554 John Ashbery (with Jess Cotton) | My Last...

In mid-December 2025, the world was shocked by the horrible and tragic news that beloved film director Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle Singer Reiner had been murdered at their home. In this episode, Jacke and Mike celebrate Reiner's amazing run of indelible films in the 1980s an ...  Show more

The Ancient Greek historian and general Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE) called his history of a war between Athens and Sparta "a possession for all time." More than 2,400 years later, his work is still essential reading for anyone interested in the morality of war and the nature of p ...  Show more

David St. John joins Kevin Young to read “Picking Grapes in an Abandoned Vineyard,” by Larry Levis, and his own poem “The Shore.” St. John is the author of many poetry collection ...

On this week's episode, A.O. Scott joins host Gilbert Cruz to talk about the value of close reading poetry. And New York Times Book Review poetry editor Greg Cowles recommends four recently published collections worth reading.

Books mentioned in this episode

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Across the 65 years of his life, writer John Milton packed a lot in: poet, polemicist, political operator – engaging with ideas that often challenged the status quo. In today's Life of the Week episode, Professor Islam Issa speaks to Matt Elton about the life and legacy of this 1 ...  Show more

Situated on the cusp of the Romantic era, Thomas Gray’s work is a mixture of impersonal Augustan abstraction and intense subjectivity. ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ is one of the most famous poems in the English language, and continues to exert its influence on contempo ...  Show more