In each episode of our podcast “Life in Seven Songs (opens in new tab),” we ask the world’s brightest minds and leaders: What songs tell the story of your life? 

In much of Daniel Handler’s work, terrible things happen to unassuming people, and in this episode of “Life in Seven Songs,” we unpack why.

Handler — or Lemony Snicket, as he is better known  — is the author of more than two dozen books, including 13 in the best-selling collection “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”

On the podcast, he opens up about his childhood in San Francisco, which was filled with the sort of mystery and intrigue that he’d later attempt to capture in his written work. For instance, he recounts how he once checked out a library book called “The Flowers of Evil (opens in new tab),” expecting it to be about killer plants. Instead, he discovered a collection of adult-themed poems on Parisian nightlife by Charles Baudelaire. This book was so impactful that he later named the protagonists of his series the Baudelaire orphans.

The author also shares that as a child he was sexually assaulted and that in college he suffered from nightmares that evolved into seizure-inducing daytime hallucinations. These revelations were recently published in his new memoir “And Then? And Then? What Else?,” (opens in new tab) surprising even his close friends. 

Through Handler’s songs and stories, it becomes clear why his terror-filled children’s books are so popular.

“Children’s literature is so often run in a pedagogical way, where dangerous and mysterious material is just automatically suspect. It shouldn’t be upsetting. It shouldn’t be alienating. And I think all those things are part of literature,” he said, later suggesting that they are also part of life.

Here’s his full playlist:

Listen to Handler’s playlist on Spotify (opens in new tab), and find the transcript of the podcast episode here (opens in new tab). Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].