"Below, hills and wooded mountain slopes shut the region in with white walls, constantly narrower and narrower, nearer and nearer, always more contracting." – Jonas Lie, The Family at Gilje #botd #books #norwegianliterature

Dmitry Ivanovich Khvostov (1757-1835) might be the worst poet who ever lived. In this episode, @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to author Ilya Vinitsky and translator James H. McGavran III about their book, The Graphomaniac, which explores the life of Khvostov. #books @nupress.bsky.social

"There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, Can circumvent or hinder or control The firm resolve of a determined soul." – Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "Will" #botd #poetry

Don't miss Austen expert and author @devoney.bsky.social on her UK book tour, starting on the 6th Nov in #Edinburgh, before heading on to #Durham, @waterstones.bsky.social, @britishlibrary.bsky.social and @theul.bsky.social. Discover what was wild about the life & writing of Jane Austen! #booksky

"When shrieked The bleak November winds, and smote the woods, And the brown fields were herbless, and the shades, That met above the merry rivulet, Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still; they seemed Like old companions in adversity." – William Cullen Bryant, "A Winter Piece" #botd #poetry

“Under feigned jest Are things conceal'd that else would breed unrest.” – Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy In Episode 689, @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to author Brian Vickers about his book Thomas Kyd.: A Dramatist Restored. #books #literature #elizabethandramas @princetonupress.bsky.social

Episode 746 – Devoney Looser tells @jackewilson.bsky.social about her new book Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane, which suggests we also rethink the commonly held view of "spinster Jane." #books #literature #janeausten @stmartinspress.bsky.social

Happy Halloween from the Lit Hub Podcast! @drewsof.bsky.social reads you “The Cask of Amontillado” as a treat.

“The zombie is a spiritual vessel for unspeakable anguish. A repository of hopelessness. No peace even in death.” On ants, parasitic mushrooms, and how the origin of zombies relates to historical anti-Blackness.

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run" – John Keats, "To Autumn" #poetry #botd #literature @uchicagopress.bsky.social

Miranda Seymour on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, and Frankenstein’s monster

"The wind is rising! . . . We must try to live! The huge air opens and shuts my book: the wave Dares to explode out of the rocks in reeking Spray. Fly away, my sun-bewildered pages! Break, waves!" – Paul Valéry, "The Graveyard by the Sea" #botd #poetry #books #literature

“For there is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands.” – Christina Rossetti @jackewilson.bsky.social takes a look at Rossetti's "Goblin Market." #poetry

For more about Ian Smith's book Black Shakespeare, take a listen to @jackewilson.bsky.social's conversation with author Ian Smith in Episode 506. #shakespeare #books #literature #reading @universitypress.cambridge.org

It's Halloween, a perfect time to revisit the life and work of the "master of the macabre" Edgar Allan Poe! "It is well that a writer of such canonical importance should have a definitive biography, and Kopley certainly seems the man to write it." —@wsj.com www.upress.virginia.edu/title/10034/

"It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time." – James Boswell #botd #books #booksky #writing #biography

The AHA recognizes that our colleagues in the federal govt. are facing unprecedented workforce reductions & furloughs & has compiled resources in support. We are offering one year of free membership in the AHA to former employees of the federal govt. who have been terminated or resigned since 1/20.

"Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light." – Dylan Thomas @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to John Goodby, co-author of the biography Dylan Thomas: A Critical Life. #books #poetry @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

We are loving this episode of The History of Literature podcast all about LOVE, SEX, AND FRANKENSTEIN! Listen on your favorite podcast app now🪦🥀

NBCC Award winner Guo delivers a spectacular retelling of Moby-Dick, in which she recasts Ishmael as a 17-year-old girl and Ahab as a Black freedman named Seneca who’s battling the “white devil.” Newcomers to Moby-Dick and Melville devotees alike will find much to love. @groveatlantic.bsky.social

"I shall never get you put together entirely, Pieced, glued, and properly jointed." – Sylvia Plath, "The Colossus" Remembering Sylvia Plath #botd For more about Plath, take a listen to @jackewilson.bsky.social's conversation with author Emily Van Duyne. #books #literature #poetry

@jackewilson.bsky.social talks to author Caroline Lea about her novel Love, Sex, and Frankenstein, which tells the haunting, evocative story of the summer that should have broken Mary Shelley, but instead inspired her to write her Gothic masterpiece. #books #literature #novels #maryshelley #booksky

"Words belong to each other." Hear the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf's voice (not at all what I imagined!), reading her timeless love letter to language: www.themarginalian.org/2013/04/29/c...

Past HOL guest Samantha Rose Hill, on Hannah Arendt. #books #biography @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

The arresting story of how Thomas Mann wrote The Magic Mountain as a defeated Germany descended into political chaos. Now available at yalebooks.com.

"We are faithful only to the imagination. What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth. What holds you to what you see of me is that grasp alone." – Denise Levertov, "Everything that Acts is Actual" #botd #poetry #literature #books

I'll be talking to the Caxton Club next month on The Medieval Scriptorium - going through all the stages of making manuscripts, including demonstration videos. There may be cats in the background. Fri 14 Nov 12:00PM CT (5.00PM GMT) #medievalsky #bookhistory www.caxtonclub.org/event-6296386

"Perhaps these Indigenous stories are the truly untold part of the John Muir story, and @ramcnally.bsky.social at least starts to unsettle the conservationist consciousness that sought to forget" writes Kendall Lovely in California History. bit.ly/4nSNotd

Don't miss The Atlantic's glowing review of Lydia Davis' new Into the Weeds—called a "[chart to] a more serendipitous path to reading" by critic David L. Ulin.

10/23/78: Stories of John Cheever Stellar collection bagged well deserved Pulitzer Standouts incl The Swimmer (later film w/Burt Lancaster) [ @specktor.bsky.social "the fevered delirium of suburbia in decline"] & our favorite Goodbye, My Brother More via @tcboyle.com: www.npr.org/2006/08/17/5...

In today's Episode 743, @jackewilson.bsky.social discusses Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, which lands at #11 on his list of the Greatest Books of All Time. #books #greatbooks #dostoeyvsky

In Episode 743, @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to the fairy tale expert Jack Zipes about his book Buried Treasures: The Power of Political Fairy Tales, which profiles modern writers and artists who tapped the political potential of fairy tales. #books #fairytales @princetonupress.bsky.social

Nobel laureate Doris Lessing on how to read a book and how to read the world www.themarginalian.org/2025/07/17/d...

“Half of what we do, or try to be, amounts to blueprints for the future that we try to imagine.” – Doris Lessing #botd #books #literature #novels

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” – Ursula K. Le Guin #botd #books #booksofearthsea #novels

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea." – Coleridge #botd @jackewilson.bsky.social #poetry #literature

"Long ago, if my memory serves me, my life was a banquet where everyone's heart was generous, and where all wines flowed." – Rimbaud From the archives, #Rimbaud #botd @jackewilson.bsky.social #poetry

It's October, the perfect month to celebrate the master of #mystery and the #macabre! In Episode 742 @jackewilson.bsky.social talks to author Richard Kopley about his book Edgar Allan Poe: A Life. #books @uvapress.bsky.social #edgarallanpoe

"For the time being, dreams left him cold, no matter how humble they were." – Nathanael West #botd #books #literature

'Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny' wins the @historians.org John E. O’Connor Film Award for outstanding interpretations of history through film. It was an honour to work and appear on this beautifully edited, timely, documentary. www.pbs.org/wnet/america...

Such a powerful line. That need to break free and find your real path hits hard. Writing has a way of pulling that truth out.

"Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!" – Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman #botd #books #plays #writing #literature

10/16/61: Ingmar Bergman w/Through a Glass Darkly [DP: Sven Nykvist] w/Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow More: @railoftomorrow.bsky.social / @criterioncast.com: criterioncast.com/podcast/crit... Marvelous Ebert essay: www.rogerebert.com/reviews/grea...

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest #botd #books #literature #plays #oscarwilde

"Beyond time or place I keep the faith. Follow a path or follow no path, never fearing the night, the wind, call to me, come to me, now at the end, walk with me, life of my life, my friend." – Gabriela Mistral @jackewilson.bsky.social #books #booksky #poetry #literature

‘To borrow his own phrase, the volumes deliver “home ground”— a terrain both familiar and newly strange… They remind us why, more than 10 years on, Seamus Heaney remains indispensable.’ Irish Independent The definitive edition of Seamus Heaney's poetry is out now.

“There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.” – P.G. Wodehouse #botd #books #booksky #literature #friendship

"You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." – Italo Calvino #botd #literature #books #booksky

‘She does terrible things’: what can a Marvel director do with Ibsen’s ruthless heroine Hedda Gabler?

“The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies.” – Virgil #botd For more about Virgil, listen to Jacke's talk with Virgil biographer Sarah Ruden. #books @yalepress.bsky.social