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We've heard them rave about their favorites and rant about their least favorites, but Marlon and Jake reveal in this episode their second favorite books by dead authors: the books they love that are the runners-up to the #1 spots in their hearts. From Amos Tutuola to Gabriel García Márquez to John le Carré and more, Marlon and Jake explore why one's favorite book by an author might not always be their best book, what separates an intellectual vs. an emotional response to a book, and the importance of being a promiscuous reader. (That’s right, promiscuous.) And what is the next book by a dead author Marlon and Jake will be reading together for the first time? Tune in to find out!

Select Titles Discussed:

• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
• Darkness Visible by William Golding
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Shardik by Richard Adams
• Watership Down by Richard Adams
• The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola
• My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
• Shōgun by James Clavell
• Airport by Arthur Hailey
• The Moneychangers by Arthur Hailey
• The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John le Carré
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré
• The Honorable Schoolboy by John le Carré
• Smiley’s People by John le Carré
• A Perfect Spy by John le Carré
• Persuasion by Jane Austen
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Sula by Toni Morrison
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
• The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Blood on the Forge by William Attaway
• My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber