Book In

Rupert Fordham and Charlie Fordham
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Books
  • Updated Weekly

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 from school to degree level.    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. 

  1. 1d ago

    Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald

    In the early 1960s, a group of old barges and minor naval craft have been converted to houseboats. They are falling apart and so are their owners. The boats creak, leak and occasionally sink, and the people who live on them struggle with life, relationships, money and mental health issues. Penelope Fitzgerald’s marvellous novel, which won the Booker Prize in 1979, describes lives lived on the edge, between water and land, marriage and separation, getting by and financial ruin, and life and death. London, too, is poised between the greyness and discomfort of the post-war period, and the explosion of life and energy in the 1960s. In only 180 pages, she creates a rich and varied cast of attractive and vulnerable women, hopeless husbands, small time crooks, male prostitutes and feral children. Damp is everywhere and disaster just around the corner, yet Fitzgerald’s novel contains warmth, humour and beauty; the elegiac paintings of the Thames by Whistler provide an atmospheric backdrop, with the spirit of Dante haunting the story. Fitzgerald herself had a husband who could not provide, and spent much of her own life in abject poverty, including a spell on a houseboat which sank, taking all her worldly possessions with it. She only came to writing in her sixties, and in this late period produced several novels which are as fine as anything written in the second half of the 20th century. Join Rupert and Charlie as the discuss one of the best, Offshore.

    Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald

  2. Sep 11

    Possession - A.S. Byatt

    A.S.Byatt wrote Possession as a completely self-indulgent project, with no thought of commercial or critical consequence. It sold millions and won the Booker Prize in 1990, introducing her to a mass audience and turning her into a literary superstar. It tells the story of a fictional Victorian poet, Randolph Henry Ash, who is mostly Browning with a dash of Tennyson; Ash falls in love and eventually has a child with another fictional minor Victorian poet, Christabel LaMotte. But their affair remains unknown to posterity until a young researcher in the 1980s discovers by chance some letters they had written to each other. He teams up with another academic, Maud Bailey, to find out what really happened, and like the Victorians, they too fall in love. Part detective story, part love story, part literary tour de force, Byatt herself composes the poetry through which Ash and LaMotte express their feelings for each other, and the letters they write. It is a brilliant, wordy, baggy, exciting, moving and above all literary book, covering Victorian sensibility, London in the mid 19th century, the absurdities of competitive academics in the modern age. Join Rupert and Charlie as they delve into this wonderful and heartwarming novel.

    Possession - A.S. Byatt

  3. Sep 4

    The Siege of Krishnapur - J. G. Farrell

    The Siege of Krishnapur is set in India in 1857 during the Indian Rebellion (or what used to be known as the Indian Mutiny). The small British community are besieged by the rebellious Indians, and as food and medicine gradually run out, and casualties rise by the day, their instinctive recourse to the social and hierarchical structures by which they have lived their lives is tested to breaking point. Their leader is the Collector, an essentially good and thoughtful man, who tries to maintain discipline, ensure the defences are manned, and keep up morale by promising that relief is near at hand. But his belief in progess and the ability of science and technology to improve the human condition is shaken to the core. Based on letters written by people involved in the sieges of Cawnpore and Lucknow, J. G. Farrell's brilliant novel, which won the Booker Prize in 1973, is thriller, satire, love story and history all at once - funny, informative and deeply moving. Farrell died young in a tragic drowning accident; another of his novels, Troubles about the British presence in Ireland, was awarded the Booker Prize for 1970 after his death. Join Rupert and Charlie as they look at this often overlooked masterpiece, and place the story in the context of the rule of the British in India.

    The Siege of Krishnapur - J. G. Farrell

  4. Aug 28

    Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie - Part 2

    In the second part of the Book In episode on Midnight's Children, Charlie and Rupert look at the way Salman Rushdie places the novel in the context of the extraordinary political and social changes created by the birth of the Indian nation. How will India change after independence? How is Pakistan different? How did the dreams of independence give way to the chaos of Partition, the creation of Bangladesh and the nightmare of Emergency Rule under Indira Gandhi? Why is Rushdie so brilliant at writing about women? And how is the style like Dickens on acid? Join us as we conclude our discussion of Rushdie's masterpiece.

    Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie - Part 2

  5. Aug 21

    Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie - Part 1

    On the stroke of midnight of August 15th 1947, the nation of India became independent from Great Britain. Saleem Sinai, the central character of Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, is born at exactly the same moment, and in this monumental book, Rushdie tells the story of Saleem's family background, his childhood and his early years as an adult. Saleem's story is also India's story, and it plays out against the background of the birth of this vast and teeming nation. The creation of Pakistan, the subsequent emergence of Bangladesh, the death of Mahatma Gandhi, the emergency rule of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s - all profoundly affect the lives of the central characters. Yet Rushdie's story is rooted in the family and friends of Saleem in all their generosity, pettiness, scatological excess, dishonesty, bravery and humour. The nature of India, the effect of British rule, love, adultery, materialism, spirituality, success and failure are all explored in a kaleidoscopic and often chaotic panorama which reflects the nature of India itself. Has independence been a success? What does Rushdie, a Muslim, feel about partition, the dominance of Hindus and the creation of Pakistan? What is magic realism? And why is there so much snot in the novel? Join Charlie and Rupert as they take on Rushdie's masterpiece, which won the Booker Prize in 1981.

    Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie - Part 1

  6. Aug 14

    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 Rupert about the novel – what inspired him and how he wrote it. Bacon was described by Thomas Jefferson as one of the three greatest men who had ever lived, and in his belief in the potential of the human mind and spirit to create a better society and a richer life for people, he was a prophet of the enlightenment. But for much of his career he was outwitted by Coke, frustrated in his ambition to attain an office from which he could create the institutions which would provide the modern and rounded education that he believed were necessary. Meanwhile Coke was the leading lawyer of his day, immersed in precedent, and prosecuting the greatest trials of the time, including the Gunpowder Plotters. And also present in the novel is the fascinating character of James 1st – perhaps the most intellectually accomplished monarch Britain has ever had, but also self-centred, suspicious, paranoid, indulgent of his favourites, and a passionate believer in the Divine Right of Kings. Join Rupert and Jesse as they discuss this extraordinary and formative period in British history, and what parallels there might be with politics today.

    In conversation with Jesse Norman - The Winding Stair

  7. Aug 7

    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 is the hype justified? Does it matter that while Homer’s hero was interested in glory and honour, Matt Damon’s Odysseus is a traumatised war veteran driven by grief at the loss of his men, and the damage and pain he has inflicted? Why is there so little sex in the movie? Is it too woke? Is it too long? What has happened to the Gods? And who dresses up as Batman? Join Rupert and Charlie as they review the film of the year.

    The Odyssey - Film Review

  8. Jul 31

    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 economically, spiritually and culturally. He wrote that  “The best lack all conviction, and the worst/Are full of passionate intensity”, and as he grew older, his poetry articulated the worries and anxieties of the age. But he remained a private as well as a public artist, and in his later poems he explored the role of the artist in society, and confronted old age, illness and mortality in some of the greatest poems he ever wrote. But why did W.H.Auden call him silly? Was it OK that within the space of a few hours he proposed not only to Maud Gonne, but also her daughter? And what was automatic writing? Join Rupert and Charlie in the second part of the Book In episode on W.B.Yeats.

    W.B. Yeats - An Irish Airman, Rough Beasts and Golden Birds
See All (64)

Trailer

About

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 from school to degree level.    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. 

Information

  • Creator
    Rupert Fordham and Charlie Fordham
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    64
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Book In
  • Show Website
    Book In

You Might Also Like