In 1816, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was saying on the shores of Lake Geneva with his young wife Mary, and his friends Lord Byron and John Polidori. It was the year without a summer, and, confined to the house by the terrible weather, they each agreed to write a ghost story. Over the next few weeks, the 19 year old Mary produced Frankenstein, one of the most consequential and influential books ever written. Fusing the Gothic and Romantic, it tells the story of the brilliant young scientist Victor Frankenstein, who discovers how to make a living creature out of old body parts. His creation is the Monster; endlessly recreated in film, TV and painting, the story has haunted the western imagination ever since. Is Frankenstein’’s creation a tragic figure or an inhuman force for evil? What responsibility do we have for what we create? Why are we terrified of new technologies? And whatever happened to Mary Shelley? Join Rupert and Charlie as they explore this most iconic of novels.

Small Things Like These is a short novel by the Irish writer Claire Keegan. It tells the story of Bill Furlong, a coal merchant in a small provincial town in the mid 1980s. As Christmas approaches, he delivers some coal to the local convent, and by chance discovers a girl there who is being kept in a coalshed. It is clear she is in distress and Bill is faced with a choice - should he do nothing, or act? Through Bill's story, we learn of the hold of the Catholic Church on the community, and the existence of the Magdalene laundries, in which unmarried mothers were kept, normally against their will. Does Keegan's light and deft style fully convey the horror of the laundries, which were common throughout the Church until the 1990s? Are there echoes of A Christmas Carol? And does the book ever topple over into overt sentimentality? Surely not from an Irish writer! Join Charlie and Rupert as they discuss this fine novella, short listed for the 2022 Booker Prize.

Charlie and Rupert look at three great poems associated with Christmas - In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti, a section from In Memoriam by Alfred, Lord Tennyson and The Magi by W.B.Yeats. Rossetti's is a much loved and beautiful Christmas Carol, Tennyson's is a highly crafted meditation on some of the great themes of the mid C19th, and Yeats' a more primal reflection on faith and the connections between folklore and religion. But they all refer to Christmas either directly or indirectly; Charlie explores their derivations and intentions and reflects on how successful each one is.