An episode from 3/16/26: Tonight, I read about the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa in the year 535 CE, and the outbreak of plague in Constantinople (and elsewhere) only a few years later. It all comes from Susan Wise Bauer’s The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade, and I give a handful of reasons why her histories for adults and children are definitely worth going to.

Bookending these stories are a few passages in Gershom Scholem’s (1887-1982) memoir, From Berlin to Jerusalem: Memoirs of My Youth. It turns out that the great kabbalist liked sweets, and riding around on roller-skates.

The best way to support the podcast is by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify, sharing it with others, or sending me a note on what you think. You can also order any of my books: Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire, Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I’ve also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. I also have a YouTube channel where I share poems and excerpts from these books, mostly as YouTube shorts. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.


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#227 – The Great Fire of London and the destruction of Jerusalem Human Voices Wake Us

An episode from 4/27/26: Tonight, I read about the destruction of two great houses of worship. The first is the cathedral of Old St. Paul’s, destroyed in 1666 in the Great Fire of London. My reading comes from Neil Hanson’s The Dreadful Judgement: The True Story of the Great Fire of London, and as mentioned, I link to the unabridged UK edition of the book, which is about a hundred pages longer than the American version. Next is the Second Jerusalem Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 60 CE. This reading is from Martin Goodman’s introduction to his Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations.  The best way to support the podcast is by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify, sharing it with others, or sending me a note on what you think. You can also order any of my books: Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire, Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. I also have a YouTube channel where I share poems and excerpts from these books, mostly as YouTube shorts.Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. 
  1. #227 – The Great Fire of London and the destruction of Jerusalem
  2. #226: The Vitality and terror of cities
  3. #225 – The invention of the wheel, and the power of storytelling
  4. #224: Let's talk about William Blake
  5. #223 – How to write two novels at the same time, with Charles Dickens
  6. #222: Seamus Heaney – 10 Essential Poems
  7. #221: Volcanoes, Plagues & the Childhood of a Kabbalist
  8. #220: The working poor and a so-so murder show
  9. #219: When a paragraph changes your life
  10. #218: Poetry to Live By

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