
Sophomore Lit
A podcast about your 10th grade reading list, hosted by John McCoy.
Latest episodes

Mar 18, 2025 • 46min
173: The Visit
Make money fast with this one weird trick. Glenn Fleishman discusses Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s play The Visit (1956).
John McCoy with Glenn Fleishman
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Feb 25, 2025 • 37min
172: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
And indeed there will be time to discuss this, the most mid-life white-guy crisis poem of all. Lisa Schmeiser discusses T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915).
John McCoy with Lisa Schmeiser
Show Notes & Links
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Complete text on the Poetry Foundation website
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Feb 3, 2025 • 58min
171: Frank O'Connor Stories
I’ve heard it said by men of wide experience that podcasts used to be better in the old days. Kieran Healy discusses three short stories by Frank O’Connor: “First Confession,” “The Majesty of the Law,” and “Guests of the Nation.”
John McCoy with Kieran Healy
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Jan 10, 2025 • 1h
170: Emily Dickinson Poems
Forever is composed of podcasts. Caroline Fulford discusses selected poems by Emily Dickinson (c. 1860-65).
John McCoy with Caroline Fulford and Marina McCoy
Show Notes & Links
Emily Dickinson at the Poetry Foundation
Biography and texts of many of her poems. Works in this episode linked below:
I felt a funeral, in my brain
I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
Forever – is composed of Nows –
You left me – Sire – two Legacies –
Wild nights - Wild nights!
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Dec 24, 2024 • 25min
169: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Cigars are always trouble. Marina McCoy discusses Barbara Robinson’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (1972).
John McCoy with Marina McCoy
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Dec 6, 2024 • 1h 1min
168: The Time of Your Life
Sometimes you want to go where everybody is a thread in the fabric of the human condition. Also they know your name. Phil Gonzales discusses William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life (1939).
John McCoy with Phil Gonzales
Show Notes & Links
The Time of Your Life (1976)
The John Houseman directed television version for Theater in America, with Kevin Kline and Patti Lupone.
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Nov 27, 2024 • 25min
167: Thanksgiving Special: Comfort Reads
Hey, things are tough. The McCoy Bros, Rob, John, and Dan, discuss the books that get them through.
John McCoy with Rob McCoy and Dan McCoy
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Nov 19, 2024 • 44min
166: The Owl Service
Ross Cleaver returns to talk owls, plates, and Welsh mythology in Alan Garner’s The Owl Service (1967).
John McCoy with Ross Cleaver
Show Notes & Links
Owl Service dinner plate
The titular service plate with its owl flowers.
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Oct 25, 2024 • 58min
165: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
This episode has many omissions, and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate. Jacob Haller tries to make sense of Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979).
John McCoy with Jacob Haller
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Sep 26, 2024 • 49min
164: Lysistrata
What’s more cultivated and genteel than classical theater? David Loehr discusses Aristophanes’s Lysistrata (411 B.C.E.)
John McCoy with David J. Loehr
Show Notes & Links
Lysistrata Jones
Trailer for the 2011 Broadway musical
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