Lit with Charles

In this episode of Lit with Charles, I speak with Ben Pester, author of the novel The Expansion Project.

Blending corporate satire with surrealism, The Expansion Project follows Tom, who brings his daughter Hen to Capmeadow Business Park for “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.” When Hen vanishes without a trace, Tom’s reality begins to unravel. Decades later, an unnamed Archivist pieces together the story from the ruins of the mysterious “Expansion Project.”

We discuss Ben’s approach to structure, surrealism, and storytelling, and the books that have influenced his creative process.

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and follow me on Instagram @litwithcharles.

Ben Pester’s four books were:

• Way Far Away, by Evelio Rosero (2024)

• Sweet Home, by Wendy Erskine (2018)

• Something Happened, by Joseph Heller (1974)

• Self Portrait in Green, by Marie Ndiaye (2005)

This week, we’re doing something a little different. Normally I’m the one asking the questions, but today, in the name of bringing new voices into the conversation, I’m handing the mic over to someone who usually works behind the scenes on the Lit With Charles podcast – Liv. In this episode, she speaks with British author Amy Twigg, whose fantastic debut Spoilt Creatures follows a 30-something woman as she joins an all-women commune in rural Kent, and falls down the rabbit hole in all that entails. I hope you enjoy it!

Lit with Charles loves reviews. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review of your own, and follow me on Instagram at @litwithcharles. Let’s get more people listening – and reading!

Amy Twigg’s four books were:

• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1818)

• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara (2018)

• Little Eyes, Samanta Schweblin (2018)

• The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson (1959)

Today’s guest is a truly remarkable creative – novellist, screenwriter, playwright, producer, past resident of the Royal Court Theatre, co-founder of the Harvard Human Rights Journal, winner of the John Cassavetes Award for film, as well as the first American to receive a fellowship to the European Court of Human Rights. I spoke with Alice Austen about her debut book, 33 Place Brugmann, which is a suspenseful, emotive portrait of a Brussels apartment block during the Second World War. It’s always a pleasure to speak with such a fascinating polymath, and I hope you all enjoy listening.

Lit with Charles loves reviews. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review of your own, and follow me on Instagram at @litwithcharles. Let’s get more people listening – and reading!

Alice Austen’s four books were:

• Dubliners, James Joyce (1914)

• 100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez (1967)

• Tropisms, Nathalie Sarraute (1939)

• Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy (1891)

Today’s episode marks a very fun development in the Lit With Charles universe: my first repeat podcast guest! Caitlin Macy  is an American writer known for her sharp portrayals of class, privilege, and social dynamics – especially of New York City’s elite. So, when I visited the States a few weeks ago, I knew I wanted to make time to chat with her. Caitlin is a fantastic writer, and I found her thoughts on literature (and four book selections) absolutely fascinating.

Lit with Charles loves reviews. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review of your own, and follow me on Instagram at @litwithcharles. Let’s get more people listening – and reading!

Caitlin Macy’s four books were:

This week, I spoke with the Irish-Canadian author Joanna Pocock, whose new memoir, Greyhound, absolutely blew me away. The story follows Joanna as she recounts two journeys – one from 2006, and one from 2023 – that she took across the United States of America. However, unlike the classic ‘roadtrip’ novel, Joanna undertook the entirety of both journeys by Greyhound bus. What follows is an incredible portrait of a nation and its people: a feminist, ecological, anti-capitalist, profoundly humanist elegy that left me desperate to buy a ticket and head for the open road.

Lit with Charles loves reviews. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review of your own, and follow me on Instagram at @litwithcharles. Let’s get more people listening – and reading!

Joanna’s four books were:

• Bear, Marian Engel (1976)

• Silent Spring, Rachel Carsen (1962)

• Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, Terry Tempest Williams (1991)

• America Day by Day, Simone de Beauvoir (1948)

My guest today is Tash Aw, the acclaimed author of The South, a moving coming-of-age novel set during the 1997 Southeast Asian financial crisis. The story follows 16-year-old Jay as he spends a summer on his family’s orchard in southern Malaysia, navigating family tension, economic uncertainty, and a tender relationship with another boy. It’s a quiet, potent emotional journey, as both wrestle with identity, desire, and belonging. In addition to The South, Tash is the author of several award-winning novels, including The Harmony Silk Factory and Five Star Billionaire, the latter of which was longlisted for the 2013 Booker Prize.

Lit with Charles loves reviews. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review of your own, and follow me on Instagram at @litwithcharles. Let’s get more people listening – and reading!

Tash Aw’s four books were:

• Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin (1956)

• The Buru Quartet, Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1980-1988)

• The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)

• Uncle Vanya, Anton Chekhov (1897)

My guest today is artist and writer Gethan Dick, an Irish-born author, living in Marseille, who has written a very interesting book about survival in a post-apocalyptic world. Specifically, how pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing interface with a desperate quest for humanity’s continuation. In the episode, we talk about the emotional and philosophical questions that arise when survival becomes the only goal, and Gethan shares her inspirations, her writing process, and how her journey through various creative mediums (film, radio, zines, and eventually visual arts) helped her arrive at the story she wanted to tell.

Lit with Charles loves reviews. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review of your own, and follow me on Instagram at @litwithcharles. Let’s get more people listening – and reading!

Gethan Dick’s four books were:

• Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban (1980)

• Strandloper, Alan Garner (1996)

• The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut (1959)

• La Trilogie de Pan, Jean Giono (1929-1930)

In this episode, I sit down with celebrated South African novelist and playwright Damon Galgut, a literary voice I’ve admired for years. Damon Galgut is the acclaimed author of The Promise, winner of the 2021 Booker Prize, and has been shortlisted for the prestigious literary award three times over the course of his writing career.

We discuss his lifelong relationship with literature, his unique approach to fiction writing, and how his novels grapple with themes of identity, morality, and the political realities of South Africa. Whether you're a passionate reader, a writer yourself, or simply someone who loves discovering new books, this conversation offers rare insight into the creative mind behind some of the most powerful contemporary literary fiction.

Lit with Charles loves reviews. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review of your own, and follow me on Instagram at @litwithcharles. Let’s get more people listening – and reading!

Damon Galgut’s four books were:

• Pig, Roald Dahl (1960)
• In the Heart of the Country, by J.M. Coetzee (1977)
• Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy (1985)
• The Emigrants, W.G. Sebald (1992)
  

Sometimes you meet a person who seems to have done it all – and today’s guest is definitely one of those guys. Ed Park is an American writer, journalist and general man of letters, born in New York, of Korean extraction. And, along with writing truly remarkable fiction, over the last few decades, he’s been involved with all sides of the literary sphere. We met on a rainy morning in New York City where we recorded this interview to discuss his latest book An Oral History of Atlantis, which is coming out on July 29th and well worth looking out for. He had absolutely fascinating things to say, and picked some incredible, off the beaten track books for this discussion – I know you’re going to enjoy listening to it.

Lit with Charles loves reviews. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review of your own, and follow me on Instagram at @litwithcharles. Let’s get more people listening – and reading!

Outro:

Ed Park’s four books were:

• 56 Water Street, Damion Searls (2010)

• Last Act: The Madhouse, Rachel Ingalls (1992)

• Li Fan, Alexandra Chang (2016)

• The Problem of Atlantis, Lewis Spence (1924)

It was an incredible honour to interview an author I have been following for a long time, and itching to get on the show. Sue Prideaux is an acclaimed Anglo‑Norwegian biographer and novelist. Her works include I Am Dynamite!, a biography of Friedrich Nietzsche I read and reviewed last year, and more recently Wild Thing, a biography of French artist Paul Gauguin. I Am Dynamite! was named The Times Biography of the Year for 2018, and won the Hawthornden Prize for ‘imaginative literature’, and Wild Thing was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction, longlisted for the Women’s Prize for non-fiction, and won the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize for non-fiction. It’s also fair to say that I absolutely loved them both, so I strongly recommend you go out and pick yourselves up copies. 

Lit with Charles loves reviews. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review of your own, and follow me on Instagram at @litwithcharles. Let’s get more people listening – and reading!

Sue Prideaux’s four books were:

• The Story of Babar The Little Elephant, Jean de Brunoff (1934)

• The Summer Book, Tove Jansson (1972)

• Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbon (1932)

• Shelley: The Pursuit, Richard Holmes (1974)