Best Chris Poots Podcasts (2025)

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700 - Butterflies at Rest 28:08

3d ago28:08

28:08

Returning to some devastating news after a trip to Paris, Jacke searches for lost time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Jacke Wilson / The Podglomerate

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699 Gatsby's Daisy (with Rachel Feder) | My Last Book with Francesca Peacock 1:12:12

14d ago1:12:12

1:12:12

F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby might be one hundred years old, but it's still incredibly relevant: one list-of-lists site ranks it as the number-one book of all time. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Rachel Feder about this classic tale of reinvention - and the reinventing she did for her book Daisy, which retells the Gatsby sto…

1
698 Dante in Love (with Ellen Nerenberg and Anthony Valerio) [Ad-Free Archive Edition] 1:05:26

18d ago1:05:26

1:05:26

It's springtime! A great time to be in love - and if you're a poetic genius like Dante Alighieri, a great time to catch a glimpse of a girl named Beatrice on the streets of Florence, fall madly in love with her, and spend the rest of your life beatifying her in verse. In this episode, we present a conversation that first aired in February 2018, in …

1
697 Race in European Fairy Tales (with Kimberly Lau) | My Last Book with Rolf Hellebust 1:21:03

21d ago1:21:03

1:21:03

Anyone digging into fairy tales soon discovers that there's more to these stories of magic and wonder than meets the eye. Often thought of as stories for children, the narratives can be shockingly violent, and they sometimes deliver messages or "morals" at odds with modern sensibilities. In this episode, Jacke talks to Kimberly Lau about her book S…

1
696 John Ruskin (with Sara Atwood) | My Last Book with Collin Jennings 1:00:25

24d ago1:00:25

1:00:25

John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a powerhouse of a man: writer, lecturer, critic, social reformer - and much else besides. From his five-volume work Modern Painters through his late writings about literature in Fiction, Fair and Foul, he brought to his subjects an energy and integrity that few critical thinkers have matched. His wide-ranging influence r…

1
695 Ten Indian Classics (with Sharmila Sen) | My Last Book with Adam Smyth 1:03:57

28d ago1:03:57

1:03:57

For the past ten years, the Murty Classical Library of India (published by Harvard University Press) has sought to do for classic Indian works what the famous Loeb Classical Library has done for Ancient Greek and Roman texts. In this episode, Jacke talks to editorial director Sharmila Sen about the joys and challenges of sifting through thousands o…

1
694 Apocalyptic Literature (with Dorian Lynskey) | My Last Book with Charles Baxter 1:07:02

1M ago1:07:02

1:07:02

For some reason, human beings don't seem to be content just thinking about their own death: they insist on imagining the end of the entire world. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Dorian Lynskey (Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World), who immersed himself in apocalyptic films and literature to discover exactly wha…

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693 Understanding the Wonders of Nature (with Alan Lightman) | My Last Book with Alan Lightman 1:00:13

1M ago1:00:13

1:00:13

In today's world of specialization, Alan Lightman is that rare individual who has accomplished remarkable things in two very different realms. As a physicist with a Ph.D. from Cal Tech, he's taught at Harvard and MIT and advised the United Nations. As a novelist, he's written award-winning bestsellers like Einstein's Dreams and The Diagnosis. In th…

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692 An Investigation in Chinatown (with Radha Vatsal) | The Five Books (with Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen) 1:02:57

1M ago1:02:57

1:02:57

It's a two-for-one special! First, Jacke talks to novelist Radha Vatsal about her new book, No. 10 Doyers Street, which tells the gripping story of an Indian woman journalist investigating a bloody shooting in New York's Chinatown circa 1907. Then podcaster Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen stops by to discuss her experience hosting The Five Books, which asks …

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691 The Making of Sylvia Plath (with Carl Rollyson) | My Last Book with Cheryl Hopson 1:04:05

1M ago1:04:05

1:04:05

Since her death, poet and novelist Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) has been an endless source of fascination for fans of her and her work. But while much attention has been paid to her tumultuous relationship with fellow poet Ted Hughes, we often overlook the influences that formed her, long before she traveled to England and met Hughes. What movies did s…

1
690 Coleridge and the Person from Porlock [Ad-Free] 1:06:26

2M ago1:06:26

1:06:26

[This episode originally ran on July 18, 2016. It is presented here without commercial interruption.] In 1797, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge took two grains of opium and fell into a stupor. When he awoke, he had in his head the remnants of a marvelous dream, a vivid train of images of the Chinese emperor Kubla Khan and his summer palace, Xanadu.…

1
689 Thomas Kyd (with Brian Vickers) | My Last Book with Jonathan D.S. Schroeder 47:28

2M ago47:28

47:28

For centuries, the playwright Thomas Kyd has been best known as the author of The Spanish Tragedy, a terrific story of revenge believed to have strongly influenced Shakespeare's Hamlet. And yet, a contemporary referred to Kyd as "industrious Kyd." What happened to the rest of his plays? In this episode, Jacke talks to scholar Brian Vickers about hi…

1
688 Georges Simenon 1:05:36

2M ago1:05:36

1:05:36

The Belgian-born French writer Georges Simenon (1903-1989) was astonishing for his literary ambition and output. The author of something like 400 novels, which he wrote in 7-10 day bursts (after checking with his physician beforehand to ensure that he could handle the strain), he's perhaps best known for his creation of Chief Inspector Jules Maigre…

1
687 Gatsby Turns 100 (with James West) 53:29

2M ago53:29

53:29

"I want to write something new," American author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a letter to his editor, "something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." Months later, he presented the results: the novel that would eventually be titled The Great Gatsby. Published in 1925 to middling success, the book has since become a can…

1
686 Russian Poetry After the Cold War (with Stephanie Sandler) 55:32

2M ago55:32

55:32

For decades, the Soviet Union was unfriendly territory for poets and writers. But what happened when the wall fell? Emerging from the underground, the poets reacted with a creative outpouring that responded to a brave new world. In this episode, Jacke talks to Russian poetry scholar Stephanie Sandler about her new book The Freest Speech in Russia: …

1
685 Charles Chesnutt (with Tess Chakkalakal) | My Last Book with John Goodby 1:01:41

2M ago1:01:41

1:01:41

Complex and talented, Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) was one of the first American authors to write for both Black and white readers. Born in Cleveland to "mixed race" parents, Chesnutt rejected the opportunity to "pass" as white, instead remaining in the Black community throughout his life. His life in the South during Reconstruction, and his kno…

1
684 The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne (with Mike Palindrome) 1:29:36

2M ago1:29:36

1:29:36

What happens when a respected church leader shows up one day wearing a mysterious veil that conceals his eyes, offering no explanation - and keeps wearing it for decades? How will the community respond? What conspiracy theories will they develop? And how will an author like Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing a hundred years later, spin a New England sin-…

1
683 Marianne Moore (with Cristanne Miller) 1:12:13

2M ago1:12:13

1:12:13

Marianne Moore (1887-1972) achieved something rare in American letters: a modernist poet who was popular with both critics and the public. Famous for her formal innovation, precise diction, and wit - as well as her black tri-corner hat and cloak, which she wore as she dashed around Manhattan - she was lauded by T.S. Eliot (and numerous prize commit…

1
682 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) [Ad-Free Re-Release] 58:55

2M ago58:55

58:55

As America closes out this year's Black History Month, Jacke dives into the archives for one of his favorite episodes, which featured a conversation with Columbia University professor Farah Jasmine Griffin about her book Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature. PLUS friend of the show Scott Carter stops by to tal…

1
681 The Jolly Corner by Henry James - Part 3 | My Last Book by Colm Tóibín 56:02

3M ago56:02

56:02

It's the conclusion to "The Jolly Corner"! Spencer Brydon lived in Europe for 33 years (as did his creator, Henry James) before returning to his childhood home in New York City. Europe has changed him - and he can't help thinking, as he observes a highly transformed New York, that he'd have been a very different person had he stayed in America duri…

1
680 The Jolly Corner by Henry James - Part 2 1:16:34

3M ago1:16:34

1:16:34

After spending decades in Europe, the American Henry James felt haunted by the idea that he'd given up something essential. Inspired by a trip home to New York City, the place of his birth, he wrote an astonishing story about a man who creeps through his childhood home late at night, searching for ghosts, and one in particular he's desperate to see…

1
679 The Jolly Corner by Henry James - Part 1 1:15:52

3M ago1:15:52

1:15:52

Although the writer Henry James (1843-1916) was born in New York City's Washington Square, he spent most of his adulthood in Europe, where he wrote such masterpieces as The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl. Late in life, he returned to New York after a thirty-three year absence to find the city much transformed, as sky…

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678 Fernando Pessoa (with Bartholomew Ryan) | My Last Book with Robin Waterfield 1:09:28

3M ago1:09:28

1:09:28

Jacke's been trying to come to grips with Portuguese modernist poet Fernando Pessoa ever since Harold Bloom named him one of the 26 most influential writers in the entire Western canon. But it's not easy! As a young man, Pessoa wanted to be, in his words, "plural like the universe," and he carried this out in his poetry: writing verse in the style …

1
677 Dylan Thomas (with John Goodby) | Emily Brontë and the Search for Hope 1:07:50

3M ago1:07:50

1:07:50

Dylan Thomas: brilliant poet or self-indulgent blowhard? In this episode, Jacke talks to John Goodby, co-author of the biography Dylan Thomas: A Critical Life, about the misconceptions swirling around the famous Welsh poet, and the approach that he and fellow author Chris Wigginton took in presenting a revealing and fresh introduction to Thomas's l…

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676 "Mrs Spring Fragrance" by Sui Sin Far (with Mike Palindrome) 1:25:52

3M ago1:25:52

1:25:52

Mike Palindrome, the President of the Literature Supporters Club, joins Jacke for a reading and discussion of "Mrs. Spring Fragrance" by Sui Sin Far. The story, which takes place against a backdrop of waves of immigration to America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (and the racist anti-Asian laws that followed), depicts an enterprisi…

1
675 Zora Neale Hurston (with Cheryl Hopson) | Jack Kerouac's Newly Discovered Writings 1:10:18

3M ago1:10:18

1:10:18

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was the most published African American woman writer of the first half of the twentieth century; her signature novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is still read by students, scholars, and literature lovers everywhere. In this episode, Jacke talks to Hurston biographer Cheryl R. Hopson (Zora Neale Hurston: A Critical Li…

1
674 Nabokov vs Freud (with Joshua Ferris) [Ad-Free Re-Release] 51:13

3M ago51:13

51:13

“I admire Freud greatly,” the novelist Vladimir Nabokov once said, “as a comic writer.” For Nabokov, Sigmund Freud was “the Viennese witch-doctor,” objectionable for “the vulgar, shabby, fundamentally medieval world” of his ideas. Author Joshua Ferris (The Dinner Party, Then We Came to the End) joins Jacke for a discussion of the author of Lolita a…

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673 Edna Ferber (with Julie Gilbert) | My Last Book with Jessica Kirzane 1:04:39

3M ago1:04:39

1:04:39

Novelist and playwright Edna Ferber (1885-1968) lived a wondrous life: residing in Manhattan as a member of the famed Algonquin Round Table, writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (So Big), and producing works that Hollywood turned into twentieth-century classics, including the Kern & Hammerstein musical Show Boat and George Stevens's Giant, starri…

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672 The Little Review (with Holly A. Baggett) | My Last Book with Phil Jones 58:43

4M ago58:43

58:43

Founded in Chicago in 1914, the avant-garde journal the Little Review became a giant in the cause of modernism, publishing literature and art by luminaries such as T.S. Eliot, Djuna Barnes, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Gertrude Stein, Jean Toomer, William Carlos Williams, H.D., Amy Lowell, Marcel Duchamp,…

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671 Shakespeare's Tragic Art (with Rhodri Lewis) | My Last Book with Joel Warner 1:00:06

4M ago1:00:06

1:00:06

It is a truth universally acknowledged that tragedy is one of the world's highest art forms, and that Shakespeare was one of the form's greatest practitioners. But how did he do it? What models did he have to draw upon, and where did he innovate? In this episode, Jacke talks to Shakespeare scholar Rhodri Lewis about his new book Shakespeare's Tragi…

1
670 The Parable 1:43:02

4M ago1:43:02

1:43:02

Inspired by an email (from a listener?) with mysterious origins, Jacke takes a look at the brief narrative form the parable. How did parables get their name? What are their key features? Why did Jesus rely on them so heavily to communicate to his listeners? And what meaning does "A Parable" have for us today? Additional listening: 634 The Bible: A …

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669 Obsessed with Melville (with Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder) | My Last Book with Alexander Poots 56:00

4M ago56:00

56:00

What happens when a woman becomes obsessed with Herman Melville during the pandemic? What if the process of sorting fact from fiction in Melville's work inspires a midlife reckoning with her own marriage and ambition? And what if she (a poet) and her husband (a novelist, by the way) write a book about all of it? Well, the result would be something …

1
668 Book and Dagger - The Scholars and Librarians Who Became Spies and Fought the Nazis (with Elyse Graham) | Jane Austen Turns 250 1:04:08

4M ago1:04:08

1:04:08

When the U.S. joined the war in the 1940s, it had a problem: its military had virtually no intelligence service. Enter the librarians! In this episode, Jacke talks to Elyse Graham about her work Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II, which tells the story of the efforts to recruit academics and train…

1
667 Sui Sin Far (with Victoria Namkung) | My Last Book with Samantha Rose Hill 55:33

4M ago55:33

55:33

Edith Maude Eaton (1865-1914) grew up in unusual circumstances: her father was an English merchant who traveled to China on business, and her mother was a formerly enslaved tightrope walker and human knife-throwing target who traveled all over the world with an acrobatic troupe. The eldest daughter among fourteen children, Eaton mostly grew up in M…

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666 "Winter Dreams" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (with Mike Palindrome) | My Last Book with Lev Grossman 2:02:56

4M ago2:02:56

2:02:56

First published in December of 1922, "Winter Dreams" was one of the short stories known as the "Gatsby cluster," as F. Scott Fitzgerald worked out the characters, themes, and prose style that would later make his famous novel The Great Gatsby (1925) an American classic. Telling the story of Dexter Green, a Midwestern golf caddy who becomes a wealth…

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665 Keats's Great Odes (with Anahid Nersessian) [Ad-Free Encore Edition] 1:08:22

4M ago1:08:22

1:08:22

In 1819, John Keats quit his job as an assistant surgeon, abandoned an epic poem he was writing, and focused his poetic energies on shorter works. What followed was one of the most fertile periods in the history of poetry, as in a few months' time Keats completed six masterpieces, including such celebrated classics as "To Autumn," "Ode to a Nightin…

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664 James Joyce's "The Dead" Part 2 [Ad-Free Encore Version] 1:24:30

5M ago1:24:30

1:24:30

Happy holidays! In this episode, presented without commercial interruption, Jacke revisits the second half of the classic James Joyce short story "The Dead." [This episode was originally released on December 22, 2017.] Additional listening: 368 The Story of the Nativity (with Stephen Mitchell) 172 Holiday Movies (with Brian Price) 407 "The Old Nurs…

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663 James Joyce's "The Dead" Part 1 [Ad-Free Encore Edition] 31:33

5M ago31:33

31:33

Happy holidays! In this episode, presented without commercial interruption, Jacke revisits the first part of the the classic James Joyce holiday story, "The Dead." [The full version of this episode was originally released on December 19, 2017.] Additional listening: 123 James Joyce's The Dead (Part 1) [Full Version] 72 The Best Christmas Stories in…

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662 Monstrous Work and Radical Satisfaction - Black Women Writing Under Segregation (with Eve Dunbar) | My Last Book with Deni Kasa 1:05:00

5M ago1:05:00

1:05:00

Generally speaking, a common conception of U.S. race relations in the mid-twentieth century runs like this: segregation was racist and bad, the doctrine of "separate but equal" masked genuine inequality, and the racial integration brought about by the famous Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education was a long-awaited triumph. But is th…

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661 James Baldwin (with Colm Tóibín) 1:02:13

5M ago1:02:13

1:02:13

Acclaimed Irish novelist Colm Tóibín first read James Baldwin just after turning eighteen. Inspired by the illumination and insight in Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, Tóibín would soon become a lifelong fan. In this episode, Tóibín tells Jacke about that original encounter, the qualities he most admires in Baldwin's work, Baldwin's spiritual …

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660 "Wakefield" by Nathaniel Hawthorne | My Last Book with Amelia Possanza 56:18

5M ago56:18

56:18

Before his marriage, before meeting Herman Melville, and before the publication of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne was living in near seclusion, writing the stories that formed his first collection Twice-Told Tales. Edgar Allan Poe was impressed: "His tone is singularly effective," he wrote, "wild, plaintive, thoughtful, and in full accorda…

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659 The Legend of King Arthur (with Lev Grossman) 58:26

5M ago58:26

58:26

A legendary king, knights of the round table, magic and myths and valiant quests - the stories of King Arthur (also known as the "Matter of Britain") have captivated readers since the Middle Ages. It's potentially rich material for a contemporary novelist, but as Lev Grossman found, some of the Arthurian world's lesser-known characters can be just …

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658 "The Snow Fairy" by Claude McKay | Literary Journeys (with John McMurtrie) 48:51

5M ago48:51

48:51

After taking a look at a wintry poem by Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay, Jacke talks to editor John McMurtrie about his new book Literary Journeys Mapping Fictional Travels Across the World of Literature, which celebrates passages of literature that have sent readers to the ends of the earth from Ancient Greece to today. Additional listening: …

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657 Auden's England (with Nicholas Jenkins) | My Last Book with Gabriele Pedulla 1:09:36

5M ago1:09:36

1:09:36

From the beginning of his career as a poet, W.H. Auden wrestled with the meaning of Englishness. He came out with a collection of poems entitled On This Island, but what exactly was this island? A world in ruins? A beautiful (if morally compromised) haven? In this episode, Jacke talks to Nicholas Jenkins (The Island: War and Belonging in Auden's En…

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656 Novelist Chigozie Obioma on Literature, Life, and His Love for Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day [HOL Encore] 1:09:08

5M ago1:09:08

1:09:08

By listener request, Jacke presents a conversation with Nigerian-born novelist Chigozie Obioma (The Road to the Country, The Fishermen, An Orchestra of Minorities). Obioma, hailed by the New York Times as "the heir to Chinua Achebe," tells Jacke about his childhood in Nigeria, the moment he knew he wanted to be a storyteller, what he values in lite…

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655 Guilty Pleasures (with Mike Palindrome and Laurie Frankel) | My Last Book with Mary Flannery 1:13:18

6M ago1:13:18

1:13:18

Guilty pleasures! We use the phrase all the time, but what does it really mean? Can reading a book ever be a guilty pleasure? A listener suggests that it can - and Jacke invites two frequent History of Literature guests to test the theory. For this day-before-Thanksgiving special treat, Laurie Frankel (This Is How It Always Is, Family Family) and M…

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654 Loving (and Reclaiming) Sylvia Plath (with Emily Van Duyne) 1:14:25

6M ago1:14:25

1:14:25

Troubled patron saint of confessional poetry? Quintessential literary sad girl? Genius poet rightfully viewed as the heir to Emily Dickinson? In her tragically brief life, Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) somehow managed to inspire all of these images and more. In this episode, Jacke talks to Emily Van Duyne about her book Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamatio…

1
653 J.D. Salinger 1:11:51

6M ago1:11:51

1:11:51

He's best known as the author of The Catcher in the Rye, one of the great publishing and cultural successes of the twentieth century. But there was more to the Jerome David Salinger (1919-2010) story than a single book. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at Salinger's childhood and education, his youthful romance thwarted by an unlikely turn of ev…

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652 Writing a Comic Novel (with Charles Baxter) | My Last Book with Bill Eville 1:10:31

6M ago1:10:31

1:10:31

Jacke talks to award-winning novelist and short story writer Charles Baxter about his new book, Blood Test: A Comedy, which the New York Times says "provides a snapshot of a troubled America, disguised as a speculative comedy...a quiet masterpiece." PLUS Bill Eville (Washed Ashore: Family, Fatherhood, and Finding Home on Martha's Vineyard) stops by…

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651 Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey | The Heroine's Labyrinth (with Douglas Burton) | My Last Book with Douglas Burton 1:22:14

6M ago1:22:14

1:22:14

In 1949, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces posited the existence of a "monomyth," a universal pattern that formed the basis of heroic tales in every culture. But although he maintained that more often than not the young heroes followed an archetypal journey--which in addition to ancient myths can be seen in everything from Star Wars to H…

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