We’d hoped to get this out about a week ago, but launching a podcast was a little more complicated than we expected. Still, we are well and truly able to say: we have a podcast!

The name is the same as this website, because the podcast will be central to the whole purpose of Epic Book Club: to read epic books and talk about them, or read epic books and live epic lives, or something like that.

The translation we’re using

Season One of the podcast will cover the Iliad. We’re starting with a “zero” episode, because we wanted a before-and-after effect: a snapshot of where we are before this read-through, and then another at the end.

We’re following a comment-as-we-read format: each episode will cover one or two Books of the Iliad. We’ll talk about those books in depth, largely avoiding spoilers for the rest of the epic, and hopefully encouraging more and more readers to read along. This means Season One will probably run somewhere between twenty and twenty-four episodes.

At first, we’ll release episodes at least once a month. Once we get the production into more of a flow, we’ll start releasing them more often. But we have lives, and we’d rather be realistic about how often we’re able to publish than make promises we can’t keep.

We’re listed with most major podcasting services. We’re on Apple and Spotify and Amazon, and should be listed on Google in the near future. We’re also on a bunch of others, like Overcast and Stitcher and Podcast Addict and probably whatever you use. But no matter what, you can find our RSS feed and our catalog on Buzzsprout (also linked in this website’s main menu).

We hope you’ll join the conversation! We’re looking forward to getting to know you, and sharing some epic books together!

The problem with having lots of interests is that it’s hard to focus on one of them long enough to finish it. And when we do focus on something, it usually means neglecting something else.

So we’ve neglected this blog for a while.

But the reason is because we’ve been focusing on our podcast! We’ve got a couple episodes recorded, and are planning to drop the first one soon!

The podcast will really hit the heart of what we want to do here at Epic Book Club, which is to build a community of people who can read epic books together and talk about them. We’re starting with the Iliad, because it’s the first work everyone thinks of when they hear the word “epic”. It’s the starting point for the idea and genre of epics.

But it’s hardly the last word on epics. After the Iliad, we’ll explore epics from all over the world.

Are you excited to discuss the Iliad? What other epics do you want to talk about?

Microphone; photo by Matthew KeefeSince we have a bit more time at home right now, being under a “stay-at-home-but-not-shelter-in-place” order, we’ve made a bunch of progress on our podcast. It looks like we’ll be able to launch sooner than expected! Hurrah!

We’re both new to podcasting, though, and we’d like to avoid reinventing any wheels. Please leave a comment if you have tips or advice on format, hosting, recording—anything, really! Thank you!