Nudie Reads
Episodes
Nudie Reads The Necklace [[S3E40]
01 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Vanity, pride, and one heck of a twist. The French classic by Guy de Maupassant The Necklace 🎭💔💎🧵🇫🇷
Nudie Reads Calculus Made Easy [S3E39]
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Afraid of calculus? Don’t be. Englishman Silvanus P.Thompson wrote the cult classic Calculus Made Easy in 1910 and it’s been a bestseller ever sin...
Nudie Reads 1984 [S3E38]
25 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
George Orwell’s 1984 still sends shivers down the spine—this Sunday classic episode dives into the novel that defined dystopia and warned us all a...
Nudie Reads Rockefeller Believes [S3E37]
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1941 John D Rockefeller Jnr gave a short radio address from the Empire State Building to help the morale of troops shortly to be sent to war and gi...
Nudie Reads Conan The Barbarian [S3E36]
18 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Robert E Howard is the father of the fantasy literature sub-genre Sword & Sorcery. Conan The Barbarian was born from Howard's young and fertil...
Nudie Reads Total Furnishing Unit [S3E35]
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Colombo’s 1972 MoMA design statement for his Total Furnishing Unit - a radical living pod with kitchen, bed, bathroom and wardrobe, all built in...
Nudie Reads Jack and the Beanstalk [S3E34]
11 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jack and the Beanstalk—the 1807 version edited by Mary Shelley’s dad! Magic beans, golden eggs, a harp that sings, one courageous lad. And somethi...
Nudie Reads The Pope Who Wasn't There [S3E33]
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when the Cardinals take nearly 3 years to elect a Pope? You get conclave chaos, a roofless meeting hall, and a man named Teobaldo Viscont...
Nudie Reads Aesop's Fables [S3E32]
04 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Aesop’s Fables are timeless very short tales packed with wit, wisdom, and morals that still matter. Don't count your chickens before they hatch....
Nudie Reads St Valentine's Day Massacre [S3E31]
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gritty, operatic, great writing from the underworld of Prohibition-era Chicago 1929. A vivid newspaper report on the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, o...
Nudie Reads Shakespeare Quality of Mercy [S3E30]
27 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Shakespeare debuts on Nudie Reads! The Merchant of Venice (1596) delivers high drama in Act 4’s courtroom scene, with Portia’s “quality of mercy...
Nudie Reads St George & The Dragon [S3E29]
24 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The story of St George is a corker. Slays a dragon, saves of princess, survives dreadful torture. Where does it come from? A rather odd English transl...
Nudie Reads The Odyssey [S3E28]
20 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Homer shines on Nudie Reads! The Odyssey(8th century BC) delivers epic adventure—Odysseus vs. the Cyclops is pure wit and grit. From TikTok to Holly...
Nudie Reads One If By Land, Two If By Sea [S3E27]
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A poet, a painter, and a patriot’s ride! Grant Wood’s 1931 quirky pic The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere is a great visualcompanion for Henry Wadswo...
Nudie Reads Boethius on Lady Fortune [S3E26]
13 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lady Fortune spins her wheel. Boethius, a Roman in 534, imagined her as Lady Luck in person and wrote of her capricious ways in "On The Consolati...
Nudie Reads Who Knew? [S3E25]
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Rock n roll and Roman history. There’s plenty of cross-over to consider. And a certain James Newell Osterberg Jnr better known as Iggy Pop penned a ...
Nudie Reads Tristram Shandy: The OG Weave [S3E24]
06 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Long before The Weave of US President Donald Trump there was Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, a wild 18th-century classic from England via Irela...
Nudie Reads From Fram: The Crushable Ship, Echoed in Space [S3E23]
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Fram2 spacecraft orbits Earth's polar regions for the first time ever. And The Fram, the OG ship of the 19th century was also a trailblzer. Na...
Nudie Reads Nasty Brutish & Short [S3E22]
30 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan contains his killer line about life being ‘nasty, brutish, and short’. He was grim fella but his work is a 17th centu...
Nudie Reads Blue Ghost Monument Mode [S3E21]
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On March 16, 2025 Blue Ghost, a Texas-built lunar robot signed off with a hauntingly beautiful message straightfrom Mare Crisium, sketched by Galileo ...
Nudie Reads Casanova's Jailbreak [S3E20]
23 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
His name is a byword for being a pants man. But Casanova was also a classic Enlightenment era writer. He was a true libertine and his jailbreak story,...
Nudie Reads Through a Glass, Darkly [S3E19]
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nudie Reads the Book of Common Prayer 1662. Paul's letter to the Corinthians 13:1 on love, or charity. From Bergman’s films to metal riffs, “t...
Nudie Reads Rabelais Giants r Real [S3E18]
02 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais is a Giant story - literally. Filled with wit and bawdy humour it is a five-book satirical masterpiece,...
Nudie Reads Terrible Horrible Sawney Bean [S3E17]
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Experience the chilling legend of Sawney Bean, the Scot's cannibal and his demented clan, from a 1836 book that's as mysterious as its subject...
Nudie Reads The Charge of the Light Brigade [S3E16]
23 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Charge of the Light Brigade was written in 1854 by Alfred Lord Tennyson, inspired by the disastrous cavalry charge at the Battle of Balaclava in t...
Nudie Reads George Washington's Nurse [S3E15]
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Old age fraud is always newsworthy and in 1835 PT Barnum wrote a compelling flyer for his first ever foray into showmanship and hoaxing the public. Po...
Nudie Reads Plutarch on Spartacus [S3E14]
16 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Plutarch’s Life of Crassus is one of the key surviving sources on Spartacus’s rebellion. Though written about 150 years after the events, and abou...
Nudie Reads Headless Body In Topless Bar [S3E13]
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 1983 New York Post headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar" remains one of journalism’s most memorable works. The New York Post sure ha...
Nudie Reads Ali Baba And The 40 Thieves
09 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is one of the most well-known stories fromA Thousand and One Arabian Nights. It’s a tale of wit and cunning and it...
Nudie Reads Chesterton's Fence [S3E11]
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Parable of the Fence is one of G.K. Chesterton’s most enduring ideas, perfectly, simply and shortly expressed. It reminds us that before we dism...
Nudie Reads Ordo Amoris: Thomas Aquinas [S3E10]
02 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas is one of the most influential works of medieval philosophy and theology. The Order of Love and charity remains a t...
Nudie Reads Mary not Marie [S3E09]
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happened to the crew of the Mary Celeste is a mystery beloved by theorists since she was found, abandoned, in 1872. The crew gone. Even the cat. ...
Nudie Reads Lovecraft The Dunwich Horror [S3E08]
26 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft is a gripping tale of weirdo cosmic horror first published in 1929. Dive into Lovecraft’s universe of the eerie...
Nudie Reads Booby Trap [S3E07]
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1914 a bra patent was filed in the USA that managed to avoid any mention of breasts. How did Mary Jacobs Phelps pull that off? With a lot of class ...
Nudie Reads How To Win Friends And Influence People [S3E06]
19 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends And Influence People was published in the height of the Great Depression. It was best-seller then as now, in ou...
Nudie Reads Effortless Elegance [S3E05]
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What did it take to be an admired courtier in Renaissance Italy? The same as being an influencer today. Effortless elegance. Seeming to be blessed wit...
Nudie Reads Pinocchio [S3E04]
12 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Italy 1881 kids were by turns delighted and terrified by Pinocchio, a serialised story by Carlo Collodi, of the adventures of a wooden puppet who ...
Nudie Reads Reverend Spooner's Student [S3E03]
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the 19th century Reverend Spooner of Oxford became famous for his mis-speaking. A unique butcher of the English language he inspired Terry Jones of...
Nudie Reads Very Good, Sir [S3E02]
05 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
P.G Wodehouse - pronounced wood-house - introduced Bertie Wooster and his genius valet, Jeeves, to the world in the early 20th century. The adventures...
Nudie Reads A Visit from St. Nicholas [S3E01]
22 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1823 New Yorker Clement Clarke Moore wrote one of the most famous poems of all time - Twas The Night Before Christmas. That's him. His wondrous poe...
Nudie Reads The German Pre-Poe [S2E44]
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1810 when Edgar Allan Poe was just a year old, German writer Heinrich von Kleist wrote a Poe-like tale that had all the Poe-type elements but not q...
Nudie Reads Leg O Lamb [S2E43]
12 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Roald Dahl is most famous for Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, James & The Giant Peach and Matilda. But his short story collection called &nbs...
Nudie Reads I Wish You Bad Luck [S2E42]
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2017 US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts gave a gem of a commencement speech to middle school graduates at a New Hampshire boys' school. Hi...
Nudie Reads Moliere Le Malade Imaginaire [S2E41]
05 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Moliere is the French Shakespeare, a brilliant playwright, poet and actor of the 17th century. He was beloved by Louis XIV, the Sun King himself, and ...
Nudie Reads King Ashurbanipal's Glass Recipe [S2E40]
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The first recorded recipe for glass was found in 1845 in the Library at Nineveh, founded by King Ashurbanipal of Assyria around 650 BCE. In 1970 the r...
Nudie Reads Jane Eyre [S2E39]
29 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" is a great galumphing bodice ripping romance novel with a terrific storyline. We have Charlotte to thank for the concep...
Nudie Reads The Da Vinci Code [S2E38]
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Leonardo Da Vinci is known as a Florentine High Renaissance genius painter, sculptor, engineer and inventor. Add great writing to his skills. With his...
Nudie Reads The Travels of Marco Polo [S2E37]
22 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The world's first travelogue is the late 13th century best seller by Marco Polo about his travels around the Asian world as a diplomat for Mongol Empe...
Nudie Reads Space Opera [S2E36]
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1954 "space opera" was a pejorative term applied to the literary genre of sci fi pulp fiction. It was considered low brow writing. But it takes a c...
Nudie Reads This.Is.Sparta [S2E35]
15 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Modern historians are indebted to him and Cicero called him 'the father of history'. Herodotus wrote his Histories over two thousand years ago and the...
Nudie Reads Roe v Wade [S2E34]
12 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
22 January 1973 is the date of the US Supreme Court decision of Roe v Wade. By 7-2 the 9 SCOTUS judges - all men - addressed the difficult topic of ab...
Nudie Reads Are You A True Crime Addict? Thank This Guy [S2E33]
08 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What links Audrey Hepburn and Bailey Sarian? Truman Capote. The famed author of Breakfast at Tiffany's also penned the book that started all this true...
Nudie Reads Lizzie Borden Took An Axe [S2E32]
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On 4 August 1892 Lizzie Borden's step-mother and her father were found murdered by hatchet. Lizzie was found not guilty because her defence, led by AJ...
Nudie Reads Frankenstein [S2E31]
01 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
At a house party in 1816, a 19 year old Mary Wollstonecraft wrote the G.O.A.T of mad scientist stories - 'Frankenstein' - and readers the world over a...
Nudie Reads It Was A Dark And Stormy Night [S2E30]
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1830 a cad named Edward Bulwer-Lytton opened his dreadful novel "Paul Clifford" with the words "It was a dark and stormy night" and to this day the...
Nudie Reads The Brothers Grimm Hansel and Gretel [S2E29]
24 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1812 the Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, published the first of 3 volumes of fairytales which have been terrifying children all over the world f...
Nudie Reads Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum [S2E28]
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war. Roman wisdom from the year 430, as the Empire was in decline. An influential little boo...
Nudie Reads The Count of Monte Cristo [S2E27]
17 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Count of Monte Cristo is a 19th century classic of adventure literature by Alexandre Dumas pere. It might as well have been titled "Revenge is a D...
Nudie Reads Whistler's Mother on Whistler's Mother [S2E26]
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Whistler's Mother is the famous American portrait by genius artist James Whistler. His mother was an austere religious woman but she adored being pain...
Nudie Reads Vanity Fair [S2E25]
10 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Vanity Fair was a 19 month serial published by William Makepeace Thackeray from 1848 and has become a classic of English literature, not least for the...
Nudie Reads Charles V Had A Diet of Worms [S2E24]
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Martin Luther liked to run his mouth. He called Pope Leo X the Antichrist. Leo thought Luther was a big fat heretic. At the Diet of Worms in 1521, bef...
Nudie Reads Bertha Muzzy aka BM Bower [S2E23]
03 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Bertha Muzzy was a country gal of the American West. She wrote 57 bestsellers and as many hugely popular short stories all about the American West. Ne...
Nudie Reads Flying Saucers UFOs [S2E22]
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
25 July 1947 businessman pilot Kenneth Arnold spots 9 UFOs in Washington State USA and alerts the press. The news report is an error-filled joke but i...
Nudie Reads The Brothers Karamazov [S2E21]
27 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Fyodor Dostoevsky's final novel is considered by many his greatest. From Dr Jordan Peterson to Bailey Sarian readers have loved this soap-opera murder...
Nudie Reads The Romans Built Stonehenge [S2E20]
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
English architect extraordinaire Inigo Jones believed firmly that the Romans built Stonehenge. His book on the subject is a glorious rollicking alt-hi...
Nudie Reads John Stuart Mill On Liberty [S2E19]
20 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
John Stuart Mill wrote On Liberty in 1859 and it is as relevant today as then. Never out of print for over 160 years it's a political philosophy class...
Nudie Reads P.S You're Busted [S2E18]
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1586 Mary Queen of Scots sent a secret letter about a plot against Queen Elizabeth of England, using what she thought was an uncrackable code. Not ...
Nudie Reads The Great Gatsby [S2E17]
13 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
F.Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" is a classic work of American Jazz Age fiction, published in 1925. It was not a viral hit during his lifetime ...
Nudie Reads Night People vs Day People [S2E16]
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1956 listeners of Jean Shepherd's graveyard-shift radio show in New York City perpetrated the "I, Libertine" hoax. The Night People stuck it to the...
Nudie Reads The Richest Man in Babylon [S2E15]
06 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1926 George Classon wrote ”The Richest Man in Babylon” to teach Americans about sound financial practice and the merits of prosperity. Whether ...
Nudie Reads Simple Sabotage Field Manual [S2E14]
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1944 Wild Bill Donovan of the US Office of Strategic Service produced a Simple Sabotage Field Manual for citizen saboteurs fighting against Axis po...
Nudie Reads Machiavelli The Prince [S2E13]
27 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
He's been called 'notorious', 'murderous' and accused of writing 'with Satan's finger' but Niccolo Machiavelli's short book "The Prince" seems to be a...
Nudie Reads A Killer's House [S2E12]
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2011 a Jerry Lee Lewis fan visited The Killer's home-turned-museum in tiny Ferriday, Louisiana and penned a travelogue to his love. Great writing c...
Nudie Reads Around The World In 80 Days [S2E11]
20 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jules Verne was never recognised by the Academie Francais as a classic French author but we all know he's one of the best writers ever to put pen to p...
Nudie Reads A Carnival To Remember [S2E10]
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1867, after Venice was finally free of the Austrian Empire - having joined the new Kingdom of Italy - the Venetians revived their 71-year dormant C...
Nudie Reads What A Dick [S2E09]
13 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Philip K Dick is known for his prescient, dystopian science fiction. He was filled with drugs and anxiety and, married 5 times, not an easy man to liv...
Nudie Reads The Eyes Of The World Are Upon You [S2E08]
10 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dwight D Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in 1944 wrote to the troops before D-Day in beautifully-worded missive to inspire victory. And he wrote ...
Nudie Reads Throw Your Baedeker Away [S2E07]
06 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
E.M Forster wrote "A Room With A View" as a gentle observation of neurotic Edwardian-era British types on their Grand Tour of Italy. It is a wry amusi...
Nudie Reads Cotton Mather Good Guy? [S2E06]
03 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Author William White, in his strange book "The Story of a Great Delusion" shows how Reverend Cotton Mather, hated historical figure behind the 1692 Sa...
Nudie Reads A Modest Proposal [S2E05]
30 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Swift was a master of sustained sarcasm and satire. In 1729 he wrote "A Modest Proposal" about how to solve Irish poverty. There was nothing ...
Nudie Reads Oh Molasses [S2E04]
27 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The 1919 Boston Molasses Flood was a terrifying sticky disaster for the city. Thankfully the team at the Boston Post was on the story and their report...
Nudie Reads A Maligned Classic [S2E03]
23 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Giorgio Vasari's "The Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects", published first in 1550 and again in 1568, gets a lot of shade bu...
Nudie Reads The Past Is A Foreign Country [S2E02]
20 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The 1970s and 1980s were a very different time. Thankfully the son of an amusement park owner has written a beautiful memoir of his father and the par...
Nudie Reads Robin Hood [S2E01]
16 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by American illustrator and author Howard Pyle in 1873 is the reason that 'Robin Hood' today means men-in-green-tig...
Nudie Reads Merry Saturnalia [S1E96]
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ridicule of the great men of Rome was an important part of the festival of Saturnalia and of Roman political life. 18th century Edinburgh newspaper ma...
Nudie Reads Three Men in a Boat [S1E95]
12 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Who is the most memorably named but forgotten 19th Century author? Jerome Jerome. But his novel "Three Men in a Boat" isn't forgotten. It is much love...
Nudie Reads Please Pass The Salt [S1E94]
09 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Adoré Floupette, Ernest Lalor Malley, Sokal Hoax and Grievance Studies Affair aka Sokal Squared are all, at heart, satirical works with a sharp aim a...
Nudie Reads Ben-Hur, Billy The Kid & Voldemort [S1E93]
05 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The chariot race from the 1959 movie "Ben-Hur" is such a cinematic masterpiece many have forgotten the book from which it is taken. Lew Wallace wrote ...
Nudie Reads Kepler's Snowflakes [S1E92]
02 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1611 when he was in Prague, German genius Johannes Kepler wrote a booklet for his pal Wacker von Wackenfels all about why snowflakes are six-sided....
Nudie Reads We All Know Someone Like This [S1E91]
28 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Voltaire's "Candide" is a beloved 18th C work - a Top 💯 Books Of All Time classic. A French masterpiece of satire including mockery of the jaded ri...
Nudie Reads Inmate Thanksgiving [S1E90]
25 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Did you know prisons have newspapers? The Connecticut "Monthly Journal" was a learned tome and the Arkansas "Pea Pickers' Picayune" was a riot. Both c...
Nudie Reads Merlin and Excalibur [S1E89]
21 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1469 Thomas Mallory wrote a blockbuster prose novel - the first of its kind in English - in prison. Or did he? 'Le Morte d'Arthur', or the Death of...
Nudie Reads A Cat Named 'Sol' [S1E88]
18 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Crufts International Dog Show was begun by Charges Cruft. Did his obituary inadvertently out him as a cat person? An anonymous newspaperman penned a p...
Nudie Reads Down the Rabbit-Hole [S1E87]
14 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Chapter 1 of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' is 'Down the Rabbit-Hole'. This 1865 classic of children's fantasy literature starts a...
Nudie Reads Eleven November [S1E86]
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
World War One ended on 11 November 1918 at 11am. 103 years later we still remember the fallen of that war and all wars. The team at the Liverpool Echo...
Nudie Reads An Edwardian Children's Classic [S1E85]
07 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kenneth Grahame's 'The Wind in the Willows' has sold 25 million copies worldwide and never been out of print. It is a beloved story of adventurous Eng...
Nudie Reads A Curious Travelogue [S1E84]
04 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1853 French writer Théophile Gautier visited Istanbul (then Constantinople) and found himself wooed by Turkish culture. His description of the Cem...
Nudie Reads The Monkey's Paw for Halloween [S1E83]
31 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For Halloween 2021 The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs. A classic gothic horror story from 1902. Careful what you wish for. 🇬🇧✍️🐒😵🪦🧟...
Nudie Reads The Baba Yaga [S1E82]
28 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Baba Yaga is not, as John Wick would have it, the boogeyman of Russia. She's a horrid witch. One of her stories - there are many - was captured in...
Nudie Reads The Turn of the Screw [S1E81]
24 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you loved The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix you will love the original 1898 story by American Anglophile writer Henry James. A brilliantly writt...