Join David, Heidi, and Sean as they discuss insomnia, despair, the spiritual dark night of the soul, and much, much more found in Bernanos’ deeply contemplative novel.

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We’re on to Georges Bernanos’ contemplative novel, The Diary of a Country Priest, and in this episode David, Heidi, and Sean discuss the fascinating narrative approach Bernanos employs, what themes seem to matter most, the notion of contemplation in the book, and how to approach a book in which very little happens (on the surface).

Future schedule:

Episode 2 (March 27): Chapters 3-4Episode 3 (April 3): Chapters 5-6Episode 4 (April 10): To the endEpisode 5 (April 17): Q&A

Click here to check out the upcoming CiRCE conference referenced at the top of this episode.

Join David and Tim as they welcome back special guest Jessie Turpin to read a scene from the play and answer your questions. Conversation touches on topics like Shaw’s extreme stage directions, the didacticism of the play, and much more. Happy listening!

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Join David, Tim, and Sean as they discuss the 2023 Close Reads Bracket: Awesome Adaptations. They predict winners, make their own picks, and discuss the bracket-making process.

We’ve been circling this one for a long time. It’s finally time to discuss George Bernard Shaw’s famous play, Pygmalion. In this episode we discussed the originally source material (briefly), Shaw’s thematic interests, the complex dilemma he’s setting up for himself, Higgins as a character, and so much more. Plus, with the help of special guest, we present a “table-read” of a key scene. Happy listening!

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If you’re a longtime listener of this podcast, you know that Sean Johnson has recently joined our crew to help give Tim some time off here and there (what with Tim’s new job and growing family). Of course, Sean is a worthy contributor all in his own right. But we didn’t know that right away. At first, he was just one of many interviewees we considered (#230 to be precise). And although it took some time to get aligned on some key metrics, we feel really good about his role on our show now.

Since Sean’s been a part of things for a few months at this point, we feel like this is a good time to share a peek into his interview process, to reveal what he had to go through to make it on the show. We think you’ll appreciate this look behind the curtain and enjoy getting to know him a bit. Happy listening!

The Netanyahus is a bit of a confounding book, so naturally there were lots of questions and we did our best to answer as many as we could as thoroughly as possible. We discussed the complicated nature of writing fiction about real/living people, Blum’s relationship with his daughter, whether the book has a moral center, nihilism, and much more.

Thanks for listening!

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Okay, so that ending? What’s the deal. Join David, Heidi, and Tim as they try to understand what Cohen is doing. Lots of conversation about nihilism in this episode.

Thanks for listening!

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This week we’re discussing whether Joshua Cohen’s approach to exploring Jewish culture works in the ways that he seems to hope it will, whether the book is too sad to be truly funny, whether the story has finally revealed what it is, and much more.

Don’t forget to weigh in on this episode’s question. Let us know what you think in the comments!

Question of the Week: Is the big Judy scene funny?

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We are on to Joshua Cohen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Netanyahus, a book that is clearly different in tone (and content) than most of the titles we traditionally discuss on this show. So in this episode David, Heidi, and Tim (he’s back!) contemplate the book’s sense of humor, Cohen’s remarkable prose, and what makes it memorable and worth reading. Happy listening!

Close Reads is a community-supported endeavor. If you like what you hear and read, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.