The Literary Life Podcast

Today on The Literary Life, your hosts Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins sit down for a chat with their friend and fellow reader, Mary Jo Tate. As well as being an avid reader, Mary Jo is an author, editor, teacher, book collector and single mother to 4 young men. A veteran homeschooler, Mary Jo is the author of Flourish: Balance for Homeschool Moms, and you can learn more about her and her work at FlourishAtHome.com. In this interview, Angelina and Cindy talk with Mary Jo about her own background as a reader, beginning with her childhood memories of books. They discuss the influence of family, librarians and teachers on the life of a young reader. Mary Jo talks about different seasons of her reading life and gives some advice for the busy, exhausting time as a mother of young children. Another topic of discussion is how Mary Jo's education and profession grew out of her love of literature. Upcoming Show Schedule: Episode 7 (May 28): Gaudy Night ch 8-15 Episode 8 (June 4): Gaudy Night, ch 16-23, complete Episode 9 (June 11): Are Women Human? by Dorothy Sayers Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) Out of the Ashes by Anthony Esolen One Writer's Beginnings by Eudora Welty Raggedy Ann Stories by Johnny Gruelle The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis Andrew Lang's Fairy Books The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald At Home in Mitford by Jan KaronS Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson It little profits that an idle king,  By this still hearth, among these barren crags,  Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole  Unequal laws unto a savage race,  That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.  I cannot rest from travel: I will drink  Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd  Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those  That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when  Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades  Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;  For always roaming with a hungry heart  Much have I seen and known; cities of men  And manners, climates, councils, governments,  Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;  And drunk delight of battle with my peers,  Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.  I am a part of all that I have met;  Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'  Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades  For ever and forever when I move.  How dull it is to pause, to make an end,  To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!  As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life  Were all too little, and of one to me  Little remains: but every hour is saved  From that eternal silence, something more,  A bringer of new things; and vile it were  For some three suns to store and hoard myself,  And this gray spirit yearning in desire  To follow knowledge like a sinking star,  Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.           This is my son, mine own Telemachus,  To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—  Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil  This labour, by slow prudence to make mild  A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees  Subdue them to the useful and the good.  Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere  Of common duties, decent not to fail  In offices of tenderness, and pay  Meet adoration to my household gods,  When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.           There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:  There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,  Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—  That ever with a frolic welcome took  The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed  Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;  Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;  Death closes all: but something ere the end,  Some work of noble note, may yet be done,  Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.  The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:  The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep  Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,  'T is not too late to seek a newer world.  Push off, and sitting well in order smite  The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds  To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths  Of all the western stars, until I die.  It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:  It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,  And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.  Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'  We are not now that strength which in old days  Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;  One equal temper of heroic hearts,  Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Connect with Us: Find Angelina at  https://angelinastanford.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/ Jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

21 Mai 201950min

This week on The Literary Life, Angelina and Cindy discuss the next few chapters of Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers. In this episode, Angelina explores the question of why all the epigraphs opening each chapter are from Renaissance writers. Aside from recapping plot points, Cindy and Angelina also chat about the following topics: the unnatural nature of the crime and of the cloistered atmosphere; the gothic themes present in this novel; Harriet's lack of self-awareness; further contemplations on love and marriage. Upcoming Show Schedule: Episode 7 (May 28): Gaudy Night ch 8-15 Episode 8 (June 4): Gaudy Night ch 16-23, complete Episode 9 (June 11): Are Women Human? by Dorothy Sayers Lot's Wife by Anna Akhmatova (trans. by Richard Wilbur) The just man followed then his angel guide Where he strode on the black highway, hulking and bright; But a wild grief in his wife's bosom cried, Look back, it is not too late for a last sight Of the red towers of your native Sodom, the square Where once you sang, the gardens you shall mourn, And the tall house with empty windows where You loved your husband and your babes were born. She turned, and looking on the bitter view Her eyes were welded shut by mortal pain; Into transparent salt her body grew, And her quick feet were rooted in the plain. Who would waste tears upon her? Is she not The least of our losses, this unhappy wife? Yet in my heart she will not be forgot Who, for a single glance, gave up her life. Book List: Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (1967 film adaptation) Are Women Human? by Dorothy Sayers   Connect with Us: Find Angelina at  https://angelinastanford.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/ Jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

14 Mai 20191h 7min

Today’s Book List: (affiliate links) Gaudy Night, Strong Poison, Clouds of Witness, Unnatural Death, Five Red Herrings, Murder Must Advertise, The Nine Tailors, and The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers Seeking God by Esther de Waal and Kathleen Norris The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis Essays by Dorothy Sayers: Are Women Human?, The Mind of the Maker,  and Letters to a Diminished Church   Connect with us! Find Angelina at  https://angelinastanford.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/   Jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB   Today’s poem: A Slice of Wedding Cake by Robert Graves   Why have such scores of lovely, gifted girls Married impossible men? Simple self-sacrifice may be ruled out, And missionary endeavour, nine times out of ten.   Repeat 'impossible men': not merely rustic, Foul-tempered or depraved (Dramatic foils chosen to show the world How well women behave, and always have behaved).   Impossible men: idle, illiterate, Self-pitying, dirty, sly, For whose appearance even in City parks Excuses must be made to casual passers-by.   Has God's supply of tolerable husbands Fallen, in fact, so low? Or do I always over-value woman At the expense of man? Do I? It might be so.

22 Apr 20191h 6min

Today’s Book List: (affiliate links) The World’s Last Night and Lilies That Fester by C.S. Lewis The Five Red Herrings, Murder Must Advertise, and Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers Nancy Drew #45: The Spider Sapphire Mystery by Carolyn Keene The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Footsteps at the Lock by Ronald Knox Multiple novels by Agatha Christie Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe The Moonstone and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins The Albert Campion series by Margery Allingham The Roderick Alleyn series by Ngaio Marsh The Flavia de Luce series by Allen Bradley The Inspector Appleby Mystery series by Michael Innes The Daughter of Time and Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey Murder Fantastical by Patricia Moyes The Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling) Multiple novels by Alexander McCall Smith Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie King The Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny Brave New World by David Archer The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters The Adam Dalgliesh Series by P.D. James   Connect with us! Find Angelina at  https://angelinastanford.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/   Jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB   Today’s poem: The Listeners by Walter De La Mare   ‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,      Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses      Of the forest’s ferny floor: And a bird flew up out of the turret,      Above the Traveller’s head: And he smote upon the door again a second time;      ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said. But no one descended to the Traveller;      No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,      Where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners      That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight      To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,      That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken      By the lonely Traveller’s call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness,      Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,      ’Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even      Louder, and lifted his head:— ‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,      That I kept my word,’ he said. Never the least stir made the listeners,      Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house      From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,      And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward,      When the plunging hoofs were gone.

22 Apr 20191h 2min

Today’s Book List: (affiliate links) One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L’Engle The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis Fairacre and Thrush Green series by Miss Read Arabian Nights Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Legends of King Arthur Series by Rosemary Sutcliff The Jeeves and Wooster series by P.G. Wodehouse The Lord Peter novels and Are Women Human? Dorothy Sayers   Connect with us! Find Angelina at  houseofhumaneletters.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter   Jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB   Today’s poem: If I Could Tell You by W.H. Auden   Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know.   If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time will say nothing but I told you so.   There are no fortunes to be told, although, Because I love you more than I can say, If I could tell you I would let you know.   The winds must come from somewhere when they blow, There must be reasons why the leaves decay; Time will say nothing but I told you so.   Perhaps the roses really want to grow, The vision seriously intends to stay; If I could tell you I would let you know.   Suppose the lions all get up and go, And all the brooks and soldiers run away; Will Time say nothing but I told you so? If I could tell you I would let you know.

21 Apr 201954min

Today's Book List: (affiliate links) An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis The Children’s Homer, The Golden Fleece, The Stone of Victory, and other Tales by Padraic Colum For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay Mutliple novels by Elizabeth Gaskell Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Joseph Pieper Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers   Find out more about our sponsor, New College Franklin at https://newcollegefranklin.org/   Connect with us! Find Angelina at  https://angelinastanford.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/   Jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB   Today’s poem: The Truisms by Louis MacNeice   His father gave him a box of truisms Shaped like a coffin, then his father died; The truisms remained on the mantlepiece As wooden as the play box they had been packed in Or that his father skulked inside.   Then he left home, left the truisms behind him Still on the mantlepiece, met love, met war, Sordor, disappointment, defeat, betrayal, Till through disbeliefs he arrived at a house He could not remember seeing before.   And he walked straight in; it was where he had come from And something told him the way to behave. He raised his hand and blessed his home; The truisms flew and perched on his shoulders And a tall tree sprouted from his father’s grave.

21 Apr 201939min