In episode one of Shelf-Isolation, the unifying word is Field. A field is a kind of stage where the wildness of God and nature border the hard-won and provisional order of human beings. Here we see English, Welsh, and American poets put this image to good use for their own visions. Downloadable Audio: On Youtube: Sources in this episodes: -The Poems of Dylan Thomas by Dylan Thomas, edited with an introduction by Daniel Jones -traditionalmusic.co.uk -Spoon River Anthology by

Hussein Ibish is a Senior Resident Scholar at The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington DC and columnist for Bloomberg as well as the UAE publication The National. He recently joined TheCommonToad podcast to discuss his friendship with the legendary writer Christopher Hitchens, the calamities of the Trump administration, and U.S. policies in the Middle East. This is Part II of II Audio Only (downloadable): Sources mentioned in this conversation: - Ibish's National piece:

Hussein Ibish is a Senior Resident Scholar at The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington DC and columnist for Bloomberg as well as the UAE publication The National. He recently joined TheCommonToad podcast to discuss his friendship with the legendary writer Christopher Hitchens, the calamities of the Trump administration, and U.S. policies in the Middle East. This is Part I of II Audio Only: Sources mentioned in this conversation: - Hussein Ibish on Twitter - One Last Lunc

Welcome to the introductory episode of TheCommonToad's Shelf-Isolation Podcast. I hope this show will become a literary Water Margin for those who enjoy the occasional retreat into the library. In this brief first episode, I confess my hopes for this series, and we hear a couple selections from one of the great four classical novels of Chinese literature. Music created for TheCommonToad Podcast by J. Paul Bourque.

There are people whose mere existence sparks in me a spontaneous sense of relief; a feeling of relief that a particular kind of life is actually being lived in the real world, and relief of their living in spite of a seeming improbability. The filmmaker Werner Herzog with all his beautiful Quixotean (I'm summoning this word to avoid the word quixotic) accomplishments has left me shaking my head in relieved admiration, as have a few songwriters like the implausibly young and b