Welcome back to Hardcore Literature. Today we're talking about one of my favourite novels of all time.

It's Persuasion by Jane Austen. It's her posthumous, melancholy, autumnal masterpiece.

And if you'd asked me, even just a few years ago, would I not only fall in love with an Austin novel, but would I endeavour to teach it? Several hour-long lectures,

talking about it, incessantly, thinking about it, getting swept up in it, I wouldn't have

believed it. I absolutely wouldn't have believed it. Now, one of the questions that I received

recently from a book club reader for coffee with hardcore literature, It's basically a Q&A show where I answer

questions and read through comments and we sit down and we have coffee. It's a nice thing. The question

was, why did you pick persuasion as opposed to perhaps one of Austin's other more well-known,

more established, more studied masterpieces? For example, Pride and Prejudice, Emma,

Mansfield Park, why persuasion? And that's a fantastic question. And I'm going to answer it at length

on that little coffee with hardcore literature segment. But I want to talk about it here too.

That reader told me that she loved persuasion. And I got the sense that this was her favourite book to date.

That's the great thing about the book club and the schedule is each book does something different for you,

and each time you embark upon a new book that's on the schedule, you think, oh, it's never going to beat the one previous.

And it usually does. Now, that's not to say that people, there weren't readers who didn't dislike persuasion.

I heard from another book club reader who said that they were enjoying their root canal more than they were the laboring through persuasion.

But massive credit to this reader because they stopped, they wanted abandon it, but they continued and they kept going through persuasion. But massive credit to this reader because they stopped,

they wanted abandon it, but they continued and they kept going through persuasion. And I'm

still, I'm convinced if they reread it, because I think the power with persuasion is in the

reread. I don't suppose they're going to reread it anytime soon, but I can keep trying to

persuade them. Here's the thing. I can identify with both of these readers.

I can most certainly identify with the lady who said that she loved it.

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