Episode 6: The Literary Life of Mary Jo Tate
Today on The Literary Life, your hosts Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins sit down for a chat with their friend and fellow reader, Mary Jo Tate. As well as being an avid reader, Mary Jo is an author, editor, teacher, book collector and single mother to 4 young men. A veteran homeschooler, Mary Jo is the author of Flourish: Balance for Homeschool Moms, and you can learn more about her and her work at FlourishAtHome.com.
In this interview, Angelina and Cindy talk with Mary Jo about her own background as a reader, beginning with her childhood memories of books. They discuss the influence of family, librarians and teachers on the life of a young reader. Mary Jo talks about different seasons of her reading life and gives some advice for the busy, exhausting time as a mother of young children. Another topic of discussion is how Mary Jo's education and profession grew out of her love of literature.
Upcoming Show Schedule:
Episode 7 (May 28): Gaudy Night ch 8-15
Episode 8 (June 4): Gaudy Night, ch 16-23, complete
Episode 9 (June 11): Are Women Human? by Dorothy Sayers
Book List:
(Amazon affiliate links)
Out of the Ashes by Anthony Esolen
One Writer's Beginnings by Eudora Welty
Raggedy Ann Stories by Johnny Gruelle
The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
At Home in Mitford by Jan KaronS
Ulysses
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,\xa0
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,\xa0
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole\xa0
Unequal laws unto a savage race,\xa0
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.\xa0
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink\xa0
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd\xa0
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those\xa0
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when\xa0
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades\xa0
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;\xa0
For always roaming with a hungry heart\xa0
Much have I seen and known; cities of men\xa0
And manners, climates, councils, governments,\xa0
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;\xa0
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,\xa0
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.\xa0
I am a part of all that I have met;\xa0
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'\xa0
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades\xa0
For ever and forever when I move.\xa0
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,\xa0
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!\xa0
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life\xa0
Were all too little, and of one to me\xa0
Little remains: but every hour is saved\xa0
From that eternal silence, something more,\xa0
A bringer of new things; and vile it were\xa0
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,\xa0
And this gray spirit yearning in desire\xa0
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,\xa0
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.\xa0
\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0This is my son, mine own Telemachus,\xa0
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,\u2014\xa0
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil\xa0
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild\xa0
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees\xa0
Subdue them to the useful and the good.\xa0
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere\xa0
Of common duties, decent not to fail\xa0
In offices of tenderness, and pay\xa0
Meet adoration to my household gods,\xa0
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.\xa0
\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:\xa0
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,\xa0
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me\u2014\xa0
That ever with a frolic welcome took\xa0
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed\xa0
Free hearts, free foreheads\u2014you and I are old;\xa0
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;\xa0
Death closes all: but something ere the end,\xa0
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,\xa0
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.\xa0
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:\xa0
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep\xa0
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,\xa0
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.\xa0
Push off, and sitting well in order smite\xa0
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds\xa0
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths\xa0
Of all the western stars, until I die.\xa0
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:\xa0
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,\xa0
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.\xa0
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'\xa0
We are not now that strength which in old days\xa0
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;\xa0
One equal temper of heroic hearts,\xa0
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will\xa0
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Connect with Us:
Find Angelina at \xa0https://angelinastanford.com\xa0and on Facebook at\xa0https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/
Find Cindy at\xa0https://cindyrollins.net\xa0and on Facebook at\xa0https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/
Jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let\u2019s get the book talk going!\xa0http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB