Episode 258: “Best of” Series – Our Literary Lives of 2022
On The Literary Life podcast today, we bring you another episode from our podcast archive in which our hosts look back on their reading lives of 2022. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas each share a commonplace quote, then they each share a little about how they approach reading in a way that fits with the demands of their busy lives. Each of our hosts talks about their literary surprises, their most outstanding reads of the year, disappointing books they read, and their personal favorite podcast books from 2022. Angelina also reiterates why reading rightly is so important to us all!
If you are looking for a reading challenge for the coming year, you can look back at our catalogue of previous challenges and pick your favorite one to follow in 2025!
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Commonplace Quotes:
A good story isn’t told to make a point. A good story reflects the World God created. The point makes itself.
Timothy Rollins
“Blessed be Pain and Torment and every torture of the Body … Blessed be Plague and Pestilence and the Illness of Nations….
“Blessed be all Loss and the Failure of Friends and the Sacrifice of Love….
“Blessed be the Destruction of all Possessions, the Ruin of all Property, Fine Cities, and Great Palaces….
“Blessed be the Disappointment of all Ambitions….
“Blessed be all Failure and the ruin of every Earthly Hope….
“Blessed be all Sorrows, Torments, Hardships, Endurances that demand Courage….
“Blessed be these things–for of these things cometh the making of a Man….”
Hugh Walpole
I will not walk with your progressive apes,
J. R. R. Tolkien, from “Mythopoeia”
erect and sapient. Before them gapes
the dark abyss to which their progress tends –
if by God’s mercy progress ever ends,
and does not ceaselessly revolve the same
unfruitful course with changing of a name.
I will not treat your dusty path and flat,
denoting this and that by this and chat,
your world immutable wherein no part
the little maker has with maker’s art.
I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,
nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.
A Selection from “The Secular Masque”
by John Dryden
All, all of a piece throughout; Thy chase had a beast in view; Thy wars brought nothing about; Thy lovers were all untrue. 'Tis well an old age is out, And time to begin a new.
Book and Link List:
Episode 60: Why Read Pagan Myths
Episode 124: The Abolition of Man (beginning of series)
Fortitude by Hugh Walpole
The Killer and the Slain by Hugh Walpole
The Old Ladies by Hugh Walpole
Cherringham Mystery Series by Matthew Costello and Neil Richards
The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards
Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
Light Thickens by Ngaio Marsh
Henry the Eighth by Beatrice Saunders
The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Captive Flames by Ronald Knox
The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin
The Most Reluctant Convert by David C. Downing
The Truth and Beauty by Andrew Klavan
The Man Who Knew Too Much by G. K. Chesterton
The Rosettis in Wonderland by Dinah Roe
Just Passin’ Through by Winton Porter
The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories ed. by Martin Edwards
The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories by P. D. James
Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley
Dorothy L. Sayers by Colin Duriez
The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis
The Wood Beyond the World by William Morris
The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis by Jason Baxter
Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
I Live Under a Black Sun by Edith Sitwell
The Dwarf by Par Lagerkvist
You Are Not Your Own by Alan Noble
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Twist of the Knife by Anthony Horowitz
The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley (not recommended)
The Witness of the Stars by E. W. Bullinger (not recommended)
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis
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Connect with Us:
You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/.
You can find Cindy Rollins at MorningTimeforMoms.com, over on her podcast The New Mason Jar, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. You can also check out her Patreon for additional content.
Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB
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