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#136: Does Reading Make Us Better People? and And Then There Were None vs The Invisible Host

StuckinaBook All, Tea or Books? , , , 10 Comments

Agatha Christie, Gwen Bristow, Bruce Manning and reading morality – welcome to episode 136 of Tea or Books?!

In the first half of this episode, we discuss whether or not we take moral instruction from the books we read – does reading make us better people? In the second half, we compare two very similarly plotted books – And Then There Are None by Agatha Christie and The Invisible Host by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning. Many thanks to Susan for suggesting this (and sorry for forgetting your name when we recorded!)

You can get in touch with suggestions, comments, questions etc (please do!) at teaorbooks[at]gmail.com – we’d love to hear from you, even if I’m quite bad at replying quickly. Find us at Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re able to, we’d really appreciate any reviews and ratings you can leave us. And you can support the podcast at Patreon.

FYI Hargreaves gets very noisy in this episode!

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

Stasiland by Anna Funder
Mrs Dalloway: A Biography of the Novel by Mark Hussey
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
On Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior
Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson
Emma by Jane Austen
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Jack by Marilynne Robinson
The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge
The Warden by Anthony Trollope
How To Know A Person by David Brooks
Ghosted by Nancy French
Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
Walkable City by Jeff Speck
Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Pamela Smith
Brink of Being by Julia Bueno
Shaun Bythell
A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie
A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
The Diviners by Margaret Laurence
Catherine Carter by Pamela Hansford Johnson

#135: Can Literary Fiction Be A Comfort Read? and Enter Ghost vs Lady Living Alone

StuckinaBook Tea or Books? , , 18 Comments

Isabella Hammad, Norah Lofts, comfort reads – welcome to episode 135!

 

In the first half, we discuss whether or not literary fiction can be comfort reads – thank you for the suggestion, Marcy! In the second half, we compare novels we chose from each other’s Best Books of 2024 – Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad vs Lady Living Alone by Norah Lofts.

You can get in touch with suggestions, comments, questions etc (please do!) at teaorbooks[at]gmail.com – we’d love to hear from you. Find us at Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re able to, we’d really appreciate any reviews and ratings you can leave us. And you can support the podcast at Patreon. Among the bonus things you’ll find is our talk from the Marlborough Literary Festival!

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

Julia by Sandra Newman
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie
Catherine Carter by Pamela Hansford Johnson
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Jane Gardam
Diaries by Virginia Woolf
Miss Read
Emma by Jane Austen
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
P.G. Wodehouse
Agatha Christie
Margery Sharp
Val McDermid
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Dorothy Whipple
A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge
The Spring Begins by Katherine Dunning
Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary by Ruby Ferguson
For Every Favour by Ruby Ferguson
South Riding by Winifred Holtby
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
Turn Again Home by Ruby Ferguson
Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott
The Group by Mary McCarthy
The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe
Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Invisible Host by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning

#134: Our Top 10 Books of 2024

StuckinaBook All, Tea or Books? 7 Comments

Happy new year! In episode 134, Rachel and I share our favourite books reads in 2024 – counting down from ten to one. And we each pick one of the other’s top 10 to read for our next episode!

Thanks so much for everyone who listens to the podcast and gets in touch. It means such a lot to us.

The books and authors we mention in this episode are below – but if you want to avoid spoilers for our favourite books, then don’t read this list too carefully!

Letters to Gwen John by Celia Paul
The Years by Annie Ernaux
The Wife of Bath: A Biography by Marion Turner
The Inn at the Edge of the World by Alice Thomas Ellis
George Orwell
Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks
My Darling Villain by Lynne Reid Banks
The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks
The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
The Farthest Away Mountain by Lynne Reid Banks
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
The Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
Weather by Jenny Offill
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Body Made of Glass by Caroline Crampton
Foster by Claire Keegan
So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan
Antarctica by Claire Keegan
Chernobyl Prayer by Svetlana Alexievich
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Wifedom by Anna Funder
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Oracles by Margaret Kennedy
The Feast by Margaret Kennedy
The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola
Babbacombe’s by Susan Scarlett
Lady Living Alone by Norah Lofts
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Spring House by Cynthia Asquith
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
The Spring Begins by Katherine Dunning
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
A Clergyman’s Daughter by George Orwell

#133: Do We Have Reading Rules? and Two Willa Cather Novels

StuckinaBook All, Tea or Books? , 14 Comments

Willa Cather and reading rules – welcome to episode 133 of ‘Tea or Books?’!

In the first half, we discuss reading rules – when we’re picking up a book, are there certain things that will definitely put us off? In the second half, we compare two novels by Willa Cather: Sapphira and the Slave Girl and A Lost Lady.

You can get in touch with suggestions, comments, questions etc (please do!) at teaorbooks[at]gmail.com – we’d love to hear from you. Find us at Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re able to, we’d really appreciate any reviews and ratings you can leave us. And you can support the podcast at Patreon. Among the bonus things you’ll find is our talk from the Marlborough Literary Festival!

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Back by Henry Green
Living by Henry Green
Loving by Henry Green
A Woman’s Place by Ruth Adam
A Bookshop of One’s Own by Jane Cholmondeley
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble
Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Katherine Mansfield
Lucy Gayheart by Willa Cather
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather
My Antonia by Willa Cather
The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
Alexander’s Bridge by Willa Cather

#132: Interview: Edward Carey on Edith Holler

StuckinaBook Tea or Books? 2 Comments

Edward Carey joins us to discuss his latest novel, Edith Holler. Welcome to episode 132!

Rachel and I both love Edward Carey’s novels, so it was a real joy to have the opportunity to interview him. We discuss how he first got published, what inspired Edith Holler and what his books might have in common. Among his books, we discuss Observatory Mansions, Alva and Irva, The Swallowed Man, and Little.

For Patreon subscribers – as a thank you for your support, you can listen to Rachel interview me about the British Library Women Writers at the Marlborough Literary Festival! (If you’re not a Patreon subscriber and would like to be, follow that link to find out more.)

Do get in touch at teaorbooks[at]gmail.com with any questions or suggestions, and don’t forget you can listen to (and rate and review!) the podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
A Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk
The Haunted Wood by Sam Leith
Way Far Away by Evilio Rosero
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Weird Stone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
Diana Wynne Jones
Watership Down by Richard Adams
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Tin Drum by Günter Grass
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Elizabeth McCracken
A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
Sapphira and the Slave Girl by Willa Cather

#131: Do We Read Deeply or Shallowly? and One Year’s Time vs Which Way?

StuckinaBook Tea or Books? , , 6 Comments

Angela Milne, Theodora Benson, and reading deeply – welcome to episode 131 of Tea or Books?!

In the first half of the episode, we discuss a topic suggestion by Heidi – do we read deeply or shallowly? Do we like critical editions? Or do we just ‘switch off’ and enjoy? In the second half, we pit two British Library Women Writers titles against each other – Which Way? by Theodora Benson and One Year’s Time by Angela Milne.

You can get in touch with suggestions, comments, questions etc (please do!) at teaorbooks[at]gmail.com – we’d love to hear from you. Find us at Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. And you can support the podcast at Patreon. If you’re able to, we’d really appreciate any reviews and ratings you can leave us.

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
The Spring House by Cynthia Asquith
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
A.S. Byatt
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
How To Read Literature Like A Professor by Thomas C. Foster
Mary Lawson
The Haunted Woman by David Lindsay
The Heir by Vita Sackville-West
The House by the Sea by May Sarton
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Beverley Nichols
Shirley Jackson
Buttercups and Daisies by Compton Mackenzie
Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgins
Concert Pitch by Theodora Benson
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett

#130: Do Books Need Romance? and The Ladies’ Paradise vs Babbacombe’s

StuckinaBook Tea or Books? , , 6 Comments

Emile Zola, Noel Streatfeild, and romantic books – welcome to Tea or Books? episode 130!

In the first half of this episode, we do a topic suggested by Lindsey – do books need a romantic storyline? In the second half, we compare two novels set in department stores – The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola (both of us read the translation by Brian Nelson) and Babbcombe’s by Susan Scarlett aka Noel Streatfeild.

You can get in touch with suggestions, comments, questions etc (please do!) at teaorbooks[at]gmail.com – we’d love to hear from you. Find us at Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. And you can support the podcast at Patreon. If you’re able to, we’d really appreciate any reviews and ratings you can leave us.

Please come and see us talking about the British Library Women Writers series at the Marlborough Literary Festival on 29 September! And you can find out more about End Sexism in Schools at their website.

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre
Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre
Timebends by Arthur Miller
Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Unless by Carol Shields
Larry’s Party by Carol Shields
Rereadings ed. by Anne Fadiman
Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
High Wages by Dorothy Whipple
Babbett by Stella Gibbons
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Love-Child by Edith Olivier
The Provincial Lady Goes Further by E.M. Delafield
The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
The World My Wilderness by Rose Macaulay
Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski
To Bed With Grand Music by Marghanita Laski
Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Emma by Jane Austen
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Anthony Trollope
Zadie Smith
Ian McEwan
Chimananda Ngozi Adichie
Sally Rooney
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Journey’s End by R.C. Sherriff
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Translations by Brian Friel
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Strangers by Taichi Yamada
One Year’s Time by Angela Milne
Which Way? by Theodora Benson