A Programming Update for the Holidays (and January, too)

On: Wodehouse, "The Warden", Mystery novels in 2024, our next live poetry hour, and more

The Adoration of the Shepherds, Giorgione, National Gallery of Art,

Hey friends!

It’s the best time of year. Christmas is around the corner, the bookstore has been bustling with bibliophiles (or the loved ones of bibliophiles), the air has that certain ineffable scent it gets right before the holidays—and, naturally, we’ve got content for you.

As you know, our 2023 schedule is just about complete. We have three more episodes coming:

• First, on Friday, 12/22, we’ll be dropping our year-in-reading recap episode during which we will each share our top fives (along with a bunch of honorable mentions). We recorded this one yesterday and, let me tell you, there’s some classic Tim stuff in it. You’re going to enjoy it. Hopefully, it’s good company while running errands or wrapping gifts or taking a long walk to get away from all the hubbub.

• Later during Christmas week we’ll be posting our Q&A episode for Things Fall Apart. In case you missed it, you can post your questions on this thread.

• That week we will also share an episode of Close Reads at the Movies about Billy Wilder’s classic film, The Apartment, which takes place between Christmas Eve and New Years Eve. (Heidi, Sean, and I all love this move a lot.)

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That brings us to our 2024 schedule . . .

. . . which will begin with P.G. Wodehouse’s Summer Lightning. Here’s the schedule for that:

January 1: chapters 1-5
January 8: to the end
January 15: Q&A

After Wodehouse, we’ll jump into Trollope’s The Warden. Here’s the schedule for that one:

January 22: chapters 1-5
January 29: chapters 6-10
February 5: chapters 11-15
February 12: to the end
February 19: Q&A

(ICYM: Here’s the order of books for 2024).

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Monthly Mysteries

Also: as we’ve mentioned on the last few episodes, we’ve got a new piece of content for subscribers to CRHQ: A monthly mystery novel. We’re very excited to dig into some of the great classics of the genre, from the best known writers like Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, to lesser known writers whose work is being re-issued through the British Crime Classics series. We even have a whole year’s worth of titles ready to go! Here they are:

January: Strong Poison (Dorothy Sayers)
February: Mysterious Affair at Styles (early Agatha Christie)
March: Post after Post-Mortem (ECR Lorac)
April: Double Indemnity (James Cain) + movie
May: The Franchise Affair (Josephine Tey)
June: 2 Father Brown stories (GK Chesterton)
July: The Maltese Falcon (Dashiell Hammett) + movie
August: Jumping Jenny (Anthony Berkley)
September: The Case of the Gilded Fly (Edmund Crispin)
October: Death of Jezebel (Christianna Brand)
November: A Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (later Agatha Christie)
December: The White Priory Murders (Carter Dickson)

Should you, hypothetically, wish to buy any of these titles through Goldberry, you can do so here at Bookshop.org.

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Live Poetry Hour

Our next live poetry hour for subscribers will be on Thursday, January 4, and will cover T.S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi”—just in time for Epiphany! Subscribers will receive the Zoom link that day.

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Well that’s all for now. If you have any questions please post them in the comments below.

Thanks so much for listening to the show and being a part of this community this year. May God grant you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Happy reading!