Sophomore Lit

Sophomore Lit

A podcast about your 10th grade reading list, hosted by John McCoy.

Episodes

June 13, 2025 66 mins
Somebody loves us all. Rosalynde Vas Dias discusses three poems by Elizabeth Bishop: “Sestina” (1956), “Filling Station” (1956), and “Crusoe in England” (1971).

John McCoy with Rosalynde Vas Dias and Marina McCoy.

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Podcasts are the original voices in your head. David Dredrick discusses John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids (1955).

John McCoy with David Dedrick.

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March 18, 2025 42 mins
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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February 25, 2025 37 mins
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.

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February 3, 2025 58 mins
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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January 10, 2025 60 mins
Forever is composed of podcasts. Caroline Fulford discusses selected poems by Emily Dickinson (c. 1860-65).

John McCoy with Caroline Fulford and Marina McCoy.

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December 24, 2024 24 mins
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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December 6, 2024 61 mins
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.

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November 27, 2024 24 mins
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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November 19, 2024 44 mins
Ross Cleaver returns to talk owls, plates, and Welsh mythology in Alan Garner’s The Owl Service (1967).

John McCoy with Ross Cleaver.

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October 25, 2024 58 mins
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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September 26, 2024 49 mins
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.

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September 5, 2024 53 mins
Because twenty would be too few and twenty-two would be ridiculous. Shaenon K. Garrity discusses William Pène du Bois’s The Twenty-One Balloons (1947).

John McCoy with Shaenon K. Garrity.

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Rain Main meets Air Bud. Dan McCoy discusses stims and happy endings and Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003).

John McCoy with Dan McCoy.

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July 15, 2024 57 mins
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a bunch of monks sitting around copying stuff. Jelani Sims returns to discuss Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959).

John McCoy with Jelani Sims.

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June 21, 2024 44 mins
Stick some stamps on the top of our heads. Deborah Stanish discusses Eudora Welty’s “Why I Live at the P.O.” (1941)

John McCoy with Deborah Stanish.

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May 30, 2024 52 mins
The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between. Moisés Chiullán discusses Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth (1961). [We’ve re-issued this episode to correct an audio problem.]

John McCoy with Moisés Chiullán.

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April 22, 2024 37 mins
Podcasters: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let’s Find Out! Jason Snell talks about marine life in J.D. Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” (1948).

John McCoy with Jason Snell.

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April 5, 2024 30 mins
Lions and tigers and bea— you know what, just lions. Jordan Morris is here to discuss Ray Bradbury’s story “the Veldt” (1950).

John McCoy with Jordan Morris.

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March 15, 2024 58 mins
The Podcast! The Podcast! John Holt discusses the ill-fated cruise that is Joseph Conrad’s novelette Heart of Darkness (1899).

John McCoy with John Holt.

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