A Programming Update for June

May 31, 2024

*Gustave Caillebotte, “Canoe on the Yerres River,” 1878 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain)*

Hello friends,

I don’t care what the calendar technically says, summer is here. The school year is over (or all but over for the June finishers), the warm weather abounds (even for our northern friends), and vacations are on the horizon. But that doesn’t mean we’re taking a break from Close Reads. On the contrary, we’re ready to bring you all kinds of good content this summer: episodes to join you on road trips, early morning walks, carpool excursions, poolside chaperoning, beverage-fueled porch-sits, and wherever else you want to take the show. We’re here for it. Let’s go.

With that in mind, here’s your June programming update:

Upcoming Schedules

First, please note that we will not be running a special Q&A episode for The Summer book due to the Close Reads retreat. We will do the Q&A via the chat. And then we will be dropping a special one-off episode for you that week.

As always, the dates posted here are the days the episodes will drop, not when they will be recorded.

Schedule for To Kill a Mockingbird

June 17: Chapters 1-8
June 24: Chapters 9-14
July 1: Chapters 15-22
July 8: Chapters 22-end
July 15: Q&A Episode

Schedule for Kristin Lavransdatter book 3, The Cross

June 7: Part 1, chapters 4-6
June 24: Part 2, chapters 1-4
July 5: Part 2, chapters 5-8
July 19: Part 3, chapters 1-4
August 2: Part 3, chapters 5-7
August 16: Q&A Episode

Live poetry hour for June

Our next live poetry hour for CRHQ subscribers will take place on Thursday, June 20 at 9 pm est. We will be discussing Seamus Heaney’s “Blackberry Picking”!

As always, this conversation will take place on Zoom and the link will be sent to subscribers that morning. These have been really lovely conversations and I hope you’ll plan to join us!

Monthly Mysteries

We’ve been very much enjoying our series of episodes dedicated to mystery stories (or as Heidi refers to them, “the murder pods”), and in June we’ll be discussing the great G. K. Chesterton and his Father Brown stories.

Since there are so many, we’ve decided to go with the following five short stories, all which are available in The Essential Father Brown, from Modern Library: