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
59 episodes
In conversation with Jesse Norman - The Winding Stair
Jesse Norman joins Book In to talk about his brilliant novel The Winding Stair, about the rivalry between Francis Bacon and Edward Coke as they battled for power in the court of King James 1st. In this special edition of Book In, Jesse talks to...
The Odyssey - Film Review
Christopher Nolan’s film of The Odyssey has been the blockbuster cultural event of the summer. Within a few weeks of release, it has already grossed nearly $1bn, putting it on course to become one of the most successful movies of all time. But ...
W.B. Yeats - An Irish Airman, Rough Beasts and Golden Birds
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” – the famous lines from W.B Yeats’ visionary and apocalyptic poem The Second Coming are as resonant today as they were when he wrote them in the aftermath of the First World War, with Europe decimated...
W. B. Yeats - Innisfree to Easter 1916
In the early 20th century, as the nation of Ireland emerged from the turmoil of centuries of struggle, oppression, poverty and famine, one figure above all others was both prophet and judge of the tumultuous process. In his early years, W...
W.H. Auden Poems
W H Auden wrote some of the most beautiful and complex poetry of the 20th century. Best known to modern audiences as the author of “Stop all the Clocks”, read by John Hannah in Four Weddings and a Funeral, he grew up in Yorkshire and the Midlan...
T. S. Eliot - The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday and Marina
In the second episode on T.S.Eliot, Book In looks at the poems he wrote after The Wasteland, as he moved towards a conversion to Christianity. In the Hollow Men, he returns again to the desolation and spiritual emptiness of the West after the F...
T. S. Eliot – Prufrock, Preludes and La Figlia Che Piange
The first poem that T.S.Eliot published, in 1915, was The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and two years later, it was included as the title poem in a collection called Prufrock and Other Observations. It was a sensation; breaking dramatically ...
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...
