Hello Close Reader,
These are strange and sad times we are living through, so it feels a bit weird to be writing an email newsletter about a superfluous book podcast. And yet, I suppose, the arts are as important as ever. Great books can provide solace and camaraderie, as well as insight into living wisely when things seem bleak. I hope that this little network and the conversations we are having can help provide a platform for this to happen, a canvas for the books to speak to all of us.
As you know, our next book is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a classic that is just strange enough to lead to some fascinating conversations (I think and hope).
Here is what you need to know about that series:
Episode one will go up on Wednesday, June 17
We will be reading the 1818 edition (but if you have the later editions it’s ok)
We will have two special guests joining us! Karen Swallow Prior and Joshua Gibbs. Karen is working on an annotated version of it, so maybe we can influence her notes. :) They both dearly love this book and I am excited to learn why. I’m a bit of a Frankenstein skeptic, so it should be fun.
Here’s the reading schedule for Frankenstein:
Episode 1: Volume 1 - Letter 1 to Chapter 2
Episode 2: Volume 1 - Chapters 3 - 7
Episode 3: Volume 2 - Chapters 1-5
Episode 4: Volume 2 - Chapters 6-9
Episode 5: Volume 3 - Chapters 1-4
Episode 6: Final chapters
Episode 7: Q&A episode (listener questions)
If you don’t have a copy of the 1818 edition, you can pick one up through Bookshop.org and support our show at the same time. Here’s the link.
A Mailbag Episode
One other thing before I go: We will be recording a mailbag episode for our Patreon feed. You can ask us anything you want. Ask about books, food, wine, snowshoes, Kitchen appliances, the state of Missouri, Icelandic licorice, placemats, uncover agents in snorkel gear, French medicinal herbs, or whatever else you might be interested in. We’ll answer as many questions as we can try — and we’ll try to have a good time while we do. Head over to the Facebook page to submit a question or just respond to this email!
That’ll do it for now, but as always thanks for listening.
Happy reading,
-DK and the Close Reads team