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Professor Anne Sheridan on Why You Should Read Classic Literature · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyWriterLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: There are books, and then there are books with a capital B.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know those books you learned about an English lit class in high school or college.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: The books everybody knows they should read, but few people do because they're intimidated by those classics.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, fear no more.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: My guest today is Professor Ann Sheridan, and she's going to help take the intimidation factor out of reading classic literature.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Anne is an educator, a pastor's wife, and a mother of three girls living in Davenport, Iowa.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Anne has undergraduate degrees in piano performance in English, a graduate certificate in biblical studies, and an MA in English.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Anne has several years of experience teaching at the college level, having done courses in speech, English comp, English literature, and Christian fantasy literature.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: She enjoys reading in community and helping students to discover and appreciate the joys of reading.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever we taught at St.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Louis Christian College together for a few years, I really came to appreciate Anne's depth of knowledge and her love for great literature.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm excited to share this conversation with you on those same topics.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: In this interview, Anne and I talk about what makes a classic a classic.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: We also talk about why you shouldn't feel intimidated by literature, how to distinguish between different genres in literature, why Shakespeare was so great, how to make time to read, and of course the topic of Star Wars comes up, which is a topic that seems to make an appearance on my podcast every so often in these interviews.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: You can connect with Anne on Twitter at a underscore l underscore sheridan.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you love books, classic literature, and learning, you're definitely going to enjoy this conversation with the amazing Ann Sheridan.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Ann, it's great to have you back on the podcast.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a while since we've chatted.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think it's actually been four years since you've been on my podcast.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really great to reconnect.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to have a conversation about classic literature.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for making time to do this.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited for this conversation.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we first connected, and I will have already probably mentioned a bit of a bit about this in the intro that I'll record later on.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: But we first connected to St.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Louis Christian College where we both, you were an adjunct professor.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, you were, were you ever full-time?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, I was always adjunct.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you sometimes I taught several classes.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: But you were like basically doing like a full-time load at sometimes, right?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like you were doing several classes a semester and like a full load.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: So okay.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we kind of connected there and I got to know you a bit and really came to appreciate your love for classic literature and books and English and all those kinds of things.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Can you walk through just for a second?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: What were your favorite classes to teach as a professor dealing with writing, books, literature, those kinds of themes?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I taught um in my teaching career, I have taught uh a bunch of writing classes.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I've taught um some remedial writing, which is a lot of grammar.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've taught um composition one and two, which is writing and then research writing.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what I really have enjoyed teaching is I taught an introduction to literature class at um SLCC at St.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Louis Christian College.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then I taught um a class that I completely made up, which was called Christian Fantasy Literature.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and those two classes were for sure the most fun for me to teach.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I just really love discussing literature and introducing um students to literature that I like and that sometimes I'm being introduced to as well.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for the intro to lit class, I was reading new stuff as well because of the wide variety of literature you read in that class.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like people are intimidated by literature sometimes?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So when we use that word literature or classics or those kinds of things, why is it that people feel so intimidated by those?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: You think?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I do think that they feel intimidated.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, it's hard to say.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, literature is a fancy word.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a lot bigger, it's a lot harder to say than just books or reading.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so if people say, you know, if you say something like, Do you like reading or do you like books?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's maybe a little bit less intimidating.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think as a culture, we have to some extent gotten away from reading.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it seems a little bit scarier.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it seems a little bit more like school than it seems like fun.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in past centuries, we didn't have television, we didn't, you know, a long time ago we didn't have radio.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: So reading was kind of how people entertain themselves.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: But now we've moved on to other forms of entertainment.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so reading has maybe become a little bit more like school.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that becomes slightly intimidating for people, you know, the idea of literature sounds high class, it sounds like thinking.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's just a little bit scary.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, although it shouldn't have to be, but yeah, I think it is a little bit, it's intimidating.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that it that it takes the the joy or the the fun out of literature and reading when it's required for a course?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: I always found that as a student, if something was required that immediately sucked out my motivation for reading it.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: But if I read the same thing on my own, it was like, oh, this is great or whatever.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to remedy that situation, but as a teacher, how do you feel about that?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I I think that it is to a certain extent.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think that is true.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I and I think it starts now in the elementary schools.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think a lot of schools have this, you know, goal, you need to read 20 minutes a night.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So then that feels like that feels like working out or eating vegetables or something.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, here's this good thing, you have this healthy thing you have to do once a day.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And once you're done, then then you can have fun or whatever.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And right, right.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I understand, I understand the impetus between behind something like that, with this, you know, you need to read a little bit every day, because that's really good advice.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: It really is necessary.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it has turned it into a little bit of a chore.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's hard to say.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I think to some degree, um possibly the dislike of reading for classes comes from what's assigned.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not everybody is going to engage with what is assigned.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so maybe sometimes we need to rethink either how we teach some of these classics or which ones we assign.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, are we assigning them at the wrong age?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you assign a novel that is really too difficult for somebody at that age, then they're not going to like it so much.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, an example of this, which I've just recently been thinking about, is Um The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Which is a book that I think probably, probably you read in in school long ago.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: I know I read it.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I read it in um, I think I was about 14.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it was either like you know, middle school or early high school when I read it.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I remember liking it, but I've just recently realized that I didn't understand it fully.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was, and I don't even think that I could have understand it fully.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's, you know, most of us are are basically familiar with the with the basic plot, which is that a woman um in a Puritan culture is discovered to have become pregnant out of wedlock, and she's forced to wear this scarlet A for adulteress on her chest for the rest of her life, right?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: This public shaming.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and without, you know, giving away necessarily too much, um, some of the adultery in the book uh involves a pastor in this society.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I have just in the last year or two, it's been suggested to me that this book is at least in part about um pastoral sexual abuse, right?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this never occurred to me before, right?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like as a 14-year-old, it was not going to occur to me.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've been thinking about whether that book in particular, but and and now maybe other books are assigned too early before a child is really capable of actually understanding that.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's not gonna help them to necessarily enjoy the reading.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: If they can't get it, if it's if it's being assigned too early, if it's not, if they're not being helped to think through what's happening, um, then it's not gonna be fun.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna feel like work, right?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Man, that is so true.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it kind of reminds me of of a problem that I have seen many times over the years.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I you know, I was a college teacher for so long, and I struggled with this myself, which is the things that I was personally excited about learning at whatever stage of my life.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's really easy to feel like you want to kind of include all those things in classes for undergrads.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the things I was learning, let's say as a as a 40-year-old, you know, 18 to 20 year olds, they're not at the stage where they can appreciate a lot of those things or understand them, or you know, and those kinds of things.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: So is there an element to where teachers have to really look at is this book appropriate?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily like appropriate content-wise, but yeah, is it something that a kid that age is really gonna get excited about?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because the things that excite you as an adult or as a parent or grandparent are not the things that are gonna excite a high school kid.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sometimes.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think we um yeah, I think we definitely need to think about the the the life situation they're in at that point, um, as well as just their their ability, their um logical ability.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm I've I'm looking at getting into teaching um high schoolers and middle schoolers literature.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the literature that even I loved in college, no, they're not gonna get it.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I love William Faulkner, but I maybe one of his pieces of writing is maybe okay for like a an 18-year-old.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um beyond that, it's it's just really hard.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's just gonna be really not even like you said, not even necessarily content-wise in terms of maturity, although that sometimes is is the case.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's hard, it's hard reading.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you need um you need more life experiences.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so that that sometimes has to be gauged on a student-to-student basis.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um but if you're teaching a large class, then you think about what is the majority going to be prepared for.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: So what is it that that makes a classic anyway?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as as we look at kind of the curriculum that's in high schools or colleges or middle schools, uh, even grad school, I guess for that matter, uh, many times.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: What is it about certain books that we have, as a culture, we've identified those as classics where we say, okay, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's a classic, or Edgar Allan Poe's stuff, or you know, here on my desk, I got a bunch of books off my shelf.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or what makes why have we decided that or to kill a mockingbird?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why are those books that we consider classics?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, somebody who's taught this, what are what are your thoughts on that?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really good question.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, first of all, it bears noting that we are actually kind of rethinking what um what decides what we should read.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so in the past, you know, the study of literature as a discipline like in a college is is relatively new.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it started maybe in the 1920s.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's maybe a hundred years old or so that we've been studying literature like as a discipline in colleges.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we have, you know, and you can you can look up online, you can look up what's the what is the canon of great literature, and you will find, you know, just a list of authors.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then for some of them, you'll find, you know, they're they're great books.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so, you know, the books that you mentioned are going to be on there, like Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is is definitely in the canon of Western literature.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Shakespeare, always in the canon, right?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Edgar Allan Poe, also in the canon, somebody like Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, things like this.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: So what we've noticed, and and the books in the canon are great books, and and I'll talk about in a minute what makes something a classic, what's decided it's a classic.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: But what we've also noticed is that um the books in the canon generally skew uh white male as the authors.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Which doesn't strike us like as odd.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, white men are not the only ones who are capable of writing great, great books.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: No, and and you know, not to not to denigrate these white men, because a lot of, you know, like Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Shakespeare for sure.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they are great writers.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Shakespeare is maybe the greatest writer who ever lived.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but surely there had to be other people who also wrote good literature, right?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, and there are some women who broke into the to the canon.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Jane Austen and Mary Shelley are good examples.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we are starting to kind of rethink are there other books that maybe we missed or that maybe also are worthwhile reading by people of color and by women, right?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um people from other walks of life.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the canon as like an idea is kind of um disintegrating a little bit in literature, literary studies.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: But we still have this idea of some books are worth reading, some books are worth reading at an academic type level, and others aren't.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Some books are classic, some books are worth studying, and others are not.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so there are a couple things that make that make something a classic.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: One, the the really big thing is staying power.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: So if it's still interesting and fun to read, and we still enjoy it after 100 years, 200 years, even maybe 70 years, then then we look at it as a classic.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: So something like Pride and Prejudice, which is um just a little over 200, it's like 210 years old now.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um we like there's still there's so many uh film adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, right?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: We s we still love it.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you you um you give a teenage girl Pride and Prejudice, and she's still gonna like it, right?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And in even some teenage boys, I mean it's it's not a it's not a classic.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's really funny.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it has a classic love story.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: All of this, it's um so we still like it.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's one thing, and it still speaks to us, that's another thing.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that kind of also gets to the the themes of the work.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: So Pride and Prejudice is not to get use that as an example, it's not just a love story, right?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not really Jane Austen gets pegged as like a um kind of chiclet writer, right?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like the original chicklet writer, and that's not really what she was doing.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a misunderstanding of her um her mission.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: She did write stories in which people um ended up happily married, and and that was certainly a wonderful thing, and we can look at it as kind of uh, those are happy love stories.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: But she was writing, as you mentioned, she was writing um really funny books that were also social critiques.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we might call some of her books actually comedies of manners.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so she's critiquing her society.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: She's looking at, you know, back then it really was important that a young woman ended up married to somebody who had money, like that, because that was how they um that's how they had security for the rest of their life.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so a happy ending for like all of her heroines ends up being married to somebody who not only is good for them, whom they love, but also who has money.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Both of those were important.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like her heroines do not end up married to super poor men, right?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because that was not in that society, that was not like going to be a happy situation.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then she's also critiquing, you know, she's gently critiquing the way people acted in that society.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: She's critiquing um the way people thought in that society.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: So she's she's gently poking fun at her society, and she's also pointing out um, you know, here's how you should act.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: For example, uh with Emma.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Emma is um, it's another of her novels, and the heroine in Emma is kind of a well-to-do, well-educated girl.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um and one of the points of Emma is that if you are somebody who is well-to-do and well-educated and a little bit more well-informed, you need to treat other people with respect still.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: You need to understand that other people maybe don't have all these advantages that you do, and you need to um care for them and you need to um give them a lot of respect.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so that she is giving us really timeless truths.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: When I read Jane Austen's books, I see myself in her characters, and I think, oh, I yeah, I need to be, I need to not laugh at other people, and I need to um, I need to listen to them and I need to care.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I um and so that's that's another thing that I think that classic literature does is that it it still speaks to us.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: A book that's written, you know, really too much in its time is not going to continue to speak to someone in 200 years, but that's what the classics do.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: We still think about these issues of um, you know, in science.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is kind of a supernatural science fiction type book, Mary Shelley.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like we still haven't figured out how to, you know, make a human being out of dead body parts, right?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's still kind of yeah, we're it's still kind of sci-fi, but we do, we still struggle with these ideas of if you can, does that mean you should?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big question in in Frankenstein.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have done this thing scientifically, then what is your responsibility with it?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, the Dr.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Frankenstein makes this, or Victor Frankenstein makes this monster, and then he just kind of abandons it, right?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so part of the question of that book is who is the monster?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is it is it Victor who's created this thing, or is it the thing that was made, right?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we still are asking, it's we are still asking, what can we, what should we do once we have done, once we've figured out how to do this thing scientifically, what's our responsibility with it?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: How is our you know, um, how is our responsibility to use it?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that is just, and Frankenstein helps us think through those things.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: It helps us think through um responsibility for actions and um scientific responsibility.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think those would maybe be the two big, the two big things.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing that's important with classical literature is that it will represent its time well.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this is something that um like to kill a mockingbird, it helps us to understand another time really well.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it helps us to remember the way things were in a certain time so that to some extent, so that we do not repeat them.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think that's another thing that that really well-done literature does.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: It it helps us to understand a historical context rather than just reading the the history will do.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, how does somebody get started with with some of these books?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think all of us feel like we should read more of these kinds of classic books.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: We all went through school and and we know the list of books and and things that we probably should be reading, but how do we actually get started with this?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is there is there a certain strategy for getting into reading these that you might recommend?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, take 10 minutes a day or read 10 pages a day or or something like that that's really doable for the busy person.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I mean, I can tell you what I do.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I'm I'm busy and I used to read.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I used to when I was when I was in, you know, elementary through high school, I would just read all the time for fun, right?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then in college, I I was an English major, so I read for class, but I also still read for fun.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then I went to grad school.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and but now, you know, I I work and I have kids and I'm taking my kids' places and I'm doing various things.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and I've just since I graduated from graduate school, it's just been a lot harder for me to find time to just read.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a person who likes to read, right?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's difficult for just the average adult who maybe doesn't really want to read, but knows that they should.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, what I do is I read a centout each day.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my that is my base goal is to read it's like 10 pages a day of of a book.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you can get through a lot if you read 10 pages a day.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can get through a lot in a year.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one thing that I I like to remind people is that speed of reading and even amount read is not necessarily um as important.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, I've run into people in my life who boast about how quickly they can read.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not necessarily bad.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's not necessarily bad to read fast.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can certainly get through a lot, but the more important thing is to read well.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, to make sure that you are understanding and you're and you're getting the information in what you read.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is true for any kind of reading, not just classic reading, um, reading of classic literature.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, for me, I read 10 pages a day, and that's like that's what I can get.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I also don't stress out if I don't read in a day, but I try to keep working forward.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that way, you know, I can read a number of novels each year.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: I can read a bunch of new books each year.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, reading about 10 pages a day, I made it through um Tess of the Derbervilles by Thomas Hardy just recently, which is like 600 pages.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and, you know, and so that was that felt like Accomplishment to me because it's a big novel.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I read just a little bit every day, so that that is what I do.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think you also need to find literature that is going to be at least somewhat interesting to you.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, not all books are gonna be great for all people.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think you need to push yourself a little bit.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: You need to push yourself outside of your comfort comfort zone a little bit, especially if you're not somebody who's used to reading um a little bit more difficult literature.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: You are gonna have to push yourself and you're gonna have to think about it.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so you treat that a little bit more like study than you do um fun.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: So there's there's literature that we read, um, which is a little bit like TV, you know, that which is fun and easy and doesn't require a whole lot of thought.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's literature that is fun but also pushes us a little bit.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: So in the same way that you would study um the Bible or you would study writing every day, um, you do a little bit of reading that does that pushes you.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to find the kind of reading that is specific, that you know, what you like.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So think about the genres, you know, you can think about, for example, what kind of films you like.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: That can be a good, uh, a good gauge.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're really interested in science fiction, then look online for what the the classic literature version versions of science fiction are.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh, or if you really like fantasy, uh, you know, I always have to give a plug for J.R.R.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Tolkien.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's incredibly literary, his writing, um, but it's super fun to read, right?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you like uh like romantic comedies, there's Jane Austen.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um so find the kind of genre that you like to read and start there, I think, and and and read a little bit every day.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's going to be some books that you just can't get into and you're just gonna hate, and then it's okay for you to stop them.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I sometimes push through things that uh I really don't like, and it it maybe it's a waste of time.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, recently I read um A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, which a lot of people just super love, and I hated it.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I read, you know, 400 pages that I just didn't like.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not necessarily sorry that I read it, but I think it would have been fine for me to just be like, well, this is not my thing and stop.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's really dislike something, then move on to something else and find something that's going to be um interesting to you, at least in topic.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Are there any books that you feel like everybody should read?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so if you're per if you're a person of faith, obviously we're uh we're gonna include the Bible in that mix, but let's kind of take that out of the mix for a second, you know, like religious texts, those kinds of things.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: Are there any other books that you really feel strongly that everybody really should read this or at least be familiar with that?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so the the number one name that comes to mind is Shakespeare.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think everybody should read um some of William Shakespeare's writing.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, part of the reason for this is um another reason that I forgot to mention about why literature becomes a classic.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that is when it enters into um the cultural parlance, when it enters into when when references from this book just become part of our the things that we talk about in our culture, the idioms that we have.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um so Shakespeare is maybe the largest example of this.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's tons of stuff that we say that comes from Shakespeare.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't always even realize that these little sayings, like, you know, you have to be cruel to be kind, like that's Shakespeare, right?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we don't realize that these things came from Shakespeare.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: He he made up a lot of words that we use, like bedroom.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's a that's a word from Shakespeare, right?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um he made it up.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I think Shakespeare's the first one.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: You need to read at least some Shakespeare.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I would I would recommend Hamlet as as the really um quintessential Shakespeare.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love Hamlet.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's long, it's a little bit difficult, but the the character of Hamlet is just wonderful.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um let me let me throw something in here for a second if I can, and I'm sorry to interrupt you.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I happen to have here, I bought this at a used bookstore last week.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: I got this because the teacher and me could not resist, and I saw a bunch of copies, and I knew that some class in the area had required this, and a bunch of students were selling.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: So this is called No Fear Shakespeare, and this is Hamlet.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: It has regular Shakespeare on the left side, and it has rewritten plain English Shakespeare on the right side.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: What is your feeling about those kinds of things that are taking very old texts and they're kind of interpreting them for modern ears?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: How do you feel about that as a teacher?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think uh, yeah, that's a good question.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: So Shakespeare is a great example of this because Shakespeare is not, it's it's not old English.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes we we make the mistake of calling it old English.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's old English is more like Chaucer.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost unreadable to our modern.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the letters look different, all of that.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it is, it is a more modern English, but it's it's 400 years ago, right?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And people spoke differently 400 years ago.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: They just did.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's not, and the fact that we read Shakespeare and it's hard for us to understand is not a knock on us.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: It just means the language has changed.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I guess I would say two things.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm okay.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm okay with an addition like that.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: You have to read Shakespeare with um with at least notes.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you cannot pick up Shakespeare and just read it with no notes because we're not gonna understand, even a well-read person is not gonna understand all the allusions that he's making, all of the words that he's using, because they're they're old and they're outdated.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think that having a um a kind of modern translation next to the original is fine because that's gonna help the student to understand what's happening and what's being said.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, I do think it's important for Shakespeare to read the actual language, because the reason we read Shakespeare is the language.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't come up with like any of his plots, you know.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Romeo and Juliet, for example, super famous.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: There were several versions of Romeo and Juliet that existed before Shakespeare.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we remember Shakespeare's, right?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: When we think of Romeo and Juliet, we think of Shakespeare, even though the story of those two people had existed, you know, it it what first I think popped up in Italy.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so part of the reason that we remember Shakespeare's versions of all these stories is because of his language and the way he tells the story and the language that he uses.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to read in Shakespeare's case, you have to read the language.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: But in order for us to understand the language now, we do need to have um a modern translation, or at least we need to have notes that help us to understand.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you so yeah, both, but you can't um just reading a translated, you know, a translated modern English Shakespeare, that's not going to be enough.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: However, just reading old Shakespeare is also not going to be enough.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Especially for a child.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, sorry to get you off track there.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: You were you were talking about a few um a few really, really important things that you felt like everybody should read.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so yeah, so I think that I think that Shakespeare is is maybe a number one.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um something else that is um I think is important, I think is important for a lot of people to read is is Homer.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the Odyssey.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this is going to be translated, you know, they were written in Greek.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um but and and there's various translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but reading reading a version of the Odyssey, I think is is important for most people.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: We um the Odyssey still infuses a lot of our culture.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: The idea of Odysseus's journey infuses a lot of our culture.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there's some important lessons that we can learn.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I named my my third daughter, is named Penelope, um, for the heroine in the Odyssey, Odysseus's wife, who is, you know, an incredibly clever and faithful um and long-suffering woman.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we can learn lessons like from Penelope, from waiting for 20 years for your husband to come home and also trying to navigate all of the um various social situations at home, right?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and she's incredibly clever in in the way she does that.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so um the Odyssey is is another important one.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's there's just a lot of uh I think that probably most people should read a Charles Dickens.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think that most people should read a Jane Austen.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's a lot of authors that you probably should read at least one book, but I think probably the big ones um are like Shakespeare and then reading like an epic.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, and yeah, I I I think that there's a lot of other books that people should read, but the list would start to get really long after to list all of these.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it starts to get different depending on who you ask and preferences and things.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like with with the Odyssey, is it necessary to read Virgil along with that?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because obviously it's a kind of a continuation of the story, yeah.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like a whole different deal as well.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's not it's connected, but it's like a whole, you know, it's somebody making a sequel basically, yeah, to somebody else's movie.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: So what's your what is your feeling about the importance of that?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, so the the Aeneid is like the sequel to the Iliad.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we have the Iliad, and then um, which is the story of the the the Trojan War.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the Aeneid is like what happens to the Trojans after the Trojan War.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Aeneas leaves Troy and goes on and and Rome is founded.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the Odyssey is like another sequel to the Iliad, which is the story of Odysseus, one of the soldiers um in the Trojan War, going home.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like a little sort of snapshot of one person, whereas the Aeneid is the Aeneid finishes like the big story.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I would call the Aeneid an important epic.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like the of the epics, we have the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid, and those are the important ones.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm, you know, I'm not a classics.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: My expertise is not in classics, but I have read the Aeneid.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I I'm not sure that I personally would call it as important as like reading one of Homer's works, but it is like maybe right after that, just as important.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard not to have respect for somebody who just, you know, like regardless of the content or the story or the perceived quality of it, it's hard not to have a lot of respect for somebody who just sits down and creates an epic poem.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, because it's massive amazing.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, hey, mad respect to anybody who who does that, you know.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:47
  unknown: Yeah.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, the the Ineat is great, and I think it is worth, it's certainly worth reading.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: I yeah, I don't want to imply that it's not because it's one of the one of the great works in literature in the world.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and this has been a blast.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I appreciate your insights on all this.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: What are some books?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll kind of wrap up with this.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: What are some books or some authors that you are really excited about now that you feel like are contemporary classics, that these are things that that we should check out, even though they're newer books?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm, that is a really good question.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I I tend to read old books, I don't read a whole lot of newer books.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but one of the writers that um a lot of people really love.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm from Iowa.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the you know, this is you you have a writing podcast.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the the famous um is as far as writing goes in Iowa, we have the Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and somebody who taught there for a long time is Marilyn Robinson.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Are you familiar at all with her writing?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so she is so she she she taught for a long time at the Iowa Writers Workshop.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: She's one of their one of their famous writers.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um she is um a Christian from a well, I don't want to get it wrong.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't, I don't, I think I feel like she may be Episcopalian, but I I don't want to, I don't want to misstate.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um but she is a a an incredibly well-respected writer amongst writers of today.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're interested in reading, you know, modern classic literature that that writers and readers really uh really admire, Marilyn Robinson is somewhere to start.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um she uh her, let's see, she has several famous novels.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um the works that she's writing um right now, or that she's just maybe just finished writing, are a bunch of books about a small town in Iowa.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: They take place in a small town in Iowa called Gilead, which I think is fictional.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they retell kind of the same story or the same um series of events from a bunch of different um perspectives.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the probably the most famous of those is called Gilead.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I've heard of that, actually.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um yes, yeah, Gilead is it's uh the writings of a I think Lutheran pastor named John Ames, who lives in this small town in Iowa.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um he's an older man who has um his first wife died, and he married later in life.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: He married a younger woman and had a son.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then at age, you know, in his, he's maybe in his 70s, he's realized that he's dying and that he um is leaving his his young wife and his 10-year-old son.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's beautiful, um, it's beautiful writing, beautiful philosophical writing.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but she also has a bunch of other books in those Lila, Jack, um, Homecoming, and no, Home, um, in that series.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I would recommend checking out Marilyn Robinson as kind of a classic.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a she's a modern great American writer.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a book that I'm reading right now, which so far I'm enjoying.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not too far into it, but I'm enjoying it, is I'm it's called Loris by Eugene Vodilajkin.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's a modern Russian novel, uh, just translated into English in 2015.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it takes place in medieval Russia.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it is it's a very a winner of a bunch of awards, it's very well regarded.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so so far I am enjoying that.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you go, you know, if you go back a little bit further, I do think that a modern classic, um, especially in children's literature, are the Harry Potter books.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, these are books that um so far are standing the test of time.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so far they're still being read and they still have things to say to us.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so if you haven't read Harry Potter, that is, they're a blast.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're just lots of fun.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're written for children.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, they're a little bit easier to read, but they still have a good literary quality.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, much different than, you know, like Marilyn Robinson's books are a little bit more work to read, even though they're very beautiful and can teach us a lot.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, those are the ones that come to mind right now, I think, are um Marilyn Robinson and then um this Vodalushkin novel that I'm reading, and um, as well as J.K.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Rowling.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna check out uh check these out, particularly Marilyn Robinson.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds fascinating.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sounds really fascinating.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: And she's uh she's a writer's writer, you know.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're interested in writing, her writing is wonderful to read.
• 37:27
  unknown: Perfect.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and thank you so much.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate your time.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um hopping on to the Daily Writer podcast, and hopefully it won't be another four years before we have you on again.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that type of thing.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, I've always really respected and admired your love for literature and also just as a teacher, having taught at the same school, you know, together for for a while, uh, for a few years.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I really appreciated your contribution to students' love of literature.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Students really loved you as a teacher.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um I just thought it was really fun to have you on campus and kind of among our faculty, bringing this love of literature and helping students to write and read better.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: I just thought that was really, really cool.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for your contribution to that.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: And this has been fun because now we've gotten to chat again and connect a little bit, uh, reconnect a little bit, and now I've got some new recommendations.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate all that.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you so much for having me on.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is super fun.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if um if any of our listeners would like to connect with you and have some follow-up questions about this, would it be okay if they shoot you an email?
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or what's the best way for them to connect with you with some follow-up questions?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, we can put maybe in the show notes my uh email address and then my Twitter.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you can follow me on Twitter or or you can shoot me an email.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um Perfect.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, what's your Twitter handle?
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: Is it just Ann Sheridan?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's capital A underscore capital L underscore Sheridan.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks again.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a blast.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: Wasn't that a fun conversation?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: I really enjoy talking about these kinds of topics that are broader than just the immediate things that we concern ourselves with as writers, like book marketing, getting our books done, and you know, all those kinds of things that are really, really important.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I also love talking about the broader things like classic literature and how we can read things that really bring us together as humans, not just in the here and now, but over the centuries, because when we dive into great literature, we're diving into pools of knowledge, we're diving into stories that people of many, many generations and all over the world have engaged with.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to encourage you to grab a classic book and just start reading.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Don't feel intimidated by the idea that it's a classic.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Just dive in there and do it.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, one thing I want to suggest to you, and this is something I do every single year during Christmas, is start off with something really, really simple and short, and that is a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: Many generations, you know, since uh the mid-1800s have enjoyed this classic story, and you've probably seen movie adaptations of it many, many times, or stage plays or musicals or whatever.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I want to encourage you, if you've never read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, that's a great place to dive into reading some classics.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: I do it every single year.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of my personal Christmas traditions.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the book is less than 100 pages long.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, now that I am flipping through my print copy, it is literally 102 pages long, and it's a physically small book, so it doesn't take you that long to read, maybe a couple hours.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: So encourage you to read a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, grab that, and I think you'll really, really enjoy it.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks again to Anne for making the time to be a guest on this episode and for being a champion of classic literature.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: Again, make sure that you connect with Anne on Twitter at a underscore l underscore sheridan.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Before I go, I want to let you know that today's episode is sponsored by Indie Author University, featuring the Book Marketing Mastery course.
• 40:51
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• 40:59
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• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: So needless to say, she knows her stuff.
• 41:09
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• 41:14
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• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I will see you tomorrow.