One of the greatest novels in all of American literature was originally titled Catch-18. Then Joseph Heller found out that a novel about World War II called Mila 18 already existed. So he changed his book to Catch-22. And guess which American...
Plenty of literature is available, and discoverable, online. But there’s nothing like the spontaneity, or stochasticity, of browsing through a library and discovering great books at random. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Literary...
Someone who “looks like the wreck of Hesperus” isn’t exactly looking their best. The idiom comes from a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, inspired by an 1839 blizzard off the coast of Massachusetts that destroyed 20 ships. This is part of a complete...
Is it cheating to say you’ve read a book if you only listened to it on tape? Over the centuries, the way we think about reading has changed a lot. There was a time, for example, when reading silently was considered strange. Plus, what do you call...
Hyperbolic Headlines Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity!!!! Or maybe not. You’ve seen those breathless headlines on the internet, like “You Won’t Believe What This 7-year-old Said to The President!” They’re supposed to lure you to another...
One listener followed up our discussion of classic literary passages turned into limerick form by writing one of his own, a baseball-themed poem that begins, “There once was a batter named Casey.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...