<![CDATA[The Free Press: Old School with Shilo Brooks]]>https://www.thefp.com/s/old-school-with-shilo-brookshttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XTc7!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9cb7f208-a15c-46a8-a040-7e7a2150def9_1280x1280.pngThe Free Press: Old School with Shilo Brookshttps://www.thefp.com/s/old-school-with-shilo-brooksSubstackWed, 29 Apr 2026 15:21:01 GMT<![CDATA[The Ancient Jewish Wisdom Behind a $5 Billion Company]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/the-ancient-jewish-wisdom-behindhttps://www.thefp.com/p/the-ancient-jewish-wisdom-behindThu, 16 Apr 2026 09:05:52 GMTFor tickets to our live recording with Jon Meacham in Philadelphia, CLICK HERE and register. Use code TFP for a 20 percent discount.

As he built Kind Snacks into a $5 billion company, Shark Tank’s Daniel Lubetzky didn’t turn to start-up gurus or business manuals—but to a 2,000-year-old Jewish text.

After the death of his father, a Holocaust survivor with …

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Neal Stephenson on AI, Rome, and How Civilizations Decline]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/neal-stephenson-on-ai-rome-and-howhttps://www.thefp.com/p/neal-stephenson-on-ai-rome-and-howThu, 09 Apr 2026 09:05:48 GMTNeal Stephenson, the prophetic author of cyberpunk classics like Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, has shaped how we imagine the future, from the metaverse to crypto to AI. His science fiction has a way of becoming reality.

But Stephenson’s thinking is just as rooted in the past, returning to timeless questions of empire and decline. In this episode, he jo…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[The Two Types of People Who Never Find Happiness]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/the-two-types-of-people-who-neverhttps://www.thefp.com/p/the-two-types-of-people-who-neverThu, 26 Mar 2026 09:05:47 GMTFor tickets to our live recording with Jon Meacham in Philadelphia, CLICK HERE and register. Use code TFP for a 20 percent discount.

Life is short. How do we live it well?

Harvard professor Arthur Brooks has spent years studying happiness. In this episode, he joins Shilo to explore what neuroscience, faith, and philosophy reveal about how to live a happy …

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Hunting Humans for Sport]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/hunting-humans-for-sporthttps://www.thefp.com/p/hunting-humans-for-sportThu, 19 Mar 2026 09:05:34 GMTFor tickets to a live recording with Jon Meacham in Philadelphia, CLICK HERE and register. Use code TFP for a 20 percent discount.

Richard Connell’s 1924 short story “The Most Dangerous Game” tells of a hyper-sophisticated aristocrat who hunts human beings for sport on his private island.

In this episode, best-selling author, screenwriter, and former Nav…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Joan Didion Knew What Hollywood Would Become]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/joan-didion-knew-what-hollywood-wouldhttps://www.thefp.com/p/joan-didion-knew-what-hollywood-wouldThu, 12 Mar 2026 09:05:51 GMTThe perfect book to read before the Oscars this weekend? Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays.

In this episode, Shilo sits down with Peter Savodnik to discuss Didion’s 1970 novel—a book that seemed to anticipate everything ugly about Hollywood, celebrity culture, and the spiritual emptiness that we now take for granted on the red carpet and on social media.

T…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[The NYC Public Defender Who Sends Books to Prisoners ]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/the-nyc-public-defender-who-sendshttps://www.thefp.com/p/the-nyc-public-defender-who-sendsThu, 05 Mar 2026 10:05:30 GMTIn this episode, Shilo Brooks sits down with New York City public defender Ben Schatz to discuss the novel True Grit—and the nature of justice in America.

Ben founded the nonprofit Books Beyond Bars, which sends requested books (not just random donations) to individuals locked in New York jails and prisons, giving them dignity, mental escape, and intelle…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[‘The Brothers Karamazov’ Helped Inspire the Catholic App Hallow]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/the-brothers-karamazov-helped-inspirehttps://www.thefp.com/p/the-brothers-karamazov-helped-inspireThu, 26 Feb 2026 10:05:17 GMTAlex Jones was using apps like Headspace and Calm to quiet his mind, but he had fallen away from his Catholic faith. Then he read The Brothers Karamazov, and everything changed.

Alex, who went on to recommit himself to Christ and start Hallow, the Catholic prayer app with millions of users worldwide, believes Dostoevsky’s classic is the perfect book to r…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[‘Lolita,’ Jeffrey Epstein, and the Real Meaning of a Challenging Classic ]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/lolita-jeffrey-epstein-and-the-real-ca1https://www.thefp.com/p/lolita-jeffrey-epstein-and-the-real-ca1Thu, 19 Feb 2026 10:05:17 GMTOne particular novel is all over the Epstein files: Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita.”

Among the more than three million files related to Jeffrey Epstein that were released three weeks ago are scores of references to the book. “Lolita” pops up in emails and in photos, released by the House Committee on Oversight, that show young women with quotes from the book written on their bodies.

Reportedly, this was the one and only book Epstein kept at his bedside table. He owned a first edition. He was a massive fan of Nabokov. And, of course, his plane was famously nicknamed the “Lolita Express.”

“Lolita” is a book about a 37-year-old man who kidnaps and serially rapes a 12-year-old girl. There has long been a fascination with “Lolita” in American pop culture. The illicit relationship it depicts is often glamorized in film, music, and art.

Today, Rafaela Siewert interviews Shilo Brooks about “Lolita”—and how a novel about a homicidal pedophile rapist came to occupy such a prominent place in American life. You can watch the full episode below or listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Why is Humbert Humbert such a compelling character?

Rafaela Siewert: There are moments where Humbert Humbert refers to himself as a pervert. He has some degree of self-awareness. Does the book ask the reader to humanize this man, even though he’s a predator? How do you understand Nabokov’s intent here?

Shilo Brooks: Part of the genius of Nabokov as a writer is that you do come to sympathize with Humbert Humbert in a bizarre way. And it makes you feel uncomfortable because you start to see his point of view, even though it is clear from the very beginning that this book will be told from the perspective of an insane person. Nabokov is interested in exploring, like any great artist, the full range of human psychic possibility in all of its goodness and all of its evil.

Read more

]]><![CDATA[‘Lolita,’ Jeffrey Epstein, and the Real Meaning of a Challenging Classic]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/lolita-jeffrey-epstein-and-the-realhttps://www.thefp.com/p/lolita-jeffrey-epstein-and-the-realThu, 19 Feb 2026 10:05:17 GMTOne particular novel is all over the Epstein files: Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Reportedly, this was the one and only book Jeffrey Epstein kept at his bedside table. He owned a first edition. It pops up in emails and in photos, released by the House Oversight Committee, that show young women with quotes from the book written on their bodies.

Lolita is abo…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[The Secret Lives of Ordinary People]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/the-secret-lives-of-ordinary-peoplehttps://www.thefp.com/p/the-secret-lives-of-ordinary-peopleThu, 12 Feb 2026 10:10:19 GMTDylan Thomas is one of the 20th century’s legendary poets.

In this episode, English journalist David Aaronovitch joins Shilo to discuss Thomas’ 1954 play Under Milk Wood, a portrait of a small Welsh seaside town, originally produced for radio.

With rich, musical language, Thomas reveals the secret interior lives of the villagers—their dreams, lusts, resen…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[David Mamet vs. the Snobs]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/david-mamet-vs-the-snobshttps://www.thefp.com/p/david-mamet-vs-the-snobsThu, 05 Feb 2026 10:05:20 GMTPulitzer Prize–winning playwright David Mamet spent his childhood cutting class and reading at the local library. His first pick was Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street, which he pulled off the shelves at just 11 years old.

Decades later, David thinks the book is terrible, its author “a horrible writer,” and its heroine an insufferable busybody. In this episode…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Colin Quinn on Incels, Woke Activists, and Peaking at 14]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/colin-quinn-on-incels-woke-activistshttps://www.thefp.com/p/colin-quinn-on-incels-woke-activistsThu, 29 Jan 2026 10:10:17 GMTIn this episode, legendary comic Colin Quinn dives into a cult classic that still makes him cry with laughter: John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces.

The novel follows the misadventures of an overweight, pretentious misanthrope still living with his mother in 1960s New Orleans. It’s a book that turns fart jokes into high art. It’s also, somehow, a…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Dante: The Most Famous, Least Read Poet]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/dante-the-most-famous-least-readhttps://www.thefp.com/p/dante-the-most-famous-least-readThu, 22 Jan 2026 10:10:25 GMTDante Alighieri is one of the most consequential poets in human history, and his The Divine Comedy is essential to understanding Western civilization itself. And yet, though most of us have heard of Inferno, Dante remains one of the least read of all the greats. His masterpiece unfolds in three parts—Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso—charting a journey …

Read more

]]><![CDATA[America’s Most Righteous War Produced Its Best Anti-War Novel]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/americas-most-righteous-war-producedhttps://www.thefp.com/p/americas-most-righteous-war-producedThu, 15 Jan 2026 10:10:21 GMTIn Venezuela, a U.S. operation that captured President Nicolás Maduro has sent shock waves through the hemisphere. In Iran, a deadly crackdown on nationwide protests has Washington threatening the possibility of direct military action. Meanwhile, war rages on from Ukraine to Sudan. All this instability and conflict makes now a good time to revisit the m…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Why ‘Middlemarch’ Changed This Catholic Priest’s Life]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/why-middlemarch-changed-this-catholichttps://www.thefp.com/p/why-middlemarch-changed-this-catholicThu, 08 Jan 2026 10:40:09 GMTMiddlemarch is George Eliot’s (real name Mary Ann Evans) masterpiece. The 900-page Victorian novel is about the people living in a fictional English town in a time of enormous changes.

In this episode, Shilo Brooks sits down with Dominican friar Father Jonah Teller to discuss what makes the book worth reading. Their conversation tackles the novel’s major…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[The Lost Art of Taking the Piss with Richard Dawkins]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/the-lost-art-of-taking-the-piss-withhttps://www.thefp.com/p/the-lost-art-of-taking-the-piss-withThu, 18 Dec 2025 10:10:33 GMTRichard Dawkins is best known as a formidable evolutionary biologist and biting critic of religion. But when he wants a break from polemics and proofs, he turns to P.G. Wodehouse for a belly laugh.

Wodehouse’s satire skewered British aristocrats, Hollywood phonies, and self-important moralists with surgical precision. In this episode, Shilo Brooks sits d…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Living Through the Fall of a Regime]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/living-through-the-fall-of-a-regimehttps://www.thefp.com/p/living-through-the-fall-of-a-regimeThu, 11 Dec 2025 10:10:29 GMT“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” This famous line from The Leopard has become a shorthand for moments when a ruling order senses its own looming downfall.

And it feels eerily relevant now, in an age when the liberal order we cherish seems increasingly unsteady. We are living in a moment when we shout “regime decline” f…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Read This Book Instead of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/read-this-book-instead-of-the-catcherhttps://www.thefp.com/p/read-this-book-instead-of-the-catcherThu, 04 Dec 2025 10:10:59 GMTAccording to Ryan Holiday, Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer is like the better, more mature cousin to The Catcher in the Rye. In this episode, Shilo Brooks sits down with the author and Daily Stoic founder to discuss the quiet Southern novel set in postwar New Orleans.

The book follows a Korean War veteran who has money, women, and a respectable job but whos…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[George Orwell’s Lessons on the Class Divide]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/george-orwells-lessons-on-the-classhttps://www.thefp.com/p/george-orwells-lessons-on-the-classThu, 20 Nov 2025 10:15:34 GMTMost of us have read 1984 or Animal Farm. But fewer know of George Orwell’s first great work—an unvarnished account of his descent into the world of society’s outcasts. In this episode of Old School, Shilo Brooks sits down with Rob Henderson to discuss Down and Out in Paris and London, which is inspired by Orwell’s real-life plunge into the slums of two…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[What ‘The Great Gatsby’ Taught Fareed Zakaria About America]]>https://www.thefp.com/p/what-the-great-gatsby-taught-fareedhttps://www.thefp.com/p/what-the-great-gatsby-taught-fareedThu, 13 Nov 2025 10:05:07 GMTIt’s been 100 years since The Great Gatsby was published. In this episode, Shilo Brooks sits down with journalist Fareed Zakaria to explore why the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel still feels so modern.

Zakaria shares his experience discovering the classic as an Indian immigrant, describing Gatsby as his gateway to understanding America. Together, they unpack …

Read more

]]>