Lit with Charles

My guest today is Bill Sherman, who is the director of the Warburg Institute since 2017, following a distinguished career in academia and museums, most recently at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where he was director of Research and Collections and head of the V&A Research Institute. In today's episode, we explore how one man's true passion for books and deep sense of curiosity led to...

In today’s episode, we discuss the nation of Haiti, a small country in the Caribbean with a history that is equal parts heroic and tragic. It was the first country in the world to be established by a successful slave revolt, following a 12-year war of independence from France in 1804. But it has in recent years been in the news more for its political instability & economic struggles, not to me...

Sports writing is a genre that I find particularly thrilling because sports is the ultimate form of non-violent competition, and there’s always something at stake. But as many people will tell you, it’s not all about winning, it’s about taking part. My guest today has written a book which might even argue that it’s not about taking part, but that it’s all about the preparation and the extreme leng...

My guest today is Tom Ayling, a rare and antiquarian bookseller and cataloguer at Jonkers Rare Books. Jonkers was founded in 1994 and is currently located in Henley on Thames, an idyllic town in England. Their mission has been to source and locate rare and unique books for their clients, some of whom are foremost collectors and institutions in the world. So what makes a book rare? What factors mig...

In today's episode, I'm speaking to Matthew Campbell, the author of a book called Dead in the Water, which was published in 2022. It's a riveting true story investigation, weaving an unbelievable tale between Yemen, the city of London and Athens. It's a page turner which has the added bonus of making the world of oil shipping completely mesmerizing. For those of you that are yet to...

Today’s guest is Elizabeth Semmhack, the director of a Museum, and not just any Museum but one that I hold particularly close to my heart: The Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada.  The reason it’s close to my heart is because it was founded by my late grandmother Sonja Bata. In 1946, she married my grandfather who was rebuilding his family’s footwear business. Together, they travelled the world an...

Today's guest is Nina Freudenberger, a Los Angeles-based interior designer and the author of a superb coffee table book called  Bibliostyle: How We Live at Home With Books , where she has documented and photographed some of the most gorgeous home libraries in the world, including those of major writers. Many book lovers have a strong desire to house their books in a way that cherishes and high...

Today's episode was actually the first one I recorded a little while ago. I first came across the Book Club Review podcast hosted by Kate and Laura about a year ago, and I was always really impressed by the books they were discussing and the friendly, approachable tone they adopted during those discussions. Last year they contacted me to do an interview on the anniversary of the publication of Mrs...

On today's episode I am joined by author, Alice Sherwood about her book "Authenticity: Reclaiming Reality in a Counterfeit Culture". We live in a world where it is increasingly difficult to make the difference between what’s authentic and what’s fake. Whether we are talking about counterfeit fashion or Tinder swindlers making up identities, inauthenticity is a force that seems to be taking ov...

On today's episode, I am interviewing James Crabtree, who is currently the executive director of the Asia branch of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Asia. James was previously the bureau chief for the Financial Times in Mumbai and it was in that capacity that he wrote the fantastic book The Billionaire Raj , which I read and reviewed last year. India is very much at a political...

Today's guest is the author, Benjamin Moser, who is the biographer of not one, but two larger than life writers, one of them being the Brazilian novelist Clarice Lispector and the other being the American public intellectual, Susan Sontag. I came across Clarice Lispector when I read her last novel, The Hour of the Star , published in 1977, shortly before her death. It's got a really unusual style...

This week's episode is with the British philosopher David Edmonds. Six months ago, I came across his book about Wittgenstein called Wittgenstein's Poker and I absolutely loved this book because it deals with an episode later in the life of Wittgenstein, which I found absolutely fascinating in 1946. Wittgenstein, who was by then a professor at Cambridge University, found himself in a room at the Mo...

For the very first episode of my brand new podcast Lit with Charles, I wanted to interview an author whose work I’ve really enjoyed and admired. Caitlin Macy is a New York based author, she’s published two novels and two collections of short stories. Her first novel, The Fundamentals of Play , was published in 2000, which was followed by the short story collection Spoiled in 2009. Her second novel...

Welcome to my brand new podcast, Lit with Charles - a podcast on all things literary where I interview people who have either written books or have interesting things to say about them. Upcoming guests include:  - Caitlin Macy , an American novelist and the author of A Blind Corner - David Edmonds , a British philosopher and author of Wittgenstein's Poker - James Crabtree , author of The Bill...