Episode 78: The Literary Life of Thomas Banks
The Literary Life Podcast
Angelina Stanford
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 12 January 2021
⏱️ 99 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on The Literary Life podcast, we are excited to delve into the literary life of the mysterious Mr. Banks! But before we get started, we do want to let you know that we have posted the reading schedule for January-March, and you can view it on our Upcoming Events page. Also, Blue Sky Daisies Publishing is running a fun contest for kids involving our new Commonplace Books, so you will want to head over to their website and check that out! Finally, be looking out for The Well Read Poem podcast coming to a podcast app near you on January 18, 2021!
Cindy begins the interview asking Thomas about his family background and the influence of his parents on his own reading life. He shares about many of the books he loved in childhood and how that shaped his tastes in literature. He also talks about how he approached school learning as opposed to his personal reading. Angelina asks Thomas to tell about how he fell in love with poetry and how he ended up going to college even though that was not his original goal. He also shares more about his reading as an adult, as well as his habit of commonplacing quotations.
Commonplace Quotes:
…but I was glad to sing again too; it had been a greater loss that I realized in that particular wintering which saw the waning of my voice. It wasn't about the vanity of being able to trill out a fine song; it was about the joy of singing for its own sake.
Katherine Ma
Michael explains to Adam in the last book of Milton's Paradise Lost, that tyranny exists in human society because every individual in such a society is a tyrant within himself, or at least is if he conforms acceptably to his social surroundings.
Northrup Frye
The Gods that are wiser than Learning
But kinder than Life have made sure
No mortal may boast in the morning
That even will find him secure.
from "A Rector's Memory" by Rudyard Kipling
Time, Real and Imaginary
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
On the wide level of a mountain's head,
(I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place)
Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails out-spread,
Two lovely children run an endless race,
A sister and a brother !
This far outstripp'd the other ;
Yet ever runs she with reverted face,
And looks and listens for the boy behind :
For he, alas! is blind!
O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed,
And knows not whether he be first or last.
Book List:
Wintering by Katherine May
The Double Vision by Northrup Frye
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carol
Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Oxford Book of Children's Verse
Praeterita by John Ruskin
The Golden Treasury of Myths and Legends
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by J. R. R. Tolkien
Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis
The Saga of the Volsungs by Anonymous
The Adventures of Tintin by Herge
Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott
Julius Caesar by Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare
The Complete Poems of John Keats
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Hardy the Novelist by David Cecil
The James Bond Dossier by Kingsley Amis
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Mishima
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
Support The Literary Life:
Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the "Friends and Fellows Community" on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support!
Connect with Us:
You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/
Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also!
Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're going to go. Welcome to the literary life podcast where your hosts Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins, explore a life shaped by books, |
| 0:26.4 | stories, and poetry. Each week we will rescue story from the Ivory Tower and bring it to your |
| 0:32.2 | couch, your kitchen, and your commute. |
| 0:35.0 | The literary life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott, |
| 0:39.0 | to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality. |
| 0:44.0 | Hello and welcome to the first of the new year, 2021 episodes of the literary life podcast. |
| 0:59.6 | I am Angelina Stanford and here with me as always is the blondeest bombshelliest. |
| 1:07.6 | Cindy Rollins, hello Cindy. |
| 1:11.2 | Hello. and we're |
| 1:15.0 | this is Barbie. Oh, thanks, thanks. |
| 1:17.0 | And also with us is the mysterious Mr Banks, who after today may be actually more mysterious. I feel like the more I get to know him, the more mysterious he is. |
| 1:27.2 | So we shall we shall see what happens today. But we do have a very special episode today. We are launching the year with the literary life of Thomas Banks. We've sort of held him back. You've gotten to know him if you've been listening to the episodes and you guys have had a lot of questions about what was the |
| 1:45.3 | reading life of someone how did someone like this exist so we're gonna try to unravel the |
| 1:52.1 | mystery that is you today, dear. |
| 1:54.1 | Okay, well, I look forward to being unraveled. |
| 1:56.6 | I'm going to bring up the psychiatrist couch here and we're just going to pop your head up. All right, so we're going to give him a word in edgewise so that's right. My job today is to keep my big mouth shut and let my husband do the talking. |
| 2:10.9 | I just jump ahead and say this was his favorite book as a child |
| 2:15.4 | but I will not I will not interview myself about my husband I promise I'll be quiet |
| 2:19.7 | but I will be sort of bouncing up and down on my seat if you want to imagine that at home. |
| 2:24.6 | So guys, how is your Christmas? |
| 2:28.6 | Well I spent it with you so it was lovely. |
| 2:31.3 | Well you have to say that because I'll kick you up the show if you don't. |
... |
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