Marlon & Jake weigh in on the age-old “artist versus art” debate, as they examine good books by problematic dead authors, as well as the bad and sometimes problematic books by great dead authors. From Flannery O’Conner to Roald Dahl, Vladimir Nabokov to the surprisingly challenging Charles Dickens, Marlon & Jake explore the thorny questions surrounding the books worth fighting for and the ones worth fighting over. How exactly do we define terrible books? Is there a statute of limitations on being offensive? Can we enjoy a book at the same time that we recognize its failures? Do people and ideas ever evolve beyond books? And what does it mean to have the freedom to choose what to read? Tune in for a provocative, nuanced conversation that might just make you rethink, revisit, or totally let go when it comes to your own reading of dead authors.

Selected works discussed

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Bear and His Daughter by Robert Stone
The Breast by Philip Roth
I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford
The Turner Diaries by William Luther Pierce
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

And the writing of:

Charles Dickens
Knut Hamsun
Jack London
HP Lovecraft
William S. Burroughs
Norman Mailer
Enid Blyton

Good Books By Terrible People