Each week, our friend Courtney Ferris reviews a book. This week she takes us through Sally Hepworth’s 2025 novel Mad Mabel, a darkly funny mystery about two kinds of people no one ever expects to be murderers: little girls and old ladies.

You can find more of her reviews on Courtney Reads It All, on both Instagram and TikTok.

This episode also features “Ambient Bit Two” by Tolset Music and a piano arrangement by Lowtone Music, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

We’re kicking off Season 3 with this two-part episode, and the conversation that launched with sophomore English now lands with AP Lit. Why read these works over the summer? Why read them at all? How are texts like The Kite Runner or The Importance of Being Earnest a foundation or a framework for what we do this school year? Moreso, how are they a framework for the lives we lead outside the classroom? What do they teach us about who we are and who we’re becoming? My students and my administrator Amy Hawkins join the conversation.

With Honors is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find this show alongside our other podcast, Second Stage, on major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brother podcast with Drew Haston, A Deadman’s Books. You can find him on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

This episode also features “Groove Delight” by Musinova and “Sipping on Jazz” by BlackTrendMusic, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

Why do a summer reading assignment? And why read these two pieces? Why—what do they have to do with a school year of sophomore literature?

With Honors is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find this show alongside our other podcast, Second Stage, on major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brother podcast with Drew Haston, A Deadman’s Books. You can find him on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

This episode also features “Groove Delight” by Musinova and “Sipping on Jazz” by Black Trend Music, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

What’s the best way for readers to approach The Odyssey now in 2026? Audiences can watch the film, but are they missing a richness informed by the actual epic? And if that’s true, which translation, or which publication of it? And do those still play well with readers today? Is the graphic novel appropriate for high school readers? What about Nolan’s movie? Are these useful, suitable, dare I say literary tools for the high school classroom?

With Honors is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find this show alongside our other podcast, Second Stage, on major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brother podcast with Drew Haston, A Deadman’s Books. You can find him on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

This episode also features “Groove Delight” by Musinova, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

Each year I assign a summer reading assignment for my Honors sophomore English class and for my AP Lit course. In this episode, I do a walkthrough of my summer reading assignment. If you’re a student, this can be a helpful talkthrough of my vision for the assignment, my expectations, why I think it’s important. And if you’re a teacher, maybe this can be helpful for you in considering your own approach to a summer reading assignment.

With Honors is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find this show alongside our other podcast, Second Stage, on major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brother podcast with Drew Haston, A Deadman’s Books. You can find him on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

This episode also features “Groove Delight” by Musinova and “Got to Get Funky” by Juqbox Music, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

This week we feature a teacher's walkthrough of our assigned summer reading: Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist. Our friend Drew Haston discusses his important takeaways of the book and several things he would consider pairing with it.

With Honors is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find this show alongside our other podcast, Second Stage, on major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brother podcast with Drew Haston, A Deadman’s Books. You can find him on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

This episode also features “Groove Delight” by Musinova, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

In this episode, my co-teacher Hannah and I spent the day at McKay’s Used Books in Nashville.

Part of our fun-day at the bookstore was an English teacher side quest: Find 5 books you wish you could teach if there were no constraints, no arguments, no intervening curriculum management. The only rule was that the book had to physically be on the McKay’s bookshelf. Everything else was fair game. What are we looking for when we are creating a curriculum for our class? What are we shopping for when looking for a new text to teach with our standards? And if you limit it to only the dream five you can find today, what do you save and what do you cut? On the ride home, we podcast about our choices.

With Honors is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find this show alongside our other podcast, Second Stage, on major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brother podcast with Drew Haston, A Deadman’s Books. You can find him on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

This episode also features “Groove Delight” by Musinova, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

We continue our conversations about The Big Summer Read—The Lord of the Rings—by taking a trip to Tennessee Tech University and spending the morning with Dr. Shirley Laird. She’s a beloved, long-time veteran professor of English, specializing in courses for sophomores, teaching Shakespeare, Chaucer, Tolkien, Anglo-Saxon studies, and grammar. Dr. Laird is fondly remembered for her delicate and erudite wisdom, her summer Shakespeare seminars, and her enjoyment of Major League Baseball. We came to ask her perspective: What’s it like for you to teach Tolkien’s work at the university level? How do you respond to critics that say Tolkien is not literary? What values do our heroes in Tolkien and Beowulf embody for us? And of course, are you still rooting against the Yankees this season?

With Honors is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find this show alongside our other podcast, Second Stage, on major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brother podcast with Drew Haston, A Deadman’s Books. You can find him on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

This episode also features “Groove Delight” by Musinova, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

This week, my co-teacher Drew Haston and I discuss The Odyssey and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a film whose setting and music and characters resonate with those of us in the South—a people forever clinging to the notion of home, hospitality, and old timey truths.

With Honors is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find this show alongside our other podcast, Second Stage, on major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brother podcast with Drew Haston, A Deadman’s Books. You can find him on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

This week, we joined forces with Drew at A Deadman’s Books to present the first check-in episode of the Big Summer Read: Fellowship of the Ring.

With Honors is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find this show alongside our other podcast, Second Stage, on major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Also, throw some love at our brother podcast with Drew Haston, A Deadman’s Books. You can find him on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

This episode also features “Groove Delight” by Musinova, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.