The Bookening

We're back, baby! Sorry for the delay. Thanks for your patience. We're offering some much needed context on one of the best books we've ever done, Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy.  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

It's an update! With atrocious audio! Basic message: "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive!" ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

"Emma" by Jane Austen is considered a great novel due to its sharp wit, complex characters, and insightful commentary on societal norms and human nature. Austen's writing is known for its irony, subtle humor, and ability to draw readers into the world of her characters. The novel also explores themes of class, romance, self-delusion, and the dangers of interfering in the lives of others. Additionally, the novel's protagonist Emma Woodhouse is a strong, independent woman whose flaws and mistakes make her relatable and endearing to readers. The above description was definitely NOT written by a Chatbot.We loved talking about "Emma" again. Is it Jane Austen's best work? Is Mr Knightley a g-word for shaping the character of a 13 year old girl until she's old enough to marry? Other questions! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

A salesman who shared his liquor and steered while sleeping... A Cherokee filled with bourbon. A VW no more than a bubble of hashish fumes, captained by a college student. And a family from Marshalltown who head-onned and killed forever a man driving west out of Bethany, Missouri....I rose up sopping wet from sleeping under the pouring rain, and something less than conscious, thanks to the first three of the people I've already named- the salesman and the Indian and the student--all of whom had given me drugs. At the head of the entrance ramp I waited without hope of a ride. What was the point, even, of rolling up my sleeping bag when I was too wet to be let into anybody's car? I draped it around me like a cape. The downpour raked the asphalt and gurgled in the ruts. My thoughts zoomed pitifully. The travelling salesman had fedme pills that made the linings of my veins feel scraped out. My jaw ached. I knew every raindrop by its name. I sensed everything before it happened. I knew a certain Oldsmobile would stop for me even before it glowed, and by the sweet voices of the family inside it I knew we'd have an accident in the storm.  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Ho ho ho! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Our heroes talk about Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. R. Tolkien, asking such questions as "did you know there was a Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. R. Tolkien?" They also announce their booklist for 2023, baby! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

All the pretty horses ... where do they all come from? All the pretty horses? Where do they all belong?Did you know Cormac McCarthy was born in Rhode Island? He had to work to sort of figure out how to become a southern western gothic writer, or whatever he is. Anyway, The Bookening talks about All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

For some reason this is our Spooky October episode. Love is ... frightening? Or we dumbly mixed up the Stephen King episode and this one in release order? Who can tell? ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The Green Mile by Stephen King. It’s a book we review.  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

“My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.” The audio quality is not all there in this one. So think of it more as a bonus episode. You'll get giant Romeo and Juliet and Green Miles episodes very soon. They are already recorded. But we're talking about the world's greatest consulting detective in this one! Will Nathan be a snob again??? ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Nathan checks in with an update on when you can expect the next full episode and a very interesting story about trying to schedule with Brandon. But believe me, if you don't like episodes that aren't just about books, this is NOT the episode for you. You have been warned.  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Revenge, madness, whale blubber, etc. The Bookening discusses one of the best books they've ever discussed. And probably the great American novel. Herman Melville's Moby Dick. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

"If it had not borne Mr. Dickens's name, it would in all probability have hardly met with a single reader; and if it has any popularity at all, it must derive it from the circumstance that it stands in the same relation to his other books as salad dressing stands in towards a complete salad. It is a bottle of the sauce in which Pickwick and Nicholas Nickleby were dressed, and to which they owed much of their popularity; and though it has stood open on the sideboard for a very long time, and has lost a good deal of its original flavour, the philosophic inquirer who is willing to go through the penance of tasting it will be, to a certain extent, repaid. He will have an opportunity of studying in its elements a system of cookery which procured for its ingenious inventor unparalleled popularity, and enabled him to infect the literature of his country with a disease which manifests itself in such repulsive symptoms that it has gone far to invert the familiar doctrines of the Latin Grammar about ingenuous arts, and to substitute for them the conviction that the principal results of a persistent devotion to literature are an incurable vulgarity of mind and of taste, and intolerable arrogance of temper." --from an original review of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Don't worry, our heroes talk about it.  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The senselessness of life. The meaninglessness of death. Those moments where you murder someone in cold blood for no particular reason. Hope you like existential stuff. Because Ernest Heminway and Albert Camus sure do, as we talk about in this mega-stuft episode of none other than ..... THE BOOKENING.  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The Bookening is divided over one of the great (?) Russian novels!Here's a link to that great piece on Tolstoy and Turgenev's relationship. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Two children's books that we had STRONG feelings about! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Happy Valentine's Day! It's been six years. Can you believe it? Time for The Bookening to return to the book that started it all. Will our opinions have changed? Will we argue our former selves into the dust? Will we now HATE Pride and Prejudice???? Find out in this mega stuffed episode. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

How is the Bookening moving forward after a 2021 that wasn't what we wanted? What are we reading in 2022? Was Ender's Game a good novel? The answers to all these questions and more in the mega-long super spectacular new episode! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Pray for us and give here. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Next week (Lord willing) Jake and Brandon will face off in the epic trial of Ender's Game. This week Jake prepares. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★