What would your utopia look like?

A socialist state where everyone shares the same communal underwear, and you stay in the education system until retirement age?

A fascistic wonderland where you’re forced to chant the leader’s name for ten minutes, five times a day, but you do get to enjoy unlimited Aperol Spritz?

Or would yours be built entirely around how, as a society, we treat Ant and Dec?

It’s a tough one.

In his last novel, Island, Aldous Huxley begins to paint a picture of a possible utopia as he sees it.

To figure out how successful Huxley is at doing so, I’m joined by a person I’d certainly offer a leadership position in my own literary-based dictatorship—the brilliant artist, musician, and writer, Richard Phoenix.

Indeed, welcome to The Library of Lazy Thinking Podcast, with me, your host, Glenn Fisher.

As you may well know by now, in each episode, I'm joined by a guest from the world of books and culture to talk about a specific book they'd like to put in the library.

There's no plan and no agenda, just two people lazily thinking about literature.

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In this episode, as I say, my very special guest is the artist, musician, and writer Richard Phoenix, author of Do Your Own Thing, published by Rough Trade Books. We discuss his pick for the library, the 1962 novel Island by Aldous Huxley.

About Richard

Richard Phoenix is an artist integrating painting, writing, music, and facilitation. He creates work that explores the rhythm, harmony, and dissonance to be found in co-operation, support, and art-making, and the resulting balance between care and domination to be navigated. Arriving at painting not through formal education but through many years playing in DIY bands and working within learning disability arts as creative support, these experiences profoundly influenced the way Richard approaches making and thinking about art.

About Aldous

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was an English writer, philosopher, and intellectual, born into a prominent family, famous for his dystopian novel Brave New World (1932) and his explorations into mysticism and psychedelic drugs, notably in The Doors of Perception (1954). Despite near-blindness as a youth, he became a prolific author, moving to California in 1937, where he wrote screenplays, explored Eastern philosophies, and chronicled his drug-induced visions, leaving a legacy as a humanist and social commentator.  

Links to obscure (and not so obscure) things mentioned in this episode

* Order Island by Aldous Huxley and Do Your Own Thing by Richard Phoenix from my local independent bookshop in Sheffield here.

* Find Richard Phoenix on Instagram here.

* Find out more about Richard’s art practice here.

* Find Glenn Fisher on Instagram here.

* Find The Library of Lazy Thinking on Instagram here.

About the Library

The Library of Lazy Thinking is a place to hang out and learn more about books. If you’d like to support the library and get access to everything here, you can become a paid member (and get an exclusive The Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge). All support goes back into the library, helping to organize live events, exclusive merchandise, and more podcasts.

About Glenn

Glenn Fisher is a writer—wait, Glenn Fisher is me. I’m the one writing this. Let’s drop the third-person act. My writing has been published in Lunate, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, and Litro Magazine. I write about books and interview other writers and artists here in The Library of Lazy Thinking. I live in Sheffield and work as a freelance copywriter. I have had a best-selling non-fiction book published on the subject called The Art of the Click. It was published by Harriman House and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year. It has been translated into Simplified Chinese and Korean. I also have a dog called Pablo. He is harder to translate. Indeed, most of my life revolves around trying to understand his often unreasonable demands. Meanwhile, I am currently working on my first novel, Still Nothing. Brave/bold agents: hit me up.

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