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On Writing isn’t a horror novel—but it is one of the most honest books ever written about the act of writing. In this episode of Required Reading, we dive into Stephen King’s hybrid memoir-and-manual to explore what it really means to become a writer. King strips away the mystique surrounding creativity and replaces it with discipline, reading, revision, and a willingness to fail publicly. From his childhood and early rejections to his battles with addiction and his near-fatal accident, On Writing argues that good writing isn’t about talent or inspiration—it’s about showing up, telling the truth, and cutting what doesn’t belong. We discuss King’s famous “toolbox,” his hatred of adverbs, the brutal beauty of revision, and why reading constantly might matter more than any writing rule. Along the way, we ask a bigger question: is writing a special gift, or is it a craft available to anyone willing to do the work? Whether you love Stephen King, hate horror, or think you “aren’t a writer,” this episode makes the case that writing is less about genius—and more about persistence. Hosted by Dr. Nic Hoffmann, Mike Carroll, and Mike Burns

In this episode of Required Reading, we dive into Edgar Allan Poe’s haunting short story, The Tell-Tale Heart. Through the fevered confession of an unreliable narrator, Poe explores the thin line between sanity and madness, guilt and obsession. We discuss how Poe uses rhythm, repetition, and symbolism to capture the relentless beat of a guilty conscience — and why this tale still makes hearts race nearly two centuries later. Co-hosted with Dr. Nic Hoffmann, Mike Burns, and Mike Carroll Check us out!  Shifting My Thinking about AI in the Classroom by Mike Burns Women, Reform, and War by Nic Hoffmann Comedy on the Arabian Peninsula by Nic Hoffmann The Last Time I Rewound: VHS, Star Wars, and the Freedom to Remember by Nic Hoffmann Follow the ongoing publication process with Mike Carroll

In this episode of Required Reading, we explore Edgar Allan Poe’s chilling masterpiece, The Cask of Amontillado. Set in the eerie catacombs beneath an Italian palazzo, the story follows Montresor’s calculated revenge against Fortunato—an act cloaked in deception, wine, and madness. The episode unpacks themes of pride, guilt, and psychological horror, showing how Poe turns a simple act of vengeance into a timeless study of the human mind’s darkest corners. This includes a reading of the audiobook from flansburgh38 from Librivox.  Co-hosted with Dr. Nic Hoffmann, Mike Burns, and Mike Carroll Check us out!  Shifting My Thinking about AI in the Classroom by Mike Burns Women, Reform, and War by Nic Hoffmann Comedy on the Arabian Peninsula by Nic Hoffmann The Last Time I Rewound: VHS, Star Wars, and the Freedom to Remember by Nic Hoffmann Follow the ongoing publication process with Mike Carroll

This week on Required Reading, we dust off our middle school readers and learn about high schoolers in love. We read Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, the passionate and mature love of a 13 and 15 year old. It's basically Elizabethan Degrassi.  Co-Hosts: Dr. Nic Hoffmann, Mike Burns, Mike Carroll   "n Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud. In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers’ final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers." From the Folger Edition back cover.

This week we are reminding you that this is the best of all possible podcasts. We talk Candide by Voltaire! Keep on reviewing and subscribing so we can continue doing this! or perhaps, this is our last episode and we will go to tend our gardens. Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann Panel: Mike Burns and Mike Carroll Here from us!  "The Last Time I Rewound: VHS, Star Wars, and the Freedom to Remember" by Nic Hoffmann "Shifting My Thinking about AI in the Classroom: Was I helping kids become critical thinkers or just assisting in the dumbing down of society?" by Mike Burns Michael Carroll   Candide is Voltaire's 1759 satirical masterpiece, wreaking havoc on the excesses of 18th century French Enlightenment culture. The story begins with our protagonist Candide, a young man living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. This idyllic life is abruptly interrupted, however, by a series of painfully disillusioning events that set him off on a wide-ranging journey. This edition is based on the unattributed 1918 translation published in the U.S. by Boni & Liveright in 1918. François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit and his advocacy for freedom of speech and religion.

This week we get the energy up by having Mike Carroll talk about Beowulf again! We plan on coming out with an episode every first and third Friday of the Month for the rest of the school year and hopefully you come along for the ride with us! We are starting out with Grendel by John Gardner a deceptively short book for the complex magnitudes it contains. So sit back and enjoy our conversation about the Grendel in Grendel.  Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann, Mike Burns, and Mike Carroll.   This elegantly haunting retelling of the Beowulf saga turns the tables: instead of the heroic warrior, the monstrous Grendel narrates the tale—from his vantage point, with his blend of bitter irony, existential rumination, and lonely longing. Grendel, the original “monster” of ancient legend, voices his own story in a world he finds bewildering and violent. He and his mute mother dwell in a cave, shaded from human society yet tormented by their encroachment. When a blind harpist—known as the Shaper—arrives at the Danish mead‑hall, Hart, his forged myths and stirring songs both enchant and horrify Grendel, setting in motion a philosophical struggle between storytelling’s awakening magic and the stark, chaotic truths he senses beneath it.

We are back, baby! This week we are joined by graphic novelist Rebecca Michaud as we talk about the DC Elseworld comic, Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar, Dave Johnson, and Killian Plunkett; Superman the pinko, classic!  Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann, Mike Burns, and Mike Carroll. Guest: Rebecca Michaud   Imagine a reality where the world’s most powerful super-being does not grow up in Smallville, Kansas—or even America, for that matter… Superman: Red Son is a vivid tale of Cold War paranoia, that reveals how the ship carrying the infant who would later be known as Superman lands in the midst of the 1950s Soviet Union.  Raised on a collective, the infant grows up and becomes a symbol to the Soviet people, and the world changes drastically from what we know - bringing Superman into conflict with Batman, Lex Luthor and many others.

With Required Reading, we’re launching something new! As we hinted at the end of last term, we’re exploring a broader American Studies approach, tentatively called Zeit Guys. After covering a book last week (and with another on the way), we’ll be diving into Green Day’s Dookie album in the same style—personal stories, analysis, and enjoyment. We’re excited to try this out, and we’d love your feedback! Let us know if you’d like more music, a few movies, or if you prefer sticking strictly to books. Thanks for listening and joining us on this journey! Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann Panel: Mike Burns and Mike Carroll

This week on Required Reading, we talk Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and hidden in here is an easter egg that will unlock Hoffmann's Gold.  WE ARE BACK, BABY!!!! Host: Nic Panel: Mike and Mike.    From the Random House book cover: "In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days. When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself.  Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win."

Hello! We are starting to dust off the cobwebs of summer break. As we do, we return to one of Mike Carroll's short stories. Please enjoy! We will be back with the new format soon, so keep following us here! Thanks, Nic

This week we dive into the Culinary Underbelly with Anthony Bourdain as we talk about his masterpiece Kitchen Confidential.  Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann Co-host: Mike Burns and Mike Carroll From the Ecco back cover: "An updated and revised edition of Anthony Bourdain's mega-bestselling Kitchen Confidential, with new material from the original edition Almost two decades ago, the New Yorker published a now infamous article, “Don’t Eat before You Read This,” by then little-known chef Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain spared no one’s appetite as he revealed what happens behind the kitchen door. The article was a sensation, and the book it spawned, the now classic Kitchen Confidential, became an even bigger sensation, a megabestseller with over one million copies in print. Frankly confessional, addictively acerbic, and utterly unsparing, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business. Fans will love to return to this deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade from Chef Anthony Bourdain, laying out his more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute cuisine—this time with never-before-published material."

This week on Required Reading, we all called our brothers and fathers. We read A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean, one of the greatest American parables ever written. Make your brothers, fathers, husbands, etc read it, also while you are at it, whoever you are, READ IT. Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann, Mike Burns, and Mike Carroll. Book summary from University of Chicago Press: "When Norman Maclean sent the manuscript of A River Runs through It and Other Stories to New York publishers, he received a slew of rejections. One editor, so the story goes, replied, “it has trees in it.” Forty years later, the title novella is recognized as one of the great American tales of the twentieth century, and Maclean as one of the most beloved writers of our time. The finely distilled product of a long life of often surprising rapture—for fly-fishing, for the woods, for the interlocked beauty of life and art—A River Runs through It has established itself as a classic of the American West. This new edition will introduce a fresh audience to Maclean’s beautiful prose and understated emotional insights. Elegantly redesigned, A River Runs through It includes a new foreword by Robert Redford, director of the Academy Award-winning 1992 film adaptation of River. Based on Maclean’s own experiences as a young man, the book’s two novellas and short story are set in the small towns and mountains of western Montana. It is a world populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, but also one rich in the pleasures of fly-fishing, logging, cribbage, and family. By turns raunchy and elegiac, these superb tales express, in Maclean’s own words, “a little of the love I have for the earth as it goes by.”

This week, Mike Carroll raps poetic about the role a mouse book played in his literary life. We talked about Redwall by Brian Jacques, volume 1 of 22; them mice sure get up to mischief! How does Redwall by Brian Jacques hold up? Co-hosted: Nic Hoffmann and Mike Carroll   "One of TIME Magazine’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time   The book that inspired a legend—the first novel in the beloved, bestselling Redwall saga. Welcome to Mossflower Wood, where the gentle mice have gathered to celebrate a year of peace and abundance. All is well…until a sinister shadow falls across the ancient stone abbey of Redwall. It is rumored that Cluny is coming—Cluny, the terrible one-eyed rat and his savage horde—Cluny, who has vowed to conquer Redwall Abbey! The only hope for the besieged mice lies in the lost sword of the legendary Martin the Warrior. And so begins the epic quest of a bumbling young apprentice—a courageous mouse who would rise up, fight back…and become a legend himself.   Perfect for fans of T. A. Barron’s Merlin saga, John Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice series, and J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series. “The medieval world of Redwall Abbey—where gallant mouse warriors triumph over evil invaders—has truly become the stuff of legend.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer" - From the Firebird Publishing book summary

We are back, baby! Sorry about the delay, life got in the way, but we are back with a graphic novel, this time the Franco-Belgian super star Tintin with Tintin and the Blue Lotus by Hergé. The world's most famous boy(?) detective helps predict World War II and is highly critical of the Europeans in Asia. Also, comedy! Join us next episode for Redwall by Brian Jacques Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann Co-Host: Mike Burns and Mike Carroll From the Amazon page: "Picking up where he left off in the Egyptian adventure Cigars of the Pharaoh, Tintin travels to China in The Blue Lotus, a tale which is generally considered Herge's first masterpiece. It's also Tintin's only foray into actual history, specifically the Sino-Japanese conflicts of the early 1930s. The political tensions combined with the chilling threats of drugs give the story an especially high and realistic sense of danger. Herge's interest in China was spurred by a friendship with a young Chinese student named Chang Chong-chen, a relationship that Tintin mirrors with a Chinese boy also named Chang Chong-chen. Herge paints a vivid picture of China and takes the opportunity to denounce ethnic prejudices (though ironically his artistic depiction of the Japanese businessman Mitsuhirato is quite grotesque). Years later, Tintin's relationship with Chang would become the basis of Tintin in Tibet. --David Horiuchi"

This week we complete the saga and talk The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien. Since the first season, we have had a guest episode with the great Robert von Hagen, but now, in season four we have completed the Tolkien series. "What about the Silmarillion?" You may asked. "WE HAVE COMPLETED THE SERIES." I reply. Enjoy this indepth thematic episode as we crown a king, liberate the Shire, and mourn some hobbits.  Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann Co-Host: Mike Carroll Panel: Robert von Hagen From the Del Rey back cover: "The awesome conclusion to The Lord of the Rings—the greatest fantasy epic of all time—which began in The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read While the evil might of the Dark Lord Sauron swarms out to conquer all Middle-earth, Frodo and Sam struggle deep into Mordor, seat of Sauron’s power. To defeat the Dark Lord, the One Ring, ruler of the accursed Rings of Power, must be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom. But the way is impossibly hard, and Frodo is weakening. Weighed down by the compulsion of the Ring, he begins finally to despair."