This Got More Personal Than We Expected

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.

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• 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