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.
Pentecostal Exorcisms, Psychopaths, and Literary Lunch Dates
Religion, artificial intelligence and a particularly terrifying lunch date are on the menu this week. Liv has been reading Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, while Charles tackles Pope Leo XIV’s thoughts on AI and the relationship between humanity and technology.
Elsewhere, they revisit the time Christian Bale frightened American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis by turning up to lunch in character as Patrick Bateman. And speaking of literary lunches, which fictional character would you most like to sit down with? Charles and Liv make their picks, from Marcel Proust’s Parisian aristocrats to the mysterious disappearance at the heart of Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Finally, some exciting news about Lit With Charles book collections at Tonic and Original Fibres in London.
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!
12 Oct 2026
Marguerite Duras, Live Bats, and Abandoning Books
Marguerite Duras and Philip K. Dick make for an unlikely pairing this week, as Charles and Liv compare notes on The Lover and A Scanner Darkly. Then, things get stranger with a trip through the extraordinary life of Victor Hugo – a man whose habits involved live bats, raw lobsters and some deeply questionable party tricks.
Finally: when is it okay to give up on a book? Charles and Liv disagree on the virtues of persevering, the dreaded reading slog, and whether life is simply too short for bad books.
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!
5 Oct 2026
Alan Bennett, Autofiction Disasters, and Bestseller Lists
This week, Charles and Liv discuss Gisèle Pelicot’s harrowing memoir A Hymn to Life and Alan Bennett’s brilliantly subtle Talking Heads.
They also delve into Serge Doubrovsky’s The Broken Book and the strange, tragic consequences of turning your own life into fiction. Plus, they answer a listener question: do bestseller lists actually tell us anything useful? From publishing-industry marketing to what our reading habits reveal about society, Charles and Liv consider what — if anything — we can learn from the books that sell.
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!
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
4.7 / 5
9 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
23 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 59 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
85
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
82
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Guest appearances
Books guests
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