Before BreakfastHow to read the classics, with Emily Kwilinski
Shakespeare scholar and magazine editor Emily Kwilinski shares why to add older books to your to-be-read list
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. This episode is going to be a longer one part of the series where I interview fascinating people about how they take their days from great to awesome and any advice they have for the rest of us.
So today I am delighted.
To welcome Emily Kolenski to the show. She's done a lot of different things in her career, but today she is mostly going to talk with us about reading the classics, which is something I know a number of listeners are definitely interested in. So Emily, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. Yeah.
So, Emily, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Sure? Yeah. So I finished my PhD in Theology, the Imagination and the Arts in twenty twenty three. I went to the University of Saint Andrews, so I got to do a lot of wandering along the beaches in Scotland. And nowadays I am the engaging editor at Verly Magazine, but I still do a lot of reading and I was recently at Read with Me, which is a program for reading the classics. It's kind of guided program, so it's definitely a passion of mine, and I do a lot of reading on the side, and then I also have a substack I write about Shakespeare and culture, so that's how I've continued my intellectual life on the side.
Excellent, excellent, I guess so you got to explore a lot of Shakespeare while you were living in the UK, for sure, So first I wanted to start talking. The first question is how busy people can make time to read in general. I mean, what are some of your strategies for doing that?
Yeah, definitely. I think that one of the most important things I want to communicate to busy people is that audiobooks are still books. And I actually saw something recently on substack which was so true, which is that audiobooks are actually the most traditional way to read books, Like we used to all just sit around and listen to one another tell stories like the Iliot and the Odyssey, where like audio.
Books, a lot people were seeing Shakespeare performed like they weren't reading Shakespeare, they were watching a play.
Yeah. Yes, And that's actually one of my big soapboxes about Shakespeare is that if you tried to read Shakespeare off the page and you didn't like it. Of course you didn't like it. That's not a good way to do it. You know, when I was writing on Shakespeare, I watched every single you know, film and stage adaptation I could possibly get my hands on. I don't even know that I sat down and read Hamlet cover to cover besides when I did it in high school, because it's meant to be performed. So that's how you want to do Shakespeare. And then I also think one of your points that you make in Tranquility by Tuesday is a really good point as far as reading goes, which is, if you have a book that you want to read and you have other ways you want to spend your leisure time, just say, hey, if I read twenty pages of a Tale of Two Cities, I can then go scroll on my phone or do whatever I want, and you'll be surprised how far you get with just that little step.
Absolutely, there's all sorts of bits of time through the day that are available for reading if we want to use them. So I'm sure you and I are both big fans of reading anything, But is there something in particular to be well? First of all, What is a classic you're talking about we're reading the classics?
What is a classic?
That's a really good question. I think that the way I understand the classic is just a work that's, you know, undergone the test of time. So it's something that's I don't want to give an arbitrary cuff, but maybe more than one hundred years old that people have really found richness in over a period of years. What it's not is an inherently challenging book, and I think that's a mistake people make when they think about the classics. They're like, it has to be hard and I have to hate reading it, or it's not the classics, and then they say, well, why aren't I reading more classics the books that I hate? You know. So I think something that's been helpful for me is to, especially if you're just getting started, start with children's classics. Start with things like The Secret Garden or A Little Princess that we have generations of readers have enjoyed, so you know, there's a lot of value there. Basically, I think the classics are just people over the years have found these to be deeply moving and powerful books that have changed their lives, and that should be the cut off, not how challenging it is for you to read.
And is there anything particularly beneficial then with attempting to read these? I mean, why should someone add classics to their list if they're the sort of person who's already you know, reading a lot of the good news stuff that comes out these days.
Yeah. I think that's what I find when I read the classics is that they have with stood this test of time for a reason. And it's often there's a lot of really great contemporary literature, but it's sometimes hard to judge what's going to really change your life or really move you because there's so much there. And I actually I would love to hear you interview someone about contemporary literature because I don't usually know where to start there. But I know that if I dig into say a Charles Dickens or a Jane Austen, that's going to have really moved someone changed someone's life before I got there, and that means that has a good chance of changing mine.
Excellent, Excellent, And you mentioned that some of the more accessible titles you mentioned using children's literature as a way to get in that. I'm sure many people have fond memories of say, reading Little House in the Big Woods or something with their parents when they.
Were growing up.
I wonder if you could give me a few more other accessible titles if somebody's new to this, what they might start with.
Sure. Yeah, So Francis Hodjet Burnett is one of my favorite authors. She's the one who did a Little Princess in a Secret Garden. She also has some lesser known books like The Lost Prince is really really excellent. It's almost out of print, it's kind of hard to find. I love this writer called Rumored Godden. She wrote a book called An Episode of Sparrows. She writes for a span of younger audiences into older audiences. She has a very moving book called In This House of Breed that some of your listeners might have read. She is a good place to start as well. And then I personally love C. S. Lewis pretty much anything that he's written. And let's see what else. Oh yeah, also very passionate about the Ann of Green Gables books. I think people don't always think of those as classics classics because they're a little bit more recent and they're not super challenging, but they've been read over the years and so loved for so many reasons. And they really do have this tendency that a lot of older books for children do, which is they grow with the reader. So you start with Ant of Green Gables, you could read that when you're like ten or twelve, and the books go all the way through when Anne's children are in the war, So they become increasingly deep and increasingly like ready to accompany you know, women through the stages of their lives. And I think that's something we don't always realize that there's more to dig into with those.
Yeah, and say CS Lewis isn't isn't quite thee hundred year mark?
Is he yet?
Yeah? See, this is why I say I don't really want to cut something off. You know, it could be and it could.
Be a classic still, although at about it, I mean World War two eras stuff is still a while ago. Now, Yeah, we're not talking recent and if generations have read it since then, then then maybe that's are qualified. Well, We're going to take a quick ad break and then I will be back with more with Emily. Well, I am back with Emily Kolinski. We are talking about reading the classics, so books that have stood the test of time and why we should include those in our TBR lists. So you said there are some that are definitely more accessible, but I will say that there is a difference that I have noticed when I have attempted to read books that are over one hundred years old, even ones that seem fairly readable, like you know, I'll throw out there for Moby Dick, who people assume that must be like some ridiculous, dense thing, and it's actually quite entertaining. But these people were writing before there was cable, before there was you know, an internet that could grab your attention quickly. So my experience is that sometimes things move a little slower. They might be lengthier than you were planning on. The sentences might be a little longer because again, you were filling people's entertainment time.
Have you experienced any of this as well.
Definitely. Yeah, that's a really good point and something that that brings to mind for me is part of the reason why some of the books that I recommend, even the children's books, are more recent, is because it's easier to read more recent books because they have more in common with our syntax. But I do think in my experience of reading things by Saint Dickens or Austin or even going back to Shakespeare. Once you've kind of unlocked this dialogue pattern and you have time in a big book like Moby Dick, it becomes a lot smoother. But it does take time to kind of acclimate yourself to that sound because it is still English. It's just it takes a lot to kind of get over that initial hump. So I guess the word of encouragement I would have is the more you read them, the easier it will gets. And probably the trick is not to over exert yourself at the beginning. You know, if you jump right in with a rough translation of Anna Karena No, you're going to get really discouraged. Or just read it slowly though, right, Yes, that's true too.
I mean, is that is that a technique you would suggest, Like, don't try to read it all like as your only book, for you know you're reading for two weeks.
Like to spread it out over a longer period of time.
And I think that's a good point too. It's helpful to have a more challenging book and a less challenging book that you're reading so that you have that habit of reading. But you don't feel like the choice is between you slogging your way through this tone and you scrolling on your phone, because you're going to pick scrolling on your phone, versus if you say, okay, well I'm going to treat myself and read something a little bit easier, you're still getting into that practice of picking up a book and reading.
Yeah, okay, so that's it.
So we're going to balance the older stuff maybe with the newer and more accessible stuff. I mean, do we have to learn to sort of like increase our level of attention. I think there's something to that as well.
I think we do, and I think that is another reason to read the classics. Like obviously they're good to read on their own, but I also think they train us to pay more attention and to read more slowly, and to read with you know, this attention to detail that we don't always have, especially when you're scrolling online. There are some terrifying statistics about how people read articles online. For anyone who writes articles online, they skim the first like five.
They're not reading your article, they're not creating your article.
They're they're skimming the first lines. They're scrolling to the bottom and they're reading the end, and you really can't do that with a classic. You're going to miss something. And I even to this day, we'll find myself saying, Okay, well I read that paragraph, but I didn't really really read it. I need to go back and take another look at it. And instead of seeing that as a failure, I think it's helpful to say, oh, this is a good moment for me to practice paying attention.
Yeah, well, that whole TLDR too long, didn't read. I mean the number of things I've seen that applied to that are actually quite short.
That's like, well you.
Probably you probably could have read it if you wanted to. Well after out here at sag Jashtin, some longtime listeners have heard me talk about this. I have tried to read longer works, just a couple pages at a time, spread out over the course of many months, maybe even a year. I read through Warren Peace that way. It has three hundred and sixty one very very short chapters. So you know, you can read four pages of Tolstoy. Fourteen hundred pages of Tolstoy is a lot, but if you only do four pages a day, you will get through it in a year. I'm currently doing anacarin Ina that way, say, I'm doing a chapter at a time, and you definitely do see details that you would have missed because I read through both of those books fairly quickly at other stages of my life.
I think just trying to get through them.
I maybe I had to get through them forget reading for school. But you know, you missed the little the little details, and then you go back and you're like, oh, yeah, oh that was in there.
Oh I didn't see that totally.
That's really inspiring because Warren Piece, to be honest with you, is still on my list and I haven't done it, but that's the best way to do it probably is just one chapter at a time.
Well, what is on your list?
Like, what are some classics that you're hoping to take on that you haven't yet.
Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, warm pieces Actually, I think toward the top, I am part of the way through a Tale of Two Cities right now, which is really good and also really challenging. I've found like a lot of these books, you just don't expect them to be funny, and they're just hilarious. Like Tale of Two Cities is so funny, let's see what else am I trying to read. I'm going to look at my bookshelf because I've got I've got them kind of lined up.
Oh really, you have all just makes it.
Sound more organized than what I have. I have a lot of books that I've bought that I haven't read. That seems a little bit more accurate I've been. Yeah, I have. I have my warm piece copy right here.
Yeah, as it's standing out big.
Still working my way through Virginia Wolf. I think that the goal that I have, probably for the next couple of years is to read some of the classic like Earnest time Way, William Faulkner, that kind of writing, because I really missed in my education. I did a lot of kind of the Turn of the century like or Victorian stuff, and I've done a lot of Shakespeare, and I haven't actually gotten into what again is completely breaking my one hundred year cut off, the more contemporary American literature. There's a lot of really good American stuff that I just have not been able to get into. Yeah.
Well, something like Virginia Woolf is such a mix because some of it is so accessible and some of it is completely not Ye all she really kind of ran the gamut there of it. And you know, I love reading to the Lighthouse, like I try to read it like once a year, and then I made myself get through the Waves once and I'm like one.
Never again.
It's so impressionistic, you know. And yes, that's why I do gravitate towards some of the Victorian or Russian stuff, because there tends to be a linear story that I can sink my teeth into and I want to come back and find out what happens next. And the Waves is like all over the place. But it's such a cool impressionistic way of writing. So all right, I.
Will think of it as like seeing a Monet painting and set So Emily, do you track your reading? Do you write down? And do you take notes on what you've been reading? I'm curious your approach there.
Yeah, that's interesting that you should ask, because I just recently, probably a couple of months ago, got on good Reads and I have loved it. I wouldn't. I didn't really expect that I would find it interesting. I don't really like social media overall, but I found a bunch of friends from college who are avid readers and just having that little way to track you know, what I'm reading, how far I am in these books, and then have people kind of cheer you on. And I've noticed I get, you know, on my updates. I also read a lot of self help and so you know my updates on the self help books. People are kind of like, take or leave it. But if I say, you know, I finished the mill on the flow, so everyone's like yay, So you get kind of you get a positive affirmation feedback loop there. So that's pretty much all I do to track. I definitely am a planning tracking type of person, So I'm sure I've had things like bullet journal spreads and stuff like that in the past. But the fact is that by the time I went to trek the book, I probably already didn't have the list. I really admire people who have you tracked all the books they've read in one notebook, But I'm not organized snuff for that.
Yeah. Yeah, but when you were doing your PhD, I mean I guess like as you were going I mean, were you literally like going through each of the Shakespearean plays or I mean, like, what was the approach to reading there?
Yeah, the PhD was interesting and grad school in general was interesting because it's really just such a different mode of reading. You can't I definitely just immersed myself in the plays, mostly in the sound like I would listen to the plays over and over, I would watch them, and that was kind of my primary source material. But then as far as the secondary sources, there's just so much that you really have to skim and pull. So what I ended up with was just this giant Google doc of passages from different stuff that I'd read, and then I was able to go in and pull that out. I went through a while where I was I'd read something, I'd pull a bunch of quotes, and then i'd write up a summary of you know what this is, what this is doing for me where it does in the literature. And that ended up, though it doesn't sound, you know that romantic, and ended up being super practical and probably more practical than doing some long hand note taking, which I did a little bit of as well.
Excellent.
All right, Well we're going to take one more quick bad break and then I'll be back with more from Emily Kolinsky on reading the classics.
Well, we are back.
I've been talking with Emily Kolinski, who has a PhD in Shakespeare topics. You know about reading the classics, and so I'm very curious. We talk a lot about daily routines on this show. Do you have any daily routines that help make you more productive?
That's a great question, so I'm very influenced by you. So I do enjoy time blocking. For quite a while, I was planning on Fridays out for the next week, and nowadays because I just occasionally can't sleep that well, I've found that tracking my sleep amount and then writing up in the morning a realistic schedule for myself has worked the best. So usually I reserve morning hours for writing. It's my best thinking time. And when I just when I wake up or when I'm starting my day, I'll lay out, you know, this is how much sleep I got, So this is the level at which I can expect myself to be functioning. And then I try to block out morning hours for writing. I take a break and then I do email, you know, administrative stuff, posting that kind of thing in the afternoon, and that's worked well for me lately. I do think that as far as a reading habit goes in my day, I one of my biggest influences is my grandmother who always, always, always has a book. She'll be like, I need to go read my book, and she does a lot of that late at night, so she'll, you know, the end of the day, she sits in bed and she reads. So on an ideal day, I sit in bed and I read at the end of the day. If it's not an ideal day, I try to take my book with me where I go and kind of like we were saying earlier about the just you know, making it easier to do slightly higher effort stuff. If you bring your book with you everywhere you have your phone, then that option is at least available. And if I'm in the dentist office or I'm you know, waiting in the car wash line or something like that, I can choose to read the book. And if I'm not choosing to read the book, I know that it's intentional. So that's something that's kind of helpful when I need to flex my routine a bit.
I love the image of you, like sitting there reading Virginia Wolf in the car wash line. Yea, the waves exactly, the waves that would be the place to do it. In fact, so were saying you note how much sleep you got, and then plan your day based on the energy for that. Is there like a you know, six hours equals x. I mean, do you have like an actual formula for this.
Yeah, that's a good question. I think that it depends. I think I just mostly select what I'm going to be working on. So I try to really say, you know, if I have hours in the morning and I've managed to stave off meetings, which usually I can, I just try to keep everything to the afternoon, then I'm going to expect some sort of writing out of myself. But if I got say, yeah, usually it's about six hours. If I get six hours, I'm fine. If I get less than six hours, or I get six hours multiple days in a row, the writing's just not going to be good and I'm going to have to go back and edit a lot. So I spend that time on editing or brainstorming or taking walks and coming up with other ideas. That kind of thing.
Interesting, Okay, I like that. All right, Well that's a smart tip.
Planning our day is based on how much sleep we manage to get. So Emily, what is something you have done recently to take a day from great to awesome.
That's a good question. My favorite thing to do, I think for and it'll take a day from great to Austin. It'll also take a day from bad to okay, or even.
Bad to okay. It's probably even more important.
Yeah, my go to is just taking a walk, and especially taking a walk. Sometimes I'll have to bribe myself, say, you know, you can listen to a podcast to one point of this walk, and then you're gonna have to take your earbuds out and actually appreciate the silence. And I always come back with a new perspective, new ideas, especially when you're when you have a job like mine, which is all about ideas. You those are the currency of what you work with. And I if I'm sitting in my house, I often just don't have any and I always do if I take a walk, it'll just turn around my whole mood.
Excellent, excellent, big fan of walking over here. So what are you looking forward to right now?
Oh, that's a good question. Well, my husband recently was admitted to Harvard Law School, so we're moving to Harvard, and I'm very excited about that. That's something that I'm that I'm excited about. A little bit. Uh, it's going to be a lot of work as well as far as the.
Yeah, well, move is always a lot of work.
Do you have a lot of books that are going to have to move with you?
Yes, that's the one thing we decided not to downsize. You know, we got to downsize a bunch of stuff, but we're going to keep all of our keep all of our books. What else am I looking forward to? I'm really looking forward to spring. I think we're so close and you can really feel it. I'm in Michigan. The days are getting longer and I'm starting to feel like we turn to the corner. So I'm excited for long summer days and all the inspiration that that brings.
Yeah, wonderful. Yeah, I'm so eager for it as well. I don't know, it hasn't even been that bad winter, and it's been somewhat snowy, but you know, it's still there's that moment where you're like, yes, I know spring is coming. It's coming now, So why don't you tell listeners a little bit about where they can find you. Now, you can mention what Verily magazine is for people.
Who might not know that.
Yeah, so Verily magazine is a women's magazine, and our motto is less of who you should be, more of who you are. So we were the first photoshop free magazine for women, and it's focused on women's lifestyle content, you know, the things that that we have questions about, you know, the things that we're thinking about. There's beauty and fashion, and there's also cultural commentary and movie reviews and you know, all the pieces of a woman's life. It's meant to be holistic and so you can find that a fairly mag dot com. We're also on Instagram. I've written a few things over the years and we've we've had some really excited. Someone wrote actually recently on pride and prejudice and marriage, so people who are interested in the classics would enjoy that. And then you can also find me on substack. I write sign No More, which is on Shakespeare and culture. And I think that's I think that's about it for the moment.
I am yeah, yeah, yeah, sign no More. So everyone sigh as an s I g H. Correct, that's right. It's a line from much ado by nothing and much to do about nothing exactly. All right, Well, Emily, thank you so much for joining us. And thanks to everyone who's been listening. If you have feedback on this or any other episode, you can always reach me at Laura at Laura.
Vandercam dot com.
In the meantime, this is Laura, Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
