NB The first two or three minutes have some audio glitches but the rest of the recording is much better quality.I was delighted to talk to A.N. Wilson, novelist, journalist, biographer, and historian, whose books on Iris Murdoch, Dante, and Prince Albert I very much admire, as well as his memoir Confessions. Wilson’s new book Goethe. His Faustian Life comes out in September (December in the USA) and is a splendid account of Goethe’s lifelong work on Faust. In this interview we talk about Goethe’s work as a scientist, his influence on psychotherapy, and his extraordinary drinking, as well as covering a range of literary topics from Professor Helen Gardner to Elizabeth Jenkins and Charles Dickens. (We agree: Dickens is the best. I’ve written about: David Copperfield, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, and Bleak House.) You can (and should) subscribe to Andrew’s excellent Substack here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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