Reading Writers

Jan 01 2025 22 ep. 60 mins 22
Reading Writers Podcast artwork

Writers Charlotte Shane and Jo Livingstone talk about what they’ve been reading and special guests join to enthuse about a significant or provocative book of their choice. Theme song by Jo Livingstone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  Arts  Fiction
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Competing Fantasies: K. Austin Collins on Dennis Cooper’s The Sluts

Jan 01 2025 52 mins  
In an incendiary season finale, the insightful and hilarious K. Austin Collins joins to discuss Dennis Cooper's controversial classic, The Sluts. Other topics of debate include the old internet, social media in fiction, and the world's ultimate unreliable narrators: service review writers. Thanks to all our listeners and guests for a wonderful second season! K. Austin Collins is a

Three Types of Loss: CharJo on Lorrie Moore and Scholastique Mukasonga

Dec 23 2024 50 mins  
Charlotte comes in salty about Lorrie Moore’s annoying 9/11 novel A Gate at the Stairs, while Jo has been awed by Cockroaches, Scholastique Mukasonga’s memoir of losing her family in the Rwandan genocide. Send questions, requests, recommendations, and your own thoughts about any of the books discussed today to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Charlotte’s most rec

A Natural Affinity: Shon Faye on Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch

Dec 12 2024 73 mins  
Charlotte and Jo enthuse briefly but ardently about friend of the pod’s Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection and Helen Humphreys’ Followed By The Lark before the powerhouse Shon Faye joins for a rollicking take on Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch.Shon Faye is an advice columnist for Vogue dot com and the author of two books The Transgender Issue published by Verso in 2022 and th

Inheriting the Inescapable: Lovia Gyarkye on Marie NDiaye’s Ladivine

Dec 06 2024 75 mins  
Jo discovers one of the most fascinating books of all time with Extraterrestrial Languages by Daniel Oberhaus, while Charlotte issues her verdict on whether Lional Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin lives up to its good reputation. Beloved critic Lovia Gyarkye then joins to assess the complex, beguiling mother-daughter dynamics at work in Marie NDiaye’s Ladivine.Lovia Gyarky

Illegible Logic: CharJo on Paula Hawkins and Jacqueline Harpman

Nov 27 2024 45 mins  
In another host-only bonus episode, Jo reviews Paula Hawkins’ art mystery novel, The Blue Hour, and Charlotte rhapsodizes about Jacqueline Harpman’s bizarre science fiction masterpiece I Who Have Never Known Men.Other titles discussed: Karen Slaughter’s Will Trent series, Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, and The Woman in White by Wilki

Bring A Pen: Emma Robinson on Dianne Brill’s Boobs, Boys, and High Heels

Nov 13 2024 67 mins  
Jo is refreshed by Trouble in the Cotswalds by Rebecca Tope but Charlotte quickly ruins their peace by connecting the sex in Heather Lewis’s violent novel Notice with Miranda July’s NBA-shortlisted All Fours. The effervescent Emma Robinson joins to share her love for Dianne Brill’s Boobs, Boys, and High Heels, which inspires further reflection on 90s era beauty books and inst

Just Open the Door and Go: Marlowe Granados on Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone

Nov 06 2024 61 mins  
Jo opens their mind to further basketball books after reading Hanif Abdurraqib’s There’s Always This Year, while Charlotte (11:30) revisits a YA novel from her youth, Bette Green’s Summer of My German Soldier. Glamorous Marlowe Granados then joins (24:30) to expound on great novels of mid-century women, namely Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone. Other books discussed in

A Stranger Comes to Town: Matt Korvette on Joan Samson’s The Auctioneer

Oct 30 2024 61 mins  
Charlotte is haunted by the lack of violence in Swedish dystopias (Kallocain by Karin Boye and Amatka by Karin Tidbeck) while Jo (17:00) delves into the controlled and uncontrolled horror of medical history in Human Medical Experimentation, ed. Francis R. Frankenberg. Pissed Jeans’ thoughtful frontman Matt Korvette joins (27:00) to share his trenchant take on menace and neighborl

Disposing of the Bodies: CharJo on J.M. Coetzee

Oct 23 2024 43 mins  
In this special bonus episode, Jo and Charlotte talk about J.M. Coetzee, starting with Disgrace and moving to white South African literature, the legacy of colonialism in fiction, animal rights and Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals, as well as Athol Fugard’s plays, James Percy FitzPatrick’s Jock of the Bushveld, Sunaura Taylor’s Beasts of Burden, Marjorie Spiegel’s The Dread

Sobbing on the Floor: Sarah Miller on Elizabeth Jane Howard's The Cazalet Chronicles

Oct 16 2024 61 mins  
Charlotte and Jo discuss the mortifying ordeal of being (visually) perceived and other trials of embodiment as explored in Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face and Judith Moore’s Fat Girl: A True Story. The REAL and spectacular Sarah Miller then joins to give her wholehearted endorsement to Elizabeth Jane Howard’s The Cazalet Chronicles. Sarah Miller has written for the