Top 5 Lists Part 2: The Lists Proper

Fulfilling Dr. Plowden's hopes and wishes, we tackle F. Scott Fitzgerald's jazz age masterpiece.  A veritable party of a discussion (with some new categories!) ensues with Dr. George Scouten, Mr. James Hane, and Dr. Elisha Sircy joining Dr. Plowden.  Is this the greatest novel America has produced?  Has Daisy Buchanan been misread by generations?  Would you bet on a horse named "Valley of Ashes"?  Listen to your answers and ponder your own.  

In this episode we tackle one of the foundational texts of Western literature, Homer's Odyssey.  Like the poem itself, the discussion is wide-ranging and at times rambling, but hopefully like the poem it also helps you think and contemplate some of the big issues in life.  The fingerprints of Homer's epic can be seen in great literature from Dante to Milton to Wallace Stevens, and it can also be found in Breaking Bad and minivans manufactured by Honda.  It's in our cultural DNA, so to speak.   This discussion features Mr. James Hane, Dr. Larry Rhu, and Dr. Elisha Sircy.

This bonus episode features Dr. Sally Plowden and Dr. Sara Burrows discussing some key historical and cultural elements in and around F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.   These distinguished faculty members look at key themes and concerns circulating in America in the 1920s as well as how they get represented and critiqued in the novel.  

This time around we are looking at Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  In addition to talking about the novel, we'll discuss some of the character types and generic tropes it has wrought.  Our panel includes Mr. James Hane, Ms. Adrianne Woods, Dr. George Scouten, and Dr. Elisha Sircy.

On the heels of our top 5 lists, we tackle one of the towering texts in the history of literature, William Shakespeare's Hamlet.  Mr. James Hane, Dr. Sally Plowden, and Dr. Elisha Sircy look at some of the play's ambiguities, notable film versions of the play, and take on the impossible task of figuring out the best lines from a play crawling with iconic quotations.  Who's there?  Possibly the greatest drama of all time.  

We offer now our actual top 5 lists.  This episode is the longest one to date, so we're including some time stamps to help  you navigate the podcast.  Here also is a link to our lists. #5 picks - 1:09 #4 picks - 24:24 #3 picks - 44:13 #2 picks - 1:07:39 #1 picks - 1:38:34 Thank you  to our participants, Tim Sebring, James Hane, Jack Sutton, Madison Richardson, Sally Plowden, and Elisha Sircy.

We are kicking off our second season with a two-part podcast dealing with our personal top 5 lists of favorite books.   For part 1, we talk about our personal criteria for what makes a great book, how style and theme can play a role, how much teaching a book influences our appreciation of it, and finally some of our honorable mentions that didn't quite crack the top 5. We are joined in the mammoth endeavor by our largest panel yet: Dr. George Scouten, Dr. Sally Plowden, Mr. James Hane, Dr. Elisha Sircy, Mr. Tim Sebring, Mr. Jack Sutton, and (off the top rope from the world of the sciences) Mrs. Madison Richardson, biology teacher extraordinaire.  

In this episode we're tackling another of the bard's plays, this time a comedy.  Dr. Jonathan Sircy joins in to discuss what he calls Shakespeare's funniest play.  We discuss romantic tropes, bad actors, and fairies, among other things.

Our first non-summer read!  The grind of the school year is upon us, but we're still trying to make time for discussing worthwhile texts.  William Shakespeare's Othello (we think) fits that description. Ms. Elise Hagstette and Mr. Timothy Sebring make their Rereadables debuts to talk about this heavy drama.

In this episode we discuss Cormac McCarthy's 1992 novel All the Pretty Horses.  We talk about the archetype of the cowboy, the mythological dimensions of the journey undertaken by the novel's protagonist, and take a look at McCarthy's prose in light of other American authors.   Our panel comprises Mr. James Hane, Dr. Sally Plowden, Dr. George Scouten, and Dr. Elisha Sircy.