Show Notes
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.
Elsewhere, they revisit the time Christian Bale frightened American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis by turning up to lunch in character as Patrick Bateman. And speaking of literary lunches, which fictional character would you most like to sit down with? Charles and Liv make their picks, from Marcel Proust’s Parisian aristocrats to the mysterious disappearance at the heart of Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Finally, some exciting news about Lit With Charles book collections at Tonic and Original Fibres in London.
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Welcome to a new season of Lit With Charles, and a new format, as Charles is joined by co-host Liv for a weekly conversation about books, reading and the literary world. This week, they discuss Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, Javier Marías’s Tomás Nevinson, and the surprising history of the CIA using literature as Cold War propaganda, including Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. Plus, they answer a listener question: how do you encourage someone to read more? From putting down your phone to simply choosing books you actually enjoy, Charles and Liv share their best advice.