Book In
Book In is a podcast in which brothers Rupert and Charlie Fordham discuss all things English Literature. From Chaucer to the present day, covering drama, novels and poetry, they cover all the classics and much more, from the UK, Ireland, the US, Europe and the rest of the world. Informative but lighthearted, Book In is suitable for all readers, and will be helpful for students doing GCSE, A-Level and university English degrees as well.
Both Rupert and Charlie have been keen readers all their lives and both studied English at university. For many years Charlie taught English at GCSE and A-level.
Episodes
52 episodes
Thomas Hardy Poems
At the age of 55, and at the height of his fame, Thomas Hardy gave up writing novels and decided to devote the rest of his life to poetry. He was disillusioned with the commercial requirements of novel writing, and had been upset by the adverse...
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Great Sporting Books
Sports Books: Open - Andre Agassi, Fever Pitch – Nick Hornby, Great Cricket MatchesBook In take a look at three books on sport. Open is the autobiography of Andre Agassi: one of the greatest players of all time, Agassi was driven by his ...
World Cup Special
It’s World Cup time again! As hope springs eternal for Harry Kane and Co, and as the nation becomes obsessed by whether England should play Rashford or Gordon, and how to fit in Jude Bellingham, Rupert and Charlie choose their own teams from th...
The Odyssey - Homer
Around the 8th century BC, the inhabitants of Greece began to write things down. Amongst these were some of the poems telling of ancient times which bards had passed from generation to generation, and the greatest of these poems were the Iliad ...
The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis
By the mid 1980s, Kingsley Amis was generally considered to be finished as a novelist. Devastated by the collapse of his marriage to Elizabeth Jane Howard, he was hugely overweight, drinking far too much and renting a basement flat from his fir...
A Passage to India - E.M. Forster
What really happened in the Marabar Caves? This is the central mystery of A Passage to India, EM Forster’s most celebrated novel, set in colonial India in the early 20th century. An Indian doctor, Aziz, wants to show some English visitors the r...
The Quiet American - Graham Greene
Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American is set in Vietnam in the 1950s – the French are trying to hold on to colonial power and are supporting the south in its struggle against a communist insurgency in the north. America is not yet involved m...
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Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - Part 2
At Book In, we continue our discussion of Evelyn Waugh’s wonderful novel Brideshead Revisited. We look at the characters of the Marchmain family - the children Sebastian, Julia, Bridey and Cordelia, and the parents, Lord and Lady Marchmain, and...
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Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - Part 1
Brideshead Revisited is Evelyn Waugh’s most famous novel. Magnificent but flawed, he wrote it while recovering from an injury during the Second World War, and the lush, sumptuous world of Oxford in the 1920s which he portrays is in stark contra...
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Re-Release - Emma - Jane Austen
Another from the archives while Rupert is away scaling mountains. We'll be back soon!Emma is one of only six novels that Jane Austen completed, and yet she is among the very greatest of all English writers. How did an obscure spinster li...
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Re-Release - The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Our first ever episode re-released: Rupert and Charlie discuss The Great Gatsby, Scott FitzGerald’s wonderful novel of love, loss and broken dreams. Published 100 years ago, the book is extraordinarily modern and speaks to a contemporary audien...
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The Caretaker - Harold Pinter
Two brothers live in a squalid bedsit in west London. The room is crammed with junk. They befriend Davies, who is homeless and a tramp. He moves in with them, and they offer him a job as a caretaker for the property. But the job falls through, ...
Arcadia - Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard was glamorous, charismatic and brilliant, and his plays are among the finest written in English since the Second World War. Perhaps his most accomplished work is Arcadia, first performed in 1993, with a stellar cast including Rufus...
Wuthering Heights - Film Review
Tune in for Book In’s review of Emerald Fennell’s film Wuthering Heights. The advance publicity promised a modern and original take on Emily Bronte’s classic novel - does the film deliver this? Fennell is well known for her fondness for portray...
The Great Tradition - F. R. Leavis
The Great Tradition - which are the greatest novels we have done in the podcast? What are the greatest novels in the English language? On Book In, we’ve covered quite a few over the last few months, and now we take a step back, and ...
Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf - Part 2
Charlie and Rupert continue their discussion of Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. What effect had the First World War had on the rarefied circles in which Clarissa Dalloway moved, and were those experiences different to the rest of society? The n...
Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf - Part 1
At the age of 40 Virginia Woolf was a prominent figure in post first world war London. She had published several novels, and was a well known commentator and critic. She came from literary aristocracy - her father was Leslie Stephen, who had ma...
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The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy - Part 2
In the second part of Book In’s episode on Thomas Hardy’s great novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, Rupert and Charlie look at the character of Michael Henchard - the qualities which enabled him to rise, and the faults that led to his fall. But is...
The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy - Part 1
Thomas Hardy lived an extraordinary life. He was born into poverty and obscurity in rural Dorset in 1840, yet when he died in 1928, he was rich and world famous. His funeral at Westminster Abbey was a quasi-state occasion, with all the leading ...
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - Part 2
Rupert and Charlie continue their discussion of Great Expectations. They take a look at what was always one of Dickens' great preoccupations, the operation of the law in the book, and the brilliant character of Jaggers the lawyer and his sideki...
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - Part 1
Published at the height of his powers in 1860, Great Expectations is Charles Dickens’ penultimate novel, and one of his very greatest. Its characters are unforgettable - Miss Havisham, self-imprisoned in her wedding dress and with her wedding f...
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë - Part 2
In the second of the episodes on Jane Eyre, Rupert and Charlie take a look at some of the main characters in the book. The behaviour of Mr Rochester is basically weird - he locks up his wife in the attic, dresses up as a female gypsy fortune te...
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Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë - Part 1
Jane Eyre is Charlotte Bronte's most famous book and one of the most celebrated, controversial and loved novels ever written. Millions who have never read it know about the mysterious Mr Rochester, the mad wife he kept locked up in his attic, a...
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
In 1816, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was staying on the shores of Lake Geneva with his young wife Mary, and his friends Lord Byron and John Polidori. It was the year without a summer, and, confined to the house by the terrible weather, they e...
Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan
Small Things Like These is a short novel by the Irish writer Claire Keegan. It tells the story of Bill Furlong, a coal merchant in a small provincial town in the mid 1980s. As Christmas approaches, he delivers some coal to the local convent, an...
