Marlon and Jake Read Dead People

Latest Episodes:

Myths, Legends and Fables Feb 10, 2020

Show notes

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 Sleeping Beauty, Marlon and Jake get real about fairy tales and folklore. And for all Black Leopard, Red Wolf fans, tune in to learn more about which of these traditions influenced Marlon's epic fantasy and how he's turning the wicked witch trope on its head in the trilogy's next novel!

Select titles mentioned in this episode:

The Greek Myths
The Labors of Hercules
Jason and the Golden Fleece
Daedelus and Icarus
Bullfinch's Mythology
African Myths of Origin
Anansi the Spider
Apep and Ra
Black Heart Man
Rolling Calf
Sukuyan
The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales
Snow White
Rapunzel
Sleeping Beauty
Hansel and Gretel
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
The Little Mermaid
The Little Match Girl
Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales
Irish Fairy and Folk Tales by William Butler Yeats

Epic Fantasy Feb 03, 2020

Show notes

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 reading it as an adult, wonder why there aren't more female characters, and lament how fantasy is still mostly read by boys and men. From The Hobbit to Ursula K. Le Guin, the two have some very real takes on the make-believe. So tune in.

Select titles mentioned in this episode:

The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake
The Longships by Frans G. Bengtsson
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola
Forest of a Thousand Daemons by D.O. Fagunwa
The Lake Goddess by Flora Nwapa
The Sagas of the Icelanders
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún by J.R.R. Tolkien
Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien
Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. Le Guin
Dune by Frank Herbert
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

Dead Authors for a Desert Island Jan 27, 2020

Show notes

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 Lucas, while Jake (unsuccessfully) attempts to convince Marlon that Agatha Christie is, in fact, not overrated. One thing they actually agree on?? That would be their passionate disdain for Wuthering Heights-and it's not pretty-so Emily Bronte lovers, consider yourself warned!

Included Titles:

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson
Shogun by James Clavell
Tai-Pan by James Clavell
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Literary Grudge Match Jan 27, 2020

Show notes

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 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

Marlon and Jake Read Dead People Trailer Dec 18, 2019

Show notes

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.