A Programming Update for Mid November

The Great Passion, Mysteries for 2025, and more

Autumn Landscape with Four Trees (1885) by Vincent van Gogh; Vincent van Gogh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Hello friends,

It’s a rainy, dreary, wonderful day here in Concord—a bookstore day. Of course, this means (oxymoronically) that the shop is actually pretty quiet as people avoid going outside. Southerners aren’t naturally inclined to thrive in this weather. But I love a day like today, when you have to wear a sweater and boots that won’t soak through and you can imagine yourself traipsing across a downy field, perhaps in search of a copse that will provide brief relief from the wind. It’s the best. And it means Thanksgiving is coming.

We’re told that construction on Union street (where our bookstore is) will be complete soon, or at least in time for the Christmas tree lighting and the annual parade. We’ll see. I won’t hold my breath. But what I do know is, whatever else is going on, there’s no better time for books. It’s reading season. So, I want to hear, what are you reading right now? Let me know in the comments.

In addition to the various books I’m reading for the show, I’ve been enjoying Roland Allen’s amazing The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper; Dan Jones’ epic biography of Henry V; Kate DiCamillo’s new children’s title, The Hotel Balzaar; and the advanced copy of Niall William’s beautiful novel, The Time of the Child.

What about you?

Okay, without further ado, here’s your programming update . . .

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Upcoming Schedules

As always, the dates posted here are the days the episodes will drop, not when they will be recorded. We are almost done with Station Eleven and will begin James Runcie’s The Great Passion in December.

Schedule for The Great Passion

December 2: Chapters 1-6
December 9: Chapters 7-12
December 16: Chapters 13-18
December 23: Chapters 19-23 (end)
December 30: Q&A Episode

Schedule for Mansfield Park

Jane Austen’s third novel (considered by some people on this podcast to be her best) is our current book on CRHQ. If you’re subscribed you’ll have access to these conversations. Austen is always a treat to read and discuss.

September 20: Volume 1, chapters 1-5
October 11: Volume 1, chapters 6-11
October 25: Volume 1, chapters 12-18
November 8: Volume 2, chapters 1-4
November 15: Volume 2, chapters 5-9
November 29: Volume 2, chapters 10-13
December 13: Volume 3, chapters 1-6
December 27: Volume 3, chapters 7-12
January 10: Volume 3, chapters 13-17 (end)
January 24: Q&A episode

Please note: the next HQ book will be The Betrothed.

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Live poetry hour for November

Our next live poetry hour for CRHQ subscribers will take place on Thursday, November 21 at 9 pm est. We will be discussing Joy Harjo’s “Perhaps the World Ends Here.”

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!

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Monthly Mysteries

We’ve been enjoying our series of episodes dedicated to mystery stories (or as Heidi refers to them, “the murder pods”), and in November we’ll be discussing a late-era Agatha Christie, Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side.

Upcoming

• November: A Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (later Agatha Christie)

• December: The White Priory Murders (Carter Dickson)

Past episodes

• Strong Poison (Dorothy Sayers) - Listen now

• The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Agatha Christie) - Listen now

• Post After Post-Mortem (E. C. R. Lorac) - Listen now

• The Franchise Affair (Josephine Tey) - Listen now

• Death of Jezebel (Christianna Brand) - Listen now

• Father Brown (Chesterton) - Listen now

• The Maltese Falcon (Dashiell Hammett) - Listen Now

• Jumping Jenny (Anthony Berkley) - Listen Now

• The Case of the Gilded Fly (Edmund Crispin) - Listen Now

• The Chill (Ross Macdonald) - Listen Now

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Mysteries for 2025

In case you missed it on Facebook or on the Substack chat, we announced the twelve mysteries we’ll be discussing in 2025 as one of our subscriber features here at CRHQ. Here they are:

You can check out that list and grab copies here.

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Until next time, happy reading!