Each week Dr. J shares a poem from one of the nineteenth-century American Fireside Poets, reading it aloud and commenting on it to enhance the listener’s enjoyment of the poem.

Each episode Dr. J selects a passage from American literature, reads it aloud, and discusses what the passage contributes to our understanding of what America and being an American mean.

Each episode Dr. J reads a dramatic passage from one of Shakespeare’s plays and discusses how it and the play its from equip us for life’s challenges as well as giving us the pleasures of art.