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Starting off the year with a new tradition: the first annual Public Domain Theater, in which Nate reads an important work of American literature that entered the public domain on January 1st of a given year. First up, the first Nancy Drew mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock.

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. I have recently launched a newsletter. You can subscribe to it at thememorypalacepodcast.substack.com.

Music

• Sincerely Yours by LLLL
• Across the Other Side by Infinite Scale
• Sunset by Resavoir
• Mammoth by Golden Brown
• Unassigned by Vernon Spring
• Swimming by Explosions in the Sky
• Pure (Ride the World) by The Brendan Eder Ensemble
• Le Tunnel by Sylvain Chauveau
• Floating Away by Lullatone

Notes

• There's a ton written about Emma Rowena Gatewood but so much of it, including this story, owes a huge debt to Ben Montgomery's book, Grandma Gatewood's Walk, which excavated the story of her life with her husband. Besides that, it is wonderfully written. Totally recommend it.

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate.

Music

• The Lady With the Golden Stockings from the Sun Ra Arkestra
• The Sage from the Chico Hamilton Quintet
• Falling in Love with a New York Pigeon by Birb
• Bocherini's fourth quintet as performed by the Ensemble of St. Martin of the Fields
• From a Dream by Oregon
• Jaybird from the great Charlie Parr
• Pool of Love by Les Baxter
• And House Tuner Theme from Will Bates' gorgeous score to The Sound of Silence.

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House.

Buy the audiobook wherever you get audiobooks (like libro.fm!)

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. I have recently launched a newsletter. You can subscribe to it at thememorypalacepodcast.substack.com.

Audio excerpted courtesy of Random House Audio from THE MEMORY PALACE by Nate DiMeo, read by a full cast. Excerpt read by Nate DiMeo, © 2024 Nate DiMeo, ℗ 2024 Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved.

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate.

Music

• Kara-Lis Coverdale's A480
• Palimpsest from Will Bate's score to The Sound of Silence
• Harriett Smith and Robert Martin Meet in the Rain from Isobel Waller Bridge's score to Emma.
• The Play from Dan Romer's score to (the terrific) Station Eleven.
• Cutting Branches from a Temporary Shelter from the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
• Sustainable from H. Takahashi.

Notes

• There's a particularly good article by Colin Dickey about Jacobs and The Crypt in American Scholar.
• You can read all 1100 pages of Jacobs' autobiography here, if you haven't already.

On Sunday, October 26th, 2025, Nate DiMeo of this here show, The Memory Palace, and his friends and colleagues at his fellow Radiotopia show, This Day, will be holding a good, old-fashioned teach-in in defense of history and museums currently targeted by the Trump Administration. Readings and lectures from sun-up to sundown on the National Mall in Washington D.C.

Learn more here.

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate.

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate.

Music

• On-ness by Tom Rogerson and Eno.
• Etude by Joep Beving
• Ebb Tide by Houston & Dorsey

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate.

This episode was originally released in October of 2018.

Music

• We start with the very English, Voluntary No. 4 in b-flat Minor, by Margaret Phillips.
• Hear Nero’s Nocturne from Chilly Gonzales.
• Some of The Stars vs. Creatures by Colleen.
• Abide with Me from the Thelonious Monk Septet off his Monk’s Music album.
• Walzer fur Robert by Anne Muller off of Erased Tapes Volume 5.
• Evening at Eight by Keith Kenniff.
• and Berceuse by Alexandra Streliski.