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Book Club Housekeeping & Your Questions for Hardcore Literature (Patreon)

Published:
2022-02-24 17:18:37
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Dear Book Club Readers ---

I hope your reading is treating you well!

Here's a little bit of Book Club housekeeping/admin for the month.

1) A very warm HLBC welcome to new patrons

Welcome aboard, and thank you for joining the club!

Do let us know which book(s) you're enjoying at the moment and what life is looking like for you.

2) Coffee with Hardcore Literature

Do you have any questions about reading the Great Books? Or, indeed, anything else?

If so, please do let me know either here or PM me and I would love to sit down with a coffee and record my answers.

Here are the last three episodes of our Q&A Show:

3) Bookish Content

Your response to Moby Dick has been overwhelmingly positive. We're forging on ahead in search of Melville's Whale. We also have our deep-dive lectures for Macbeth and the second book of Middlemarch right around the corner. 

As mentioned in the housekeeping, we've got podcasts on Ishiguro's latest work and the Gawain poet coming out soon, and videos on reading scripturally, a translation taste-test for Homer's Odyssey, and showing you my journalling approach for Proust, to name just a few bookish goodies.

4) Thank you for your great comments

I love reading through your insightful responses to these great works, with a nice cup of tea. 

Thank you for making this such a great community to discuss great literature deeply. I'm so grateful for you all.

And that's all for now, folks!

Happy reading, and let us know if you have any questions for our Q&A show!

Files

Previews only

Book Club Housekeeping & Your Questions for Hardcore Literature

0:00 welcome to new members 0:34 submit your questions 1:45 bookish content 2:00 Moby Dick 2:30 Middlemarch 3:00 Shakespeare 3:30 Emily Brontë & Proust 3:48 secret upcoming videos 4:20 recent & upcoming podcasts 5:30 upcoming book club lectures 6:10 thank you for your comments 7:30 sharing pictures of my books 8:54 Coffee with Hardcore Literature

Comments

Bill Freeman

Ben - Here's my question. We are at the most historic crossroads of the last 75 years. As we live through these beginning days of Russia's incursion into Ukraine and now with the benefit of social media witnessing this unfolding tragedy in real-time, how do we turn to great literature for perspective, insight, and most of all hope?

Ellen M
>>78681837

Hi Bill, Ive been thinking about this for the last couple of days, I just didn’t know how to phrase it so thank you. I imagine Ben could do a whole video on this question alone.

Bill Freeman
>>78681837

Hi Ellen - Thanks for your reply. I am with this as we witness the juxtaposed images of an arrogant I'll-take-whatever-I-want tyrant and a proud people stating clearly we-were-made-for-times-like-these supported by a servant-leader present, available, and brave. Putin has already lost, he just doesn't realize it. Greatness lives among us.

hardcoreliterature
>>78681837

A very pressing and pertinent topic. I think we've all been feeling the weight of this over the last few days. Thank you, Bill - I answered this near the beginning of the latest Q&A show.

Anonymous

Here’s my question open to anyone, after reading a bit of Moby Dick I found myself interested in taking a English literature class how do you believe I should take this route or if it’s better to just do it on my own. I’m pretty limited in terms of literature as Moby Dick is my first and I am enjoying it very much!

Anonymous
>>78760200

One other question would it be fine if I read another great literature along with Moby Dick?

Ellen M
>>78760200

Hi Emmanuel! I also joined this year and am so excited about our reading journey. I’m thinking of going slow with Moby Dick so as to follow along with Ben’s lectures as he releases them, and because it’s my first time reading it. This leaves a lot of time for other works, so I may do a reread of a book that was discussed prior to my joining. I think if you feel like you want to read more great books there’s no reason not to, you can only benefit!

Pierre Bolkonsky
>>78760200

I took many literature classes in college, and honestly none were as interesting as this book club. If you're a student and you want to take literature classes as electives/options for your major, then by all means. But it's a hit or miss (depends on the books assigned and the professor). Ben himself studied English Literature in Oxford, and he doesn't speak very highly of academia And of course, you can pick up other books to read along Moby Dick. It's even recommended in this book club. Most of us are reading multiple books at the same time.

Fiona Wang
>>78760200

College has a way of sucking the joy and passion out of reading by assigning too much to read in a given semester. There's not enough time for in-depth analysis and intimate savoring. At least, that's my experience. If you're still interested, I recommend finding a small size class and get a sense of the teacher/professor's teaching style before joining. If it's a professor in the US, Canada, or the UK, you could find reviews on ratemyprofessors.com. Of course, you could take classes not affiliated with a university as well.

hardcoreliterature
>>78760200

Hi Emmanuel - I'm sorry I've only just seen your comment! I would love to discuss this in-depth on our next Q&A show. Fiona, Pierre, and Ellen have left great comments, and I think there would be a lot of readers who could benefit from this discussion - so I'll dive into it :)