The Literary Life Podcast Episode 114: The Literary Life of Dr. Carolyn Weber
This week on The Literary Life podcast, we are excited to bring you a much anticipated interview with Dr. Carolyn Weber, author of the popular memoir, Surprised by Oxford. She is also currently a professor at New College Franklin. To keep up with Carolyn, visit carolynweber.com or follow her on Facebook. Angelina and Cindy kick off the conversation by asking Carolyn about her childhood and how she came to love reading. They talk about her experience in school education and whether that differed from her personal reading life. Carolyn talks about her love of teaching and her immersive literary education experience at Oxford. She also expands on the way that reading the Bible for the first time opened her eyes to so many more of the truths in the literature she had read.
Commonplace Quotes:Unexpectedly, it was Oxford that taught me it was okay to be both feminine and smart, that intelligence was, as a friend put it, a “woman’s best cosmetic.”
Carolyn WeberI’m like an addict when it comes to books. Compelled to read, understand, savor, wrangle with, be moved by, learn to live from these silent companions who speak so loudly. Surely some language must have a word for such a “book junkie”?
Carolyn WeberWe must not, that is, try to behave as though the Fall had never occurred nor yet say that the Fall was a Good Thing in itself. But we may redeem the Fall by a creative act.
Dorothy Sayers Batter my heart, three-person’d Godby John Donne
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurp'd town to another due, Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end; Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain, But am betroth'd unto your enemy; Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. Book List:Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber
Holy Is the Day by Carolyn Weber
The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
Mousekins books by Edna Miller
Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
Paradise Lost by John Milton
The Crosswicks Journals by Madeleine L’Engle
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass by Adrian Plass
A Small Cup of Light by Ben Palpant
Letters from the Mountain by Ben Palpant
Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon
Come Away, My Beloved by Frances J. Roberts
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
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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 morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also!
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