This week Marlon & Jake discuss the books by dead authors they give as gifts and the very important decision-making that goes into that selection. Whether it’s for a younger, skeptical or pretentious reader, they share the unintentionally comedic and surprisingly engaging books they choose to bestow upon their loved ones. 

• Middlemarch by George Eliot 
• The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
• Tai-Pan by James Clavell
• The Godfather by Mario Puzo
• Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
• Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Gold-Bug by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Radiance of the King by Camara Laye
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
• The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
• The History of Jamaica by Edward Long
• Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie
• One Thousand and One Nights 
• The Death of King Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory 
• Oreo by Fran Ross
• The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake by Breece D’J Pancake
• The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
• Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

This week Marlon & Jake discuss memorable characters from books by dead authors—who they love, who they despise and everything in between. What exactly makes a character great?  Who would they invite to their literary dinner party and why?  From Elmore Leonard’s Raylan to Louisa May Alcott’s Jo March, Lady Macbeth to Auntie Mame—tune in to hear which fictional personalities would get a seat at the table, who would be banished forever, and who Marlon and Jake would simply ignore. 

• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
• Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• Pronto by Elmore Leonard
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Sula by Toni Morrison
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Parker novels by Richard Stark
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• The Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) by Dante Alighieri
• The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
• Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré
• The Palliser novels by Anthony Trollope
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• King Lear by William Shakespeare
• The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo
• Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
• Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
• Stuart Little by E.B. White

Marlon and Jake take on literary giants in a grudge match for the ages. This time it's Charles Dickens vs. Anthony Trollope and Louisa May Alcott vs. Laura Ingalls Wilder in a no-holds-barred royal rumble. The two of them pull no punches, whether they're talking about racism or Edith Wharton's snobbery, colonialism or Hugh Grant's hair. So get ready to cheer on your favorite dead author and literary warrior as Marlon and Jake go mano a mano in a street fight you've definitely never come across before.

Select titles mentioned in this episode:

The Palliser Novels by Anthony Trollope
The Warden by Anthony Trollope
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Maurice by E. M. Forster
Stuart Little by E.B. White
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway
The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Literary speculation abounds as Marlon and Jake reveal which books they wish they had written and which they think would have been better if they’d been written by someone completely different. Listen in as they explore the questions you never knew you needed answers to. Would The Confessions of Nat Turner have been better if Zora Neale Hurston had written it? Who could have written a funnier Ulysses? Were members of the Bloomsbury Group actually total bores? And perhaps most important: Does Marlon’s mom still have his Tom Jones fan-fiction and if so, how much is Jake willing to pay for it? Tune in for all this and more, including a lively discussion about plays that are as enjoyable to read as they are to see on stage. (And spoiler: Jake is not a fan of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.)

Select title discussed:

• Tom Jones by Henry Fielding 
• Dubliners by James Joyce
• Tai-Pan by James Clavell
• Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
• Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas
• The Quiet American by Graham Greene
• A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul
• Airships by Barry Hannah 
• Joseph Andrews by Henry fielding
• Pamela by Samuel Richardson
• The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray
• Shōgun by James Clavell 
• Trent's Last Case by E. C. Bentley
• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 
• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins 
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso
• The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron 
• Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
• Terrorist by John Updike
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf 
• Ulysses by James Joyce 
• Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt 
• Orlando by Virginia Woolf
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde 
• The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
• Highland Fling by Nancy Mitford
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
• The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare 
• The Two Gentleman of Verona by William Shakespeare
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
• As You Like It by William Shakespeare
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
• An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde
• His Girl Friday by Charles Lederer (screenplay), adapted from The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (play)
• Sleuth by Anthony Shaffer 
• Amadeus by Peter Shaffer 
• Endgame by Samuel Beckett

Marlon and Jake share their "gateway" books by dead authors, the first books they read that that turned them on—or off—the rest of an author's work. From John Steinbeck to Dorothy Parker, Umberto Eco to Norman Mailer, Ayn Rand to Carson McCullers, Marlon and Jake don't hold back in discussing the imprints, footprints, and thumbprints these books left on them. They also ponder the long-lasting consequences of the high school lit class, whether a gateway book can be assigned, and the enduring power of dullness in a novel, no matter the century.  Listen for this and more, including what Marlon and Jake think of The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara, edited by one Toni Morrison.  

• The Pearl by John Steinbeck
• The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
• Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
• The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers
• Sula by Toni Morrison
• For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
• Night of January 16th by Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead Ayn Rand
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez
• News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel García Márquez
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez
• Enough Rope by Dorothy Parker
• The collected poetry of Dorothy Parker
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
• The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco
• In the hand of Dante by Nicholas Tosches
• Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer
• Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
• Miami and the Siege of Chicago by Norman Mailer
• Harlot’s Ghost by Norman Mailer
• An American Dream by Norman Mailer
• Why Are We In Vietnam? by Norman Mailer
• The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer
• Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
• Loot by Joe Orton
• What the Butler Saw by joe Orton
• Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe
• "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" by Alan Sillitoe
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
• Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas hardy
• The Return of the Native by Thomas hardy
• Already Dead by Denis Johnson
• The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
• The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara
• Gorilla, My Love by Toni Cade Bambara

In this episode Marlon and Jake ponder the tricky question of the last books by authors who’ve … um … left this mortal coil. Which last books are actually worth reading? (Not many, it turns out.) From Roberto Bolaño to Penelope Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath to Eudora Welty, Marlon and Jake discuss how an author's last book compares to their previous ones, how success and age changed how and what they wrote, and the wistfulness that comes when some last books are actually good and you wonder what the authors might have written next, if, you know, they hadn't died. Tune in for this and more, including Marlon and Jake’s surprising thoughts on James Thurber's humorous memoir, My Life and Hard Times.

Select titles discussed:

• Maurice by E. M. Forster
• Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
• Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
• The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
• 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
• Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau
• A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
• Passage to India by E. M. Forster
• Something Happened by Joseph Heller
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys
• One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty
• The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty
• The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty
• “Where is the Voice Coming From?” by Eudora Welty
• My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
• Typee by Herman Melville
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
• The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara

We've heard them rave about their favorites and rant about their least favorites, but Marlon and Jake reveal in this episode their second favorite books by dead authors: the books they love that are the runners-up to the #1 spots in their hearts. From Amos Tutuola to Gabriel García Márquez to John le Carré and more, Marlon and Jake explore why one's favorite book by an author might not always be their best book, what separates an intellectual vs. an emotional response to a book, and the importance of being a promiscuous reader. (That’s right, promiscuous.) And what is the next book by a dead author Marlon and Jake will be reading together for the first time? Tune in to find out!

Select Titles Discussed:

• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
• Darkness Visible by William Golding
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Shardik by Richard Adams
• Watership Down by Richard Adams
• The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola
• My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
• Shōgun by James Clavell
• Airport by Arthur Hailey
• The Moneychangers by Arthur Hailey
• The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John le Carré
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré
• The Honorable Schoolboy by John le Carré
• Smiley’s People by John le Carré
• A Perfect Spy by John le Carré
• Persuasion by Jane Austen
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Sula by Toni Morrison
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
• The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Blood on the Forge by William Attaway
• My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber

Marlon & Jake weigh in on the age-old “artist versus art” debate, as they examine good books by problematic dead authors, as well as the bad and sometimes problematic books by great dead authors.  From Flannery O’Conner to Roald Dahl,  Vladimir Nabokov to the surprisingly challenging Charles Dickens, Marlon & Jake explore the thorny questions surrounding the books worth fighting for and the ones worth fighting over. How exactly do we define terrible books?  Is there a statute of limitations on being offensive? Can we enjoy a book at the same time that we recognize its failures?  Do people and ideas ever evolve beyond books?  And what does it mean to have the freedom to choose what to read? Tune in for a provocative, nuanced conversation that might just make you rethink, revisit, or totally let go when it comes to your own reading of dead authors.

Selected works discussed

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Bear and His Daughter by Robert Stone
• The Breast by Philip Roth
• I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut
• Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford
• The Turner Diaries by William Luther Pierce
• Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

And the writing of:

• Charles Dickens
• Knut Hamsun
• Jack London
• HP Lovecraft
• William S. Burroughs
• Norman Mailer
• Enid Blyton

Marlon and Jake talk short books they love, syllabus staples to skip (Hemingway die-hards, consider yourselves warned), and their first-ever real-time joint read, Blood on the Forge by William Attaway.  What does Marlon consider the closest thing to a perfect novel?  Tune in to find out!

• Sula by Toni Morrison
• Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
• Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
• Miguel Street by V.S. Naipaul
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
• Turn of the Screw by Henry James
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• The Aspern Papers by Henry James
• The Ambassadors by Henry James
• Passing by Nella Larsen
• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
• If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• The Quiet American by Graham Greene
• The Lover by Marguerite Duras
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Blood on the Forge by William Attaway

Marlon and Jake reunite to discuss the books that got them through the pandemic, classics they wish they had written, and whether Lord of the Flies needs a sequel. 

Select titles mentioned in this episode:

• A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
• Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
• Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
• Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
• A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
• A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
• Maurice by E.M. Forster
• Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
• The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
• Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• Blood on the Forge by William Attaway