Welcome back to Hardcore Literature, your favourite book club.

Deep dives into the greatest books ever written.

Provocative poems, evocative epics, and life-changing literary analyses.

We don't just read the great books. We live them.

Together we'll suck the marrow out of Shakespeare, Homer, Tolstoy and many more.

We'll relish the most moving art ever committed to the page and stage from every age.

Join us and me, your host, Benjamin McAvoy, on the Reading Adventure of a Lifetime with Hardcore Literature.

Hello everybody, how are you doing today?

I hope you're doing well, and I hope your year is off to a great start.

At the beginning of every year, I like to take stock, reflect about the year just past and think about how to make the upcoming year one to be excited about. And we certainly have a lot

to be excited about when it comes to reading great literature together. At the Hardcore Literature

Book Club, we have recently kicked off our first big read of the year. Tolstoy's masterpiece, war and peace. And I'm so happy that so many

passionate readers are excited to read this one. There's such an amazing feeling of community in the

club. And we've also kicked off our Shakespeare project where we will be reading the complete works of William Shakespeare in chronological order, which is something I'm very personally passionate about.

And at time of recording, we are just about to enjoy our play of the season, our seasonal play, which is Prometheus Bound.

And the rest of the year will include works like Dostoevsky's, the brothers Karamazov, J.R. Tulkines,

the Lord of the Rings, Thomas Pinchins, Gravities Rainbow,

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, Virginia Woolf's Orlando,

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the short stories of Alice Monroe,

Milton's Paradise Lost, and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre,

and also Our secret Dickens.

But last year was an incredible reading year too.

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