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The Book Club Q&A Show (Coffee: Episode XXI) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-02-16 19:32:22
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Thank you all for your wonderful questions. They have, once again, resulted in a great bookish conversation for this episode of our Q&A Show.

Topics of discussion include: how to get into poetry, how to balance marginalia and immersive reading, how the great books can improve your writing, tips for reading to others, and much more.

Feel free to jump to any topic/question you’re most interested in by using the timestamps below.

We have a lot of amazing questions, so the ones we didn't get to this time will roll forward into our next show.

Video Timestamps:

  • 0:00 how to get into poetry?
  • 18:11 literary places you’d love to visit?
  • 19:28 how to use these books to learn to write?
  • 25:48 tips for reading to others?
  • 28:34 what is the perfect bookstore?
  • 31:38 how many books do you read a year?
  • 33:58 was Tolstoy exposed to Eastern philosophy?
  • 35:15 tips for marginalia & reading immersion?
  • 37:12 read the Iliad or Odyssey first?
  • 39:00 more books for teenage daughters?
  • 43:17 if there were an extra book for the year?
  • 43:28 what do you think about comic books?
  • 45:11 thank you & questions for the next show

Mentioned in the show:

You may also be interested in a video I put out recently where I read and reacted to one-star reviews of some of my favourite books.

It was a really enjoyable discussion that involved Moby Dick, Frankenstein, Persuasion, Les Misérables, War and Peace, Wuthering Heights, and Ulysses. You can check the video out here.

Thank you all for your great questions, and let us know your thoughts on anything we discussed today.

  • What literary places would you love to visit?
  • What do you think makes the perfect bookstore?
  • What books would you recommend to young adults?

And, as always, do let us know if you have any questions about reading great literature for our next Q&A show. 

Happy reading, everybody!

Files

Previews only

The Book Club Q&A Show (Coffee: Episode XXI)

0:00 how to get into poetry? 18:11 literary places you’d love to visit? 19:28 how to use these books to learn to write? 25:48 tips for reading to others? 28:34 what is the perfect bookstore? 31:38 how many books do you read a year? 33:58 was Tolstoy exposed to Eastern philosophy? 35:15 tips for marginalia & reading immersion? 37:12 read the Iliad or Odyssey first? 39:00 more books for teenage daughters? 43:17 if there were an extra book for the year? 43:28 what do you think about comic books? 45:11 thank you & questions for the next show

Comments

Pat Mac

Re: Getting into poetry- I'd second Ben's recommendation to get to know metre, but I'd also explicitly connect it to his other recommendation to read it out loud, so you can actually start to hear the metre! Theory isn't enough; you need to experience it. I can't recommend reading out loud enough; poetry really is intimately connected to music, and for many poems (most, I might say?) they're meant to be heard. It's been a real game changer for me in the last 20 years or so. Also, for the last year, maybe 2, I've been enjoying the (usually about 15-20 minute podcasts of "Poetry Unbound" with Pádraig Ó Tuama, which looks at one shortish poem each episode. It has a little of a sort-of "scriptural" reading style that Ben was mentioning, and I find that over the course of several episodes, I realised it was helping me have some sense of where I could start in tackling meaning in poems that either left me unmoved or seemed too difficult. And bonus: since the episodes are pretty short, they're fairly easy to fold into my day somewhere or other.

R.R. Scott

I’m really enjoying this Q&A session. One literary location I am dying to visit is Ian Fleming’s Goldeneye, where he created and wrote the James Bond novels. I’d love to sit at his writing desk and swim in his reef and take in the beauty of the wild natural colours and bird calls and all of the things that he absorbed while pounding out those stories on his battered Royal Deluxe. And don’t think that I didn’t notice that first edition facsimile of Casino Royale in the background - I have that edition as well, Ben!