Lit with Charles

• Cosi Carnegie, Classics Historian

  I’m joined today by Cosima Carnegie, better known on social media as Cosi’s Odyssey: a classicist, writer, and creative producer whose work brings Greek myth and ritual into the present through essays, videos, and immersive events. We’re talking not only about her journey into Classics, but about the four books that have most influenced her on her path to scholarship. It’s a great blend that opens up conversations about childhood reading, ancient ritual, the visual imagination of Greek art, and what it means to inherit stories across generations.Talking to Cosi was a huge amount of fun, and I know you’re going to enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.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!Cosi Carnegie’s four books were:Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Rick Riordan (2005–09)Medea, Euripides (431 BC)The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet, François Lissarrague (1990)An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic, Daniel Mendelsohn (2017)

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• Ilya Gridneff, author of "Your Name Here"

  I’m joined this week by writer and journalist Ilya Gridneff, whose career has taken him from Sydney to South Sudan and now to the Financial Times bureau in Canada. We talk about his first work of fiction, Your Name Here, co-authored with the brilliant Helen DeWitt — a wild, experimental novel with a long, unusual history. We also dive into the ideas and books that shaped him. If you enjoy the episode, please leave a review and follow @litwithcharles.Ilya Gridneff’s four books were:2666, by Roberto Bolaño (2004)A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole (1980)Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre (1938)Post Office, by Charles Bukowski (1971)

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• The Special 100th Episode

  Today’s a very special day for this podcast. After three years, and a whole lot of work, we’ve arrived at huge milestone – the 100th episode of the Lit With Charles podcast. After 99 conversations where I’m the one asking the questions about what four books have influenced our guests’ lives and work, I thought I’d try a little plot twist. In this conversation, I’m going to be talking about the four books that have most shaped my life and work. We cover the origins of Lit With Charles, my relationship with reading and how it’s evolved over the years, and my hopes for a collective literary future. Enjoy!My four books were:The Dead Zone, by Stephen King (1979)Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad (1902)The Magus, by John Fowles (1965)Christie Malry’s Own Double‑Entry, by B. S. Johnson (1973)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!

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• Rosamund Bartlett, editor of "Anton Chekhov, Earliest Stories"

  In this episode of Lit With Charles, I speak with writer, translator, and Chekhov expert Rosamund Bartlett about her new translation of Anton Chekhov’s Early Stories. We talk about how Anton Chekhov - the Russian doctor who transformed short fiction - first found his voice, and why his quiet, compassionate storytelling still feels so modern. Rosamund also shares insights from her other acclaimed works, including About Love and Other Stories (Oxford World’s Classics, 2004/8), her celebrated translation of Anna Karenina (Oxford World’s Classics, 2014), and The Russian Soul: Selections from A Writer’s Diary (Notting Hill Books, 2017). It’s a fascinating conversation about literature, translation, and the enduring power of small moments — and I hope you enjoy listening to it!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!Rosamund Bartlett’s four books were:The Queen of Spades, by Alexander Pushkin (1834)The Student, by Anton Chekhov (1894)Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (1878)A Writer’s Diary, by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1873–1881)

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• James Geary, author of "The World in a Phrase"

  On Lit with Charles, we usually dive into novels, short stories, and poetry - but in this episode, we’re doing something a little radical. From the longest literary forms to one of the shortest: the aphorism.An aphorism is a short, striking statement - often just a line or two - that captures a deep universal truth. It’s a form beloved by some of history’s greatest minds: Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Friedrich Nietzsche, to name a few.Today’s guest, James Geary, is an American writer and lifelong devotee of this deceptively simple art. From his early fascination with language to his career as an editor at Time magazine and later as a lecturer at Harvard, James has explored the timeless power of the aphorism - those brief sentences that linger far longer than they last. His works include The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism and Wit’s End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It.We talk about what makes an aphorism work, why brevity can sometimes reveal more than verbosity, and how these tiny truths continue to shape how we think and write.I loved this conversation - it’s a thoughtful, witty, and illuminating dive into the distilled essence of language. I hope you enjoy it too.If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review — it really helps others discover the podcast. You can also follow me on Instagram @litwithcharles for more book recommendations and literary discussions.Let’s get more people listening — and reading!James Geary’s four books were:Reader's DigestWalden, Henry David Thoreau (1854)I Ching (c. 1000 – 750 BCE)Ulysses, James Joyce (1920)

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