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Tea or Books? #79: Political Books (Yes or No?), and The Diary of a Bookseller vs Bookshop Memories

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Shaun Bythell, George Orwell, and a whole host of politicians – it’s episode 79!

We have a special guest for this episode – my very good friend Lorna, who was meeting Rachel for the first time. We recorded in person in Rachel’s flat, bunched along the sofa. It was really fun – and since Lorna is a broadcast journalist, I feel like we’ve elevated ourselves…

In the first half we talk about political books, both fact and fiction. In the second half we compare two works on running bookshops – Shaun Bythell’s The Diary of a Bookseller and a short essay by George Orwell called ‘Bookshop Memories’.

If you’d like to support the podcast through Patreon, you can! And here we are on Apple Podcasts and you can find us on Spotify too – any reviews or ratings much appreciated. Do get in touch at teaorbooks@gmail.com with any questions or suggestions.

Here are the books and authors we mention in this episode:

Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
The Quest for Christa T by Christa Wolf
The Tiger Who Came To Tea by Judith Kerr
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
The Past is Myself by Christabel Bielenberg
Goethe
Theft By Finding by David Sedaris
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Why I’m No Longer Speaking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Small Island by Andrea Levy
The Island by Victoria Hislop
Unleashing Demons by Craig Oliver
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman
The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro
Tory Heaven by Marghanita Laski
Love on the Supertax by Marghanita Laski
Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood
Coningsby by Benjamin Disraeli
Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli
Walter Scott
Charles Dickens
Emile Zola
George Eliot
Middle England by Jonathan Coe
Ian McEwan
Autumn by Ali Smith
Palliser Novels by Anthony Trollope
The Rotters Club by Jonathan Coe
Holy Deadlock by A.P. Herbert
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden
The Semi-Attached Couple by Emily Eden
Head of State by Andrew Marr
Mrs Harris, MP by Paul Gallico
Flowers For Mrs Harris by Paul Gallico
Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
E.M. Delafield
Old Books, Rare Friends by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
4.50 From Paddington by Agatha Christie

Peas in a Podcast #9

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Here’s the latest episode of the podcast I do with my twin bro Colin – Peas in a Podcast. It’s been waiting for me to edit it for SO long that all the topical references now mean nothing. FUN. Enjoy!

You can find us on iTunes or Apple Podcasts or whatever. And if you’re one of the nice people who listen, why not rate us? Someone gave us a one star rating, which was mean. Fair but mean.

Tea or Books? #78: 19th Century vs 20th Century and Two Unfinished Jane Austen Novels

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Sanditon, The Watsons, and a whistle-stop tour of the centuries – we’re back!


 
In the first half of this episode, we take a suggestion from Elizabeth – do we prefer the nineteenth or twentieth century for literature? That’s an awful lot to cover, so we just look at British literature… and not very much of that tbh. But it’s fun!

In the second half, we look at Sanditon and The Watsons – two unfinished novels by Jane Austen – and pick which one is our favourite, and which we wish had been finished.

Do get in touch if you’d like to suggest topics or want to ask us advice – you can do that at teaorbooks@gmail.com. You can support the podcast at our Patreon page and rate or review us at Apple Podcasts.

And if the Georgianary Group sounds interesting, you can find it at GoodReads.

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
William Blake
Flights by Olga Tokarczuk
Dorothy L Sayers
Georges Simenon
The Secret of High Eldersham by Miles Burton
Diaries of Cecil Beaton
Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden
The Wells of St Mary’s by R.C. Sherriff
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Jane Austen
Elizabeth Gaskell
George Eliot
Wilkie Collins
Charles Dickens
Mrs Henry Wood
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Arthur Conan Doyle
Amy Levy
Bronte sisters
Mary Shelley
Virginia Woolf
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Drabble
Margaret Forster
Nina Bawden
Penelope Mortimer
Anthony Trollope
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Monk by Matthew Lewes
The Italian by Ann Radcliffe
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Cecilia by Fanny Burney
Evelina by Fanny Burney
Pamela by Samuel Richardson
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Self-Control by Mary Brunton
Discipline by Mary Brunton
Emma by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
Loving by Henry Green
Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers
4.50 From Paddington by Agatha Christie

Tea or Books? #77: Fantasy vs Fantastic Fiction and Wine of Honour vs Beneath the Visiting Moon

StuckinaBook All, Tea or Books? , , 5 Comments

World War Two fiction and the difference between fantasy and fantastic fiction – welcome to episode 77!

In the first half of this episode, I dive back into the topic of my DPhil and we talk about fantastic and fantasy fiction. In the second half we compare two of the new Furrowed Middlebrow reprints from Dean Street Press – Beneath the Visiting Moon by Romilly Cavan and Wine of Honour by Barbara Beauchamp.

You can find the podcast at Apple podcasts – please rate and review, it really helps us – or download the episode from your podcast app of choice. You can support the podcast at Patreon – and please get in touch if you need any reading advice at teaorbooks@gmail.com!

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

Notes Made While Falling by Jenn Ashworth
A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie by Charles Osborne
Eric Rabkin
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker
The Love Child by Edith Olivier
Game of Thrones series by George R.R. Martin
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan
Lady Into Fox by David Garnett
Daniel Defoe
The Sheik by E.M. Hull
Miss Carter and the Ifrit by Susan Alice Kerby
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
To The Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
They Knew Mr Knight by Dorothy Whipple
Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple
The House in the Country by Jocelyn Playfair
Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon
The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski
Look Back With Love by Dodie Smith
Blue Remembered Hills by Rosemary Sutcliff
I Was A Stranger by John Hackett
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
Corduroy by Adrian Bell
Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes
The Village by Marghanita Laski
Elizabeth von Arnim
Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare
Sanditon by Jane Austen
The Watsons by Jane Austen
Lady Susan by Jane Austen

Tea or Books? #76: Illustrations (yes or not), and Miss Hargreaves vs Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves

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Miss Hargreaves! Finally! But also illustrations and a novel by Rachel Malik.

In the first half of this episode, we discuss whether or not we want illustrations in our books – taking a little venture to graphic novels on the way. In the second half – only four years after the podcast started – we finally read my favourite novel, Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker. We compare it to the similarly-named Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves by Rachel Malik, and discover that that’s about all it has in common.

Fun! Please get in touch if you have any topics – or any questions to ask or advice you’d like us to give! We’re at teaorbooks@gmail.com. And you can support the podcast at Patreon or find us on iTunes. We appreciate all your reviews and ratings so much.

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
A Shooting Star by Wallace Stegner
Fair Stood the Wind For France by H.E. Bates
Dark Hester by Anne Douglas Sedgwick
The Old Countess by Anne Douglas Sedgwick
A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen
Sylvia Plath
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
Edith Olivier
Tove Jansson: Work and Love by Tuula Karjalainen
Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words by Boel Westin
Enid Blyton
The Making Of by Brecht Evens
Panther by Brecht Evens
The Wrong Place by Brecht Evens
Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks
Emma by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Charles Dickens
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Little by Edward Carey
Alva and Irva by Edward Carey
Country Matters by Clare Leighton
The Heir by Vita Sackville-West
Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day by Winifred Watson
Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym
Agatha Christie
Curtain by Agatha Christie
Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie
Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie
The Love-Child by Edith Olivier
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Before I Go Hence by Frank Baker
I Follow But Myself by Frank Baker (autobiography)
Mr Allenby Loses The Way by Frank Baker
The Shooting Party by Isobel Colegate
Beneath the Visiting Moon by Romilly Cavan
Wine of Honour by Barbara Beauchamp

Tea or Books? #75: Moral Readers or Amoral Readers and The Summer Book vs Birthday Letters

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Tove Jansson, Ted Hughes, and fictional morality – welcome to episode 75!


 
We’re back after a bit of a break – and we’re doing poetry for the first time ever. In the first half of the episode, we discuss whether we are moral or amoral readers. Do we have the same morality in our reading as we do in real life? And does the author’s own morality affect our reading?

In the second half, we compare Ted Hughes’ collection of poetry Birthday Letters and Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book. We just about manage to find links!

You can support the podcast at Patreon, email us at teaorbooks[at]gmail.com, find us on iTunes or your podcast app of choice etc. Feel free to get in touch!

I mention a couple of other podcast episodes here – the one where Jenny and Jenny discuss fictional morality is here; my discussion about Jansson with Trevor is here.

The books and authors – and poems! – we mention in this episode are:

A Time to Dance, A Time to Die by John Waller
Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie
The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side by Agatha Christie
Alfred Tennyson
Hickory Dickory Dock by Agatha Christie
Chronicle of Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Dorothy L Sayers
The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills
All Quiet on the Orient Express by Magnus Mills
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Daphne du Maurier by Margaret Forster
Letters From Menabilly by Daphne du Maurier
Oriel Malet
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
Mrs Miniver by Jan Struther
Ian McEwan
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
V.S. Naipaul
Rudyard Kipling
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
Angel by Elizabeth Taylor
At Mrs Lippincote’s by Elizabeth Taylor
Mrs Tim of the Regiment by D.E. Stevenson
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym
Agatha Christie as Mary Westmacott
‘Suttee’ by Ted Hughes
‘Daddy’ by Sylvia Plath
Ariel by Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
‘Wuthering Heights’ by Ted Hughes
‘Wuthering Heights’ by Sylvia Plath
‘Chaucer’ by Ted Hughes
Sun City by Tove Jansson
A Winter Book by Tove Jansson
Fair Play by Tove Jansson
Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker
Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves by Rachel Malik

Tea or Books? #74: YA (yay or nay?) and Stoner vs The Easter Parade

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Young Adult fiction – are we fans? And Richard Yates vs John Williams.


 
In the first half of this episode, we venture into potentially controversial territory as we discuss young adult (YA) fiction, and whether or not we think it should be in our reading diet. In the second half, we pit two mid-century American novels against each other: Stoner by John Williams and The Easter Parade by Richard Yates.

Do let us know what you’d choose! The article about Stoner that I mention is on Victoria’s blog here.

Get in touch if you have any thoughts for future episodes, and we always appreciate rating and reviewing through your podcast app of choice. You can see us on iTunes, and can support the podcast through Patreon.

Books and authors we mention in this episode are:

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm by Gil North
Dickens by Osbert Sitwell
Mrs Tim Carries On by D.E. Stevenson
Diana Tempest by Mary Cholmondeley
Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley
Point Horror
Sweet Valley High
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk
Thomas Hardy
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
The Spare Room by Helen Garner
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Anne of Green Gables
The Easter Party by Vita Sackville-West
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Young Hearts Crying by Richard Yates
Time Will Darken It by William Maxwell
Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes

Tea or Books? #73: One Chance or Many Chances, and Two Margery Sharp Novels

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How many chances will we give an author? And Margery Sharp!


 

In the first half of the episode, we ask whether we’re one-strike-you’re-out people or if we’re willing to give an author several chances – and which authors we’ve learned to love after a few books. In the second half, we compare Cluny Brown and The Gipsy in the Parlour by Margery Sharp.

Do get in touch to let us know which you’d choose, and any other Sharp novels you’d recommend. You can see the podcast at iTunes, support us at Patreon, and do rate and review us at your podcast app of choice, please! Get in touch also if you have any ideas for future episodes – we’re pretty open to suggestions, especially for the first half of the episodes. Apologies for some dodgy sound quality in Rachel’s recording – and for her washing machine, of course. And the discussion of the novels is a bit shorter than intended because I cut a bit where we gave away too many spoilers!

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

Progress of Julius by Daphne du Maurier
Mary Anne by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark
Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
A Room With A View by E.M. Forster
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Howards End by E.M. Forster
Charles Dickens
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Melmoth by Sarah Perry
Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald
Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen
To The North by Elizabeth Bowen
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Jose Saramago
Dan Brown
William Shakespeare
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
The Sandcastle by Irish Murdoch
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
Atonement by Ian McEwan
E.M. Delafield
The Foolish Gentlewoman by Margery Sharp
P.G. Wodehouse
The Eye of Love by Margery Sharp
Britannia Mews by Margery Sharp
Lise Lillywhite by Margery Sharp
The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley
The Triumphant Footman by Edith Olivier
Miss Mole by E.H. Young
Chatterton Square by E.H. Young
The Nutmeg Tree by Margery Sharp
Stoner by John Williams
The Easter Parade by Richard Yates

Peas in a Podcast #6

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If you love hearing me and my twin brother talk about statistics exams, famous people called Simon and Colin, and the plus and minus points of views – then episode 6 of ‘Peas in a Podcast’ is for you! Listen below, or subscribe via the podcast app of your choice. (If you search for it, it’s worth adding ‘Simon’ in too, because turns out a lot of people had the same idea for this podcast title.)

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