Update: "The Scarlet Letter" Schedule + More

(Including 5 must-read articles)

Almost every cover of “The Scarlet Letter” is terrible, so why not just check out this old title page.

Greetings friends,

I’m back on this side of the pond and ready to get back into the regular routine of things, especially given how crazy the last four or five weeks have been. Before Bethany and I left for England, I had two different bouts with Norovirus which laid me pretty low and kept me from appearing on a couple of episodes of the show, plus we’ve been dealing with construction in our downtown that’s been impacting the bookstore, we were preparing to head out of town, and we were getting ready to celebrate national indie bookshop day—one of our most important days of the year. Anyway, I don’t say that to make excuses, just to express how glad I am to be able to jump back into a more regular routine.

The Scarlet Letter Schedule

We have some great shows coming up, including our next series on The Scarlet Letter which will feature our friend, Karen Swallow Prior who, as you know, is an expert on this book. Heidi and I can’t wait to join Karen for these conversations (as we give Tim and Sean, those dads of new borns among us, a break). I know you are waiting for the schedule for that series, so without further ado, here you go:

Episode 1 (5/22): Customs House and Chapters 1-3
Episode 2 (5/29): Chapters 4-8
Episode 3 (6/5): Chapters 9-13
Episode 4 (6/12): Chapters 14-19
Episode 5 (6/19): Chapters 20-24
Episode 6 (6/26): Q&A Episode

If you still need to grab a copy of Karen’s edition of the book you can do so here.

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The Daily Poem is back!

Over the last year I’ve heard from an increasing number of people who miss The Daily Poem podcast. I am so pleased to discover how many people made this show a part of their daily routine and while it fell by the wayside as we were getting the shop stabilized, it’s high time to bring it back. So if you are one of those kind people who miss it, I’ve got good news: It’s coming back on May 22, with new episodes every week day.

You can subscribe to the TDP substack here, or you can listen via whichever podcast app you most prefer (Spotify, I’ve heard, is great for this particular show).

Can’t wait.

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Five Articles Worth Checking Out

While I’m here I wanted to share these five fascinating, worthwhile articles:

• I’m a huge Edward Hopper fan who Jillian Hess featured in the newest issue of her Noted newsletter. Of particular interest are the diaries kept by Hopper’s wife, Josephine, which amount to logs of the creation (and afterlife) of Hopper’s work.

• Jonathan Haidt’s wrote about the fact that kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with more serious mental health issues. Must read.

• Joel Miller, whose newsletter is one of my very favorites, wrote about “CS Lewis in Writing Hell” (i.e, writing projects that seem destined to kill the writer).

• You might have heard that one of my favorite novel releases of 2022, Trust, by Hernan Diaz, won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. Well, Elizabeth Powers wrote about how fascinating it is that this particular book was both a darling of both the critical establishment and the general reading public at once.

• Ted Gioia, the great music writer, offers 8 tips for struggling artists. Great stuff.

Much more coming soon, but for now that’s all. Happy reading!

Cheers!

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