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 keeping well and I hope your reading is going well. Today, I wanted to do something a little bit different and a little bit special as it is my birthday. I thought, what do I want to do on my birthday? I want to spend some time with you and I want to spend some time with my favourite writer

of all time. And that is Mr. William Shakespeare. It's a very special time of year because at the

Hardcore Literature Book Club we are finally approaching the end of the Shakespeare project

where we have sought to read through the entire works of Shakespeare

in chronological order and what an incredible journey it has been. It has been my personal

favorite read-through and lecture series that we have ever done and that's saying something

because we have tackled a lot of really special books

and we've met a lot of incredible writers together.

And if you would like to join that journey, you can do so

and you can listen to the lectures as part of the back catalogue

and join the ongoing conversation at patreon.com forward slash

hardcore literature. And I'm feeling a little bit bittersweet as we approach the end of this project.

Of course, this is not going to be the end of our loving engagement with Shakespeare,

and I'm going to be making some recommendations for people

...