What does a first century Roman Emperor have in common with a USC professor of Education?

We find out this week on Lit Matters, as Chris is joined by Laurie and Matt Jones, married high school English teachers, parents of teenagers, and hosts of the Teacher Saves World! podcast. Their mission is to “save the world one teenager at a time” while helping us all “try to live our best life.” Laurie and Matt will be discussing Leo Buscaglia’s Love and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations.

Please check out Matt’s own book, Helping Teens Succeed in High School and Life,  along with Laurie’s recommended reading list for all high school students:

• Hamlet by William Shakespeare

This week, Lit Matters moves from the seas to the cosmos, discussing Samuel R. Delany’s 1984 Sci-Fi masterpiece, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, with Professor Paco Brito Nύnez, a Professor of American Literature and English at Orange Coast College.

If you want to blast off into other thrilling worlds of Science Fiction, pick up Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon, Carl Sagan’s Contact, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others, Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God, Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, or Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. 

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delaney is available on Amazon and Audible.

This week, Lit Matters sets out on its maiden voyage, discussing Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick with Dr. Dean Franco, Professor of English and Director of the Humanities Institute at Wake Forest University. He is the author of three books including The Border and the Line: Race, Literature and Los Angeles and Race, Rights, and Recognition: Jewish American Literature Since 1969.

Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is available in paperback Amazon, as is the hard cover University of California Press Edition mentioned by Dr. Franco.

If you want to plunge into other nautical or ocean related books, consider Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us, Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea, Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm, or Ruta Sepetys’ Salt to the Sea.

Great books have the power to impact us in profound ways. In Lit Matters, English professor Chris Evans explores the stories that matter through the eyes of people from all walks of life: writers, readers, musicians, teachers, librarians, doctors, and friends. Chris and his guests share books that they believe everyone should be reading - books that inspire and move us to be who we are and more importantly, who we want to be.