Ep 10: Start Small, Grinnell Mornings & Pride and Prejudice (with Erik Simpson)

In this episode of Doug Reads with Friends, Doug talks with Erik Simpson, Professor of English at Grinnell College and one of Doug’s dearest friends from his years in Grinnell. Erik chose Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, giving Doug a long-overdue first read of one of the most beloved novels in English. Their conversation begins with Erik’s work in book arts, paper engineering, teaching, bird photography, and the strange habits of professional readers, before turning to Austen, rereading, Darcy’s listening, Elizabeth’s changing judgment, whether the novel is feminist, and why Charlotte Lucas may be one of the book’s most important characters. Along the way, Erik does what great teachers do: he takes a sentence, a small moment, or a strange detail and opens it up into something much richer.Next time: Graciela Guzman and The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.Music by Eiren Caffall. Please check out her music on Spotify and visit her website at https://www.eirencaffall.com/.Chapters:0:00 INTRO: Erik Simpson, friendship, and Pride and Prejudice2:13 Paper engineering, book arts, and making books physical8:42 Reading on paper, ebooks, and audiobooks11:35 Birds, photography, and becoming a cliché13:11 Start small, start strange: Erik as a professional reader18:08 Growing up with books and becoming an English professor20:11 OK, now the book: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen25:31 Darcy listens, Elizabeth rereads, and Austen’s slow romance34:19 Feminism, neurodivergent Darcy, and Charlotte Lucas’s choice41:04 Bath, rereading, and a future Austen reunion43:48 Next time: Graciela Guzman and The Parable of the Sower