Sophomore Lit
Hosted by John McCoy
John McCoy and a guest host read books you might have been assigned in high school, or college, or other stuff you might have read when you were a kid. The theming is loose!
182 The Watch House
Who watches the Watch House? Not us, the book is better. Ross Cleaver returns to discuss Robert Westall’s The Watch House (1977).
Previous Episodes
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November 26, 2025181 Thanksgiving Special: Protest Songs
The answer, my friend…is not a lyric in the any of the songs the McCoy Brothers discuss. For this annual drunk Thanksgiving Special, Rob, Dan, and John talk about Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, One Tin Soldier, and Alice’s Restaurant.
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November 10, 2025
180 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Podcasts could happen to anyone. David Loehr discusses exits and entrances in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (first performed 1966, published 1967).
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October 8, 2025
179 The Last Unicorn
Don’t it allways seem to go, you don’t know what unicorns you got til they’re gone. Kathy Campbell discusses Peter S. Beagle’s 1968 The Last Unicorn.
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September 24, 2025
178 R.U.R.
BEEP boop what is… love? Well, we don’t figure this out, but John Siracusa does return to Sophomore Lit to discuss Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R. (1920), the origin of the word “robot.”
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August 27, 2025
177 The Pushcart War
Brush up on the Large Object Theory of History. Shaenon K. Garrity returns to discuss Jean Merrill’s The Pushcart War (1964).
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July 18, 2025
176 Walden, or Life in the Woods
If you’re suffering from Quiet Desparation, why not listen to the not-so-quiet voices of Dan Daughhetee and me discussing Henrey David Thoreau’s Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854)?
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June 13, 2025
175 Elizabeth Bishop Poems
Somebody loves us all. Rosalynde Vas Dias discusses three poems by Elizabeth Bishop: “Sestina” (1956), “Filling Station” (1956), and “Crusoe in England” (1971).
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April 23, 2025
174 The Chrysalids
Podcasts are the original voices in your head. David Dredrick discusses John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids (1955).
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March 18, 2025
173 The Visit
Make money fast with this one weird trick. Glenn Fleishman discusses Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s play The Visit (1956).
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February 25, 2025
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).