Podcasts about Beowulf

Epic poetry has inspired storytellers for centuries, but few have made it as accessible and entertaining for modern readers as Alexis Fajardo. On this episode, Alexis joins the Bandits to discuss The Kid Beowulf Odyssey Annual, the latest adventure in his acclaimed all-ages graphic novel series that reimagines classic myths through the eyes of twin brothers Beowulf and Grendel. The conversation explores Alexis's love of mythology, his approach to adapting legendary tales for today's audiences, and the challenge of balancing education, humor, and action in a way that appeals to readers of all ages. Along the way, Alexis reflects on his career as a cartoonist and editor, the enduring appeal of epic storytelling, and what's next for the ever-expanding world of Kid Beowulf. You can back The Kid Beowulf Odyssey Annual through August 1 at kck.st/4uUEuhF. Follow Alexis at kidbeowulf.com and on Instagram @lexfajardoart. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We’ve got five literature classics to introduce to your family through board games. 0:00:00 Fact for 426 The number of people living past the age of 80 worldwide is projected to triple, hitting roughly 426 million by the year 2050. Sponsor Message Go to FirstMoveFinancial.com/familygamers and set up a free 15 minute call to see if they can help! 0:04:30 What We’ve Been Playing Obelus (our review)Spirits of the Wild: AwakeningFire TowerPalette *Tag Team (*) first time mentioned on The Family Gamers Podcast June Monthly Report Andrew: 22 plays of 8 unique games. H-index 3 (LotR Trick Taking, Trio, Got Five!) Anitra: 27 plays of 12 unique games. H-index 3 (same as Andrew) 0:16:45 The Family Gamers Community Welcome new members! #Backtalk We asked you about how you treat board games. Read the answers on Facebook or #backtalk channel of the Discord. 0:22:40 Classic Literature to Introduce via Board Games We’re going to focus on games that will whet the appetite: You don’t need to already know the stories to enjoy them, but there’s enough to make kids WANT to dig deeper. 1. Winnie the Pooh stories by A.A. Milne: Hundred Acre Wood Fluxx 2. Classic Grimm’s fairy tales: The Grimm Masquerade and 3 Chapters – both of these games make characters from different tales interact, but with specialized relationships unique to each one. 3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: tons of games that riff on this character. But the best to introduce the setting and themes from Doyle’s stories include: Unmatched: Cobble & Fog Baker Street Irregulars (4-book / 4-player mystery from Van Ryder publishing) Sherlock 13 (deduction of a criminal, introduces many characters) 4. Shakespeare: be careful in how you approach this! Shakespeare is wonderful, but not great if you’re forced to read it. We recommend Unmatched: Slings & Arrows to introduce some of the fun of Shakespeare. 5. Greek mythology: Horrified: Greek Monsters Santorini Iliad (Unmatched has Medusa in BoL1, Achilles & Patroclus in BoL2) One more shout out for the Unmatched series. They pull from tons of classics: Alice in Wonderland, Beowulf, Robin Hood, Sinbad, and even modern “classics” like Jurassic Park, Marvel characters, The Witcher, Buffy, and TMNT. (Other games based on classic literature that are great, but work much better if you already love the story: Ichor, Bottle Imp, Paint the Roses, Princess and the Goblin, The Grimm Forest) 0:46:10 New Backtalk Question What’s your hidden gem? What’s a lesser-known game that you just click with? Or a game that you think should be much better known because it’s awesome? Tell us on the #backtalk channel on our Discord, or in our Facebook community. Find Us Online: Facebook: @familygamersaa and thefamilygamers.com/communityTwitter (X): @familygamersaaInstagram: @familygamersaaTikTok: @familygamersaaBluesky: @familygamersaaThreads: @familygamersaaYoutube: TheFamilyGamers or join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord! thefamilygamers.com/discord Or, for the most direct method, email us! andrew@thefamilygamers.com and anitra@thefamilygamers.com. PLEASE don’t forget to subscribe to the show, tell your friends about the show, and leave us a review at Apple Podcast or whatever your podcast subscription source is. We’re also on Amazon Music, TuneIn, and Spotify. You can also now find us on YouTube Music! So pull it up and give us a listen while you’re toiling away at work :) If you’d like to support The Family Gamers, there’s three ways to do that. First, you can pick up some sweet sweet merch: T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and stickers! Go to store.thefamilygamers.com You can also support us on Patreon, if that’s more your speed. We have a few different support tiers from just a couple of dollars to show your appreciation – which we appreciate – up to five, ten, or even $20/month. There are all sorts of different rewards you can get, which we tried to make unique. You can see those at thefamilygamers.com/patreon. Thirdly, you can start your Amazon shopping at TheFamilyGamers website, using our Amazon affiliate link. Music for The Family Gamers Podcast is provided with permission from You Bred Raptors? The Family Gamers is sponsored by First Move Financial. Go to FirstMoveFinancial.com/familygamers to learn how the team at First Move Financial can help you pile up the victory points. The post Episode 426 – 5 Classic Books to Introduce via Games appeared first on The Family Gamers.

Shownotes    Why men have been led to misunderstand what the masculine actually is What the first stage, second stage, and third stage of relationship look like Why a deeply safe person can activate an unsafe nervous system The 3 things men need to address to heal the pain between genders Why love and relationships are in an evolutionary moment right now A simple embodied practice to drop into your masculine or feminine   Bio John Wineland is a world renowned author, teacher, and speaker. For nearly two decades, he has guided thousands of men and women in the realms of masculine and feminine embodiment, sexual polarity, and sacred intimacy.   His best selling book, From The Core: A New Masculine Paradigm for Leading with Love, Living Your Truth & Healing the World, has been translated into five languages and continues to support men around the world.   His next book, Evolutionary Love, releases in late 2026 and lays out the four pillars of a new approach to romantic partnership, sexual artistry, and the practice of love itself. John is the host of The Embodied Relationship Experience, the #1 podcast on relationships and sacred intimacy. His teachings blend energetic and practical approaches, offering profound insights into leadership, polarity, and conscious relationships.   Follow John's work on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook and learn about his new women's program The Body of Love and membership platform The Embodied Relationship Experience.   Does learning about Tantra, conscious partnership, and sacred sexuality light you up?   VITA™ Coaching is your next step ✨   Doors open soon, join the waitlist to be the first to know when they do! Follow Layla!

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Professor Paul Robichaud — Professor of English at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut — to discuss his remarkable new book, Stories of the Stones: Imagining Prehistory in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany, published by Reaktion Books on July 6th. Paul is not an archaeologist but a literary scholar, and his book takes a completely different approach to prehistoric monuments: rather than asking who built them or how, he asks what stories people have told about them across the centuries — and what those stories reveal about us. From the earliest Greek account of a possible spherical temple on a northern island (possibly Callanish), through Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century account of Merlin flying Stonehenge from Ireland, through the antiquarian fantasies of Inigo Jones (who decided Stonehenge was Roman and helpfully corrected its geometry to fit) and William Stukeley (who invented the Druid connection that has never entirely gone away), through the Romantics — Wordsworth's visions of human sacrifice, Blake's prophetic paintings, Turner's atmospheric canvases — to the 1970s counterculture, folk horror films, and our own climate-anxious present, the book traces how five millennia of imagining these ancient places tells us as much about the people doing the imagining as it does about the stones themselves. Jonathan and Paul also share their personal favorite prehistoric sites, including Avebury, Wayland Smithy, and — Jonathan's top pick — Castlerigg in Cumbria. Links Stories of the Stones by Paul Robichaud (Reaktion Books, July 6) Stores of Stones - Amazon Stonehenge — English Heritage Avebury — National Trust Wayland's Smithy, Oxfordshire — English Heritage Castlerigg Stone Circle, Cumbria — National Trust Callanish Standing Stones, Isle of Lewis Stanton Drew Stone Circles, Somerset Newgrange, Ireland The Ridgeway National Trail Albertus Magnus College Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways The word "prehistoric" didn't exist until the mid-19th century. For most of human history, people encountering these monuments had no framework for understanding them as ancient — they were simply there, part of the landscape, and the stories told about them reflected whatever worldview the storyteller brought: giants, biblical patriarchs, Roman engineers, druid priests, or earth energies. Stonehenge is unique among stone circles not because of its age or size but because of its distinctive architecture — upright stones with lintels resting on mortise-and-tenon joints, clearly intentional and clearly extraordinary. Its location on a relatively populated southern English plain also meant it was seen by far more people across the centuries than monuments in Wales or the Outer Hebrides. The Stonehenge we see today is not how it looked for most of recorded history. Many of the stones that appear upright were raised during restoration work in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the contemporary visitor's experience of a cleaned-up, presented monument is itself a kind of modern imagination of what people thought it should look like. Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century account — in which Merlin magically flies the stones from Ireland to Salisbury Plain as a memorial to fallen British nobles — dominated the medieval imagination for centuries because there simply were no rival stories. With no archaeological framework and no competing account, his version was accepted as genuine British history. Inigo Jones concluded that Stonehenge must be a Roman temple, and helpfully corrected its irregular geometry in his drawings to make it look properly classical. William Stukeley correctly identified the Druids as the likely builders — and then spent decades constructing increasingly elaborate Druidical fantasies connecting ancient Britain to biblical monotheism. Both men are cautionary examples of how we make evidence fit our assumptions. The Druid/Stonehenge association is almost entirely modern — an 18th-century invention that has almost no basis in archaeological evidence. The Iron Age Celts we associate with Druids arrived in Britain centuries after Stonehenge was built. But the association was cemented through repeated reproduction in engravings and illustrations — like a cultural meme — and has proved impossible to dislodge. The Romantics found in prehistoric monuments the perfect embodiment of the Sublime — Edmund Burke's idea of awe and terror in the presence of something vast and unknowable. Wordsworth had what he described as visions of ancient Britons and human sacrifice after being stranded near Stonehenge in a carriage accident; Blake incorporated megaliths into his prophetic paintings; Turner painted Stonehenge in dramatic atmospheric light. These Romantic responses shaped how visitors expected to feel at these sites for generations afterward. Paul's most unexpectedly moving site visit was to Wayland's Smithy in Oxfordshire — a Neolithic chambered tomb accessible via the ancient Ridgeway path. He had it entirely to himself in the rain, found a fresh offering of flowers left by a previous visitor, and experienced the kind of quiet communion with place that Stonehenge, with its crowds and visitor management, rarely allows. Jonathan's personal favorite prehistoric site is Castlerigg in Cumbria — a stone circle set on a hill and surrounded by mountains, relatively unknown and often visitable in near-solitude. Paul's is Avebury, which he recommends over Stonehenge for anyone wanting to actually walk among the stones rather than view them from a distance. Our contemporary fascination with prehistoric monuments is increasingly shaped by environmental anxiety — a need to reconnect with the landscape and with deep human time at a moment of climate crisis and technological acceleration. The stories we now tell about standing stones are as revealing of our own moment as Geoffrey of Monmouth's were of the 12th century. Soundbites "I had one book that had a picture of a druid kind of surfing on a large stone coming into Stonehenge — like he's landing. The idea was that they must have levitated the stones using Earth energies. The 70s was a time when there was a lot of interest in what we call New Age thinking. All that was kind of in the air when I was a kid." — Paul on his childhood introduction to prehistoric Britain. "I'm more interested in what these stories are doing and what they reveal about the people who are telling them. We can get some insight into what these places have meant to people who have visited them and lived alongside them for centuries and even millennia. The stories are interesting in their own right." — Paul on what a literary scholar sees that an archaeologist might not. "Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed to get his information from a mysterious book in Welsh that no one else had ever heard of and has never been identified or located. He was clearly a fabulator. But his account dominated the Middle Ages and kept getting retold all through the Renaissance because there were no rival stories." — Paul on Geoffrey of Monmouth's enduring influence. "Inigo Jones with his very careful architectural drawings, correcting the shape of Stonehenge to make it fit his vision, is a kind of exaggerated form of what we're all tempted to do — which is make things fit our assumptions about the world." — Paul on antiquarian projection. "The controversy around Druids in the 1700s was not whether they conducted their rites at Stonehenge — that was assumed — but whether the Druids were noble philosophers who had a secret wisdom, or bloodthirsty priests using human sacrifice to terrify the population into submission. Stukeley and his friend Borlase fell out over this." — Paul on the 18th-century Druid debate. "You've got a stone circle, you've got a druid there, and they're just always together. It becomes like a meme. And then they're taken up by the Romantics. So it really gets cemented in the popular imagination." — Paul on how the Druid/Stonehenge association became inescapable. "The Romantics find this admiration for the rugged beauty of these sites. Edmund Burke's idea of the sublime — that we experience awe in wild places that provoke a frisson of fear — becomes a kind of defining experience that travelers have at Stonehenge. These sites are viewed through the same lens as Niagara Falls." — Paul on the Romantic discovery of the prehistoric sublime. "I walked from the visitor center and I was glad I did. You see the barrows and the wooded land and then finally, a little bit in the distance, Stonehenge itself. And it really is impressive. You get at least a little bit of that experience of what it must have been like to suddenly see it in front of you in the landscape." — Paul's practical advice for visiting Stonehenge. "I drove up to Wayland's Smithy and I had the place to myself. It was raining, just one of those English drizzles. You walk down this pathway and then all of a sudden this really magnificent tomb is in front of you with standing stones around it. Someone had left an offering of flowers there. It was really beautiful." — Paul on his most unexpectedly moving prehistoric site visit. "As we're living in this increasingly dire moment of climate change, there's a sense of urgency in thinking about our relationship to the landscape. And we live in a time of unprecedented technological change — we spend so much of our time staring at screens. I think this interest in the deep past is something more and more people are developing as a way of connecting to our cultural and human origins." — Paul on why prehistoric monuments still matter today. Chapters 00:26 Introduction — Jonathan introduces Paul Robichaud and Stories of the Stones 02:15 Origin Story — Leonard Nimoy's In Search Of, Usborne books, and a trip to Callanish in 1998 03:42 A Literary Scholar Looks at Standing Stones — What Paul's approach reveals that archaeology alone can't 05:28 Why Britain, Ireland and Brittany? — The megalithic density of northwestern Europe and the span from 4500 BC to 3000 BC 07:42 A Catalog of Monument Types — Burial mounds, menhirs, stone circles, dolmens, earthworks, and what distinguishes them 08:57 The Word "Prehistoric" Didn't Exist Until the 19th Century — How the lack of a framework shaped every story told before it 11:13 Why Stonehenge Above All Others — The lintels, the mortise-and-tenon joints, the location, and the architecture of uniqueness 13:49 Stonehenge Is Not What It Looked Like — Restoration, re-erected stones, and why we see a cleaned-up version 16:33 Avebury vs. Stonehenge — Why Avebury often offers a more powerful experience, and the tip to walk rather than take the bus 18:06 Diodorus Siculus and the Spherical Temple — The earliest possible written reference to a British megalithic monument 20:51 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Merlin — The 12th-century account that dominated the medieval imagination for centuries 23:54 The Welsh Tradition — Arthurian connections, early saints, St. Samson, and the distinct Welsh relationship with prehistoric places 26:04 Old English Anxiety — Giants, barrow demons, Beowulf's dragon, and the fear that ran through early medieval English culture 28:26 The Antiquarians — Inigo Jones decides Stonehenge is Roman and corrects its geometry to fit 31:05 William Stukeley — The genuine archaeological pioneer who invented the Druid connection that has never gone away 36:05 Why Modern Druids at Stonehenge Are Performing a Modern Tradition — And why that doesn't make it meaningless 38:15 The Romantic Imagination — Burke's Sublime, Wordsworth's visions, Blake's prophecies, Turner's light 41:01 Wordsworth's Carriage Accident and the Wicker Man — How personal experience and literary reading combine at these sites 43:38 The Modern Era — Counterculture, New Age, Doctor Who, folk horror, and our climate-anxious present 46:33 Practical Tips for Visiting — Stonehenge, Avebury, Stanton Drew and its pub, Callanish, and what to prioritize 48:33 Personal Favorites — Wayland's Smithy (Paul) and Castlerigg in Cumbria (Jonathan) 51:00 Wrap-Up — Stories of the Stones out July 6 from Reaktion Books Video Version

Andy and Dani have a really good interesting time. Do we remember anything about the original Beowulf? Probably not. Do we act like we remember? One of us does. Do we understand Beowulf? Yaaaaa sureeeeee.

The Middle Ages aren't just the Dark Ages! It's one of the richest literary eras in Western history. This week's Classical Et Cetera finds Jessica, Tanya, Paul, and Dr. Dan Scheffler building a reading list for the medieval world. From Beowulf and the Arthurian legends to Dante's Divine Comedy, Boethius, and Thomas Aquinas, there's so much to read here. Whether you're new to medieval literature or filling in the gaps, this conversation will show you what to read, where to start, and why these books still matter. Best Books of the Middle Ages (476–1450 AD) Literature picks: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Beowulf  Le Morte d'Arthur Canterbury Tales The Song of Roland Troubadour/lyric poetry of the Middle Ages The Decameron Philosophy & Theology picks: Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Anselm Bede The Divine Comedy C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image

A 75 éves Robert Zemeckisről, a "Vissza a jövőbe"-trilógia, a "Forrest Gump" és más zseniális filmek rendezőjéről beszélgettünk. Zemeckist sokan "csak" egy "kis Spielbergként" tartják számon, pedig a maga jogán követelhet helyet a filmlexikonokban.Robert Zemeckis egész pályafutása egyfajta folyamatos kísérlet az idő manipulálására, a karakterek sorsának formálására és a technológia határainak feszegetésére. Már fiatalon felkeltette érdeklődését a film és a televízió, és először szülővárosában, Chicagóban dolgozott tévéreklámok és hírműsorok szerkesztőjeként. Ez a munka késztette arra, hogy átigazoljon a Dél-Kaliforniai Egyetemre (USC), ahol a felvételi anyagában egy Beatles-dalra forgatott klip is szerepelt.A USC először elutasította, de a felvételiztetőnek megígérte, hogy a nyári iskolába fog járni és felhúzza az addig siralmas középiskolai átlagát. Az a pimaszság is nagy szerepet játszott kezdeti sikereiben, hogy bement Steven Spielberg irodájába egy diákfilmjével, és megkérte Spielberget, hogy vegye fel rendezőnek a saját cégéhez. Spielbergnek tetszett a hozott anyag és végül az első Zemeckis-rendezés, az “Add a kezed/I Wanna Hold Your Hand” producere lett.Mindig is hajlamos volt kísérletezni a mozgókép formáival, pályafutását végigkíséri az idővel való bonyolult viszonya. Nem pusztán adottságként kezeli, hanem mint a történetmesélés központi motorját és metaforáját. Zemeckisnek az idő nem lineáris adottság, hanem játékszer, amiből tetszőleges formát tud kialakítani, amit tartalommal tud megtölteni. Egyszer a jelen formálja a jövőt, másszor az idő a sors szövőszéke, ami kiszámíthatatlan helyzetekbe veti a főhőst. Ez a főhős általában romlatlan, és pont ez a naivitás válik a túlélés és a siker kulcsává. Zemeckis azt sugallja, hogy a tisztaság és az őszinteség gyakran hatékonyabb az élet harcaiban, mint a cinizmus. Karakterei rendre őrlődnek a sors és a saját választásaik között. Viszont nem idealizálja hőseit: George McFly gyáva, Forrest Gump lassú, a „Kényszerleszállás” Whitaker kapitánya szerfüggő, de éppen ezek a hiányosságok teszik őket igazán emberivé és szerethetővé.Másik fő témája a technológia, amivel maga is szívesen kísérletezett, eleinte több, a karrierje későbbi szakaszában kevesebb sikerrel. A valós hírekbe való belenyúlás, a rajzfilm és az élő szereplők vegyítése (a rajzolt mivoltában is elképesztő energiájú Roger nyúl karakterén a fantasztikus szinkronmunkát végző Usztics Mátyás még emelni is tudott) azonban csak formai játékok ahhoz a felismeréshez, hogy a valóban fontos események a családon belül történnek. Mit ér az első találkozás a földönkívüliekkel a „Kapcsolat” -ban, ha a Földön az apa és lánya nem értik egymást?Nem is lehetne hűbb mentorához és barátjához, Spielberghez, és nemcsak az Indiana Jones-parafrázis „A smaragd románcá”-ban. Viszont hiba lenne csak tanítványnak és nem mesternek tekinteni. Egyetemi évfolyamtársával, a forgatókönyvíró Bob Gale-lel gyakorlatilag a George Lucas-i értelemben vett trilógiák avatott mesterévé vált. A „Vissza a jövőbe” jelentette Harsányság mellett a Pesszimista szakasz („Forrest Gump”, „Kapcsolat”, „Számkivetett”) a létezés értelmetlenségével foglalkozik, míg a Technológiai („Polar Expressz”, „Beowulf”, és „Egy karácsonyi ének”) viszont az életmű mélypontját jelenti. A Szövetség három filmje („Kényszerleszállás”, „Kötéltánc”, „Isten hozta Marwenben”) a csapatmunkára és az emberi kapcsolatok fontosságára figyelmeztet - ahogy egyedül nem lehet filmet készíteni sem. Robert Zemeckis a szó legjobb értelmében vett populáris tömegfilmes, de sosem félt olyan helyekre bekukkantani, ahol a művészfilmesek is óvatosak (vérfertőző vonzalom, hátrányos helyzetűekkel való bánásmód, alkoholizmus természetrajza). Több kellene belőle Hollywoodban.A beszélgetés résztvevői:Balázsy IstvánLaska PálA Régen minden jobb volt a Tilos Rádió történelmi-popkulturális műsora:https://www.facebook.com/regen.minden.jobb.volt

Fans of Batman are used to seeing the Caped Crusader associate with the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman, but what if one were to put the Dark Knight into the company of figures such as Beowulf, Robin Hood, Oedipus, and Sun Tzu, among others? Batman and the Classics: Echoes of Mythology, Literature and Philosophy in the Comics and Films (McFarland, 2026) is the first book to compare famous Batman graphic novels, story arcs, and films to classic texts of literature and philosophy from around the world. Through this comparison we can see, for instance, how the epic warrior archetype of Beowulf or Roland persists in The Dark Knight Returns, or how the metaphor of the journey, found in such works as The Odyssey, occurs in the story arc Knightfall. By placing Batman stories into conversation with such classic texts, this book sheds light on the deeper meanings of key stories of the Dark Knight, as well as how long-lasting themes of literature and philosophy have persisted in the fiction of this popular character. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Fans of Batman are used to seeing the Caped Crusader associate with the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman, but what if one were to put the Dark Knight into the company of figures such as Beowulf, Robin Hood, Oedipus, and Sun Tzu, among others? Batman and the Classics: Echoes of Mythology, Literature and Philosophy in the Comics and Films (McFarland, 2026) is the first book to compare famous Batman graphic novels, story arcs, and films to classic texts of literature and philosophy from around the world. Through this comparison we can see, for instance, how the epic warrior archetype of Beowulf or Roland persists in The Dark Knight Returns, or how the metaphor of the journey, found in such works as The Odyssey, occurs in the story arc Knightfall. By placing Batman stories into conversation with such classic texts, this book sheds light on the deeper meanings of key stories of the Dark Knight, as well as how long-lasting themes of literature and philosophy have persisted in the fiction of this popular character. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Fans of Batman are used to seeing the Caped Crusader associate with the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman, but what if one were to put the Dark Knight into the company of figures such as Beowulf, Robin Hood, Oedipus, and Sun Tzu, among others? Batman and the Classics: Echoes of Mythology, Literature and Philosophy in the Comics and Films (McFarland, 2026) is the first book to compare famous Batman graphic novels, story arcs, and films to classic texts of literature and philosophy from around the world. Through this comparison we can see, for instance, how the epic warrior archetype of Beowulf or Roland persists in The Dark Knight Returns, or how the metaphor of the journey, found in such works as The Odyssey, occurs in the story arc Knightfall. By placing Batman stories into conversation with such classic texts, this book sheds light on the deeper meanings of key stories of the Dark Knight, as well as how long-lasting themes of literature and philosophy have persisted in the fiction of this popular character. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Fans of Batman are used to seeing the Caped Crusader associate with the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman, but what if one were to put the Dark Knight into the company of figures such as Beowulf, Robin Hood, Oedipus, and Sun Tzu, among others? Batman and the Classics: Echoes of Mythology, Literature and Philosophy in the Comics and Films (McFarland, 2026) is the first book to compare famous Batman graphic novels, story arcs, and films to classic texts of literature and philosophy from around the world. Through this comparison we can see, for instance, how the epic warrior archetype of Beowulf or Roland persists in The Dark Knight Returns, or how the metaphor of the journey, found in such works as The Odyssey, occurs in the story arc Knightfall. By placing Batman stories into conversation with such classic texts, this book sheds light on the deeper meanings of key stories of the Dark Knight, as well as how long-lasting themes of literature and philosophy have persisted in the fiction of this popular character. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Beowulf is one of the oldest and greatest epic poems in English literature, telling the story of a brave warrior who faces terrifying monsters, legendary battles, and the weight of destiny. From his heroic fight with the fearsome Grendel to his final confrontation with a mighty dragon, this ancient tale explores courage, loyalty, glory, and the passing of time. In this episode, settle in as we journey into a world of misty mead halls, noble kings, and timeless heroism, retelling the legend of Beowulf in a calm and atmospheric style. Please leave a 5-star review & SUBSCRIBE on Apple and Spotify. Sleep Cove Premium Become a Premium Member for Bonus Episodes & Ad-Free listening: Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.sleepcove.com/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and become a Premium Member. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get Instant Access⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and sign up in two taps. Our Sister Shows: - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sleep Cove⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - is our Sleep Hypnosis, Meditation and Bedtime Story channel, where you can find the perfect episode to help you sleep deeply all night long. - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Calm Cove⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠is our music Podcast, where you can find Relaxing Music, White Noise and Nature Sounds. - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Let's Begin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - is our Day Meditation podcast. Start your day feeling relaxed and positive, or take some time out to unwind with these calming meditations with wakeners at the end so that you can continue your day. - YouTube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bedtime Story Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - YouTube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sleep Hypnosis & Meditation Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Connect: - Join the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for a Bonus Meditation  - Facebook:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - TikTok:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Recommended Products: Comfortable Sleep Headphones -⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.sleepcove.com/headphones⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Best Mattress from Puffy:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sleepcove.com/puffy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ _______________ All Content by Sleep Cove is for educational or entertainment purposes and does not provide or replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your medical professional before making any changes to your treatment and if in any doubt, contact your doctor. Please listen in a place where you can safely go to sleep. Sleep Cove is not responsible or liable for any loss, damage or injury arising from the use of this content. _________________ Sleep Cove content includes guided sleep meditations, sleep hypnosis (hypnotherapy), sleep stories (visualizations) and Bedtime Stories for adults and grown-ups, all designed to help you get a great night's sleep Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of And Now For Something Completely Machinima, hosts Phil Rice, Damien Valentine, and Tracy Harwood dive deep into “Wracu”, a stunning student film by Chase McGill.Created in Blender as a final project at University of Southern California, this cinematic short blends epic fantasy, motion capture, and orchestral scoring into a powerful (and divisive!) storytelling experience.But is it just visually impressive… or truly great storytelling?

Beowulf is one of the oldest and greatest epic poems in English literature, telling the story of a brave warrior who faces terrifying monsters, legendary battles, and the weight of destiny. From his heroic fight with the fearsome Grendel to his final confrontation with a mighty dragon, this ancient tale explores courage, loyalty, glory, and the passing of time. In this episode, settle in as we journey into a world of misty mead halls, noble kings, and timeless heroism, retelling the legend of Beowulf in a calm and atmospheric style. Please leave a 5-star review & SUBSCRIBE on Apple and Spotify. Sleep Cove Premium Become a Premium Member for Bonus Episodes & Ad-Free listening: Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.sleepcove.com/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and become a Premium Member. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get Instant Access⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and sign up in two taps. Our Sister Shows: - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sleep Cove⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - is our Sleep Hypnosis, Meditation and Bedtime Story channel, where you can find the perfect episode to help you sleep deeply all night long. - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Calm Cove⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠is our music Podcast, where you can find Relaxing Music, White Noise and Nature Sounds. - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Let's Begin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - is our Day Meditation podcast. Start your day feeling relaxed and positive, or take some time out to unwind with these calming meditations with wakeners at the end so that you can continue your day. - YouTube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bedtime Story Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - YouTube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sleep Hypnosis & Meditation Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Connect: - Join the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for a Bonus Meditation  - Facebook:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - TikTok:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Recommended Products: Comfortable Sleep Headphones -⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.sleepcove.com/headphones⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Best Mattress from Puffy:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sleepcove.com/puffy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ _______________ All Content by Sleep Cove is for educational or entertainment purposes and does not provide or replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your medical professional before making any changes to your treatment and if in any doubt, contact your doctor. Please listen in a place where you can safely go to sleep. Sleep Cove is not responsible or liable for any loss, damage or injury arising from the use of this content. _________________ Sleep Cove content includes guided sleep meditations, sleep hypnosis (hypnotherapy), sleep stories (visualizations) and Bedtime Stories for adults and grown-ups, all designed to help you get a great night's sleep Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did Beowulf really live on Gotland?In this episode of Exploring the Viking Age, we sit down with Hans Wanneby and Rikard Evertsson to explore one of the most fascinating theories surrounding the Beowulf poem.Together, we dive into:• The theory that Beowulf originated on Gotland• Ancient place names connected to the saga• Archaeological finds and reconstructed migration period environments• Picture stones, dragons, and celestial events• The catastrophe of 536 and its possible connection to the poem• Tolkien's fascination with Beowulf• The search for what may be Beowulf's final resting placeWe also explore how myth, oral tradition, archaeology, and landscape may preserve fragments of a story that has survived for over 1500 years.Subscribe to stay updated! Also available on all major podcast platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and more.Find all links here:https://linktr.ee/grimfrost

We are joined for the 12th time by 'friend of the show', global strength training icon & bestselling author Dan John all the way from Utah USA. We discuss Beowulf, The Odyssey, the return of Ted Lasso & training the youth athlete. We learn how Dan is seemingly de-ageing himself as he approaches 70 & how his training focus has evolved over the years. This is a warm & insightful catch up with a man who has been with us since the genesis of Health Oddity & continues to be an inspiration & friend.

For most of human history, nobody "owned" the great stories. Nobody owned Achilles, Beowulf, or King Arthur. These tales belonged to civilization itself—passed down, expanded, and reinterpreted generation after generation. Every age added something new, and every storyteller helped keep the stories alive. In many ways, the old myths survived precisely because people kept taking up the tale.   But today, our greatest myths are often locked behind copyright law and corporate canon. Spider-Man, Darth Vader, and even Middle-earth exist as carefully controlled intellectual property guarded by massive entertainment companies and teams of lawyers. So which approach creates healthier culture? Are stories better protected as private property, or shared as a cultural inheritance? At the digital pub table, we explore the history of intellectual property, the evolution of mythology and fan fiction, and how Christians should think about storytelling, creativity, and what it really means to "own" a story.

Featured within Hour Two of A&G... Trump's IRS lawsuit... Low Voice Bum makes another comeback... New happenings in the Mangione trial... Questions about Grad School! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Featured within Hour Two of A&G... Trump's IRS lawsuit... Low Voice Bum makes another comeback... New happenings in the Mangione trial... Questions about Grad School! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Umay Acar-Sümer |Writer and Composer of ‘Beowulf the MusicalBio:Umay Acar-Sümer is a Turkish singer and composer based in Hampshire, UK. Having completed an MA in Medieval Studies and MMus in Music Composition at Royal Holloway, Umay draws inspiration from medieval literature and history in her writing. She is the writer and composer of ‘Beowulf the Musical', a two-act musical made up of 35 song based on the medieval epic poem Beowulf. ‘Beowulf the Musical' premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2024 with Umay playing the role of Freawaru; the musical is now set to release an album with many of the original cast and orchestra members reprising their roles. Umay's writing influences include late medieval authors like Geoffrey Chaucer, Sir Thomas Malory and Chrétien de Troyes as well as anonymous poems from the Anglo-Saxon period such as The Wanderer, The Battle of Maldon and The Seafarer. Musically she is inspired by contemporary composers such as Alan Menken, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Lin Manuel Miranda and Anais Mitchell as well as the works of Handel, Verdi, Mozart and Strauss. Umay is currently working on her next musical; a sapphic fairytale about a girl with a magical harp teaming up with a disgraced knight to defeat a dragon.Links:Website:https://umaymakesmusic.wordpress.com/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@umaymakesmusichttps://www.tiktok.com/@beowulfthemusical Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/umayisnotherehttps://www.facebook.com/beowulfthemusicalInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/umayisnotherehttps://www.instagram.com/beowulfthemusical Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/5IrAUtyarBSJGbvzazeBuZ YouTube:https://youtube.com/@umayisnothereTagspodcast for creativescreative podcastpodcast creator interviewsprofessional podcastcreative podcastspodcast host interviewscreative podcast ideasSupport PEG by checking out our Sponsors:Download and use Newsly for free now from www.newsly.me or from the link in the description, and use promo code “GHOST” and receive a 1-month free premium subscription.The best tool for getting podcast guests:https://podmatch.com/signup/phantomelectricghostSubscribe to our Instagram for exclusive content:https://www.instagram.com/expansive_sound_experiments/Subscribe to our YouTube https://youtube.com/@phantomelectricghost?si=rEyT56WQvDsAoRprRSShttps://anchor.fm/s/3b31908/podcast/rssSubstackhttps://substack.com/@phantomelectricghost?utm_source=edit-profile-page

Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠---Just over one thousand years ago, an unknown scribe committed to vellum a fantastical tale of swordsmen and sea monsters, set not in contemporary Anglo-Saxon England, but instead in the distant swamps of Denmark, hundreds of years in the past and hundreds of miles away. In doing so, they would open a portal to one of the most mysterious and murky periods of European history. In this episode of Gladio Free Europe, Liam and Russian Sam return to the mighty mead-halls of the Migration Era for a discussion of Beowulf, the greatest work of Old English and one of the most fascinating documents of the early medieval world.The poem is effectively without parallel. It is a full-length heroic narrative written in Old English, whose eponymous protagonist is attested nowhere else. Though other works in this genre had been created, its sole survival and rediscovery made it the national epic of the English people, often compared to Homer's Iliad in both theme and content. As it was popularized in the early 19th century, the poem became useful to British, German, and even Danish nationlists who sought to use their ancient and medieval heritage to justify present-day political ambitions. But Beowulf does not belong to any existing society. Instead, it is an early medieval document of an idealized antiquity, possibly analogous to the role of King Arthur's Camelot to later medieval Englishmen. Beowulf provides a unique view into the Anglo-Saxon imaginary, illustrating how a deeply Christian population reckoned with their pagan past, and how the insular descendants of North Sea migrants understood their relationship to an ancestral home. But beyond its anthropological value, Beowulf is a mature reflection on ephemerality and loss. The setting, Heorot, is the most glorious of mead-halls, yet the audience knows from the start that it shall one day burn. Beowulf and King Hrothgar are the best of men, yet even their virtues cannot prevent the ruin caused by mankind's own doomed nature. The concept of wyrd, fate, features prominently in the poem. Despite not having a direct influence on the culture of high medieval and early modern England, Beowulf has profoundly shaped contemporary English literature. Its heroic narrative, prefiguring chivalric romance and King Arthur stories by several centuries, would inspire the career of J.R.R. Tolkien and shape the contemporary understanding of early medieval Northern Europe. Comparative studies with Norse and German literary works help us understand more fully the cold, courageous, and sometimes cruel world of early Germanic-speaking peoples. Most importantly, it is one of the most engaging and entertaining pieces of early fiction. Everybody, whether a proud Sea-Geat or a descendant of Cain, ought to read Beowulf.

It's time snoop through Jack's Bookshelf and this time we found a monster story! Welcome to Beowulf with Dr. Ben Reinhard...[Show Notes]

Ashland Thomas is a filmmaker based in Chicago, IL!

Ideally, books offer something for kids and adults alike.  Chances are if you and your child are independently enjoying a book, you probably will enjoy reading that book together.  Hugo Award–winning, Eisner Award–nominated author Zach Weinersmith joins us to talk about writing for kids and adults, adapting Beowulf (yes, Beowulf!) for children, and his new novel Sawyer Lee and the Quest to Just Stay Home.

If God has perfect knowledge of all time, do we actually have choices to make? To what extent can our wills possibly be free?In this final episode of Life, Death, and Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius, I discuss Book V of The Consolation of Philosophy and I tease where we are going next!Watch the video of this episode and subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/P-9w3DcvgvABecome a patron of Mythic Mind at patreon.com/mythicmindListen to all THREE Mythic Mind podcasts:Mythic MindMythic Mind GamesMythic Mind Movies & Shows(or become a patron to get all three shows in one ad-free feed)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

What is time?What is its relationship with eternity?Does God's perfect knowledge of negate our apparent free will?As we continue through the Boethius section of "Life, Death, and Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius," we take a look at Augustine's understanding of time, eternity, and freedom.Watch the video of this episode and subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/DG9mgjcebVIBecome a patron of Mythic Mind at patreon.com/mythicmindListen to all THREE Mythic Mind podcasts:Mythic MindMythic Mind GamesMythic Mind Movies & Shows(or become a patron to get all three shows in one ad-free feedBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

one of three Beowulf stories

Second episode of the Beowulf series for class.

Third episode of the Beowulf series for class.

What is the relationship between Fate and Providence? As we continue through "Life, Death, and Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius," I discuss Book IV Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy.Watch the video of this episode and subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/2wx4BojKTA8Become a patron of Mythic Mind at patreon.com/mythicmindListen to all THREE Mythic Mind podcasts:Mythic MindMythic Mind GamesMythic Mind Movies & Shows(or become a patron to get all three shows in one ad-free feedBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

At the time of recording, this is the latest (and pretty recent) addition to the collection of anthologies within the Honorverse. David Weber and his co-authors have produced a work in this book that is powerful. Even though one of your hosts was under the weather when we recorded (as you'll hear), we enjoyed what we read. We can't wait to hear what you, our traveling companions thought as well.“ Challenges” is the eighth volume in the Worlds of Honor anthologies, published in November 2025. For those of you who aren't caught up (at this point) with this latest of books, spoilers abound if you chose to listen before reading. You've been warned! This latest installment brings us another five short stories from a total of six authors: Marisa Wolf, Jane Lindskold, Jacob Holo, Thomas Pope, David Allen Butler, and of course, David Weber. As with the previous anthology, there are a few new faces mixed in with some true favorites!The title comes from where this collection takes us: back to the earlier years of the Star Kingdom, to include the plague years, and therefore to some of the challenges that the Star Kingdom face.An important note: David Weber uses the stories in this book to help fix some continuity issues that emerged over the many novels that have brought us the amazing Honorverse. There's a note at the beginning of the book that explains this, so please don't skip over it—what's contained in this note is important.As originally published by Baen, “Challenges” arrived as a 272-page hardcover in November 2025.The first story in the book is One Controllable Step, by Marisa Wolf.The constantly mutating virus that has hit Manticore hard has just been declared a plague and has jumped from Manticore to Sphynx. A team of scientists have arrived from Beowulf to do what they can to help turn things around before the young Star Kingdom fades into history with the possible deaths of all. We've heard about this plague many times over the years; this story gives us some of the details about the efforts to save lives and to save the Kingdom.Your hosts gave this story three ‘thumbs-up”.====The second story, Deadly Delusions was written by Jane Lindskold. In this very cool story, we see some of the early work being done by the company BioNeering, specifically work being done by Dr. Mariel Ubel. The featured point of view for the story are retired Sheriff's Deputy Arvin Erhart and a treecat named True Stalker, but there are a few other important character perspectives, too. All this is happening around the time young Stephanie Harrington is about 11 years old—around the age we first meet her and she bonds with her treecat.We gave this story three “thumbs-up”, as well.====The Great Condiment Caper was the third story, written by Jacob Holo, with Thomas Pope. While we're back in the early years of the Star Kingdom, we get the chance to check in on the young Ensign Edward “Eddie” Saganami. A freshly minted junior officer, he's serving onboard Manticore's first completely home built destroyer, the Ad Astra as an engineering officer. When a palate of precious cargo goes missing, young Ensign Saganami is given the responsibility to solve the crime. The story is light-hearted and fun, although contained within are some wonderful lessons about officership, and some of the little things that actually impact a crew's morale in addition to the direct impact of a ship's commander, XO and the other senior leaders onboard. In this case, the little thing at the center of the story: Dempsy's Sweet and Spicy BBQ Sauce. For real!Your hosts scored this one with another unanimous three “thumbs-up” as well!====XO was the fourth story in the anthology, written by Daniel Allen Butler.We find ourselves onboard the HMS Ulysses as a medical incident removes the ship's captain from command, and the XO, Lieutenant Commander Ellen D'Orville finds herself in command while they take the captain to the nearest medical facility. Upon arrival, LCDR D'Orville learns she will remain in command, and take the ship and crew on its next mission to conduct an intelligence mission as a part of Operation Long Winter. They are to remain undetected as they operate in another star nation's space. Enter Manpower and slavers operating in the same volume of space. At the heart of the problem is the matter of dealing with genetic slavers. Obligated to act against these slaver pirates, but also to remain silent, LCDR faces a very real moral dilemma as she has to decide to break silence (and violate her orders) to address the slave ship or remain silent and neglect the competing moral obligation to act against the slavers. Both are required by Manticoran law. No matter what she does, she'll have done the right AND the wrong thing, both of which will always come with consequences.No specific dates are given in the story, but we know that these events also happen during Operation Long Winter, presumably putting us in the same timeframe that Ensign Saganami was onboard the Ad Astra.This incredible story received unanimous thumbs-up from your three hosts, with two of the three declaring this was their favorite story within the anthology.====As with the previous anthology, the fifth and final story was written by the man himself, Mr. David Weber, titled Crystal Singer's Song.A very interesting story occurs from 1496 to 1551, when an SFS Ranger named Aldona is flying supplies to a remote location on newly developing Sphynx. She encounters severe weather and crash lands on an uncharted island as a result.Surviving the crash, she sets herself up to survive, hoping once the storms pass, she'll be able to make contact with the rest of the world, or perhaps be found during a search and rescue mission. Time passes, the hope of rescue diminishes, and she names the island “Castaway Island”. She also meets her neighbors: a treecat clan that was previously displaced and effectively lost on the island and referred to as “The Lost Nest Clan”. While a bonding never occurs, this becomes what was possibly the first and longest, continuous contact between a human and a treecat clan. Keep in mind, (if memory serves) Stephanie Harrington was born in 1507, meaning at the time of her birth, Aldona had been stranded and in friendly contact with the Lost Nest Clan for 11 years. It was obviously a bit longer before young Stephanie makes first contact and bonds with Lionheart. What a story and cool piece of previously unknown treecat-human history.The story ends on a bittersweet note. Aldona is never rescued and dies on Castaway Island, old and happy. The main story, however, is bracketed by a visit made by a treecat named Crystal Singer to Honor Harrington in 1926. The story we've read is the story Crystal Singer relays to Honor. Even better, the significance of the story is much bigger than just treecat-human history.Crystal Singer reveals who SFS Ranger Aldona was: Aldona Zivonik, Karl Zivonik's (Stephanie's husband's) aunt.The story garnered another three thumbs-up from your hosts!The overall rating for the anthology was a 5 out of 5 from each of us. We also shared our thoughts about the new authors we haven't seen contribute to the Honorverse before. Be sure to listen in to hear what we said, and be sure to let us know your thoughts as well.Next time we're going to discuss “House of Steel” by David Weber and Bureau Nine. House of Steel contains a short novel from the early days of the Star Kingdom. It focuses on a biography of Roger Wynton III, his ascension to the Throne of Manticore, how he prepares Elizabeth for her reign, as well as the early days of the war with the People's Republic of Haven. Also included in this volume is an Honorverse Companion that covers a great deal of detailed information to aid in the understanding of the universe we all enjoy and love.Special note: This is JP. I mentioned during the show that I thought the US Space Force motto is “Ad Astra”.Nope! I goofed that up. It's “Semper Supra”. I stand corrected and apologise to our US Space Force friends and fans out there!We truly appreciate all of you who take the time to hear our thoughts about these books. More importantly, we appreciate you as participants in the adventure, at times contributing your thoughts on social media and comments to us. Please keep those likes and comments coming, and if you're enjoying the podcast, it's never too late to invite others to join us.You can find us, and all our episodes at http://honorverse.net, and email us at honorverse@tpenetwork.com. We look forward to hearing from you.Now, let's be about it!

As we continue through the Boethius section of "Life, Death, and Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius," we take a look at Epicureanism and Stoicism, two major schools of classical thought that play a significant role in Boethius's own thought.Watch the video of this episode and subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/CYm9Cr6xbpMBecome a patron of Mythic Mind at patreon.com/mythicmindListen to all THREE Mythic Mind podcasts:Mythic MindMythic Mind GamesMythic Mind Movies & Shows(or become a patron to get all three shows in one ad-free feedBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

This week on Radio FreeWrite, The Cru takes a step back from writing to talk about... reading.What should writers be reading? Does it matter if it's fiction, nonfiction, or even audiobooks? And do audiobooks actually count as reading?We dig into all of it, including:Why writers need to read widely across genresConsiderations of audiobooks and oral storytelling in modern writingHow classic works like Frankenstein, Beowulf, and The Iliad still influence storytelling todayHow and when to use cultural shorthand in fictionThat it's ok to quit a bookAlong the way, we share what we've been reading lately, and how those influences've show up in our own writing.We do still bring you stories! Tune in around the 17:25 mark.Like this weeks episode and wish you could read as well as listen? Subscribe to our Substack for a summary of our opening discussion, a story from the episode, and a writing prompt!  Be sure to follow us on Instagram (if that's your sort of thing). Please do send us an email with your story if you write along, which we hope you will do. Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.

Follow-up: Overcast & Transcriptions Marco had never seen inside a datacenter What about podcasts that include their own transcripts (via Matt King) Apple Podcasts transcript options tag MP3 ID3 “SYLT” tag What is Marco using for a job queue? Perhaps Faktory? (via Drew Stephenson) beanstalkd Ansible Monitoring & control interface Imagine a Beowulf cluster of the minis… (via Aaron Dippner) System X RDMA over Thunderbolt was added in macOS 26.2 I Ran a Trillion Parameter AI on a Mac Apple Didn’t Have to Go This Hard Apple Insider Mac fleet management advice Apple Business AirPods Max popularity in New York WWDC 2026 Announced Ask ATP What’s the deal with passkeys, anyway? (via Phillip Miller) XKCD Does having an 8 GB RAM computer keep macOS lean? (via Jon Fabritius) Will we get an iPhone or iPad Pro that will use macOS when connected to a display? (via Keith Heaton) Michael Cook’s contrary opinion Post-show: Casey is continuing to quiet quit his Synology DS1621+ Ubiquiti UNAS Pro Casey’s NUC Channels Proxmox Tailscale on YouTube Derek Seaman’s Tech Blog (the extremely helpful listener

Can Fortune be trusted? What is true happiness? What are its illusions? As we continue through "Life, Death, and Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius," I discuss Book II & III of Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy.Watch the video of this episode and subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/zhE9guwyUJ8Become a patron of Mythic Mind at patreon.com/mythicmindListen to all THREE Mythic Mind podcasts:Mythic MindMythic Mind GamesMythic Mind Movies & Shows(or become a patron to get all three shows in one ad-free feedBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

As we continue through "Life, Death, and Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius," I survey the emergence of Neoplatonism from the pre-Socratics to Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, and Boethius.Watch the video of this episode and subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/O0K6HKbHFp0Become a patron of Mythic Mind at patreon.com/mythicmindListen to all THREE Mythic Mind podcasts:Mythic MindMythic Mind GamesMythic Mind Movies & Shows(or become a patron to get all three shows in one ad-free feedBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

Today's poem is a selection from the Old English, Beowulf, translated by R. M. Liuzza. In these lines, Beowulf prepares for a harrowing showdown with Grendel's mother, and the cold, clear beauty of the lines almost makes you wish you were there. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

As we continue through "Life, Death, and Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius," I discuss Book I of Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy.Watch the video of this episode and subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/nNux7UctmwABecome a patron of Mythic Mind at patreon.com/mythicmindListen to all THREE Mythic Mind podcasts:Mythic MindMythic Mind GamesMythic Mind Movies & Shows(or become a patron to get all three shows in one ad-free feedBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

Charlotte and Jo go deep on jealousy, self-hatred, love, and vulnerability in a conversation that touches on A Separate Peace, The Go-Between, Beowulf, and more. Then the canny and intrepid Maya Binyam joins for a discussion about the category of little girlhood, ambiguity in fiction, and female desire.Maya Binyam is the author of Hangman. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She is a 2025 - 2026 Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Books discussed on all seasons of the podcast are aggregated here on Bookshop. Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free, and her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Elizabeth previews Beowulf, translated by Leslie Hall in 1892.This season is a premium exclusive. Thank you for supporting our show. Try The Sleepy Bookshelf Premium free for 7 days: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sleepybookshelf.supercast.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Are you loving The Sleepy Bookshelf? Show your support by giving us a review on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Follow the show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. See our entire bookshelf on: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://slumberstudios.com/sleepybookshelf. Listen to the music from The Sleepy Bookshelf in a relaxing soundscape on Deep Sleep Sounds:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRt2AI7f80⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Having an issue with The Sleepy Bookshelf or have a question for us? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out our FAQs⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Connect: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Thank you so much for joining us here at The Sleepy Bookshelf. Now, let's open our book for this evening. Sweet dreams

As we continue through "Life, Death, and Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius," we enter into the Boethius sub-unit with an introduction to The Consolation of Philosophy and medieval cosmology.Watch the video of this episode and subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/cEoidIogp1wWatch this video for more of Boethius's historical context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KJbDqZbIOA&t=201sBecome a patron of Mythic Mind at patreon.com/mythicmindListen to all THREE Mythic Mind podcasts:Mythic MindMythic Mind GamesMythic Mind Movies & Shows(or become a patron to get all three shows in one ad-free feedBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

Send a textStar Wars has always had a never ending supply of cool monsters, mercenaries, and myths. So much so that we are making it into a regular segment! On our first edition we dive into some of the monsters that make Star Wars so unique, and we talk about our favorite mercenaries! Try to tame your inner Rancor while you go sort your inventory! Turn up your headphones, dial back your sensibilities, and join the wretched hive of scum and villainy as we take the low road to resistance on Season Six, Episode Forty Two of Force Insensitive!Send Email/Voicemail: mailto:forceinsensitive@gmail.comDirect Voice Message: https://www.speakpipe.com/ForceInsensitiveStart your own podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=386Use our Amazon link: http://amzn.to/2CTdZzKFB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ForceInsensitive/Twitter: http://twitter.com/ForceNSensitiveFacebook: http://facebook.com/ForceInsensitiveInstagram: http://instagram.com/ForceInsensitive

In this episode, we wrap up the Beowulf portion of our "Life, Death, and Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius" study.Watch the video of this episode and subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/Sh85l-PlWqUBecome a patron of Mythic Mind at patreon.com/mythicmindListen to all THREE Mythic Mind podcasts:Mythic MindMythic Mind GamesMythic Mind Movies & Shows(or become a patron to get all three shows in one ad-free feedBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

In this episode, we continue our "Life, Death and Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius" series with the mythological death and resurrection of the Baldur, the Norse god.Watch the video of this episode and subscribe to my YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/K-DIsUnigngListen to all THREE Mythic Mind podcasts:Mythic MindMythic Mind GamesMythic Mind Movies & Shows(or become a patron to get all three shows in one ad-free feed)Become a Tier 3 patron to join our Silmarillion study, has now begun! patreon.com/mythicmindBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/mythic-mind--5808321/support.

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Ultima IV. We talk about the boat, we talk about dungeons (a tiny bit), we deep dive into NPCs and consequences, we talk about the quests and how everything is in the world, and answer some listener email. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: More of Ultima IV (Much more, in B's case) Issues covered: revisiting locations and finding new things, a game that does a lot with a little, everything existing in the world, getting to know the world, NPCs sharing sprites and being hard to remember, getting a ship and fighting your way on, broadside combat, dying to a waterspout, wanting to search the oceans, badly simulating tacking, riding a horse, being interrupted in any location, trying to replicate the tabletop experience, feeling like a "yes" game, whether what you do matters, can you be a thief, watering down a morality system, having a limited palette of options at any one time, layering frosting, taking out the friction and icky feeling, the niche audience of some RPGs, taking elements from older games and bringing them into modern games, asking questions of the player who is also the character, avoiding the uncanny valley, an aside into adventure mode, the horseshoe effect on NPCs, reaching the limits of what the human brain can contemplate, an aside into Dunbar's number, facing the same challenges, chunking chapters, feeling the anxiety of there being too much, coalescing your notes from time to time, the telescope moment and seeing the map, the lack of loot, preparing to do things, validating your assumptions, having to revisit everywhere, the friction of Pikmin, getting good controllers, handheld mode, the Wavebird, bouncing off character creation, character creation we've liked, wanting a story to wrap around a more specific character, the generic hero, having fun with a character creator, a freeing character creator. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Final Fantasy (series), Gold Box (series), Eye of the Beholder, Outer Wilds, The Witcher (series), Beowulf, Dungeons & Dragons, Wizardry (series), BioWare, Mass Effect, BioShock, Dishonored, CD Project Red, Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate III, Thief, Robin Hood, VtM Bloodlines, Undertale, Dark Souls, Land of the Lost, Dwarf Fortress, Planescape: Torment, Metroid / Castlevania, Richard Garriott, Sasha, Pikmin, Nintendo, Shigeru Miyamoto, Switch, PlayStation, Analog Pocket, Ashton Herrmann, Monkey Island, Wing Commander, Morrowind, Fallout 3, Dragon Age: Origins, Bethesda Game Studios, Blizzard, World of Warcraft, Diablo (series), Metal Gear Solid V, Hideo Kojima, Saint's Row IV, Call of Cthulhu, Asher, Cuphead, KyleAndError, Hitman, FFSZilla, MGS: VR Missions, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.  Note: Because Ultima IV has very little music to speak of, I will be substituting music from later in the series in the openings to these episodes TTDS: 38:30 Links: Majuular Ultima IV video recommended by Chris  Next time: Finish Ultima IV Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp YouTube Discord  DevGameClub@gmail.com 

A few weeks ago I shared my dream American Lit curriculum here on the pod, and soon after I heard from a British Literature teacher who was hoping for some new unit ideas for her curriculum too. She shared her starting point, which sounds like a highly engaging set of texts: "Our long reads," she wrote, "are The Princess Bride, Macbeth, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Beowulf- a hero's journey theme!" So today I'd like to brainstorm with you, throwing out ideas for a British Lit curriculum, based on some of these starting texts and a few more I'll throw into the mix. Get ready for a Holmes-inspired True Crime podcast project, Shakespearean book clubs, a mashup of dystopia and contemporary street art, and more. Whether or not you teach a British Literature course, I think you'll find some fresh ideas and inspiration for new unit possibilities today. Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Launch your choice reading program with all my favorite tools and recs, and grab the free toolkit. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the 'gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you! 

Charlotte and Jo spring into the new year with a conversation about ancient poetry: Beowulf, The Iliad, and Dante's Inferno as translated by Mark Musa, Mary Jo Bang, and Danny Lavery. They're then joined by the wise and wonderful Hanif Abdurraqib who—after sharing a scoop about what series of book he reads every year (!)—reflects on the formative impacts of his encounter with Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place. Other titles discussed: Toni Morrison's Jazz, Bebe Moore Campbells' Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain. Hanif Abdurraqib is a writer from the east side of Columbus, Ohio.Danny Lavery's translations of The Inferno can be found here.Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest (and book!) coverage requests. Questions and kind comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com.Charlotte Shane's most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane.  Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.To support the show, navigate to https://www.patreon.com/ReadingWritersAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Another year ends, and once more, it's time to reflect on our creative goals. I hope you can take the time to review your goals and you're welcome to leave a comment below about how the year went. Did you achieve everything you wanted to? Let me know in the comments. It's always interesting looking back at my goals from a year ago, because I don't even look at them in the months between, so sometimes it's a real surprise how much they've changed! You can read my 2025 goals here and I go through how things went below. In the intro, Written Word Media 2025 Indie Author Survey Results, TikTok deal goes through [BBC]; 2025 review [Wish I'd Known Then; Two Authors], Kickstarter year in review; Plus, Anthropic settlement, the continued rise of AI-narrated audiobooks, and thinking/reasoning models (plus my 2019 AI disruption episode). My Bones of the Deep thriller, pics here, and Business for Authors webinars, coming soon. If you'd like to join my community and support the show every month, you'll get access to my growing list of Patron videos and audio on all aspects of the author business — for the price of a black coffee (or two) a month. Join us at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn. Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author as J.F. Penn. She's also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. J.F. Penn books — Death Valley, The Buried and the Drowned, Blood Vintage Joanna Penn books — Successful Self-Publishing, 4th Edition The Creative Penn Podcast and my community on Patreon/thecreativepenn Unexpected addition: Masters in Death, Religion and Culture at the University of Winchester Book marketing. Not quite a fail but definitely lacklustre. Reflections on my 50th year Double down on being human. Travel and health. You can find all my books as J.F. Penn and Joanna Penn on your favourite online store in all the usual formats, or order from your local library or bookstore. You can also buy direct from me at CreativePennBooks.com and JFPennBooks.com. I'm not really active on social media, but you can always see my photos at Instagram @jfpennauthor. J.F. Penn — Death Valley. A Thriller. This was my ‘desert' book, partially inspired by visiting Death Valley, California in 2024. It's a stand-alone, high stakes survival thriller, with no supernatural elements, although there are ancient bones and a hidden crypt, as it wouldn't be me otherwise! The Kickstarter campaign in April had 231 Backers pledging £10,794 (~US$14,400) and the hardback is a gorgeous foiled edition with custom end papers and research photos as well as a ribbon. As an AI-Assisted Artisan Author, I used AI tools to help with the creative and business processes, including the background image of the cover design, the custom end papers, and the Death Valley book trailer, which I made with Midjourney and Runway ML. The audiobook is also narrated by my J.F. Penn voice clone, which took a while to get used to, but now I love it! You can listen to a sample here. I published Death Valley wide a few months later over the summer, so it is now out on all platforms. J.F. Penn — Blood Vintage. A Folk Horror Novel, and Catacomb audiobook I did a Kickstarter for the hardback edition of Blood Vintage in late 2024, and then in 2025, worked with a US agent to see if we could get a deal for it. That didn't happen, and although there were some nice rejections, mostly it was silence, and the waiting around really was a pain in the proverbial. So, after a year on submission, I published Blood Vintage wide, so it's available everywhere now. My voice clone narrated the audiobook, listen to a sample here. I also finally produced the audiobook for Catacomb, which is a stand-alone thriller inspired by the movie Taken and the legend of Beowulf set in the catacombs under Edinburgh. I used a male voice from ElevenLabs, and you can listen to a sample here. The book is also available everywhere in all formats. J.F. Penn — The Buried and the Drowned Short Story Collection One of my goals for 2025 was to get my existing short stories into print, mainly because they exist only as digital ebook and audiobook files, which in a way, feels like they almost don't exist! Plus, I wanted to write an extra two exclusive stories and launch the special edition collection on Kickstarter Collection and then publish wide. I wrote the two stories, The Black Church, inspired by my Iceland trip in March, and also Between Two Breaths, inspired by an experience scuba diving at the Poor Knights Islands in New Zealand almost two decades ago. There are personal author's notes accompanying every story, so it's part-short story fiction, part-memoir, and I human-narrated the audiobook. I achieved this goal with a Kickstarter in September, 2025, with 206 Backers pledging almost £8000 (~US$10,600) for the various editions. I also did my first patterned sprayed edges and I love the hardback. It has head and tail bands which make the hardback really strong, gorgeous paper, foiling, a ribbon, colour photos, and custom end papers. The Buried and the Drowned is now out everywhere in all editions. As ever, if you enjoy the stories, a review would be much appreciated! Joanna Penn Books for Authors Early in the year, How to Write Non-Fiction Second Edition launched wide as I only sold it through my store in 2024, so it's available everywhere in all formats including a special hardback and workbook at CreativePennBooks.com. While I didn't write it in 2025, I made the money on it this year, which is important! I also unexpectedly wrote the Fourth Edition of Successful Self-Publishing, mainly because I saw so much misinformation and hype around selling direct, and I also wanted to write about how many options there are for indie authors now. The ebook and audiobook (narrated by human me) are free on my store, CreativePennBooks.com and also available in print, in all the usual places. If you haven't revisited options for indie authors for a while, please have a read/listen, as the industry moves fast! All my fiction and non-fiction audiobooks are now on YouTube After an inspiring episode with Derek Slaton, I put all my audiobooks and short stories on YouTube. Firstly, my non-fiction channel is monetised so I get some income from that. It's not much, but it's something. More importantly, it's marketing for my books, and many audiobook listeners go on to buy other editions especially non-fiction listeners who will often buy print as well. I'm one of those listeners! It's also doubling down on being human, since I human narrate most of my audiobooks, including almost all of my non-fiction, as well as the memoir, and short stories. This helps bring people into my ecosystem and they may listen to the podcast as well and end up buying other books or joining the Patreon. Finally, in an age of generative AI assisted search recommendations, I want my books and content inside Gemini, which is Google's AI. I want my books surfaced in recommendations and YouTube is owned by Google, and their AI overviews often point to videos. Only you can decide what you want to do with your audiobooks, but if you want to listen to mine, they are on YouTube @thecreativepenn for non-fiction or YouTube @jfpennauthor for fiction and memoir. The Creative Penn Podcast and my Patreon Community It's been another full year of The Creative Penn Podcast and this is episode 842, which is kind of crazy. If you don't know the back story, I started podcasting in March 2009 on a sporadic schedule and then went to weekly about a decade ago in 2015 when I committed to making it a core part of my author business. Thanks to our wonderful corporate sponsors for the year, all services I personally use and recommend — ProWritingAid, Draft2Digital, Kobo Writing Life, Bookfunnel, Written Word Media, Publisher Rocket and Atticus. It's also been a fantastic year inside my Patreon Community at patreon.com/thecreativepenn so thanks to all Patrons! I love the community we have as I am able to share my unfiltered thoughts in a way that I have stopped doing in the wider community. Even a tiny paywall makes a big difference in keeping out the haters. I've done monthly audio Q&As which are extra solo shows answering patron questions. I've also done several live office hours on video, and shared content every week on AI tools, writing and author business tips. Patrons also get discounts on my webinars. I did two webinars on The AI-Assisted Artisan Author, which I am planning to run again sometime in 2026 as they were a lot of fun and so much continues to change. If you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com/thecreativepenn We have almost 1400 paying members now which is wonderful. Thanks for being part of the Community! Unexpected goal of the year: Masters in Death, Religion and Culture at the University of Winchester During the summer as I did my gothic research, I realised that I was feeling quite jaded about the publishing world and sick of the drama in the author community over AI. My top 5 Clifton Strengths are Learner, Intellection, Strategic, Input, and Futuristic — and I needed more Input and Learning. I usually get that from travel and book research, but I wasn't getting enough of that since Jonathan is busy finishing his MBA. So I decided to lean into the learning and asked ChatGPT to research some courses I could do that would suit me. It found the Masters in Death, Religion and Culture at the University of Winchester, which I could do full-time and online. It would be a year of reading quite different things, writing academic essays which is something I haven't done for decades, and hanging out with a new group of people who were just as fascinated with macabre topics as I am. I started in September and have now finished the first term, tackling topics around thanatology and death studies, hell and the afterlife in the Christian tradition, and the ethics of using human remains to inspire fiction, amongst other interesting things. It was a challenge to get back into the style of academic essay writing, but I'm enjoying the rigour of the research and the citations, which is something that the indie author community needs more of, a topic I will revisit in 2026. I have found the topics fascinating, and the degree is a great way to expand my mind in a new direction, and distract me from the dramas of the author community. I'll be back into it in mid-January and will finish in September 2026. Book marketing. Not quite a fail but definitely lacklustre. I said I would “Do a monthly book marketing plan and organise paid ad campaigns per month for revolving first books in series and my main earners.” I didn't do this! I also said I would organise my Shopify stores, CreativePennBooks.com and JFPennBooks.com into more collections to make it easier for readers to find things they might want to buy. While I did change the theme of CreativePennBooks.com over to Impulse to make it easier to find collections, I haven't done much to reorganise or add new pathways through the books. I'm rolling this part of the goal into 2026. I said I would reinvigorate my content marketing for JFPenn, and make more of BooksAndTravel.page with links back to my stores, and do fiction specific content marketing with the aim of surfacing more in the LLMs as generative search expands. I did a number of episodes on Books and Travel in 2025, but once I started the Masters, I had to leave that aside, and although I have started some extra content on JFPennBooks.com, I am not overly enthusiastic about it! I also said I would “Leverage AI tools to achieve more as a one-person business.” I use AI tools (mainly ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini) every day for different things but as ever, I am pretty scatter gun about what I do. I lean into intuition and I love research so I am more likely to ask the AI tools to do a deep research report on south Pacific merfolk mythology, or how gothic architecture impacted sacred music, or geology and deep time, rather than asking for marketing hooks. I intended to use more AI for book marketing, but as ever, I was too optimistic about the timeline of what might be possible. There's lots you can do with prompting, finessing things and then posting on various platforms, but I'm not interested in spending time doing that. My gold standard for an AI assistant is to feed it the finished book and then say, “Here's a budget. Go market this,” and not have to connect lots of things together into some Frankenstein-workflow. That's not available yet. Maybe in 2026 … Of course, I still do book marketing. I have to in order to sell any books and make money from book sales. We all have to do some kind of book marketing! I have my Kickstarter launches which I put effort into, as well as consistent backlist sales fed by the podcast, and my email newsletter (my combined list is around 60K). I have auto campaigns running on Amazon Ads, and I have used Written Word Media campaigns as well as BookBub throughout the year. This is basically the minimum, so as usual, must do better! I'm pretty sure I'm not the only author saying this! However, my business has multiple streams of income, and I have the podcast sponsorship revenue as well as the Patreon, plus sporadic webinars, which add to my bottom line and don't require paid advertising at all. Reflections on my 50th year I woke up on my 50th birthday in March in Iceland, by the Black Church of Budir out on the Skaefellsnes peninsula. As seals played in the sea and we walked in the snow over the ancient lava field under the gaze of the volcano that inspired Jules Verne Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and my short story, The Black Church, which you can find in my collection, The Buried and the Drowned. On that trip, we also saw the northern lights and had a memorable trip that marked a real shift for me. I've been told by lots of people that 50 is a ‘proper' birthday, as in one of those that makes you stop and reconsider things, and it has indeed been that, although I have also found the last few years of perimenopause to be a large part of the change as well. A big shift is around priorities and not caring so much what other people think, which is a relief in many ways. Also, I don't have the patience to do things that I don't think are worth doing for the longer term, and I am appreciating a quieter life. I'd rather lie in a sunbeam and read with Cashew and Noisette next to me then create marketing assets or spend time on social media. I'd rather go for a walk with Jonathan than go to a conference or networking event. In my Pilgrimage memoir, I quote an anonymous source, “Pilgrim, pass by that which you do not love.” It's a powerful message, and I take it to mean, stop listening to people who tell you what is important. Listen to yourself more and only pay attention to that which you feel drawn to explore. On pilgrimage, it might be turning away from the supposedly important shrine of a saint to go and sit in nature and feel closer to God that way. In our author lives, it might be turning away from the things that just feel wrong for us, and leaning into what is enjoyable, that which feels worthwhile, that which we want to keep doing for the long term. Let's face it, as always, that is the writing, the thinking, the imagination. As ever, I have this mantra on my wall: “Measure your life by what you create.” It's the creation side of things that we love and that's what we need to remember when everything else gets a little much. Many authors left social media in 2025, and while I haven't left it altogether, I don't use it much. I post pictures proving I am human on Instagram @jfpennauthor which automatically post to Facebook. I barely check my pages on Facebook though. I'm also still on X with a carefully curated feed that I mainly use to learn new cool AI things which I share with my Patreon Community. Double down on being human. Travel and health. Yes, I am a human author, and yes, I continue to age! When you've been publishing a while, you need to update your author photos periodically and I finally had a photoshoot I loved with Betty Bhandari Photography, which means I can add the new pics to my websites and the back of my books. Are you up to date with your author photos? (or at least within a decade of the last photoshoot?!) Here are a few of the pictures on Instagram @jfpennauthor. Healthwise, I gave up calisthenics as it was too much on top of the powerlifting and the amount of walking I do. I did another British Powerlifting competition in September in the M2 category (based on age) and 63kgs category (based on weight). Deadlift: 95kgs. Squat: 60kgs. BenchPress: 37.5kgs. While this is less overall than last year, I also weigh less, so I'm actually stronger based on lift to body weight percentage. I have also done a few pull-ups in the last week with no band, which I am thrilled with! On the travel side, Iceland was the big trip, and I also had a weekend in Berlin for the film festival, where I met up with a producer and a director around an adaptation of my Day of the Vikings thriller. That didn't pan out, as most of these things don't, but I certainly learned a lot about the industry — and why it doesn't suit me! Once again, I dipped my toe into screenwriting and then ran away, as has happened multiple times over the years. When will I learn? … Over the summer of 2025, I visited lots of gothic cathedrals including Lichfield, Rochester, Durham, York, and revisiting Canterbury, as part of my book research for the Gothic Cathedral book. I have tens of thousands of words on this project, but it isn't ready yet, so this is carried over into 2026 as it might happen then, depending on the Masters. I spoke at Author Nation in Las Vegas in November 2025, and before it started, I visited (Lower) Antelope Canyon, one of the places on my bucket list, and it did not disappoint. What a special place and no doubt it will appear in a story at some point! How did your 2025 go? I hope your 2025 had some wonderful times as well as no doubt some challenges — and that you have time for reflection as the year turns once more. Let me know in the comments whether you achieved your creative goals and any other reflections you'd like to share.The post Review Of My 2025 Creative And Business Goals With Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Stephen Mitchell has translated or adapted some of the world's most beautiful and spiritually rich texts, including The Gospel According to Jesus, The Book of Job, Gilgamesh, Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, The Iliad, The Odyssey, Beowulf, The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, and The Way of Forgiveness. In his latest book, The First Christmas: A Story of New Beginnings, he brings the Nativity story to life as never before. In this special episode, Jacke talks to Stephen about his translations, his search for spiritual truths, and his work imagining the story of the first Christmas from multiple points of view. PLUS Jacke continues his way up the charts of the Greatest Books of All Time with a look at #4 on the list, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Note: A version of this episode first ran in December 2021. Join Jacke on a trip through literary England! Join Jacke and fellow literature fans on an eight-day journey through literary England in partnership with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠John Shors Travel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ in May 2026! Scheduled stops include The Charles Dickens Museum, Dr. Johnson's house, Jane Austen's Bath, Tolkien's Oxford, Shakespeare's Globe Theater, and more. Learn more by emailing jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com or masahiko@johnshorstravel.com, or by contacting us through our website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠historyofliterature.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. December update: Act soon - there are only two spots left! The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠gabrielruizbernal.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Help support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/literature ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠historyofliterature.com/donate ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Patreon preview. Unlock full episode at https://www.patreon.com/stavvysworldThe Mastermind of Those Out of Their Mind, JP McDade, taps Myka Fox for the newest edition of McDade's Maniacs, to discuss the joys of shoplifting, Arizona childhoods, her dad's pragmatic dream of becoming a dentist, whether Stav is smart or dumb, Angelina Jolie in Beowulf, and much more. Myka, JP and Stav help callers including an adult man who doesn't like his best friend's nephew's girlfriend because she can't riff, and a woman who's mad that he male friend dogged a girl from Bumble.  Check out Myka Fox's podcast Great Hang: https://www.patreon.com/GreatHangSee Myka Fox live and follow her on social media:https://www.mykafox.com/http://instagram.com/mykafoxhttp://twitter.com/mykafoxhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/MykaFox☎️ Want to be a part of the show? Call 904-800-STAV and leave a voicemail to get advice!