Read Me to Sleep, Ricky

Host Rick Whitaker reads the finale of Gordon Lish's 1986 novel Peru, a reading of the entire third part of the novel, "The Roof." Peru begins with its narrator announcing, “There is nothing which I will not tell you if I can think of it.” Gradually, the story of a dark childhood secret—real or imagined—unfolds: in 1940, six-year-old Gordon murdered his harelipped rival, Steven Adinoff, in a Long Island sandbox . . . (unless he didn't). Peru's narrator weaves together strands of disconnected, mesmerizing material, resurrecting memories of the mundane suburban childhood that spawned the killing: the sense of tedium on an endless summer day; the squishy sounds of a hoe digging into flesh. Ambiguous, complex, inventive, and subversively comic, Peru is a compendium of unnerving observations about memory, violence, obsession, and the potential horror behind the facade of an ordinary life.After Peru, a new novel by Gordon Lish (who is 89), will be published this December. Support the showRead to Me, Ricky is hosted by Rick Whitaker and produced in New York City. Contact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readtomericky.comPlease support the show if you can: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2042894/support

Read to Me, Ricky, hosted by Rick Whitaker, presents Going Home to Mother: stories from Gordon Lish's literary magazine The Quarterly. Support the showRead to Me, Ricky is hosted by Rick Whitaker and produced in New York City. Contact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readtomericky.comPlease support the show if you can: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2042894/support

HOST RICK WHITAKER READS A 1998 ESSAY BY JOY WILLIAMS, "WHY I WRITE" MUSIC: BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY 6 ARRANGED BY FRANZ LISZTSupport the showRead to Me, Ricky is hosted by Rick Whitaker and produced in New York City. Contact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readtomericky.comPlease support the show if you can: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2042894/support

"On the Sublime" is an essay from Aesthetical and Philosophical EssaysINTRODUCING THE DISSERTATION ON THE “CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL MAN.”BY FRIEDRICK (sp) SCHILLERLibrary EditionNEW YORK:The Publishers Plate Renting Co.Schiller is perhaps best known worldwide as the author of the "Ode to Joy" Beethoven set in the finale of his 9th Symphony. Many thanks to Richard Kerswill for his support! Support the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick Whitaker and produced in New York City. Contact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

The Quarterly was a literary magazine edited by Gordon Lish from 1987 to 1995. (I was Mr. Lish's editorial assistant in the early '90s.) I'll read just one story from the Spring 1988 issue of the journal: "Darling" by Willam Tester. Gordon Lish is an acclaimed author and editor. A former editor at Esquire and Alfred A. Knopf, he is celebrated for his notable work with authors including Raymond Carver, Denis Donoghue, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel, Gary Lutz, Ben Marcus, and Christine Schutt, among many others. His books include Dear Mr. Capote, What I Know So Far, Mourner at the Door, Extravaganza, White Plains, Peru, Zimzum, The Selected Stories of Gordon Lish, and more. He is married and lives in New York. He is 89 years old. Support the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick Whitaker and produced in New York City. Contact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

For the fifth episode of Season Three, host Rick Whitaker reads a strange and disturbing story by Barry Hannah. First published in Esquire Magazine in the summer of 1976, reprinted in the collection All Our Secrets Are the Same: New Fiction from Esquire,  again in Hannah's 1978 book Airships, and a fourth time in Barry Hannah's 2010 Long, Last, Happy: New and Selected Stories. Here's Barry Hannah's “Behold the Husband in His Perfect Agony,” edited by Gordon Lish. Support the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick Whitaker and produced in New York City. Contact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

The Quarterly was a literary magazine edited by Gordon Lish from 1987 to 1995. (I was Mr. Lish's editorial assistant in the early '90s.) I'll read three stories from the Spring 1987 first issue of the journal: "The Harvest" by Amy Hempel, "Sea Animals" by Tom Spanbauer, and "The Slit" by Yannick Murphy. Gordon Lish is an acclaimed author and editor. A former editor at Esquire and Alfred A. Knopf, he is celebrated for his notable work with authors including Raymond Carver, Denis Donoghue, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel, Gary Lutz, Ben Marcus, and Christine Schutt, among many others. His previous books include Dear Mr. Capote, What I Know So Far, Mourner at the Door, Extravaganza, White Plains, Peru, Zimzum, The Selected Stories of Gordon Lish, and more. He is married and lives in New York. He is 89 years old. Literary Guise Podcast: A Book Club for Modern MenA cocktail-infused book podcast, examining positive and toxic portrayals of masculinity.Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick Whitaker and produced in New York City. Contact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

"The Life You Gave Me," Bette Howland's 1983 story from her collection Things to Come and Go published by Knopf and edited by Gordon Lish. Literary Guise Podcast: A Book Club for Modern MenA cocktail-infused book podcast, examining positive and toxic portrayals of masculinity.Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick Whitaker and produced in New York City. Contact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

Host Rick Whitaker's selection of aphorisms with music from Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel. Literary Guise Podcast: A Book Club for Modern MenA cocktail-infused book podcast, examining positive and toxic portrayals of masculinity.Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick Whitaker and produced in New York City. Contact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

Read Me to Sleep, Ricky's host, Rick Whitaker, reads Raymond Carver's 1964 story "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?" With music by Brad Garton. Literary Guise Podcast: A Book Club for Modern MenA cocktail-infused book podcast, examining positive and toxic portrayals of masculinity.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Eye-Opening Moments PodcastEye-Opening Moments are stories of adversity, encounters, and perspectives. They are...Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick Whitaker and produced in New York City. Contact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

Season Three of Read Me To Sleep, Ricky features the short story, beginning with two by Katherine Mansfield (1880-1923) read by your host, Rick Whitaker. Both are from her 1922 collection The Garden Party: "Life of Ma Parker" and "The Singing Lesson" with music from The Fairy Queen (1692) by Henry Purcell. Literary Guise Podcast: A Book Club for Modern MenA cocktail-infused book podcast, examining positive and toxic portrayals of masculinity.Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick Whitaker and produced in New York City. Contact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

"School Days" is from Richard Howard's 2008 collection of poetry Without Saying. A distinguished poet, critic and translator, Richard Howard held a unique place in contemporary American letters. Howard was credited with introducing modern French fiction—particularly examples of the Nouveau Roman—to the American public; his translation of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (1984) won a National Book Award in 1984. A selection of Howard's critical prose was collected in the volume Paper Trail: Selected Prose 1965-2003, and his collection of essays Alone with America: Essays on the Art of Poetry in the United States since 1950 (1969) was praised as one of the first comprehensive overviews of American poetry from the latter half of the 20th century. First and foremost a poet, Howard's many volumes of verse also received widespread acclaim; he won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his collection Untitled Subjects. His other honors included the American Book Award, the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize, the PEN Translation Medal, the Levinson Prize, and the Ordre National du Mérite from the French government. For many years, Howard was the poetry editor of the Paris Review.Known for his erudition and interest in the nature of artistic expression, Howard's poems are often dramatic monologues in which figures from history and literature speak directly to the reader. From Howard's first book, Quantities (1962), his approach to the dramatic monologue set him apart as a unique practitioner of contemporary poetry. Using voices from characters as disparate as Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, Henry James, and Orpheus among others, Howard's narrative monologues are darkly comic, laced with irony and sadness, and distinctly learned. Early books such as The Damages (1967) and Untitled Subjects (1969) saw Howard honing his skill with a wide range of subjects and voices. Frequently addressing the incommensurability of word and world, Barbara Fischer asserted in her review of Talking Cures (2003) that “in [Howard's] work's insistent writtenness and its collages of polyvocal quotation he reminds us that the immediacy of contact—vocal, erotic, somatic, sensory contact—is out of reach as soon as we write about it.”Howard's work in the 1970s and '80s continued to explore the use of monologue, dialogue, and other forms of the speaking voice in his poetry. In Two-Part Inventions (1974) and Fellow Feelings (1976), he creates imaginary conversations between historical persons, uncovering shared assumptions and emotions between himself and such writers as Walt Whitman and Charles Baudelaire. The poems of Misgivings (1979) are all addressed to the subjects of 19th-century photographic portraits, while those of Lining Up (1984) are the voices of artists and musicians. Speaking to Allen Wiggins of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Howard explained that in his poems he tries to get “out of the way of voices, letting the voices speak through me and for me, and I have discovered that my own experience can be represented much better than it can be presented.” With his 10th book of poetry, Like Most Revelations (1994), Howard inhabits the voices of Edith Wharton and Walt Whitman, but he also offers elegies for friends who have died from AIDS and cancer. Support the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick WhitakerContact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

Read Me to Sleep, Ricky's host Rick Whitaker reads his own selection of aphorisms by Americans: Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Jane Jacobs, Mencken, Santayana, and Aaron Haspel.Music: Frederic Rzewski's "The People United Will Never Be Defeated" VariationsSupport the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick WhitakerContact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

In tonight's episode of Read Me to Sleep, Ricky, host Rick Whitaker reads a classic love story by the Russian master Anton Chekhov. Published in 1899, translated by Constance Garnett. Music: Tchaikovsky's "Souvenir de Florence," second movement Support the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick WhitakerContact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

Poet and translator par excellence Richard Howard, who was a dear friend, died March 31, 2022 at 92. His 1982 translation of Baudelaire's masterpiece, Les Fleurs du Mal, won the National Book Award.Read here by Rick WhitakerWith affectionate thanks to David AlexanderSupport the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick WhitakerContact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

Read Me to Sleep, Ricky's host, Rick Whitaker, reads his selection of Blaise Pascal's Pensees interposed with J.S. Bach's Little Preludes and Italian Concerto. Pianist: Glenn GouldSupport the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick WhitakerContact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

Lojong (Tib. བློ་སྦྱོང་,Wylie: blo sbyong) is a mind training practice in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition based on a set of aphorisms formulated in Tibet in the 12th century by Chekawa Yeshe Dorje. The practice involves refining and purifying one's motivations and attitudes.The fifty-nine or so slogans that form the root text of the mind training practice are designed as a set of antidotes to undesired mental habits that cause suffering. They contain both methods to expand one's viewpoint towards absolute bodhicitta, such as "Find the consciousness you had before you were born" and "Treat everything you perceive as a dream", and methods for relating to the world in a more constructive way with relative bodhicitta, such as "Be grateful to everyone" and "When everything goes wrong, treat disaster as a way to wake up."Chanting: The Gyuto Monks of Tibet (Yamantaka)Support the showRead Me to Sleep, Ricky is hosted by Rick WhitakerContact: rickawhitaker@gmail.comhttps://readmetosleepricky.com

Read Me to Sleep, Ricky's host Rick Whitaker reads John Gardner's 1971 monster novel GRENDEL (in lower-than-usual monster voice). Music by Brad Garton. Support the show

Edmund White's A Boy's Own Story: The Graphic Novel: Alessandro, Brian, Carroll, Michael, White, Edmund, Karash, Igor: 9781603095082: Amazon.com: BooksEdmund Valentine White III (born 1940) is an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer and an essayist on literary and social topics. Since 1999 he has been a professor at Princeton University. France made him Chevalier (and later Officier) de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1993. White's books include The Joy of Gay Sex, written with Charles Silverstein (1977); his trilogy of semi-autobiographic novels, A Boy's Own Story (1982), The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988) and The Farewell Symphony (1997); and his biography of Jean Genet. Much of his writing is on the theme of same-sex love. White has also written biographies of three French writers: Jean Genet, Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud. He is the namesake of the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, awarded annually by Publishing Triangle. Pianist: Vadim ChaimovichSupport the show

Read Me to Sleep, Ricky host Rick Whitaker reads a selection from Mark Scott's 2007 collection A  Bedroom Occupation. "... the most heart-breaking love poetry since that other Empire fell." --Richard Howard"Is that afterglow or is the house on fire? Scott's work and writing have an almost narcotic power."--David Rakoff"These letters from a self-described 'faithless man' are intelligent, intimate, and illuminating." --Molly GilesMark Scott was born in 1959 in Denver, Colorado. He was educated at the University of Colorado, University College London, Università per Stranieri di Perugia, and received an English Ph.D. from Rutgers. Mark is currently living in Japan, where he is Professor of English at Nara Women's University. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and won the Academy of American Poets Prize in 1992. His work has appeared in Poetry, Santa Monica Review, The Kenyon Review, Western Humanities Review, and Streams of William James. His poetry collections are Tactile Values (New Issues, 2000),  A Bedroom Occupation: Love Elegies (Lumen Books, 2007), and Balance Sheets  (Kingston UP, 2022).Support the show

Read Me to Sleep, Ricky host Rick Whitaker reads new translations of songs composed 800 years ago. Troubadours were well-known secular entertainers whose songs explored love and politics, mostly love, and mostly "distant love." Troubadours were active during the High Middle Ages, 1100-1350.The  word troubadour arose from the Occitan language. Occitania was never a country or single political entity, but more of a cultural group united by the use of the Occitan language and geography. The region considered Occitania contained parts of present-day southern France, Monaco, and small pieces of Spain and Italy.  Occitan is a Romance language deriving from Latin and is similar in various ways to French, Italian, and Spanish.Troubadours were generally supported by a wealthy patron for a period of time before traveling to a new court.  In the rigid social structure of the Middle Ages, troubadours occupied an ambiguous place.  Many of the early troubadours came from the nobility, either the high nobility or the class of knights, but throughout the era, troubadours from lower social classes also emerged.  Troubadours were employed to entertain at court, and often enjoyed many of the pleasures and privileges enjoyed by the wealthiest members of society.  It is as a result of this patronage that many important examples of their songs and poetry survive.  Troubadours would create songbooks known as chansoniers for their patrons, and the preservation of these books in libraries of castles allows them to now grace some of the top international research libraries.The recording is by Studio der frühen Musik led by the singer Thomas Binkley in 1970. The translations are adapted by Rick Whitaker. Support the show

 Read Me to Sleep, Ricky host Rick Whitaker is joined by actress Carmela Marner for a reading of James Joyce's classic story "The Dead." In her 1987 review of John Huston's film based on the James Joyce story, Pauline Kael wrote, 'The announcement that John Huston was making a movie of James Joyce's “The Dead” raised the question “Why?” What could images do that Joyce's words hadn't? And wasn't Huston pitting himself against a master who, though he was only twenty-five when he wrote the story, had given it full form? (Or nearly full—Joyce's language gains from being read aloud.)' "The Dead" is the final story in the 1914 collection Dubliners by James Joyce.  It was well-received by critics and academics and described by T. S. Eliot as "one of the greatest stories ever written".Carmela Marner is best known for her stage performances and her direction of the Franklin Stage Company in upstate New York. She is the reader of several books for Audible and appears in the films Puss In Boots, Beauty and the Beast, Call Red, Mission: Impossible, Casualty, Staying Alive, Quid Pro Quo, and Eyes Wide Shut. She is a professor in the Theater Department at SUNY Oneonta.  Support the show

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was the pre-eminent master of the aphorism in the second half of the 19th century. Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) was one of the greatest of all pianists and his compositions were mostly for solo piano, and most were shorter than ten minutes. For this episode of Read Me to Sleep, Ricky, your host Rick Whitaker reads his own selection and arrangement of Oscar Wilde's aphorisms including the entire "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young." The recording of Chopin Nocturnes is by Guiomar Novaes (1895 – 1979).We recommend listening with auto-play OFF and the volume fairly low. So get into bed, close your eyes, and listen as you drift off to sleep. Don't bother arguing with Oscar. Though often preposterous, his style never flags. Even on his deathbed, as the story goes, in a cheap Paris hotel,  he managed to be funny: "Either this wallpaper goes, or I do."                   Brazilian pianist Guiomar Novaes (1895-1979) entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1909 at age 14 and instantly caught the attention of Debussy, who had been on her entrance jury. Even by that young age, she had already made fundamental decisions about musical interpretation. Her teacher at the Conservatoire, Isidor Philipp, found it difficult to persuade her to change her interpretations of things such as tempo once she had made up her mind. By 1910, she was already on the concert stage, performing in Paris, London, and on tour in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany and she was only 19 when she made her New York debut at Aeolian Hall. Her final appearance in New York was nearly 60 years later, with a concert in 1972.  She began with a large repertoire and gradually narrowed it, becoming most famous for her Chopin interpretations. Support the show

A reading by host Rick Whitaker of the opening pages of Michel Foucault's 1975 magnum opus Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la prison translated by Alan Sheridan as Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison published in 1977 by Pantheon Books. "On 2 March 1757 Damiens the regicide was condemned 'to make the amende honorable before the main door of the Church of Paris', where he was to be 'taken and conveyed in a cart, wearing nothing but a shirt, holding a torch of burning wax weighing two pounds'; then, 'in said cart, to the Place de Greve, where, on a scaffold that will be erected there, the flesh will be torn from his breasts, arms, thighs and calves with red-hot pincers...." Music by Brad Garton. Support the show

The second installment of Herman Melville's leviathan novel Moby Dick read by host Rick Whitaker with music by Brad Garton. Support the show

Read Me to Sleep, Ricky host Rick Whitaker reads "On a Winded Civilization," an essay by the Romanian writer E.M. Cioran (1911-1995) from his 1956 collection  The Temptation to Exist. The introduction to the English-language edition translated (from the French) by Richard Howard is by Susan Sontag, who wrote: "Cioran's subject: on being a mind, a consciousness tuned to the highest pitch of refinement." Read Me to Sleep, Ricky recommends listening at a medium-low volume and with auto-play turned off: the purpose of this podcast is to help its audience get to sleep. Music by Brad GartonSupport the show

The first episode of Read Me to Sleep Ricky's second season is a reading by host Rick Whitaker from his own 2013 novel An Honest Ghost. "Like an Italian micromosaic, whose infinitesimal ceramic tesserae generate an unearthly glow just by being in close proximity to each other, Rick Whitaker's An Honest Ghost is both narrative and objet, a singular work of art whose singularity keeps beckoning to the reader. He has put the force back into tour de force." --John AshberyComposed entirely of discrete, unedited sentences recycled from more than 500 other books, An Honest Ghost is an autobiographical literary feat unlike any other. Music: Brad Garton's Coronavirus Suite (2020)The transcription following contains a list of all the quotes, in order of appearance, that make up An Honest Ghost. Each quote is followed by the author who wrote it; the book in my library from which the sentence was taken; and the page number on which it appears in that edition. RWSupport the show

For the 17th episode of Read Me to Sleep, Ricky, host Rick Whitaker reads excerpts from Elizabeth Hardwick's 1979 novel Sleepless Nights. "A brilliant night in New York City. It is Saturday and people with debts are going to restaurants, jumping in taxi-cabs, careening from West to East by way of the underpass through the Park."--- Support the show

Episode 16 of Read Me to Sleep, Ricky features a 1949 story, Camp Cataract, by Jane Bowles (1917-1973) read by your host, Rick Whitaker. Support the show

In this new episode of Read Me to Sleep, Ricky host Rick Whitaker reads Christopher Coe's 1987 short debut novel I Look Divine, first published by Knopf and edited by Gordon Lish. Coe was a classmate at Columbia of Amy Hempel, David Leavitt, and Anderson Ferrell. His second and last book was the novel Such Times. He died of AIDS at 39 in 1994.  For the music, thanks to Magdalena Baczewska. Support the show

"Call me Ishmael." The greatest of American novels, by Herman Melville. Part One: in which Ishmael and Queequog lie abed and together and are married. Support the show

Rick Whitaker, host of Read Me to Sleep, Ricky, reads Stefan Zweig's 1927 novella "Confusion." A bewildered young man in Berlin is sent by his father to a university in a small town. There, a brilliant lecture awakens in him a passion for learning—as well as a  peculiarly intense fascination with the professor who gave the talk. The student grows close to the professor, be­coming a regular visitor to the apartment he shares with his much younger wife. He takes  it upon himself to urge his teacher to finish the great work of scholarship that he has been laboring at for years and even offers to help him in any way he can. The professor welcomes the young man's  attentions, at least on some days. On others, he rages without apparent reason or turns away from his disciple with cold scorn. The young man is baffled, wounded. He cannot understand. But the wife understands. She understands perfectly. And one way or another she will help him to understand too.Support the show

Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank was born in 1886, the son of Sir Thomas Firbank, MP, and Lady Firbank. He had an older brother, a younger brother, and a sister. At the age of ten Firbank went briefly to Uppingham School, and then on to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1907. In 1909 he left Cambridge without taking a degree. Living off his inheritance, he traveled around Spain, Italy, the Middle East, and North Africa. Openly gay and chronically shy, he was an enthusiastic consumer of alcohol and cannabis. He died of lung disease in Rome, aged 40, having composed some dozen novels. For this episode of "Read Me to Sleep, Ricky," your host Rick Whitaker reads Firbank's 1923 novel "The Flower Beneath the Foot." Support the show

Herland is a utopian novel written in 1915 by American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It describes a society of women who bear children without men, an ideal social order free of war, conflict, and domination. It was first published in monthly  installments in 1915 in a magazine edited and written by Gilman. It was followed by its sequel, With Her in Ourland and is considered to be the middle volume in her trilogy,  preceded by Moving the Mountain (1911). It was not published in book form until 1979. Gilman is also author of "The Yellow Wallpaper." Special thanks to writer Slim Russell for recommending Herland for "Read Me to Sleep, Ricky," the podcast hosted by Rick Whitaker.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show

For the tenth episode of "Read Me to Sleep, Ricky," a reading of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1867 translation of Dante's Italian poem "Inferno," introducing American readers to the work of a much-loved poet. Dante's "Divine Comedy" went on to also include "Purgatory" and "Paradise," and Longfellow translated all three. His elaborate and often awkward poetry is an ideal soporific, and will surely put you to sleep.  Midway upon the journey of our life    I found myself within a forest dark....--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show

Tonight, a reading from Leaves of Grass by the supreme American poet, Walt Whitman. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show

A reading of two short stories by James Joyce from "Dubliners," his only collection of short fictions, published in 1914.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show

Tonight I'll read Emily Post's original book, "Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home" published 100 years ago in August 1922. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show

A reading of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 1892 story of female hysteria The Yellow Wallpaper. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show

In this episode I read Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1844 essay "Experience."--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show

A reading aloud by host Rick Whitaker of Oscar Wilde's famous 1897-8 poem written after his release from prison--in what was called Reading Gaol. It was first published anonymously, with just the name "C.3.3." (Cell block C, landing 3, cell 3). Wilde, having been convicted of "gross indecency," was largely persona non grata after his sentence, and he spent the rest of his life in exile. His poem's first edition of 800 copies sold out within a week, and continued to sell after his name had been added in 1899. During Wilde's imprisonment, Charles Thomas Wooldridge was hanged after being convicted of fatally cutting the throat of his wife. He was 30 years old.The music for this, the fourth episode of Read Me to Sleep, Ricky, is by Brad Garton.   --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show

Tonight I'll read aloud Dorothy Parker's medium-funny, short book of 1922 "Men I'm Not Married To." With music by Brad Garton. We hope this will put you right to sleep. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show

In the second episode of Read Me to Sleep, Ricky, I'll read from Ludwig Wittgenstein's 1922 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show

Tonight I'll be reading aloud from Gertrude Stein's 1922 collection Geography and Plays. Following an earnest introduction by Sherwood Anderson, the experimental texts by Stein include Susie Asado, Ada, Miss Furr and Miss Skeene, A Collection, France, Americans, Italians, Ladies' Voices, and many many more. So get into bed, turn off the lights, close your eyes, and let Ricky read you to sleep. Photo of Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein in Paris, 1922, by Man Ray.--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show

Read Me to Sleep, Ricky is the new podcast by Rick Whitaker that uses good books for their musical language and sleep-inducing qualities read aloud to prove that good as the book may be there is no need to hear its ending and perfectly alright to let it lull you to sleep. Getting to sleep can be tricky. So go to bed and listen to Read Me to Sleep, Ricky.--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show