The Spouter‑Inn

Reading is far from dead. More people than ever are reading—on Kindles, iPads, and phones, in paperbacks and hardcover. The choice of what to read is endless: new online content appears every morning, and many of us have that ever-growing pile of “books I might read someday.”

For six years, Chris (a poet) and Suzanne (a professor) recorded episodes of The Spouter-Inn about “great books”. They asked what it means to pick up a copy of Homer’s Iliad from the bookstore table, or download a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and read it today. They wondered what “great books” even means, and what happens when you put books from different canons (classical poetry, comic books, children’s literature...) in conversation with each other. And they wondered about how you might go about reading these works. Can you skip parts? Can you start at the end? Why isn’t this more like a novel?

Now, in "season two" of The Spouter-Inn, they’re still asking some of those questions, but their focus has shifted from books to reading. What are we reading lately? How are we reading it? What strikes us as we read? How does this connect with everything else in our lives, and everything else we’ve been thinking about? And how does the act of reading fit in with the ecology and economy of reading?

Of course, books — even “great books” — are still part of the show. Each episode, Chris and Suzanne will bring a book they’ve been reading for discussion. And many of those books will be “great”. But they’re widening their focus a bit. They hope you enjoy the new format and the time you spend at The Spouter-Inn.