Lit with Charles

Charles has found his new favourite book of all time: Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate , a sprawling Russian epic that has left him completely blown away. Liv, meanwhile, has been reading something considerably shorter – Maggie Nelson’s Bluets , a lyrical meditation on the colour blue, heartbreak and memory. From there, things take a criminal turn with the extraordinary story of an international ga...

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...

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. Finally: when is it okay to give up on a book? Charles and Liv disagree on...

This week, Charles and Liv discuss Gisèle Pelicot’s harrowing memoir A Hymn to Life and Alan Bennett’s brilliantly subtle Talking Heads. They also delve into Serge Doubrovsky’s The Broken Book and the strange, tragic consequences of turning your own life into fiction. Plus, they answer a listener question: do bestseller lists actually tell us anything useful? From publishing-industry marketing to...

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. They also uncover the time Hunter S. Thompson terrified Jack Nicholson with an elk heart, before answering a listener question: how do you decide what to read next? From obsessive reading spreadsheets...

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 They also uncover John Steinbeck’s unpublished werewolf novel and debate whether authors’ work should ever be published against their wishes.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 contempora...

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 answ...

This week, Charles is joined by acclaimed novelist Santanu Bhattacharya. Santanu is one of the most exciting emerging voices in contemporary British fiction. Raised in India and now based in London, with eight cities across three countries in between, he is the author of the acclaimed novels One Small Voice and Deviants (2025). His writing explores identity, belonging, family, masculinity, and que...

Today, Charles speaks with one of Britain’s most esteemed authors, the novelist and poet Sir Ben Okri. Sir Ben first shot to international fame in 1991 with The Famished Road , which won the Booker Prize that same year, making him the youngest-ever winner at the time, at just 32. Since then, he has published more than twenty books spanning novels, poetry, short stories, essays and plays, including...

It was such a pleasure today to be joined by Olivia Kate Menzies - aka Liv - for this Season 3 finale, as we looked back on what has been a rich and varied run of conversations on Lit With Charles . Liv has played a key role behind the scenes this year – researching, preparing, and occasionally conducting interviews – so it felt only right to bring her in for a proper recap. In this episode, we re...

It was such a pleasure today to speak with the novelist Andrew Miller, one of Britain’s most accomplished contemporary writers, whose career now spans more than three decades and ten novels. Andrew joined me from South Somerset in the west of England to discuss his latest book, The Land in Winter, recently shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Set during the brutal winter of 1962–63, the novel explore...

This week on Lit With Charles , Liv — who has worked on the podcast for quite a while now — steps in to interview novelist and dramaturg Sarvat Hasin , author of the new novel Strange Girls . Sarvat is a British-Pakistani writer based in London. She studied Politics at Royal Holloway before completing a Master’s in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. Prior to Strange Girls , she publishe...

It was such a pleasure today to interview a novelist I have known for many years, though not at the time as a novelist at all. Philippa Malicka and I first met about fifteen years ago in Delhi, when we were both living in India, long before writing became part of her public life. She has since published her debut novel, In Her Defense , a gripping and psychologically astute story that interrogates...

Leïla Slimani, author of "The Country of Others" & "Watch Us Dance" Leila Slimani is a highly acclaimed French-Moroccan author who has written some absolutely fantastic novels over the last few years. She burst into the mainstream consciousness when she won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in France in 2016 for her second novel Chanson Douce, which was translated into English...

In this relaxed Q&A episode, Charles answers listeners’ questions about his reading life, from how he structures his days around books to the different rhythms that shape how he approaches “easy” versus “demanding” reads. He shares his flexible methods, whether that means devouring a page turner in one long sitting or slowly metabolising a dense classic in small, manageable bursts. The convers...

Invention and re-invention are themes that are set deep in the American psyche and the American novel. My guest today is the American novelist JR Thornton, author of the upcoming novel “Lucien” to be published next month. It’s a tale of intrigue, set at Harvard, in the modern day, where a freshman artist is dazzled by his Euro-glamorous room-mate, and led down a tempting path of forgery and deceit...

In this episode, I’m joined by Lucy Caldwell , ahead of the publication of her new short story collection Devotions , due out in April 2026. We may be early to the party, but this conversation offers a rich introduction to a book that explores love, loss, longing, and the everyday objects and rituals we turn into acts of devotion. From a Belfast theatre troupe taking an experimental Hamlet to New...

Content warning: this episode discusses sexual assault and feminicide in detail and may be distressing for some listeners. Please take care while listening and step away if needed. In this episode, I’m joined by Swiss novelist Michelle Steinbeck to discuss her haunting second novel Favorita , newly translated into English, and the urgent subject of feminicide, the murder of women, often by men. Th...

In today’s episode, I look at the 5 best books that I’ve read in 2025. I’m pleased to say that this is an eclectic list of books which covers a lot of different genres so there’s something for everybody! What are some of the best books that you’ve read this year?  Thank you so much for listening this year and see you in 2026! Lit with Charles loves reviews. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so g...

In this episode of Lit with Charles , Charles welcomes British writer Manish Chauhan to celebrate the lead-up to his debut novel Belgrave Road (out with Faber in January). Set in Leicester, the book traces the intersecting lives of Mira , newly arrived from India in an arranged marriage that offers little refuge, and Talia , a Somali refugee navigating the UK asylum system. Manish speaks candidly...

I’m joined today by Cosima Carnegie, better known on social media as Cosi’s Odyssey: a classicist, writer, and creative producer whose work brings Greek myth and ritual into the present through essays, videos, and immersive events. We’re talking not only about her journey into Classics, but about the four books that have most influenced her on her path to scholarship. It’s a great blend that opens...

I’m joined this week by writer and journalist Ilya Gridneff, whose career has taken him from Sydney to South Sudan and now to the Financial Times bureau in Canada. We talk about his first work of fiction, Your Name Here, co-authored with the brilliant Helen DeWitt — a wild, experimental novel with a long, unusual history. We also dive into the ideas and books that shaped him. If you enjoy the epis...

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 fou...

In this episode of Lit With Charles , I speak with writer, translator, and Chekhov expert Rosamund Bartlett about her new translation of Anton Chekhov’s Early Stories . We talk about how Anton Chekhov - the Russian doctor who transformed short fiction - first found his voice, and why his quiet, compassionate storytelling still feels so modern. Rosamund also shares insights from her other acclaimed...

On Lit with Charles , we usually dive into novels, short stories, and poetry - but in this episode, we’re doing something a little radical. From the longest literary forms to one of the shortest: the aphorism . An aphorism is a short, striking statement - often just a line or two - that captures a deep universal truth. It’s a form beloved by some of history’s greatest minds: Oscar Wilde, Mark Twai...