzo The Way Up is Down by Marlena Graves Writing for the Masses by Christine A. Colón The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay Are Women Human by Dorothy Sayers Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers Phantastes by George MacDonald Letters to an American Lady by C. S. Lewis Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, we begin our new series on C. S. Lewis’ masterpiece, Til We Have Faces. (Affiliate links are used in this content.) This week, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks cover the first two chapters and share their observations as they reread this oftentimes challenging book. To help us gain a framework for this novel, Thomas summarizes the myth of Cupid and Psyche, the first telling of which is found in The Golden Ass by Apuleius. Angelina shares about some similarities in this myth with several familiar fairy tales. Cindy points out how Lewis changes some key pieces of the story to make it less mythical and more tethered to historical time and place. In opening the first chapter, Angelina tells her theory about this being a story about a character finding her identity as she looks back on her life. Our hosts talk about the strange nature of the paganism in Glome and also the interesting role of The Fox. They point out many of the classical Greek references that we need to pay attention to as we read this story. Tune in next week for a special interview episode with the author of Dorothy and Jack, Gina Dalfonzo. Following that, we will be back with chapters 3-5 of Till We Have Faces. Commonplace Quotes: A good carpenter is known by his chips. Jonathan Swift All too often, the legends old men tell are closer to the truth than the facts young professors tell. The wildest fairy tales of the ancients are far more realistic than the scientific phantasms imagined by moderns. Hilaire Belloc Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes… Elizabeth Barrett Browning Song by John Donne Go and catch a falling star,     Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are,     Or who cleft the devil’s foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy’s stinging,             And find             What wind Serves to advance an honest mind. If thou be’st born to strange sights,     Things invisible to see, Ride ten thousand days and nights,     Till age snow white hairs on thee, Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me, All strange wonders that befell thee,             And swear,             No where Lives a woman true, and fair. If thou find’st one, let me know,     Such a pilgrimage were sweet; Yet do not, I would not go,     Though at next door we might meet; Though she were true, when you met her, And last, till you write your letter,             Yet she             Will be False, ere I come, to two, or three. Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins are having a conversation about why everyone ought to read myths. Angelina begins by explaining what a myth is in terms of literary genre. She talks about the characteristics that run through myths, such as explanations of origins and natural phenomena, common characters, and a universe that hangs together. Cindy poses a question about why we have come to interpret the word myth to mean something untrue since the time of the Enlightenment. Angelina helps parents feel more confident about their children’s ability to know the difference between reality and fantasy. Cindy talks about how knowing mythology is a key to understanding other stories and literature. Unfolding a portion of church history, Angelina explains how early Christians wrestled with pagan stories and Old Testament stories at the same time. When we go looking only for morality tales in the Bible, Cindy points out, then we miss the main idea. Getting a bit more practical, Angelina gives some examples of the role of pre-Christian storytellers who pointed to the Truth. Be sure to be back next week for the beginning of our series on Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, in which we will be covering chapters 1 and 2. (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) Commonplace Quotes: The imagination of man is made in the image of the imagination of God. Everything of man must have been of God first; and it will help much towards our understanding of the imagination and its functions in man if we first succeed in regarding aright the imagination of God, in which the imagination of man lives and moves and has its being. George MacDonald Those who do not know that this great myth became fact when the Virgin conceived are, indeed, to be pitied. But Christians also need to be reminded–we may thank Corineus for reminding us–that what became fact was a myth, that it carries with it into the world of fact all the properties of a myth. God is more than a god, not less; Christ is more than Balder, not less. We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about “parallels” and “pagan Christs”: they ought to be there–it would be a stumbling block if they weren’t. We must not, in false spirituality, withhold our imaginative welcome. If God chooses to be mythopoeic–and is not the sky itself a myth–shall we refuse to be mythopathic? For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: perfect myth and perfect fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher. C. S. Lewis from “Mythopoeia” by J. R. R. Tolkien The heart of Man is not compound of lies, but draws some wisdom from the only Wise, and still recalls him. Though now long estranged, Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed. Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned, his world-dominion by creative act: not his to worship the great Artefact, Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light through whom is splintered from a single White to many hues, and endlessly combined in living shapes that move from mind to mind. Though all the crannies of the world we filled with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build Gods and their houses out of dark and light, and sowed the seed of dragons, ’twas our right (used or misused). The right has not decayed. We make still by the law in which we’re made. Book List: A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald “Myth Became Fact” by C. S. Lewis The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis Wings and the Child by Edith Nesbit Paradise Lost by John Milton The Aeneid by Virgil The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri 50 Famous Stories by James Baldwin English Literature for Boys and Girls by H. E. Marshall D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths Tanglewood Tales and A Wonder Book by Nathaniel Hawthorn Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB