Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our seventy-fifth episode and opener for Season 7 (a whole year of fan favourites and camp classics), we look at something a bit highbrow (the opera) in the pulpiest, trashiest way (through this book). We introduce our new imaginary producer, Diane, wonder if this should be our first musical episode, and learn that Raoul is more than just the most hated man on all of Broadway: he's also the most hated man in literature.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Verdi, 'Overture' in La Forza Del Destino.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our seventy-fourth episode, and last in our season on banned books, we celebrate (?) Christmas with the inappropriately summery Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). There are ample Simpsons and South Park references, we reveal that everything we knew about this book we both learned from The King and I, and Daniel gets annoyed by a Bookends slight AND by his own previously poor skills in name analysis.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: 'Ol' Man River'.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our seventy-third episode, and to celebrate Internation Men's Day, we look at our blokiest book yet: William Golding's Lord of the Flies (1954). Our accents get a workout, we debate the correct pronunciation of 'conch', and learn that they don't teach this kind of thing on Nickelodeon (or, indeed, Nick At Nite).

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Kampen Boys Choir, 'O Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem'.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our seventy-second episode, we invite Friend of the Podcast (and Abby's best friend/medieval historian) Justine back to the show to school us on Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. We focus primarily on the 'Inferno' section and get really caught up on Dante being a civil engineering girlie.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Motet, 'Ypocrite / Velut stelle / Et gaudebit' (14th century)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our seventy-first episode, we look at a controversial text of teenage rebellion and grief-trauma that has attracted a LOT of weird loners over the years: J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951). In this episode, Daniel takes a big L over David Copperfield, we have Buckfast at Tiffany's, spend a long time discussing Howard Hughes's design of the perfect bra, and realise that this should have been our Christmas episode.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Larry Wagner, 'Autopsy on Schubert' (1937).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.