Episode 306: "Best of" – What Is the Literary Life?

The Literary Life Podcast

Angelina Stanford

Arts, Books, Education

4.7 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast and one of our "best of" episodes from the vault! Due to the busyness of the holiday season, we thought this would be the perfect time to bring you a replay from our archives instead of starting a brand new book discussion series. This week, we re-air the inaugural episode of The Literary Life, in which Cindy and Angelina introduce the podcast and what they mean when they talk about having a "literary life." Each of them share how stories have shaped their personal lives, as well as how they believe stories have the power to shape culture.

You can find and listen to the other 3 introductory episodes of The Literary Life mentioned in this replay at the links below-
Episode 2: The Interview Episode
Episode 3: The Importance of Detective Fiction
Episode 4: Gaudy Night, Ch. 1-3

Happening now–the House of Humane Letters Christmas sale! Head over to the website to peruse the discounted webinars and mini-classes on sale, already discounted, no coupon code needed.

Don't forget to check out this coming year's annual Literary Life Online Conference, happening January 23-30, 2026, "The Letter Killeth, but the Spirit Quickeneth: Reading Like a Human". Our speakers will be Dr. Jason Baxter, Jenn Rogers, Dr. Anne Phillips, and, of course, Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks.

Finally, you can also sign up now for upcoming classes like "Abiding in the Fields: Spenser, Milton, and the Pastoral Poetic Tradition" taught by Dr. Anne Phillips, or Dr. Michael Drought's "Viking and Old Norse Culture."

For the full show notes of this episode, including quotes, book links, and this week's poem, please visit https://theliterary.life/306.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Literary Life Podcast. We've grown quite significantly since our debut in 2019,
0:07.6	and we've had many requests to highlight older episodes that new listeners may have missed, as well as revisit listener favorites.
0:15.2	To honor that request, I present to you this episode of the best of the literary life podcast.
0:21.6	This is not just another book chat podcast.
0:26.6	Lifelong reader Cindy Rollins joins teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks
0:31.6	for an ongoing conversation about the skill and art of reading well.
0:36.6	Explore the lost intellectual tradition and discover
0:40.3	how to fully enter end to the great works of literature. Learn what books mean while delighting in
0:46.8	the sheer joy of imagination. Each week we will rescue story from the ivory tower and bring it
0:54.0	to your couch, your kitchen, and your commute.
0:57.7	The literary life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott, to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality.
1:07.9	Join us for an ever-unfolding discussion of how stories will save the world. This is
1:14.5	the Literary Life podcast, the maiden voyage, the inaugural episode, the one that will, the face that will launch a thousand podcasts I am
1:48.4	Angelina Stanford and I am joined by my partner in crime Cindy Rollins hello
1:54.7	hello this is my voice this is Cindy Rollins I'm here to talk about books finally
2:00.0	finally after all these years I'm breaking free and I'm going to'm here to talk about books, finally. Finally, after all these years, I'm breaking
2:02.3	free and I'm going to be allowed to talk about books. Maybe. We'll see. We'll see how this
2:06.8	episode goes to be. That's right. She's on probation. Please listen. Please listen.
2:13.3	We are so excited about this podcast. We are so excited that you are joining us on this journey
2:18.9	together to explore all that it means to cultivate a literary life. And today in the first
2:25.7	episode, we're going to lay out our vision for the show and about what it means to have a
2:29.6	literary life. And that's going to be a recurring theme in these episodes as we try to wrestle
	...

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