Marlon and Jake Read Dead People

Penguin Random House•www.readitforward.com

Marlon and Jake Read Dead People is a podcast hosted by the Man Booker Prize-winning and internationally bestselling author Marlon James and his editor, Jake Morrissey, Executive Editor at Riverhead Books. In each episode, Marlon and Jake talk about authors—specifically dead authors. Authors they like. Authors they hate. Great books, terrible books, and books they love that you’d never expect them to. As a writer and an editor, Marlon and Jake have read thousands of books between them, and they’re not shy in expressing their opinions about them. Sometimes they’ll agree, sometimes they won’t, but in every episode, they’ll tell you what they think— uncensored and with no holds barred. (That’s why the authors have to be dead.) So, listen along to hear about the spectacularly good, the hilariously bad, and the brutally honest.

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Episodes

Myths, Legends and Fables

This week Marlon and Jake go back in time-way, way back-and revisit the myths and legends that have terrified and tantalized us for centuries. Gods and monsters. The powerful and the petty. The shape-shifting and the rampantly naked. From ancient Greece and Africa to Jamaica and Ireland, Marlon and Jake explore the world's myths and legends-how they persist and how we absorb, sanitize and subvert them. Whether it's Jason and the Golden Fleece, the trickster Anansi, or the non-consenting kiss in ...

Feb 10, 2020•44 min•Ep. 4

Epic Fantasy

This week Marlon and Jake venture into fantasy: the imagined worlds of dead writers—from quests and dragons to magic carpets and pregnant kings. As they dive into the works of the giants of traditional fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, they discuss the influence both writers had on Marlon's own fantasy epic, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, which was inspired by the epic traditions of Africa and writers like D.O. Fagunwa and Amos Tutuola. They debate how reading fantasy as a child differs from rea...

Feb 03, 2020•42 min•Ep. 3

Dead Authors for a Desert Island

Marlon and Jake are back-this time to discuss which dead author they'd take with them to a desert island to reread over and over again-as well as which ones they'd happily leave lost at sea. From the Jamaica of Wide Sargasso Sea to the lonely New England of Shirley Jackson, Marlon and Jake get fired up over the books they vehemently love and the ones they equally hate. Marlon explores his complicated love for James Clavell and the underappreciated wisdom of Pride & Prejudice's Charlotte Luca...

Jan 27, 2020•46 min•Ep. 2

Literary Grudge Match

Marlon and Jake kick off the first episode by taking on some 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 ...

Jan 27, 2020•43 min•Ep. 1

Marlon and Jake Read Dead People Trailer

Dec 18, 2019•55 sec

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