This week on The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks return from their summer break with a fun "Ask Us (Almost) Anything" episode. The questions they answer include the following:

• How does Mr. Banks choose the poem for the end of each episode?
• How do they go about finding sources of good secondary research or literary criticism?
• How did Angelina first learn about alchemy in the literary tradition?
• Is Mr. Banks any relation to the sculptor Thomas Banks?
• Can you give a brief definition of each of the building blocks of stories?
• What exactly is the "objective correlative"?
• Is re-reading important in the literary life and, if so, what makes it profitable?
• How do you keep up with the many images when reading?
• How should an author approach trying to write in the literary tradition?
• How do you deal with reading slumps?
• What is your favorite book?
• How do you defend an education in the humanities in an age obsessed with STEM?
• How many books do you own?
• Does Angelina actually hate John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress?
• And more….

Don't forget to check out everything going on over at HouseofHumaneLetters.com to stay up to date on all the upcoming new summer classes and webinars.

View the full show notes for this episode, including quotes, book links, and this week's poem at https://theliterary.life/339.