Marlon and Jake Read Dead People

In our last episode of the season, Marlon and Jake take on the worst books by the best authors—or at least, authors they usually love. They discuss why a journalist’s instincts can be both a gift and a curse when writing fiction, the importance of a great editor, writers who seem more interested in ideas than people, and novels that try so hard to be current they end up aging badly. Tune in for a conversation about literary misfires and wasted genius.

Subscribe to our River-herd digital newsletter and our print newspaper, The Eddy, for sneak peeks of our upcoming books, free giveaways, and exclusive content: https://sites.prh.com/the-eddy-newspaper

The Devil and Sonny Liston by Nick Tosches

In the Hand of Dante by Nick Tosches

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

The Golden Bowl by Henry James

My Son’s Story by Nadine Gordimer

Quicksand by Nella Larsen

The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming

The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

Hotel by Arthur Hailey

Hollywood Wives by Jackie Collins

The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious

Whirlwind by James Clavell

Gai-Jin by James Clavell

The Breast by Philip Roth

Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth

Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow

Mr. Sammler’s Planet by Saul Bellow

A Small Town in Germany by John le Carré

The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré

A Perfect Spy by John le Carré

The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett

The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

Until August by Gabriel García Márquez

Heartburn by Nora Ephron

Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer

The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer

The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer

India: A Wounded Civilization by V. S. Naipaul

The Power Broker by Robert Caro

Terrorist by John Updike

Marlon and Jake discuss the books they’d banish from school reading lists—not ban but give a well-earned time out. They consider why the Bible shouldn’t make the cut, why mythology deserves to expand beyond the Greeks and Romans, and what kinds of books actually resonate with high school readers. Plus: why being a great book doesn’t necessarily make something a great book to teach—and whether length should matter.

Subscribe to our River-herd digital newsletter and our print newspaper, The Eddy, for sneak peeks of our upcoming books, free giveaways, and exclusive content: https://sites.prh.com/the-eddy-newspaper

Mythology by Edith Hamilton

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

“Who Am I This Time?” by Kurt Vonnegut

King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard

Benito Cereno by Herman Melville

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

The Radiance of the King by Camara Laye

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges

“The Aleph” by Jorge Luis Borges

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy by Douglas Adams

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare

The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

As You Like It by William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

You Can’t Take It with You by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Animal Farm by George Orwell

1984 by George Orwell

The Trial by Franz Kafka

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Look Back in Anger by John Osborne

Butley by Simon Gray

The Loneliness of a Long-Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

The Circle by W. Somerset Maugham

Marlon and Jake take on violence in fiction: what makes it effective, what makes it gratuitous, and whether “gratuitous violence” is even a useful distinction. Tune in as they discuss the difference between violence on the page and on screen and why extended cruelty can be harder to stomach than violence itself.

Subscribe to our River-herd digital newsletter and our print newspaper, The Eddy, for sneak peeks of our upcoming books, free giveaways, and exclusive content: https://sites.prh.com/the-eddy-newspaper.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Cities of the Red Night by William S. Burroughs

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

2666 by Roberto Bolaño

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

King Lear by William Shakespeare

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Marlon and Jake explore the power of setting in novels—and why the best stories feel like they couldn’t have happened anywhere else. They discuss settings that become characters in their own right, fictional worlds they’d love (or absolutely hate) to inhabit, and books that made unexpected places fascinating. Plus: why a modern-day Captain Nemo might just be a tech bro.

Subscribe to our River-herd digital newsletter and our print newspaper, The Eddy, for sneak peeks of our upcoming books, free giveaways, and exclusive content: https://sites.prh.com/the-eddy-newspaper.

Amerika by Franz Kafka

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis

Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake

Dubliners by James Joyce

The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow

A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Last Man by Mary Shelley

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Marlon and Jake explore the books that have helped define who they are, choosing four that capture different parts of their personalities and lives. They unpack how reading can shape our understanding of identity, community, and growing up—and change the way we see ourselves and each other. Tune in as they reflect on books they encountered at exactly the right (or wrong) time and the stories that made the world around them feel a little bigger.

Subscribe to our River-herd digital newsletter and our print newspaper, The Eddy, for sneak peeks of our upcoming books, free giveaways, and exclusive content: https://sites.prh.com/the-eddy-newspaper.

Amadeus by Peter Shaffer

Sleuth by Anthony Shaffer

The Lion in Winter by James Goldman

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Red and the Black by Stendhal

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

The Aspern Papers by Henry James

Persuasion by Jane Austen

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie

Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter

Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange

Sula by Toni Morrison

The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor

X-Men by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley