Best Mark Cirino Podcasts (2024)

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627 Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" (with Mark Cirino) 1:05:16

12d ago1:05:16

1:05:16

It's one of the most famous and admired short stories that Ernest Hemingway ever wrote - and also one of the most controversial. In this episode, Hemingway expert Mark Cirino (host of the One True Podcast) joins Jacke for a discussion of "Hills Like White Elephants," in which a terse exchange between two lovers in a remote Spanish train station rev…

1
628 Meet the Woman Who REALLY Wrote Shakespeare's Plays (with Jodi Picoult) | My Last Book with Allison Pataki 1:07:58

6d ago1:07:58

1:07:58

Is it really true? Did the Elizabethan poet Emilia Bassano (sometimes known as Aemelia Lanyer) actually write Shakespeare's works? A bestselling novelist thinks so - and she's turned her research-based theories into an entertaining and thought-provoking work of fiction. In this episode, Jacke talks to Jodi Picoult about her new book BY ANY OTHER NA…

1
One True Sentence #36 with Javier Fuentes 37:14

1h ago37:14

37:14

Javier Fuentes, the 2024 PEN/Hemingway winner for Countries of Origin, shares his one true sentence from "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."By Mark Cirino, Michael Von Cannon, and Javier Fuentes

1
They All Cried Out, "He Made Us" (Confessions, Part 2) 30:09

3h ago30:09

30:09

In Part 2 of our discussion on Augustine's Confessions, translator Peter Constantine discusses his own history with the text and how he came to translate it, the stylistic accomplishment of the Confessions, his translation process, and more. Peter Constantine is the director of the Program in Literary Translation at the University of Connecticut, t…

1
626 Mike Recommends... Roland Barthes! | Storytelling for Fun and Profit with Matt Abrahams 1:04:09

18d ago1:04:09

1:04:09

As fans of literature, we all know how powerful and effective storytelling can be. But can we harness that power to help us communicate in our daily lives? In this episode, Jacke talks to Matt Abrahams (Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You're Put on the Spot) about the lessons we can learn from literature - and how we can …

1
Stacey Guill and Alberto Lena on the Spanish Civil War Stories 1:01:44

8d ago1:01:44

1:01:44

Live from Bilbao! One True Podcast presents our show live from the 20th International Hemingway Conference in Bilbao, Spain. We welcome scholars Stacey Guill and Alberto Lena to explore Hemingway’s five stories of the Spanish Civil War. These obscure, under-discussed stories – including “The Denunciation,” “The Butterfly and the Tank,” and “Landsca…

1
Augustine Gives in to Pear Pressure (Confessions, Part 1) 32:37

8d ago32:37

32:37

In Part 1 of our discussion on Augustine's Confessions, we welcome translator Peter Constantine to discuss the historical context in which Augustine of Hippo wrote the Confessions, the genre of the text, the lasting effect it has had on religious and secular intellectual traditions, and some of the touchstone episodes found in the work. Peter Const…

1
625 Louisa May Alcott - The Essays (with Liz Rosenberg) 1:06:38

8d ago1:06:38

1:06:38

Since the publication of Little Women in 1868, millions of readers have gotten to know (and love) Louisa May Alcott through her fiction. But in her own day, Alcott was well known as an essayist who wrote on a wide range of subjects, including her father's failed utopian commune and her experience as a Civil War army nurse. In this episode, Jacke ta…

1
624 Top 10 Great Performances (with Laurie Frankel) | My Last Book with James Shapiro 1:07:12

28d ago1:07:12

1:07:12

Theater is by nature ephemeral: even the greatest of performances are fleeting, thrilling a single audience before disappearing into history. But what if you could travel through time and space to be present at any production? Where would you go, and what would you see? In this episode, friend of the podcast Laurie Frankel (Family, Family) helps Ja…

1
623 Unpacking a Japanese Masterpiece - The Hakkenden, or Eight Dogs (with Glynne Walley) | Literature and the Olympics 1:03:04

1M ago1:03:04

1:03:04

The Hakkenden, or Eight Dogs is one of the classics of Japanese literature. In this episode, Jacke talks to translator Glynne Walley about this massive - and massively popular and influential - nineteenth-century novel about eight warriors who band together to defend a princess's clan. PLUS Jacke takes a look at the years when the Olympics awarded …

1
Funny as Hell (Inferno, Part 2) 35:39

1M ago35:39

35:39

In Part 2 of our discussion on Dante's Inferno, translator Michael Palma discusses his own history with the poem and how he came to translate it, the terza rima rhyme scheme Dante employs, and in what ways the Divine Comedy is really a comedy. Michael Palma is the award-winning translator of Diego Valeri and Guido Gozzano, among others. He has publ…

1
622 Lesbians in the Archives (with Amelia Possanza) 1:10:30

22d ago1:10:30

1:10:30

Lesbians have been around for thousands of years (at least!), but their voices have often fallen victim to censorship, oppression, and ostracization. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Amelia Possanza, whose new book Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in Archives describes Possanza's research into seven love stories for the ages. What can these lesbi…

1
Larry Grimes on "Today Is Friday" 49:42

1M ago49:42

49:42

One True Podcast welcomes the great Larry Grimes to discuss “Today Is Friday,” the curious playlet from Men Without Women about three Roman soldiers and a Jewish barman discussing Jesus’s crucifixion. This interview explores the resonance of the story and what it tells us about Hemingway’s lifelong quest for the religious experience. We discuss Hem…

1
621 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 1:30:41

1M ago1:30:41

1:30:41

For Virginia Woolf, Leo Tolstoy was "the greatest of all novelists," and her argument was simple: "[W]hat else can we call the author of War and Peace?" In this episode, Jacke takes a look at Tolstoy's original plans for the novel; the unusual nature of the book, which Henry James called a "loose, baggy monster"; the contributions of Tolstoy's wife…

1
in our time, chapter 10: "One hot evening in Milan" 55:39

1M ago55:39

55:39

Welcome to the tenth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time. This chapter will be familiar to many readers as the bitter narrative that would later be presented as “A Very Short Story.” Here, this vignette is the longest in this volume. Is it also the most autobiographical?…

1
620 Necromantics (with Renee Fox) | Herman Hesse on What We Learn from Trees 1:04:34

2M ago1:04:34

1:04:34

What was the deal with the Victorians and their obsession with reanimating corpses? How did writers like Mary Shelley, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, W.B. Yeats, Bram Stoker, and others breathe life into the undead - and why did they do it? We can attribute their efforts to the present's desire to remake the past in its own image - but what does…

1
in our time, chapter 9: "At two o’clock in the morning two Hungarians" 58:42

1M ago58:42

58:42

Welcome to the ninth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time. This chapter is the first of the vignettes set in America, a fictionalized account of a cigar store robbery that Hemingway learned about in Kansas City in 1917. We discuss this sketch’s depiction of national confu…

1
Dante's Inferno: A 13th-Century Scared Straight! (Inferno, Part 1) 35:12

1M ago35:12

35:12

In Part 1 of our discussion on Dante's Inferno, we welcome translator Michael Palma to discuss Dante's life and the context in which he wrote the Inferno, the narrative structure of The Divine Comedy, and what makes the Inferno so durably compelling. Michael Palma is the award-winning translator of Diego Valeri and Guido Gozzano, among others, and …

1
619 Fred Waitzkin on Kerouac, Hemingway, and His New Novel | My Last Book with Michael Blanding 56:12

2M ago56:12

56:12

Novelist Fred Waitzkin (Searching for Bobby Fischer) stops by to discuss Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway, and his new novel Anything Is Good, which tells the story of a childhood friend who was a genius - and who ended up living among the unhoused for years. PLUS Michael Blanding (In Shakespeare's Shadow: A Rogue Scholar's Quest to Reveal the True S…

1
618 A Year of Women's Diaries (with Sarah Gristwood) | Sharon Olds | My Last Book with Suzanne Scanlon 52:26

2M ago52:26

52:26

Women haven't always been given an equal chance to contribute to literature - but they were writing nevertheless, sometimes just for themselves. In this episode, Jacke talks to Sarah Gristwood (Secret Voices: A Year of Women's Diaries) about her new collection of extracts from four centuries of women's diaries. PLUS Jacke shares a poem by Sharon Ol…

1
617 Politics and Grace in Early Modern Literature (with Deni Kasa) | Mike Recommends... James Baldwin! | My Last Book with Carlos Allende 1:12:07

2M ago1:12:07

1:12:07

Early modern poets - John Milton, Edmund Spenser, Aemilia Lanyer, Abraham Cowley - lived in a world where theological questions were as hotly contested as political struggles over issues like empire, gender, civil war, and poetic authority. In this episode, Jacke talks to Deni Kasa (The Politics of Grace in Early Modern Literature) about the ways p…

1
616 Madwomen and Literature (with Suzanne Scanlon) | Sylvia Plath | My Last Book with Adhar Noor Desai 1:11:59

2M ago1:11:59

1:11:59

The relationship between literature and "madwomen" has deep roots. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Suzanne Scanlon (Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen) about her efforts to reclaim the idea of the madwoman as a template for insight and transcendence. PLUS Jacke talks to Adhar Noor Desai (Blotted Lines: Early Modern English Literature and the…

1
How to Read, How to Feel (Narrative of Frederick Douglass, Part 2) 34:43

2M ago34:43

34:43

In Part 2 of our discussion on Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, editor Joshua Bennett discusses the cover of the Norton Library edition, approaching the text as history and as literature, how Douglass teaches us to read, the musicality of the book, a Narrative-inspired playlist, and more! Joshua Bennett is a professor of literature at M…

1
Sandra Spanier and Verna Kale on the 1934-1936 Letters 1:00:17

2M ago1:00:17

1:00:17

One True Podcast celebrates the publication of Volume 6 of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway by welcoming two of its editors, Sandra Spanier and Verna Kale. These letters, spanning 1934-1936, find Hemingway in Key West, fishing, publishing Green Hills of Africa, producing his Esquire dispatches, making his famous reaction to the Florida hurricane of …

1
615 Nicholson Baker | My Last Book with Vera Kutizinski and Anthony Reed 1:19:59

2M ago1:19:59

1:19:59

What a treat! First, Jacke talks to Nicholson Baker, an author he's been reading for the past three decades, about Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art, Baker's deeply personal account of his journey learning how to paint for the first time, and a meditation on the power of art in times of crisis. Then Vera Kutizinski and Anthony Re…

1
614 Family Matters (with Bill Eville) | Fatherhood in Three Poems | Storytime with Jacke 1:23:41

2M ago1:23:41

1:23:41

Families can provide wonderful material for a writer, but they can also be tricky to navigate. How do you make your stories of home interesting to other people? What's too personal? What's not personal enough? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Bill Eville (Washed Ashore: Family, Fatherhood, and Finding Home on Martha's Vineyard) about his pers…

1
Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera on "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" 54:05

2M ago54:05

54:05

We continue our exploration of Hemingway's short stories with his masterful narrative, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." To aid us in this effort, we're joined by Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, who is a professor at the University of Puerto Rico and served as the 2022 Obama Fellow at the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies. Herlihy-Mera is the a…

1
The Hero's Journey (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Part 1) 30:23

2M ago30:23

30:23

In Part 1 of our discussion on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, we welcome editor Joshua Bennett to discuss Douglass's Narrative as a type of hero's journey, Douglass's political project in writing the book, and how Douglass closes the Narrative with a statement on true Christianity. Joshua Bennett is a professor of literature at MI…

1
613 Celebrating the Book-Makers (with Adam Smyth) | My Last Book with Christopher de Hamel 1:01:57

3M ago1:01:57

1:01:57

Books are beloved objects, earning lots of praise as amazing pieces of technology and essential contributors to a civilized society. And yet, we often take these cultural miracles for granted. Who's been making these things for the last several centuries? How have they influenced what we've been reading? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Adam …

1
612 Finding Margaret Fuller (with Allison Pataki) | My Last Book with James Marcus 57:16

3M ago57:16

57:16

Fearless and fiercely intelligent, the nineteenth-century American feminist Margaret Fuller was "the radiant genius and fiery heart" of the Transcendentalists, the group of New Englanders who helped launch a fledgling nation onto the world's cultural and literary stage. In this episode, bestselling historical novelist Allison Pataki, author of the …

1
in our time, chapter 8: "While the bombardment was knocking the trench to pieces" 45:37

3M ago45:37

45:37

Welcome to the eighth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time. On the heels of the vignette about Nick's war injury, this bombardment scene evokes the idea that there are no atheists in foxholes while, at the same time, capturing the transactional nature of religion during w…

1
611 John Buchan (with Ursula Buchan) | My Last Book with Marsha Gordon | A Hemingway Letter 1:06:47

3M ago1:06:47

1:06:47

Scottish writer John Buchan is perhaps best known for his pioneering thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps, the source material for one of Alfred Hitchcock's first great films. But as his biographer (and granddaughter) Ursula Buchan tells Jacke, Buchan was far from a one-hit wonder. John Buchan wrote more than a hundred books of fiction and non-fiction an…

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Mark Cirino Podcasts

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