Crack The Book: A Beginner's Guide to Reading the Great Books

Kings and Princes: Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part One

We kick off our once-a-month Shakespeare series with one of my favorites from last year, Henry IV, Part One. The trilogy of Henry IV, Parts One and Two, and Henry V form The Henriad and are a great way to learn about the way England thinks about its own history. I review my method of reading Shakespeare (see last season's Week 26 for more information), and then we move on to the actual history of the period these plays are about. It looked a lot like the world of Shakespeare, and his audience, with its tumultous succession issues. Then we move on to the actual plot, and how the characters break down into pairs: of kings; of princes; of fathers and sons. There are so many pairs that in some way this play even feels like it has two storylines. After a talk about the plot of the play, and its theme of "how to be a king," we move on to talk about how the play was perceived by the audience at the time. As always, I give my opinions about this play--except you probably already know that I LOVE this one! I highly recommend this BBC production [https://amzn.to/3PfWyEg] to watch. I love the Folger Shakespeare Library edition [https://amzn.to/48TAiGU] of this play! Next Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part Two, on June 30. Next week: Reading as a Superpower, my talk with Fr. Brian McGreevy. LINK The complete list of Crack the Book Episodes: https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2r [https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2r] CONNECT To read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com [https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com/]. Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/ [https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/] Like what you heard? Buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/crackthebook [https://ko-fi.com/crackthebook] LISTEN Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bd [https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bd] Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321] Captivate - https://crackthebook.captivate.fm [https://crackthebook.captivate.fm/] All links to Amazon are affiliate links.

Let's Go! Season Three Kick-Off

Welcome to Season 3 of Crack the Book! In this episode: A quick review of big events that happened during the break— 1. Ted Gioia agreed to an interview! I share some of our back-and-forth from our email “interview”/exchange. 2. The podcast What Should I Read Next invited me to be a guest. As a long-time listener to this podcast, it was incredibly exciting. 3. I gave an in-person talk (my first!) with a friend about “Reading as a Superpower.” Stay tuned for more about that. Then we talk a little bit about how this season is going to go, reading groups of related books as units. Right now, that looks like— 1. British History and Fiction: in preparation for my upcoming trip to Yorkshire 2. The Illiad/Odyssey/Aeneid as a trilogy: revisiting my new love of epic poetry, just in time for this summer’s big movie 3. Children’s Books: the “right books” that every kid should read, and the ones that especially shaped me and a few friends 4. Once-a-month Shakespeare! Last year I felt like I conquered Shakespeare, or at least figured out how to read him without it seeming too onerous. We are keeping that going with one Shakespeare a month, on the last Tuesday. Next week we hop right in with Henry IV, Part 1. Thanks as always for listening! LINK The complete list of Crack the Book Episodes (Amazon affiliate links): https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2r [https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2r] The Ted Gioia Interview [LINK The complete list of Crack the Book Episodes (Amazon affiliate links): https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2r The Ted Gioia Interview What Should I Read Next, Episode 523 Theology on Tuesdays CONNECT To read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com. Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/  Like what you heard? Buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/crackthebook LISTEN Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bd Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321  Captivate - https://crackthebook.captivate.fm ] One of the "Movie Lists" I mentioned [https://substack.com/home/post/p-193280302] What Should I Read Next, Episode 523 [https://modernmrsdarcy.com/523-episode/?unapproved=2173879&moderation-hash=9f0e24efac8e459fbdf3d4307bd8c4cd#comment-2173879] Theology on Tuesdays [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-114-the-secret-superpower-reading/id1584671101?i=1000764527860] CONNECT To read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com [https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com/]. Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/ [https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/] Like what you heard? Buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/crackthebook [https://ko-fi.com/crackthebook] LISTEN Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bd [https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bd] Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321] Captivate - https://crackthebook.captivate.fm [https://crackthebook.captivate.fm/]

I Get Knocked Down...and I Get Up Again. Week 17: The Golden Ass [REPLAY]

While we are on a break, enjoy this episode from Season 2. Season 3 starts May 19! This week, we take on Apuleius’ The Golden Ass, a hilarious surprise from Ted Gioia’s Immersive Humanities Course. Written in the mid-300s A.D., this is the very first Latin prose novel, penned by Algerian-born Apuleius. Lucius, our hero, is a young man who meddles in magic, transforms into a donkey, and embarks on wild adventures before returning to human form. We were so captivated that note-taking fell by the wayside, much like with Herodotus’ Histories. This rollicking tale, brimming with late-Roman-Empire themes, proved both hilarious and profound. Unlike Aristotle’s structured tragedy guidelines (see Week 5's Poetics), The Golden Ass defies unity of action, place, and time, weaving a tapestry of digressions and sub-stories. Lucius’ transformation serves as a spine for tales like “I heard…” or “So they told me…,” echoing the nested narratives of The Odyssey and The Aeneid. The standout sub-story is the myth of Cupid and Psyche, the earliest known version, which stunned us as the inspiration for C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces. Its late appearance for a myth feels significant, reflecting a decadent, fatigued Roman worldview. Fortune, personified as in Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, reappears, underscoring this era’s preoccupations. Sarah Ruden’s translation is a triumph, preserving Apuleius’ puns, alliteration, and bawdy humor. This farce, second only to Lysistrata in humor, is delightfully NSFW, with outrageous scenes that shocked even our son Jack. Ruden notes comparisons to modern humorists like Wodehouse or George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman series, and we see parallels to Forrest Gump—Lucius stumbles through events without driving the plot. The book’s influence extends to A Confederacy of Dunces, sparking new reading threads for us, exactly why we joined this course. Join us next week as we travel east and read The Arabian Nights. LINK Ted Gioia/The Honest Broker’s 12-Month Immersive Humanities Course [https://www.honest-broker.com/p/a-12-month-immersive-course-in-humanities] (paywalled!) The complete list of Crack the Book Episodes (Amazon affiliate links): https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2r [https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2r] CONNECT To read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com [https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com/]. Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/ [https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/] Like what you heard? Buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/crackthebook [https://ko-fi.com/crackthebook] LISTEN Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bd [https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bd] Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321] Captivate - https://crackthebook.captivate.fm [https://crackthebook.captivate.fm/]

Born in the U.S.A. Week 39: A Handful of 19th Century American Writers [REPLAY]

While we are on a break, enjoy this episode from Season 2. Season 3 starts May 19! Week 39 of Ted Gioia’s Immersive Humanities Course takes on nineteenth-century American literature. To my surprise, this became one of the most enjoyable weeks so far. I went in dreading familiar names and old high-school resentments, but came out newly energized. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (chapters 1–6) was funny, humane, and immediately engaging. Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher and “The Raven” used ornate language to heighten unease, while Emily Dickinson’s poems felt weightless and startlingly modern. Henry David Thoreau’s Walden was quotable and provocative, if ultimately grating, and Herman Melville surprised me most of all: Bartleby, the Scrivener lingered with quiet power, and the opening of Moby-Dick left me eager for more. This week revealed a real shift in voice and sensibility—and changed my mind about American literature. I’m looking forward to going back and reading more, but first we need to move on to Week 40 and Russian Literature! LINK Ted Gioia/The Honest Broker’s 12-Month Immersive Humanities Course [https://www.honest-broker.com/p/a-12-month-immersive-course-in-humanities] (paywalled!) The complete list of Crack the Book Episodes (Amazon affiliate links): https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2r [https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2r] CONNECT To read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com [https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com/]. Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/ [https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/] Like what you heard? Buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/crackthebook [https://ko-fi.com/crackthebook] LISTEN Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bd [https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bd] Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321] Captivate - https://crackthebook.captivate.fm [https://crackthebook.captivate.fm/]

Everything's going to be okay. Week 25 (2): Dante's Divine Comedy, Paradiso [REPLAY]

While we are on a break, enjoy this episode from Season 2. Season 3 starts May 19! My son Jack is back as we discuss Paradiso, Jack's favorite part of Dante's Divine Comedy. I absolutely love getting to chat with him again (see a couple of earlier episodes linked below). We talk about why he loves Dante in general, and Paradiso in particular. Highlights include: 1. Dante's bravery (or chutzpah!) in writing his poetry and scholarly works in Italian rather than Latin; 2. Who Dante is for (spoiler--it's for YOU), and why (the title of this episode is a big hint!); 3. How people of different ages see Dante in a different light; 4. Why a map of Heaven is really hard to draw, especially compared to Hell and Purgatory. Jack wrote his thesis on part of the Divine Comedy, and he has a lot of experience in the classroom with Dante, so he brings a lot of his knowledge to expand on what we've been talking about for the last two weeks. This episode forms a kind of trilogy on Crack the Book: two weeks ago we discussed Inferno, and last week my friend Lisa and I covered Purgatorio. It's my hope that these three podcasts will inspire you to pick up your own copy of the Divine Comedy and jump in. Season 3 is coming May 19! LINK Ted Gioia/The Honest Broker’s 12-Month Immersive Humanities Course [https://www.honest-broker.com/p/a-12-month-immersive-course-in-humanities] (paywalled!) Crack the Book, Inferno Episode [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/brothers-in-arms-week-24-the-divine-comedy-inferno/id1749793321?i=1000724524759] Crack the Book, Purgatorio Episode [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learning-to-fly-week-25-1-dantes-divine-comedy-purgatorio/id1749793321?i=1000725679872] Jack's Episode About Boethius [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dont-dream-its-over-week-15-boethius-and-the/id1749793321?i=1000714263168] Jack's Episode About the Odyssey [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-talk-with-jack-week-3-homers-odyssey/id1749793321?i=1000701655466] CONNECT The complete list of Crack the Book Episodes (Amazon affiliate links): https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2r [https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2r] To read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com [https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com/]. Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/ [https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/] LISTEN Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bd [https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bd] Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321] Captivate - https://crackthebook.captivate.fm [https://crackthebook.captivate.fm/]