Put your crying pants on, because it’s time for Little Women (1868)! We talk about why Jo is so cool, whether it’s bad to steal a lady’s glove so you can sniff it in private (it is), and whether Beth—the shy sister who suffers from noted 19th-century ailment “paleness”—is actually the biggest psycho of them all. We get deep into how Megan lost her soul and ability to feel, as she found herself unmoved by the many touching and ennobling scenes in this book. We also discuss class (boy are they classy!), marriage (hooray!), the Civil War (serious.), and religion (hallelujah!). On the show, we read the Norton Critical Edition edited by Anne K. Phillips and Gregory Eiselein. For more on Little Women and the religious novel, check out Katie’s favorite work of literary criticism ever, Gregory S. Jackson’s The Word and Its Witness: The Spiritualization of American Realism. If you still can’t get enough of Pilgrim’s Progress in American history after this episode, we also recommend Jackson’s article “A Game Theory of Evangelical Fiction.” Find us on Twitter and Instagram @betterreadpod, and email us nice things at [email protected]. Find Tristan on Twitter @tjschweiger, Katie @katiekrywo, and Megan @tuslersaurus.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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