A Special Recap Preview, featuring The Custom of the Country
We're releasing two special episodes today and bringing it back to the Gilded Age.
Hey readers, we have an exciting opportunity for you to join our vibrant literary community! Twice a year, we embark on a collective journey through a classic literary masterpiece, dissecting its plot, themes, and nuances. Our upcoming adventure is Victor Hugo's monumental work, Les Misérables, which we'll be exploring in our Big Book/Slow Down Summer Read Along.
To give you a taste of what you can expect, we've decided to share two recent recap episodes on our main feed from our Patreon Classics Club, in which we delved into Edith Wharton's incredible novel, The Custom of the Country. These episodes showcase our English teacher skills as we work through the layers of the story, making for an engaging and enlightening summer reading experience.
If you find yourself captivated by these episodes, we invite you to join us on Patreon at patreon.com/novelpairings. By enrolling at the $10 Literature Scholar level, you'll gain access to the complete The Custom of the Country recap series, accompanying classes, our previous Odyssey recap series from last summer, and a treasure trove of bonus episodes and class recordings. But that's not all! You'll also be given exclusive access to our current summer recap series, where we'll be going to France for our read through Les Misérables, ensuring you never miss a moment of our literary adventures.
Keep reading to learn more about our Les Misérables readalong.
Pick up a copy and read with us
If these preview episodes have you eager to read The Custom of the Country, you can create your own crash course by listening to our recap episodes and class replays on Patreon. We love when members go back to our prior content to explore their own literary interests.
You will hear us reference Norton Critical Editions and Penguin Classics quite a bit around here, just because those are tried and true publishers for us, but there are so many more vintage, indie press, and lesser known edition out there to explore.
That being said, we also know how fun it is to browse a list of beautiful books! Here is a list of affiliate links for various versions of The Custom of the Country:
Our 2024 Big Book Summer Read Along
There’s still plenty of time to join this year’s summer readalong! We’re reading Les Misérables by Victor Hugo—a HUGE novel in translation with timely and highly discussable themes. We’ve already released an introductory recap episode, available on Patreon, and we had such a fun time recording the first recap of over 277 pages, many characters, and emerging themes (coming soon to your bonus feed). We know you’ll love reading along with our guided recaps and encouraging community.
Les Misérables is conveniently split into five sections, which we will recap over the summer for patrons in the $10 Literature Scholar tier. You can anticipate plot summaries, close reading, character analysis, and theme tracking in each recap as we guide you through this hefty novel. In addition to our recap episodes, you will find a vibrant community of nerdy readers eager to discuss their experiences along the way. In our Patreon Discord community, we share discussion prompts to go along with each recap episode. We’re busy planning exciting bonus episodes, classes, and book club events across the summer season, too!
You can find a complete recap schedule, including book club dates on Patreon.
A note about summer
Novel Pairings operates on an academic calendar to keep our work sustainable. But like most teachers, just because we have summer “off” doesn’t mean we aren’t hard at work behind the scenes! This summer, we will take off from sharing new episodes on the main feed in July and August to devote more time and energy to planning for the year ahead, restoring our creativity, and strengthening our bond with Patreon community members.
If you are missing Novel Pairings in your podcast feed, we would love for you to join our community for extra nerdy summer fun. Until then, we declare after all, there is no enjoyment like reading. How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!
Thank you for supporting the podcast and our work to make public scholarship fun and accessible. If you would like to stay connected to what’s happening at Novel Pairings, make sure to subscribe to this Substack and follow us on Instagram. Make sure you never miss an episode by subscribing to the show wherever you get your podcasts. And if you love the work we’re doing, please consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts!