The Bookening

"Man, in short, is to storm the heavens and overthrow the gods, or even to become a god himself. There is nothing outrageously improbable in such a conspiracy. Indeed, at a moment when a single atomic bomb – of a type already pronounced “obsolete” – has just blown probably three hundred thousand people to fragments, it sounds all too topical. Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that Mr. Lewis attributes to his characters, and we are within sight of the time when such dreams will be realisable."--From a review of _That Hideous Strength _by George Orwell 

In our final episode on C. S. Lewis's weird book, our heroes ponder modernism, post modernism, and the demise of western civilization itself!!!!!!!!!

Special thanks again to our guest star for this series, Pastor Stephen Baker, dean of the most excellent Clearnote Pastor's College.

Click here to buy the book from Amazon. 

Next month we're readingAs I Lay Dying.

_WARNING: DUE TO THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF THE BOOK BEING DISCUSSED, THIS EPISODE CONTAINS MUCH MORE (AND MUCH MORE FRANK) DISCUSSION OF SEX THAN IS USUAL IN OUR PODCAST. LISTENER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. _

The advisory above is no joke. This episode is pretty much all about marriage, sex, and eroticism. Mostly because that's what That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis is pretty much all about. Well, that and Mr. Bultitude the Bear. 

Listen as our heroes plunge bravely into the nature of the sacred erotic bond between Man and Woman, as expounded by a then-47-year-old professor of Medieval and Renaissance Litetature (and up to that point lifelong bachelor).

As in the previous episode, they are much aided by the irrepressible Pastor Stephen Baker (Dean of Clearnote Pastor's College), who explains why every college student on the face of the planet should be forced to read this book. His theory on Mr. Bultitude is that he is "just a bear." Brandon has other ideas about Mr. Bultitude but they go repeatedly and terribly awry. Jake has a amazing pitch for who should play Fairy Hardcastle in the movie version. Nathan plays it cool. Arguably this week's topic is out of his wheelhouse, and anyway, he's never one for vain speechifying. 

Click here to buy the book from Amazon. 

Next month we're readingAs I Lay Dying.

In this episode our heroes begin their discussion of C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength. They spend much of the time discussing Lewis himself--who he was, the larger context of his life and work, and whether he is a trustworthy influence on Christians today. You'll learn why the Space Trilogy actually shouldn't be called that, what kinds of trashy novels C.S. Lewis was a sucker for, and how Lewis thought a novel of adventure, fantasy, or escapism should work. You'll also learn why, even given some of Lewis's more egregious doctrinal errors, if you found yourself in his shoes, you wouldn't have done any better. So haters be cool.

Our heroes are aided immeasurably by the presence of their first ever guest star, Stephen Baker, huge Space Trilogy nerd (he wouldn't like us calling it that), associate pastor of Clearnote Church, and Dean of Clearnote Pastor's College (aspiring pastors, check it out!).

Click here to buy the book from Amazon. 

Next month we're readingAs I Lay Dying.

On November 21, 1994 a film began production that would change the course of cinema--along with one young man's life--forever. The film was Amy Heckerling's immortal comedy classic Clueless_ _and the young man was Jake Mentzel. 

Over twenty years have passed since that fateful day. Mentzel has earned well-deserved repute as an associate pastor of Clearnote Church and the executive director of Warhorn Media. Yet his love for the film that once so inspired and spoke to him remains undimmed.

Given all this, one might have expected Mentzel to approach the source material for said cinematic masterpiece with some trepidation. Jane Austen's Emma! Ha! More like Jane's Austen's coal, which Amy Heckerling and Alicia Silverstone fashioned into a dazzling diamond of celluloid delight.

Mentzel was pleasently surprised, however, to find that _Emma _did have its charms and diversions. But try as it might, it could never achieve anything remotely on the level of the glories of that great film that will stand forever as a testament to the human spirit eternal.

Anyway here is part 2 of a podcast about _Emma, _sorry it's not about _Clueless, _it's pretty informative and enjoyable anyway though, at least we hope so, also parts of the above narrative may be horrible lies, who knows which parts though, thanks for listening. 

Click here to buy the book from Amazon. 

Coming next month, C. S. Lewis's amazing conclusion to what was otherwise a kinda boring space trillogy. 

Also coming soon, a new Warhorn Media podcast called _Sound of Sanity. _What is it? You'll have to wait and listen to find out ...

It's Jane Austen. She's the best. This is one of her novels. Our heroes talk about it. What else do you need to know?

Click here to buy the book from Amazon. 

Coming next month, maybe C. S. Lewis's weirdest, most violent novel? 

A new episode of our podcast's here
 Nathan and Brandon and Jake sit around
 (Probably drank a whole gallon of beer
 Based on the way that they started to sound)

Reading the poems that were written by greats
 Don't ask us why Jake had to say Dylan,
 Or Nathan likes mystical bullcrap by Yeats
 Or everyone cries when Brandon gets Milne in—

That's how it goes when recording a show
 Things will just happen that you don't expect
 You've got all the places you wanted to go
 But somehow your plans will always get wrecked

Then at 2 in the morning, while working on it,
 You decide that the intro MUST be a sonnet

Coming maybe next week, if we can pull it off, _Emma _by Jane Austen 

Don't worry, _Emma _is still coming. (!!!) It'll be up in the next few weeks, as soon as our heroes get through this emergency poetry series. 

Why an emergency poetry series? Well, for one thing, these episodes do take a lot of work to produce, and our heroes have lives and full-time jobs and blah blah blah. Our heroes needed a little extra time to get into the grove of a novel-a-month again. Especially after the awesome but behemoth _Anna Karenina. _

Moreover, our heroes love poetry, and they wanted to make a case to you, the listener, that you should read more poetry. Poetry rocks. It was good enough for King David after all. And the Living God chose to include more than 150 poems in His book of books.

So poetry is not just for pretentious effeminate losers. In fact, it's not for pretentious effeminate losers at all. They may try to ruin it from time to time, but they can't. Because poetry rocks. If you think you don't like poetry, it's because you've either read the wrong poetry, or your heart is two-sizes two small. Either way, it's time to man up and read some poetry. Or at least listen to Nathan, Brandon, and Jake do so for the next few weeks.

Coming super soon, we swear, _Emma _by the Great Jane Austen 

Per Wikiepdia, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is "commonly thought to explore the themes of hypocrisy, jealousy, faith, fidelity, family, marriage, society, progress, carnal desire and passion, and the agrarian connection to land in contrast to the lifestyles of the city." Thanks for the help, Boys! (Their citation for that assertion is gradesaver.com—maybe we should just do our research there).

Anyhow, _Anna Karenina _is indisputably one of the great novels, but a lot of people bash their heads against it. It's long, it's about adultery on the one hand, and prosaic family life on the other, and it has many, many digressions into Russian land politics of the 1860s. It's problematic for feminists because its heroine tries to live a progressive dream life, and it doesn't quite work out. It's problematic for Christians because its heroine tries to live a progressive dream life, and for a while it's kinda dreamy, even if it doesn't quite work out. 

Fortunately, our heroes are on hand to sort it all out for you in this Russian-novel-length single shot of pure Bookening goodness. Nathan proves that he should never attempt a Russian accent, Jake remembers college ministry students who could have learned a thing or two from Kitty, Brandon ponders whether every happy family is alike or unalike or somewhere inbetween, and if you listen closely you can probably hear some birds fly into the window of the house where our heroes find themselves recording. 

We'll get back to our regular schedule of 2-3ish (maybe 4 sometimes if we can swing it) episodes a month starting in February. Happy New Year!

Click here to buy the book from Amazon. 

Coming next month, _Emma _by Our Lady Jane. 

2016 was a pretty great year here at The Bookening. We haven't been paying a ton of attention to what's going on in the outside world, but we assume everyone else loved 2016 just as much as we did.

In any case here's our final episode of the year. Our heroes look back upon (and do some earnest bickering about) all the books they read this year. They also look ahead to the books they'll be reading in 2017. Below is the complete list, and Happy New Year!

January—_Anna Karenina _by Leo Tolstoy 

February—Emma by Jane Austen

March—That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

April—As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner 

May—Winne the Pooh by A. A. Milne

June—_Heart of Darknes_s by Joseph Conrad

July—Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

August—A Midsummer Night's Dream by the Immortal Bard

September—My Antonia by Willa Cather 

October—Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

November—Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser 

December—The Dubliners by James Joyce 

With the Christmas season in full swing, and the New Year fast approaching our heroes spend some time looking back on the books they've read in 2016 and the things they've learned. Don't worry, it's not a clip show.

What it actually is is an awards show. Each of our heroes surveys the fields of everything we read this year and announces his pick for such categories as Best Male and Female Character, Biggest Surprise of the Year (positive and negative), and Best Villain.

More awards coming next week, including the prestigious Bookening Best Book of the Year award! And our heroes announce the full book list for 2017.

Coming next month, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.