Today marks the beginning of our thirty-three-day examination at Dante’s “Paradiso.” What makes this work such a towering achievement? Despite its being the crowning achievement of the whole Comedy, why does it remain one of the lesser-read books in comparison to the “Inferno?” How does Dante describe the undescribable, and render the unrepresentable? These are just a few of the questions we will be exploring over the next month, so strap in and join us in the stars!

Today, we’re revisiting an episode from February. What makes Dickens’s “Bleak House” so compelling? A number of factors, not least of which is his as-always remarkable powers of description, mood, and setting-building. Nothing exemplifies this better than the opening pages of this middle masterpiece.

Today, I offer my thoughts about Edward Said’s classic 1978 study, “Orientalism.” According to Said, for the past three hundred years, Western powers have built up a series of representations and traditions about Eastern culture which now forms the background to everything said or thought about Eastern culture. Listen to my thoughts about Said’s thesis, and where I think it goes astray.

Today, we’re talking about what gives this 1827 novel by Allesandro Manzoni the claim of “Greatest Christian Novel Ever Written.” Is it the celebration of marriage? The dauntless, magnanimous characters? The humanity shown for even the most depraved villain? All of the above? Absolutely! Not to mention the fact that it’s a wonderful action-adventure historical novel of the highest quality, a page-turner, and chock-full of characters you love and characters you love to hate.

Today, we take a look at classicist Gilbert Highet’s delightful travelogue-poetry collection “Poets in a Landscape.” Showcasing the works from the best of the Roman poets—Vergil, Catullus, Horace, and more—Highet walks his readers through the Latin Golden Age of Poetry in a way that is at once accessible, interesting, informed, and passionate.

In our last day, Smoky Barnacle ends his tale where it all began. Called into the fairy world he never quite believed in to join the family he never quite belonged to, he ventures into the great unknown, apprehensive, but then with growing recognition once he understands his part in the tale. We are, after all, trying only to find our place in the world, and Smoky has found his.

In our second-to-last day, we encounter Auberon Barnacle and his guide, Fred. Lost in the woods, and with Fred having turned into a tree, Auberon begins to doubt everything about himself: who he is, what he’s looking for, why he’s there. It’s only a supreme act of memory that keeps him grounded on the thing he longs for most in the world: finding the love he lost.

We’re entering the final three days of our exploration, and all of our main characters have been called to the forest of Edgegood for a Fairies’ Parliament. What is to happen there, who will be there, and for what reason the parliament has been called—nobody knows. In Crowley’s glistening prose, ambiguities abound. But one thing is clear: a homecoming is being called, after which nobody will ever be the same.

In today’s section, Auberon Barnacle hears from George Mouse what happened to the changeling Lilac (not to be confused with Sophie and Smoky’s actual daughter). A truly explosive story awaits. This is the kind of writing that leaves you slack-jawed and shaking your head in wonder.

In today’s reading, we look at a segment in which Ariel Hawsquill, scion of a famous theosophist, travels to the very depths of time to discover who, in fact, is the lecturer known as Russell Eigenblick. Wild journeys and truly mythic content await, and although we journey millions of miles, we never leave our spot.