Hardcore Literature – Ep 89: Book Club Schedule for 2026
Host: Benjamin McEvoy
Date: January 1, 2026
Overview
In this special episode, Benjamin McEvoy reveals the 2026 reading schedule for the Hardcore Literature Book Club. With his trademark warmth and intellectual enthusiasm, McEvoy previews an ambitious year’s worth of reading that spans global literary masterpieces—from American epics to Russian novels, Greek tragedy to sci-fi, and foundational non-fiction. Throughout the episode, he celebrates the transformative power of literature and the community that makes deep reading meaningful.
“We don’t just read the great books – we live them… Together we’ll suck the marrow out of Shakespeare, Homer, and Tolstoy.”
(00:00)
Community & Literary Mission
- McEvoy begins by expressing gratitude for the worldwide book club community, emphasizing its diversity, kindness, and unifying love for literature.
- “I would also like to take this moment to express my deepest gratitude, appreciation and love for you. Thank you so much for listening... and thank you for keeping the great books alive.” (02:25)
- He reflects on the previous year’s readings, ranging from One Hundred Years of Solitude and Bleak House to the works of Orwell, Joyce, and Homer.
- The club’s aim: Not just intellectual advancement, but personal growth and companionship through literature.
- “...our Deep Reading program has led to a lot of powerful, positive personal growth and a renewed sense of meaning in their lives.” (02:50)
2026 Reading Schedule
Winter: American Epic & Greek Tragedy
Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry)
(Starts at 04:13)
- Celebrated as a “Pulitzer Prize winning masterwork of American literature.”
- Not only a Western: “This isn’t just a novel. This is an immersive experience that you live through…” (04:39)
- Key themes: aging, friendship, love, mortality, identity, American mythmaking.
- McMurtry’s deconstruction of Western tropes and subversion of genre.
- “McMurtry has essentially given us a long critique of the Old West mythology... and has given us something real.” (06:10)
- Notable debate: Is Lonesome Dove great literature or popular fiction (or both)?
- “There’s a really big debate... as to whether this is great literature or... exists in some strange, liminal space between the two. And even if it does, we might ask, well, what’s wrong with that?” (07:05)
Greek Tragedy Series (Alternating Read)
Oresteia (Aeschylus), Oedipus Rex (Sophocles), Medea (Euripides) (11:30)
- Rationale: Winter’s cathartic darkness suits the timeless themes of Greek tragedy.
- Oresteia: Only surviving Greek trilogy. Exploration of fate, justice, revenge, the creation of character and drama.
- “With the Oresteia, just like with Prometheus Bound, is one of the aesthetic peaks in the literary tradition.” (12:30)
- Oedipus Rex: Freud called it one of the three greatest works of literature. Explores fate and inevitability.
- Medea: Female vengeance, deep psychological insight.
- Discussion includes Aristotle’s poetics, Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy, and catharsis.
Quarterly Foundational Thought: Sun Tzu's The Art of War
(18:05)
- The club will explore foundational nonfiction each quarter.
- The Art of War: Minimalist maxims on strategy, self-mastery, and mindset.
- “Supreme excellence comes when you win the war without fighting.” (20:22)
- Discussion will include practical applications beyond warfare.
Spring: Russian Visionary & English Romantic
The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
(22:00)
- Cited as Dostoevsky’s most personal novel, forged in trauma and philosophical revelation.
- “Biographer Joseph Frank was right to say that The Idiot may not be the very best of Dostoevsky’s four masterpieces, but it absolutely was the most personal...” (27:25)
- Prince Myshkin: a Christ-like figure; the challenge of depicting goodness compellingly.
- “It is very hard to make a truly pure and good hearted character to be fascinating. But in my opinion, Dostoevsky was successful in doing exactly that with Prince Myshkin.” (29:02)
- Themes: idealism, virtue, society’s corruptions, redemption, nihilism, meaning, love.
- Complementary readings from Chekhov, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Camus, Sartre, etc.
William Blake: Visionary Poetry
(32:10)
- The club will “alternate with Dostoevsky and the epic myth making poetry of the English Romantic poet William Blake.”
- Blake’s complex mythos, spiritual vision, and his radical assertion:
- “I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.” (33:15)
- The central idea: Art, beauty, and imagination as transformative tools.
- “Our engagement with the myth making of William Blake will teach us how to see the world in a grain of sand, how to see heaven in a wild flower, how to hold infinity in the palm of our hands, and eternity in an hour.” (36:20)
- Incorporates art criticism (Harold Bloom, Northrop Frye), Romanticism, Biblical and mythological influences.
Quarterly Foundational Thought: Bhagavad Gita
(38:20)
- Exploring non-Western wisdom, the Gita is introduced as “God’s song,” a spiritual dialogue on duty, fate, rebirth, and harmonious living in chaos.
- “The Gita is a dialogue between Krishna and the archer warrior Arjuna…one of the most moving meditations and instructions on duty, knowledge, devotion, karma, identity, fate, how to deal with a crisis, the self.” (39:15)
Summer: Contemporary Saga, Experimental Masterpieces, and Short Fiction
Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet
(41:10)
- The first time the club will binge an entire series over 7-8 weeks, presented as a single epic saga.
- "Ferrante considers these four books to be one single novel, and so do I.” (41:47)
- Notable for its raw portrayal of female friendship, coming-of-age, social realism, painful honesty, and lyricism.
- “Ferrante captures the complexities and contradictions of friendship between women with great wisdom, profundity, delicacy, anger, sadness and love like I have never seen before.” (43:30)
- Ties to literary tradition: Barthes' "Death of the Author," Woolf, de Beauvoir, Dickens, Homer, among others.
Children’s Classic: The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame)
(48:30)
- Inspired by McEvoy’s newfound fatherhood; celebration of intergenerational reading.
- Explores nostalgia, friendship, the comforts of home, and childhood wonder.
- “As with all great works of literature, it’s a pretense for spending time with the ones you love.” (49:22)
- Notes on children’s literature: complexity, darkness, and universal appeal.
James Joyce: Finnegans Wake
(53:35)
- Returned to the schedule after being deferred for McEvoy’s paternity leave.
- Recognized as “the most difficult book ever written,” a “linguistic fireworks display,” yet meant to be “funny.”
- Guidance on how to approach its polyglot style and multi-layered structure.
- “Together, we’re going to learn to unlock what it is exactly that makes this work a masterpiece.” (54:50)
Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (Volumes 1 & 2)
(58:30)
- Summer deep-dive: Swann’s Way and Within a Budding Grove (~1000 pages)
- Emphasis on the beauty of involuntary memory, interiority, and art as preservation of time.
- “Truth comes instead through unexpected... memories... These are peak experiences which fiction can transport us to. And this is what we live for.” (1:01:00)
- Proust’s “artistic philosophy and some truly life changing insights.”
Clarice Lispector: Short Fiction
(01:08:10)
- Focus on Lispector's acclaimed short stories and the novella Hour of the Star.
- Her style: “mythical, dreamlike, lyrical... hypnotic existentialism… like Virginia Woolf crossed with Franz Kafka.”
- Themes: identity, loneliness, epiphany, and the transformative in the ordinary.
Quarterly Foundational Thought: Augustine’s Confessions
(01:12:40)
- Pivot to the “first autobiography in Western literature.”
- Augustine’s exploration of inner life, faith, conversion, and the search for meaning.
- “He really captures his evolution as a human and his grappling with his spiritual faith.” (1:13:15)
- Ties to later writers: Montaigne, Dante, Kierkegaard, Aquinas, Pascal.
Autumn: Gothic, Epic Poetry, Science, and Sci-Fi
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)
(01:19:10)
- Halloween season selection; focus on Wilde’s wit, satire, and the tragedy of his persecution.
- “Keats and Yeats are on your side, while Wilde is on mine.” (01:19:15)
- Major themes: beauty, morality, art’s purpose (“All art is quite useless”), social hypocrisy.
Beowulf: Anglo-Saxon Epic Poetry
(01:27:30)
- An exploration of heroism, legacy, vengeance, and the synthesis of pagan and Christian worldview.
- Notable translations: Seamus Heaney and J.R.R. Tolkien.
- “You just get into it, you find yourself swept up in the story and you really appreciate the heft and the power of the language in your mouth.” (01:29:40)
- Special focus on Old English poetic devices (alliteration, kennings).
Quarterly Foundational Thought: Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
(01:35:00)
- The year's foundational work from scientific literature.
- Delving into evolutionary theory’s writing, evidence, and world-altering impact.
- “It cannot be emphasized enough just how much of a seismic affront this text was to the culture.” (01:36:25)
Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness
(01:39:00)
- Sci-fi classic set on the planet "Winter" with ambisexual, androgynous humans.
- Dual approach: adventure/escapism and anthropological, sociological, feminist thought experiment.
- “Ursula K. Le Guin is one of those rare writers, like Dostoevsky, who makes her novels her vehicle for philosophical exploration, whilst also... offering us extraordinary escapism.” (01:40:00)
- Themes: gender, culture, Taoism, world-building, binaries and synthesis.
- “Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one.” (01:42:55)
Year-End Festive Read: Charles Dickens (Secret selection)
(01:50:15)
- The club tradition is to close the year with Dickens, after previous reads including Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and A Christmas Carol. Next year’s Dickens novel remains a secret.
Closing Remarks & Reading Advice
- McEvoy highlights the club’s global nature and encouragement of “self-scholarship.”
- “We have the best community in the world and there truly isn’t this level or depth of literary appreciation anywhere else.” (01:52:14)
- Guidance for new members:
- Start with the current read or explore the back catalogue.
- Download the full reading schedule, recommended editions, and translations at the club’s Patreon.
“I hope the schedule has made you as excited as I am and here’s to another great reading year.” (01:54:00)
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On the transforming power of reading:
“It truly is incredible just how much growth you can experience in just a year when you have a great reading program and a great group.” (03:30) -
On Lonesome Dove:
“This is one of those books where if you put it in almost anybody’s hands… they will come away utterly in love with it.” (05:30) -
On Dostoevsky’s The Idiot:
“Beauty will save the world. That’s one of the most complex ideas posed in this work.” (30:40) -
On William Blake:
“‘I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.’ And this was his guiding ethos for his prophetic works…” (33:15) -
On The Wind in the Willows and fatherhood:
“As with all great works of literature, it’s a pretense for spending time with the ones you love.” (49:22) -
On reading Joyce’s Finnegans Wake:
“You’re supposed to. It’s meant to be funny… Jim used to keep [Nora] up all night laughing as he composed Finnegan’s Wake.” (54:50) -
On Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness:
“What remains when we strip that [gender binary] away? So we’ll be keeping the ideas we explored earlier in the year when we read poetry, the Blake the idea of binaries. As we investigate Ursula K. Le Guin’s breathtaking novel…” (01:41:50)
Key Timestamps for Major Segments
- 00:00 - Intro & gratitude to the community
- 04:13 - Start of 2026 reading schedule: Lonesome Dove
- 11:30 - Winter alternate: Greek Tragedies
- 18:05 - Quarterly Nonfiction: Sun Tzu, The Art of War
- 22:00 - Spring major read: Dostoevsky, The Idiot
- 32:10 - Spring alternate: William Blake
- 38:20 - Foundational Eastern Thought: Bhagavad Gita
- 41:10 - Summer: Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet
- 48:30 - Summer standalone: The Wind in the Willows
- 53:35 - Summer exclusive: Finnegans Wake
- 58:30 - Summer big read: Proust, In Search of Lost Time (vols 1 & 2)
- 01:08:10 - Brazilian fiction: Clarice Lispector
- 01:12:40 - Quarterly Nonfiction: Augustine’s Confessions
- 01:19:10 - Autumn Gothic: Picture of Dorian Gray
- 01:27:30 - Epic poetry: Beowulf
- 01:35:00 - Quarterly Science: Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
- 01:39:00 - Sci-Fi: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
- 01:50:15 - December tradition: Secret Dickens read
- 01:52:14 - Closing remarks and practical advice
Final Reflections
Benjamin McEvoy’s infectious passion sets the tone for a yearlong literary adventure that balances difficulty, ecstasy, breadth, and community. The schedule offers not only world-class works of fiction and poetry but also essential forays into philosophy, spirituality, and science, forming a complete, holistic reading journey. Each selection is accompanied by rich historical context, reading advice, and encouragement to connect literature’s insights with daily life.
For new and returning members alike, the 2026 Hardcore Literature schedule promises excitement, challenge, and transformation.
For the downloadable schedule, recommendations, and to join the community, visit:
patreon.com/hardcoreliterature