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PODCAST

Lit with Charles

Welcome to Lit With Charles, a podcast on all things literary! I"m Charles Pignal, and every fortnight I’m asking guests about the four books which have made the biggest impact on their lives and work. If you"re like me, you love literature – but maybe aren"t always sure what you should be reading. The aim of this podcast is to make literature exciting and accessible; in each episode writers, artists, and other interesting people are giving real recommendations, to help you discover new books

arts books

All Episodes

00:51:56

Ingrid Persaud, author of The Lost Love Songs of...

Lit with Charles ·

2024/05/20

The Caribbean is a region with an incredible history of vibrant cultures blending into each other, which is reflected in so many elements from the food, the local traditions, the music and of course, the literature. Today’s guest hails from the nation of Trinidad and Tobago, and the region has clearly left an indelible mark on her writing, infusing it with the rhythms, flavors, and complexities that define the Caribbean experience.Based on the new format of the show, Costa Prize winning author

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01:01:44

Best of Season 1

Lit with Charles ·

2024/02/12

Welcome to a special episode that marks a whole year of Lit with Charles. As we wrap up a full year of podcasting, it's time to reflect on the journey we've embarked on together. From the very beginning, the goal was clear – to create a space for the curious souls eager to explore the world of literature, authors, and the intricate process of writing.In today's episode, we take a trip down memory lane, revisiting some of the most captivating questions and answers that have lingered in

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00:51:03

Tania Branigan, author of "Red Memory"

Lit with Charles ·

2024/02/05

The Chinese Cultural Revolution was launched by Chairman Mao in 1966 and lasted a whole decade until his death. It aimed to purify China of perceived bourgeois elements and reinforce hardline communist ideology. The era left a huge impact on China's socio-political landscape, but despite its seismic impact, it’s not that well understood by many Westerners. Today, I’m speaking with Tania Branigan. Tania spent 7 years as the Guardian’s China correspondent, and is also the author of a recent

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00:36:12

Lauren Collins, author of "When in French"

Lit with Charles ·

2024/01/29

There’s little more universally enticing than a story about someone setting off on a great voyage: an intrepid adventurer protagonist. This week, the book I’m discussing is just that – a journey into unknown frontiers, both geographically and linguistically. Today I’m speaking with author and journalist Lauren Collins. Lauren, a staff writer with the New Yorker since 2008, published her incredible debut novel, When In French: Love in a Second Language, to huge acclaim in 2016. In this episode,

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00:44:10

Violaine Huisman, author of "The Book of Mother"

Lit with Charles ·

2024/01/22

Our relationship with our parents and, more widely, with our ancestors’ stories are some of the most formative & influential connections in many people’s lives, both for good and bad. The impact of this relationship can be felt in so many different ways, not least of which in artistic expression. With me today is Violaine Huisman, a French author based in New York who recently became the Director of Cultural Affairs at the Alliance Française. She’s the author of a trilogy of novels about her

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00:41:33

Kate Slotover of The Book Club Review podcast

Lit with Charles ·

2024/01/20

Cowboys, golden dust-plains, and wide open spaces. This is the stuff of the Far West, a setting that has been visited & re-visited in literature & film, often pitting good versus evil in stark terms. And today I’m talking about one of the greatest novels of the American West: Lonesome Dove, by the Texan author Larry McMurtry, published in 1985. In this episode, I speak to Kate Slotover, co-founder of The Book Club Review – a book club in podcast form, which loves debate and discussion

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00:28:53

My top books of 2023

Lit with Charles ·

2024/01/07

In this episode, I highlight the top 5 five books that I read last year. It’s a great way to remember what I’ve read and what I value in my reading experiences. I dive deeper than I usually would into what makes these books especially great and what they meant to me.Sometimes I’ll enjoy something quite linear and - gasp! - commercial whilst, at other times, I’ll prefer something quite experimental & different. In today’s list, those eclectic choices shine through meaning that there’s a bit of

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00:45:17

Nandini Das, author of "Courting India" & Winner of...

Lit with Charles ·

2023/12/18

My guest today is Nandini Das, a Professor of Early Modern Literature & Culture at Exeter College at Oxford University, and author of the book “Courting India” which is an account of England’s first ambassador to the Mughal court, Sir Thomas Roe, who was tasked with building a relationship with the emperor Jahangir in order to build English trade with India. It’s a fascinating book because it takes everything you thought you knew about the historic relationship between the two countries and

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00:29:42

Lauren Easum, founder of Ex-Libris

Lit with Charles ·

2023/12/11

Today I had the pleasure of speaking to Lauren Easum, co-founder of the Parisian bookplate company Ex-Libris. Along with her business partner, Igor Telinge, Lauren has opened Ex-Libris Paris with the intention of bringing tradition back to life, and offering bibliophiles a way to imprint their books with their names & heritage. In today’s episode, Lauren and I cover a wide range of topics – the history of bookplates, or ex-libris stamps as we sometimes refer to them, what makes a good bookplate,

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00:49:29

Blindboy Boatclub, author of “Topographia Hibernica”

Lit with Charles ·

2023/12/06

Today I spoke to Blindboy Boatclub – a multi-disciplinary Irish artist and author of the recently published short story collection Topographia Hibernica, a tongue-in-cheek update to the original. Blindboy exploded onto the international scene in late 2010 with his band The Rubberbandits and segued into a weekly podcast which is a cultural phenomenon, with over 1.2 million monthly listeners. He has released three critically acclaimed short story collections and this is his latest one. I thoroughly

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00:40:42

Irene Vallejo, author of "Papyrus"

Lit with Charles ·

2023/11/27

Part of what I try to do on this channel is to, in some small way, examine the history of literature. But for today’s guest, Spanish writer and Philologist Irene Vallejo, it’s the history of the book itself – from early beginnings as delicate cuneiform tablets, scrolls, and reeds on the banks of the Nile – that truly excites. Papyrus is a stunning introduction to (and explanation of!) philology, and is definitely an accessible read for any lover of books or history. In this episode, we dive into

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00:43:47

Farah Nayeri, author of "Takedown"

Lit with Charles ·

2023/11/20

Famously undefinable, in many ways art is an ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ kind of thing. It’s a giant sociological concept whose tendrils snake into all our lives. In today’s episode, I speak to Farah Nayeri: journalist and author of Takedown: Art and Power in the Digital Age, a fascinating overview of some of the most difficult questions currently being asked in the contemporary art world. What should we be doing about culturally valuable works from problematic artists? Are the demographics of the

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00:45:30

Tom Williams, film producer

Lit with Charles ·

2023/11/13

It’s the age-old question: was the book really better than the movie? For the last however many millennia, the book has been the unrivalled compendium of human knowledge. However, since the turn of the last century, there’s been a new kid on the proverbial block: the movie. Today I got to speak to Tom Williams, a film producer based out of LA, whose 25 year film industry tenure has given us a brief window into the glitz, glamour, and (perhaps) practical realities of working in the biz. In this

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00:52:01

Shrayana Bhattacharya, author of "Desperately Seeking...

Lit with Charles ·

2023/11/06

At first glance, the book I’m talking about today seems like the ultimate odd-couple pairing – a insightful analysis of the condition & economic prospects of women in India, combined with the adoration of a national movie icon. However, as it turns out, these two subjects might not be so disparate after all. Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Shrayana Bhattacharya, an Indian economist about her 2021 book, Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh. The book follows Shrayana’s time spent collecting

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00:37:55

Avery Carpenter, author of "Social Engagement"

Lit with Charles ·

2023/10/30

In today’s episode, I speak to the writer Avery Carpenter Forrey, who wrote the fun & enjoyable debut novel “Social Engagement”. It’s a young woman’s journey to getting married that is full of obstacles & revelations. At first glance, this may seem like standard chick-lit fare but I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a darker undertone to this work that gave it an interesting shape. Aside from struggling with the aftermath of a past relationship as well as family trauma, the

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00:44:32

Matthew Roby, professor on Icelandic sagas

Lit with Charles ·

2023/10/23

There are classic books from a few centuries ago, and then there are classic classic books from distant and remote regions covering events that are long-lost to the sands of time. Today’s episode is about this kind of book: the Icelandic sagas written in the 1300s and covering events from the start of the second millennium. The saga I read for this week’s episode is called Njal’s Saga and it is written anonymously, as many of the texts at the time were, probably through a long oral tradition and it

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00:36:21

Rose Cleary, author of "How To Be a French Girl"

Lit with Charles ·

2023/10/16

One of the best propulsive forces in literature, the force that keeps me turning pages as I read a novel is the question “Where on earth is this going?” And that question kept coming back to me as I read a very exciting debut novel called “How To Be A French Girl” by Rose Cleary, a young British writer. In the book, a twentysomething young girl who’s given up on a promising art education to work a boring temp job in London in order to survive starts to develop an unhealthy obsession in an elegant

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00:31:25

Chloe Aridjis, author of "Asunder"

Lit with Charles ·

2023/10/09

Sometimes a single act can resonate across the ages, its impact felt through generations, both politically and personally. In 1914, the feminist suffragette Mary Richardson slashed a painting called “The Rokeby Venus” by Diego Velasquez in the National Gallery in London, to raise awareness for the feminist cause. This event is the central trauma driving the great novel “Asunder”, written by my guest today, the Mexican & American novelist Chloe Aridjis and published 10 years ago. Her main

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00:31:28

Charles Glass, author of "Soldiers Don't Go Mad"

Lit with Charles ·

2023/10/02

The impact of war on art - specifically on literature - is a subject that I find pretty fascinating. The First World War is maybe one of the first conflicts to incubate some brilliant writers. Some of the most prominent literary figures of the First World War were two British war poets called Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. I didn’t know much about their story until I read an excellent book called “Soldiers Don’t Go Mad” by Charles Glass which was published this year. In this book, the

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00:56:57

Yascha Mounk, author of "The Identity Trap"

Lit with Charles ·

2023/09/25

We live in a changing world with geopolitical forces and academic ideas that are challenging our democratic norms. Extreme politics, both on the right and the left, are very much on the rise in many different countries. Both of these extreme forms of politics are undermining our classic democratic norms of universalism, principles that originated with and were enshrined by the American and French Revolutions. Today’s guest is Yascha Mounk, a German-American political scientist who teaches at

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