Marlon and Jake Read Dead People

Marlon and Jake explore the power of setting in novels—and why the best stories feel like they couldn’t have happened anywhere else. They discuss settings that become characters in their own right, fictional worlds they’d love (or absolutely hate) to inhabit, and books that made unexpected places fascinating. Plus: why a modern-day Captain Nemo might just be a tech bro.

Amerika by Franz Kafka

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis

Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake

Dubliners by James Joyce

The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow

A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Last Man by Mary Shelley

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Marlon and Jake explore the books that have helped define who they are, choosing four that capture different parts of their personalities and lives. They unpack how reading can shape our understanding of identity, community, and growing up—and change the way we see ourselves and each other. Tune in as they reflect on books they encountered at exactly the right (or wrong) time and the stories that made the world around them feel a little bigger.

Subscribe to our River-herd digital newsletter and our print newspaper, The Eddy, for sneak peeks of our upcoming books, free giveaways, and exclusive content: https://sites.prh.com/the-eddy-newspaper.

Amadeus by Peter Shaffer

Sleuth by Anthony Shaffer

The Lion in Winter by James Goldman

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Red and the Black by Stendhal

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

The Aspern Papers by Henry James

Persuasion by Jane Austen

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie

Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter

Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange

Sula by Toni Morrison

The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor

X-Men by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley

Marlon and Jake dive into one of literature's trickiest subjects: sex. Why do some writers capture intimacy with honesty while others veer into the unintentionally hilarious? Along the way, they discuss why writing about sex is really writing about people, the differences between American and French attitudes toward sexuality in fiction, ghost stories as a vehicle for taboo desires, and the delicate balance between telling the truth and keeping readers engaged. Tune in for a conversation about why the best writing on sex is rarely just about sex.

Subscribe to our River-herd digital newsletter and our print newspaper, The Eddy, for sneak peeks of our upcoming books, free giveaways, and exclusive content: https://sites.prh.com/the-eddy-newspaper.

Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth 

“The Diamond Mine” by Nadine Gordimer

The Late Bourgeois World by Nadine Gordimer

Death of Venice by Thomas Mann

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig

Miracle of the Rose by Jean Genet

Maurice by E. M. Forster

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Ernesto by Umberto Saba

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

London Fields by Martin Amis

The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe

Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown

G. by John Berger 

Flashman series

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Jaws by Peter Benchley

Marlon and Jake tackle the writers they have no interest in revisiting, asking when it's worth giving a beloved (or notorious) author another chance and when it's perfectly fine to walk away for good. Tune in as they debate literary canon, books that simply aren't for them, the difference between a difficult author and a difficult book, and why sometimes the most honest review is, "Nobody needs to go back to that"

Subscribe to our River-herd digital newsletter and our print newspaper, The Eddy, for sneak peeks of our upcoming books, free giveaways, and exclusive content: https://sites.prh.com/the-eddy-newspaper.

The Executioner series by Don Pendleton

Hotel by Arthur Hailey

Airport by Arthur Hailey

Wheels by Arthur Hailey

The Moneychangers by Arthur Hailey

Advise and Consent by Allen Drury

Shōgun by James Clavell

Tai-Pan by James Clavell

King Rat by James Clavell

Whirlwind by James Clavell

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson

Light in August by William Faulkner

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Pylon by William Faulkner

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote

Answered Prayers by Truman Capote

“Where Is the Voice Coming from?” by Eudora Welty

The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

The Return of a Native by Thomas Hardy

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

The Summer Before the Dark by Doris Lessing

Children of Violence series by Doris Lessing

Pentimento by Lillian Hellman

Scoundrel Time by Lillian Hellman

An Unfinished Woman by Lillian Hellman

The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara

Butterfield 8 by John O’Hara

A Rage to Live by John O’Hara

Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

Grendel by John Gardner

October Light by John Gardner

The Art of Fiction by John Gardner

On Moral Fiction by John Gardner

The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Giant by Edna Ferber

Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver

A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman

Once Is Not Enough by Jacqueline Susann

Burr by Gore Vidal

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

In the Hand of Dante by Nick Tosches

Delina Delaney by Amanda McKittrick Ros

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

Stuart Little by E. B. White

The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

Jaws by Peter Benchley

Marlon and Jake explore why we're so eager to revisit the worlds of our favorite stories, asking whether great characters are better left where their authors left them—or if there's value in imagining what came before or after. Tune in as they unpack the appeal of sequels, the pitfalls of origin stories, and why some fictional worlds are more powerful when they remain a mystery.

Subscribe to our River-herd newsletter for sneak peeks of our upcoming books, free giveaways, and exclusive content. https://sites.prh.com/riverhead-reader-newsletter

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon

Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis

Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Lost Horizon by James Hilton

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Little Men by Louisa May Alcott

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Big Blonde by Dorothy Parker

The Tempest by William Shakespeare