Today we’re answering listener questions about reading “the classics.” How do we define “classic literature?” And which classic books are on our to be read piles? In addition to defining and discussing the importance of certain “cultural touchstone” books, we recommend classic literature to read in the summertime. 

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Show Notes:

“Why Read the Classics” by Italo Calvino

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson

Emma by Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Passing by Nella Larsen

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler 

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier 

The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery 

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton 

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde