Nudie Reads

Shakespeare debuts on Nudie Reads! The Merchant of Venice (1596) delivers high drama in Act 4’s courtroom scene, with Portia’s “quality of mercy” speech and a cunning legal twist. Mercy, justice, and contracts collide in one of the many of the Bard’s timeless works. 🎭📜 ⚖️💧

The story of St George is a corker. Slays a dragon, saves of princess, survives dreadful torture. Where does it come from? A rather odd English translation by publisher William Caxton of the 13th C classic collection The Golden Legend captured the weirdness. 🐉⚔️📖

Homer shines on Nudie Reads! The Odyssey(8th century BC) delivers epic adventure—Odysseus vs. the Cyclops is pure wit and grit. From TikTok to Hollywood, it’s a timeless tale people love to retell. 📜🚢

A poet, a painter, and a patriot’s ride! Grant Wood’s 1931 quirky pic The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere is a great visualcompanion for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” as it gallops through 250 year old history. Saddle up for an offbeat Thursday ep! 📜🐎

Lady Fortune spins her wheel. Boethius, a Roman in 534, imagined her as Lady Luck in person and wrote of her capricious ways in "On The Consolation of Philosophy" as he sat on death row. Wisdom from a condemned man. 📜🎡

Rock n roll and Roman history. There’s plenty of cross-over to consider. And a certain James Newell Osterberg Jnr better known as Iggy Pop penned a lovely review of Edward Gibbon’sThe Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1995 that proves it. Who knew he had it in him? 📖✨

Long before The Weave of US President Donald Trump there was  Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, a wild 18th-century classic from England via Ireland more known for its detours than the autobiography it pretends to be. The OG weave and rather cheeky. 🇮🇪 🇬🇧 ⏰ 👶

The Fram2 spacecraft orbits Earth's polar regions for the first time ever. And The Fram, the OG ship of the 19th century was also a trailblzer. Nansen's diaries of her first Artic voyage are a gem of spellbinding writing. Great words from a Norwegian hero. Takk for listening! 📖✨

Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan contains his killer line about life being ‘nasty, brutish, and short’. He was grim fella but his work is a 17th century English classic of political thought. Lived to the ripe old age of 91, single the whole time and loved tennis. Who knew?🎾 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿✍️😡👺🩳

On March 16, 2025 Blue Ghost, a Texas-built lunar robot signed off with a hauntingly beautiful message straightfrom Mare Crisium, sketched by Galileo and named by Riccioli in the 17th century. Great, writing, from space. 🔭🚀🛰️