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 and authors off the beaten track. Here at Lit With Charles, every book has a story to tell.
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Today’s episode looks a lot like the last one. Again, I wanted to dive deeper into one of our Book Club selections and in March, we read “Dream Count” by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In this episode, we look at her biography, at this specific novel, and how it fits into her wider work. If you enjoyed
Today’s episode looks a little different – rather than interviewing a guest about their work, I’m getting to grips with our last Lit With Charles book club pick. We read James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room last month as a community, and I, along with many of you, absolutely loved it. So, I’m using this space to reflect on
Today, I’ve got an absolute treat for you: I sat down with Oluwaseun Olayiwola—poet, choreographer, and all-around creative powerhouse—to talk about his latest collection of poems, Strange Beach. Oluwaseun is one of those rare artists who moves seamlessly between the page and the stage. As a choreographer, his work has
In this episode of Lit with Charles, I sit down with Benjamin Markovits to discuss his latest novel, The Rest of Our Lives. This beautifully reflective book follows Tom, a middle-aged father who, after dropping his youngest daughter at college, keeps driving, embarking on an unplanned journey that forces him to confron
The improbable destinies of two Soviet female spies, connected by a modernist building in North London, is an intriguing premise for any spy novel, let alone one that introduces elements of architectural design in its story. But when those destinies reflect a larger literary opus and sources of inspiration, as they do
Childhood, and specifically adolescence, is a period of life that can be pretty tough and at times traumatic. It’s very fertile ground for literature but it’s not easy to get right. In this episode, I'm joined by Michael Amherst, the author of the upcoming novel The Boyhood of Cain which deals with the period of adole
