I feel like Sun Tzu really missed out on "Invent Pete Hegseth and give him to the enemy"

This is where Hinduism actually cracked the code, yes the gods have portfolios but they also have overlaps and mediating fights over jurisdiction was basically Indra's full time job as king of the devas

Girl, the morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.

My little suggestion today is that if you have to read a T.S. Eliot poem you put, “Girl,” in front of the first line & read the rest in the voice of a drag queen reading someone to filth.

We've heard of "consuming" literature, but this is a bit much.

Reading books, writing about them to figure out what I think about them, and then sharing those thoughts with roughly 2,000 listeners via @booksofalltime.bsky.social every few weeks is genuinely helping me be a better person.

#ICYMI, our newest episode is now in feeds. Start your Monday morning right—with the cringeworthy story of how Franz Kafka's fiancee dumped him in a Berlin hotel room with her sister and best friend present.

Detail from illustration 11 of William Blake’s engravings for the Book of Job, in which Job lies on his bed and is tormented by nightmares. God, with a surprisingly demonic aspect, looms over Job while flames, and demons, threaten Job from below.

NEW EPISODE! In part 2 of our exploration of the Book of Job, we examine three reactions to it… #booksky #podcasts

Reading the Nicomachean Ethics; can confirm.

I knew I wanted to write ABOUT William Blake but I didn’t know what I actually wanted to say, soz. Wrote myself up a tree until I found a paper that helped. Listen now! Share and enjoy! #podcasts #booksky

The REAL trial was being engaged to Kafka, amirite?

Episode 47 - The Book of Job, Part 2 – I Come Out as Gold Podcast Episode · Books of All Time · 19 April · 48min

Listen now wherever you get podcasts! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b... #podcasts #greatbooks

Painting of William Blake, a balding, sensitive-eyed man holding a pen

Finally, William Blake, the English poet and mystic who produced many iterations of illustrations of the Book of Job over 40 years from 1780-1823. Blake identified with Job, and we also look at a paper which suggests Blake was at least in part working though ideas about friendship.

Exquisitely awkward engagement photo of Felice Bauer and Franz Kafka, c. 1914.

Next is Franz Kafka’s The Trial (1925), which has a Job-like narrator trying to navigate an opaque justice system after he’s arrested for an unspecified crime. Kafka began to write it after breaking off his first engagement to Felice Bauer (pictured).

Photo of Carl Jung. He is a guy who wears glasses and holds a pipe. He looks down as if deep in thought, or trying to figure out what he’s stepped in

First up is Carl Jung’s Answer to Job (1952), in which he tries to psychologically profile, uh, God.

Detail from illustration 11 of William Blake’s engravings for the Book of Job, in which Job lies on his bed and is tormented by nightmares. God, with a surprisingly demonic aspect, looms over Job while flames, and demons, threaten Job from below.

NEW EPISODE! In part 2 of our exploration of the Book of Job, we examine three reactions to it… #booksky #podcasts

"Opinions are often only an expression of despair."

Some #MorningMotivation from Franz Kafka (The Trial, ch. 9)

“Chat,

Absolutely!

#BookSky

“The six types of terrain, folks—I know all the terrains very strongly. As an expert in real estate I’d look at the terrain and be able to say, “oh, it’s precipitous heights,” and the officers, great big officers with tears in their eyes, would say “sir, sir, you identified it so well, the terrain.“

“The six types of terrain, folks—I know all the terrains very strongly. As an expert in real estate I’d look at the terrain and be able to say, “oh, it’s precipitous heights,” and the officers, great big officers with tears in their eyes, would say “sir, sir, you identified it so well, the terrain.“

Job: fuck my chungus life

Screengrab of a tweet from Lalia Lailami, which shows a photo of a book that contains entries from Franz Kafka’s diary: “ Whenever I have a bad writing day, I take a peek at Kafka's diary. EXCERPTS FROM KAFKA'S DIARIES 281 JANUARY 20. The end of writing. When will it take me up again? JANUARY 29. Again tried to write, virtually useless. JANUARY 30. The old incapacity. Interrupted my writing for barely ten days and already cast out. Once again prodigious efforts stand before me. You have to dive down, as it were, and sink more rapidly than that which sinks in advance of you. FEBRUARY 7. Complete standstill. Unending torments. MARcH 11. How time flies; another ten days and I have chieved nothing. It doesn't come off. A page now and then is successful, but I can't keep it up, the next day am powerless. MARCH 13. [...] Lack of appetite, fear of getting ba te in the evening; but above all the thought that I wro

Is it bad that Kafka is this relatable?

Sometimes you can’t think of anything good to write, and that’s a perfectly normal thing a lot of writers struggle with. It just means you committed a great sin and displeased The Lord. It means He has punished you by cutting you off from The Source

“The old incapacity” reporting for duty.

Tag yourself, writers.

I’m “Unending torment.”

Screengrab of a tweet from Lalia Lailami, which shows a photo of a book that contains entries from Franz Kafka’s diary: “ Whenever I have a bad writing day, I take a peek at Kafka's diary. EXCERPTS FROM KAFKA'S DIARIES 281 JANUARY 20. The end of writing. When will it take me up again? JANUARY 29. Again tried to write, virtually useless. JANUARY 30. The old incapacity. Interrupted my writing for barely ten days and already cast out. Once again prodigious efforts stand before me. You have to dive down, as it were, and sink more rapidly than that which sinks in advance of you. FEBRUARY 7. Complete standstill. Unending torments. MARcH 11. How time flies; another ten days and I have chieved nothing. It doesn't come off. A page now and then is successful, but I can't keep it up, the next day am powerless. MARCH 13. [...] Lack of appetite, fear of getting ba te in the evening; but above all the thought that I wro

Is it bad that Kafka is this relatable?

This book of the Bible brought to you by DraftKingOfKings.

Part 2 of our look at the Book of Job comes out Monday! We're covering three different works influenced by or commenting directly on Job:
👉Carl Jung's Answer to Job (1952)
👉Franz Kafka's The Trial (1925)
👉William Blake's engravings (1780–1826)

Catch up with the first ep now! 👇

#booksky #podcasts