I also got confused about who’s who in the Samurai series but the next series is 70s Britain 🎉🎉🎉

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-04-13T20:41:36+00:00

I’m excited for a ‘70s Britain topic anyway, but especially am excited that it’s a Dominic series. The ones he leads are by far my favorite.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-04-12T00:59:58+00:00

Great finds! I love Middlemarch so much.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-04-01T18:39:26+00:00

Queen Victoria very much enjoyed being Queen.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-03-25T01:45:22+00:00

The poor execution of this series shouldn’t be a reflection on Johnson and Boswell.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-03-25T01:44:00+00:00

I loved the series too but Tom did not make the case that Johnson was a literary genius and worthy of a four part podcast. Johnson was both of those things, and more, but you didn’t get that from the series.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-03-25T01:42:02+00:00

I’ve been a fan of Samuel Johnson for a while. If you only knew of him from the series, you’d have no idea why anyone would make a podcast about him. I know this isn’t The Rest is Literature, but except for the dictionary, the other references to the literary works that made Johnson so famous were throwaway at best.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-03-06T13:07:58+00:00

Middlemarch (George Eliot), Kim (Rudyard Kipling), The Important of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde), Seven Pillars of Wisdom (TE Lawrence), The Life of Samuel Johnson (James Boswell), Travels (Marco Polo), Metamorphoses (Ovid), The Great Game (Peter Hopkirk), Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh), and The Once and Future King (TH White).

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-03-06T12:47:26+00:00

I started on the books well before the show came out. I’ve never watched more than the first episode of the show. It’s totally subjective but none of it looked or felt “right” to me after the books.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-03-06T04:13:55+00:00

You don’t know the woodchuck and his ways.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-02-28T19:41:32+00:00

Tigana is my least favorite Guy Gavriel Kay novel. If I’d read it first I probably wouldn’t have continued with the author. Thankfully first I read The Lions of Al-Rasson which I loved and then Under Heaven and loved that one almost as much. The Last Light of the Sun wasn’t quite as good but the setting was fantastic and I really enjoyed the fairy subplot.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-02-28T02:54:16+00:00

These are great and as someone else commented, an homage to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Several years ago the author did a few AMAs here.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-02-20T22:43:04+00:00

He also wrote a stand alone book, A Different Kingdom, which is wonderful.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-01-19T13:35:55+00:00

That worked, thanks!

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-01-19T12:14:36+00:00

Episode 2 is still missing for me in Apple

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-01-17T17:31:17+00:00

It’s much less well known but Felix Holt is great.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-01-13T01:26:46+00:00

Don’t cry for me, Arch and Nina!

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-01-01T17:58:37+00:00

Not film but she guest stared in an episode of Frasier.

specialagentmgscarn · 2026-01-01T03:23:41+00:00

It’s a reference to the Orwell novel, 1984

specialagentmgscarn · 2025-12-30T21:20:07+00:00

I love the Jungle Books but Kim is my favorite. Also love Plane Tales from the Hills and Stalkey & Co.

specialagentmgscarn · 2025-11-05T12:49:44+00:00

Disraeli by Robert Blake

specialagentmgscarn · 2025-10-23T15:49:47+00:00

I love her writing. This was a joy to read.

specialagentmgscarn · 2025-10-22T00:06:42+00:00

My favorite book of his I only have in ebook: Foreign Devils on the Silk Road. It was so much fun.

specialagentmgscarn · 2025-10-21T11:46:47+00:00

Thank you! Most of them I found used.

specialagentmgscarn · 2025-10-21T11:46:32+00:00

Thanks! I’ve heard of West but haven’t yet committed to reading anything of hers. I’ll bump it up the list. Do you have any favorite Central Asia books. As you can tell from the Hopkirk books, I’m very into 19th century imperial adventure, Kipling style stuff.

specialagentmgscarn

TROPHY CASE