Show Notes
Today’s a very special day for this podcast. After three years, and a whole lot of work, we’ve arrived at huge milestone – the 100th episode of the Lit With Charles podcast. After 99 conversations where I’m the one asking the questions about what four books have influenced our guests’ lives and work, I thought I’d try a little plot twist. In this conversation, I’m going to be talking about the four books that have most shaped my life and work. We cover the origins of Lit With Charles, my relationship with reading and how it’s evolved over the years, and my hopes for a collective literary future. Enjoy!
My four books were: The Dead Zone, by Stephen King (1979) Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad (1902) The Magus, by John Fowles (1965) Christie Malry’s Own Double‑Entry, by B. S. Johnson (1973)
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More from Lit with Charles
Religion, artificial intelligence and a particularly terrifying lunch date are on the menu this week. Liv has been reading Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, while Charles tackles Pope Leo XIV’s thoughts on AI and the relationship between humanity and technology.
Marguerite Duras and Philip K. Dick make for an unlikely pairing this week, as Charles and Liv compare notes on The Lover and A Scanner Darkly. Then, things get stranger with a trip through the extraordinary life of Victor Hugo – a man whose habits involved live bats, raw lobsters and some deeply questionable party tricks.
This week, Charles and Liv discuss Gisèle Pelicot’s harrowing memoir A Hymn to Life and Alan Bennett’s brilliantly subtle Talking Heads.
This week, Charles and Liv discuss Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House and Kamel Daoud’s controversial novel Houris, exploring the Algerian Civil War and the strange story surrounding the book.
This week, Charles and Liv discuss Ian Fleming’s For Your Eyes Only, Clarice Lispector’s strange and brilliant The Hour of the Star, and why some books are better read like poetry. They also uncover John Steinbeck’s unpublished werewolf novel and debate whether authors’ work should ever be published against their wishes. Plus, they answer a listener question: what would you change about contemporary book culture? From endless “best books” lists to the pressure to read 100 books a year, Charles and Liv have a few complaints.