Episode 270: “Best of” Series – “How Much Land Does a Man Need” by Leo Tolstoy
Release Date: 04/01/2025
Episode 285: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, “Mowgli’s Brothers”
The Literary Life Podcast
Today on The Literary Life podcast, we begin a new series of episodes on by Rudyard Kipling with our hosts Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks! After sharing their commonplace quotes, each of them talks about their own reading histories with Rudyard Kipling’s work. Thomas gives us some biographical information about Kipling and sets up the literary period in which he wrote. They then begin talking about the structure and form of this book as it is set up as a series of short stories as beast fables. Angelina shares some of the mythic and fairy tale elements she noticed while...
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Episode 284: Best of – “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield
The Literary Life Podcast
This week on The Literary Life, we bring you an episode from deep in the archives in which Cindy and Angelina discussed Katherine Mansfield’s short story “.” After a great chat over their commonplace quotes, Angelina and Cindy dig into this week’s story. They start with how Cindy found this story and the connections she was making to . Angelina gives a brief biographical sketch of Katherine Mansfield and highlights how Mansfield’s own illness and death give us insight into how she deals with death in this story. Angelina walks us through how she looks at the use of figurative...
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Episode 283: Catching Up with Jason Baxter – Dante, Teacher as Translator, Learning to Read Poetry, and Hot Takes
The Literary Life Podcast
This week on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina and Thomas are once again joined Dr. Jason Baxter, author of Why Literature Still Matters. In this episode, our hosts sit down with Dr. Baxter for a chat about a wide variety of topics, including teaching the old books, reading poetry to understand it, the delight of teaching students at HHL, their hot takes on hot takes, making reading recommendations, and translating Dante, and so much more. We will be back next week with a "best of" episode covering Katherine Mansfield's short story "The Garden Party," and after that we begin a fun new series...
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Episode 282: Best of - “Harry Potter” Book 1, Ch. 13-End
The Literary Life Podcast
This week on The Literary Life, Angelina and Thomas wrap up our encore series on J. K. Rowling’s . Angelina and Thomas begin the episode with some thoughts on their Aristotelian approach to literature as seen in this series of episodes. After sharing their commonplace quotes, they dive into their discussion of the last few chapters of the book. Some of the ideas they consider are how the entire plot is a series of symbols, alchemy and the allegory of the soul, and the figure of the “wildman” in the literary tradition. They also go over the characters of the centaurs, the...
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Episode 281: “Best of” – “Harry Potter” Book 1, Ch. 8-12
The Literary Life Podcast
Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast and our series on J. K. Rowling’s . After sharing some thoughts on detective fiction as it relates to Rowling, our hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks discuss chapters 8-12. Some of the ideas they share are the following: Homeric echos and classical allusions in this book, the identity quest, the significance of characters’ names, the four houses and the bestiary, the three parts of the soul, the Christian influence on Rowling’s stories. Angelina also seeks to teach something about symbolism and structure of literature and art as seen...
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Episode 280: “Best of” – “Harry Potter” Book Ch. 3-7
The Literary Life Podcast
This week we are back with the second part of our remix of Angelina and Thomas’ podcast series on by J. K. Rowling. This week we are covering chapters 3-7. Angelina opens the book discussion with an overview of the literary motifs used by Rowling in the Harry Potter books to help modern readers better understand these kinds of stories. One of the motifs she highlights is the identity quest and how we see Harry on a journey of the soul. She also shares some thoughts on the fairy tale “magic” of these stories in contrast to actual witchcraft as well as the symbolism used to show us that...
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Episode 279: “Best of” – “Harry Potter” Book 1, Intro and Ch. 1-2
The Literary Life Podcast
On today’s episode on The Literary Life podcast, we bring you a special re-mix of our popular series on by J. K. Rowling, with hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks. After sharing a little on their own backgrounds as teachers and their commonplace quotations for the week, Angelina and Thomas open the book discussion with some introductory information on this book and series. They address the controversy surrounding these books in Christian circles. For our previous episode on magic, listen to our Best of Series Angelina sets up this series with some background on children’s...
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Episode 278: The Literary Life of Natalia Testa
The Literary Life Podcast
On this week’s episode of The Literary Life, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks chat with their student Natalia Testa about her literary life. She is a rising homeschool junior living in Houston, Texas. She enjoys researching obscure manuscripts, classical languages and all things Lord Peter Wimsey. Angelina kicks off the conversation asking about Natalia’s childhood reading memories and how she became interested in ancient history and literature. They also discuss how the research bug bit Natalia, as well as her thoughts about reading books that seem “above” a child’s level. Other...
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Episode 277: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
The Literary Life Podcast
On today’s episode of The Literary Life podcast, Angelina and Thomas continue their series on Flannery O’Connor with a discussion of her short story “.” After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina explains why she chose this particular story to go over on the podcast. She and Thomas then go over the characters in the family and the dynamics at play. Some of the ideas they talk about in this story are the appearance of respectability, the sentimental view of the “Old South,” the medieval and Sophoclean elements in the story, superficial Christianity versus nihilism, and so much...
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Episode 276: An Introduction to Flannery O’Connor
The Literary Life Podcast
This week on The Literary Life podcast, Angelina and Thomas bring us the first of a two-part series on the oft-requested, oft-misunderstood author, Flannery O’Connor. They begin by sharing their commonplace quotes for this week, which leads into the topic of O’Connor, the controversial mid-century southern American author. Angelina gives us a look at Flannery’s early life and education, then her adult life and writing career. She also talks about southern culture and Christianity, as well as ways in which O’Connor’s work is misunderstood by so many people. Thomas highlights the genre...
info_outlineThis week on The Literary Life, we bring you a gem from the archives. In this episode hosts Angelina Stanford, Thomas Banks, and Cindy Rollins discuss “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” by Leo Tolstoy. To start off the discussion of this short story, Thomas gives us some background to help answer Angelina’s question about why this story seems so very different from other Tolstoy works. Angelina shares how to approach this story like a parable. Cindy brings up the question of the difference between ambition and vocation in terms of contentment.
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Don't forget to visit our website at https://theliterary.life/270 for the full show notes for this episode.