Penelope Lively, Margaret Laurence, thinking and feeling – welcome to episode 103!
Apologies for the unexpected delay in recording. Blame Rachel! But we are here and raring to go. In the first half, we follow a topic suggested by Mairad (topic ideas to teaorbooks@gmail.com, please!) – do we prefer books that make us think, or books that make us feel?
In the second half, two novels that ended up having more in common than we initially imagined – Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively and The Diviners by Margaret Laurence. And no, despite the lengthy break, ONE of us hadn’t finished reading the books.
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(This is my first episode on a new laptop, which might explain some of the weird clicking that Rachel’s side picked up? I don’t know. Sorry about it!)
The books and authors we mention in this episode are:
The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Feast by Margaret Kennedy
The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
Which Way? by Theodora Benson
The Native Heath by Elizabeth Fair
Brampton Wick by Elizabeth Fair
A Winter Away by Elizabeth Fair
Into the Woods by John Yorke
Emma by Jane Austen
Because of the Lockwoods by Dorothy Whipple
Dorothy L Sayers
Agatha Christie
Milan Kundera
Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence
According to Mark by Penelope Lively
The Heatwave by Penelope Lively
How It All Began by Penelope Lively
The Photograph by Penelope Lively
Oleander, Jacaranda by Penelope Lively
The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning
William – an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton
Ohh, lots of Penelope Lively, one of my favorites and Olivia Manning (isn’t one the opening of her Balkan trilogy?), another fav Lots to savor here!
Agree 100% about feeling things while reading Because of the Lockwoods. I also love Olivia Manning, the whole Balkan Trilogy and the Levant Trilogy which followed, so I’m looking forward to your thoughts on that. And by the way, the Dove Grey book group is reading The Feast in June, hope you can join us this time!
Yes, I am hoping to join! And I really liked the only Manning I’ve read, which is School for Love.
I absolutely adored both of these books; I’ve never read anything by either of these authors before. As for thinking/feeling, I am definitely a “feeling” reader.. My adult children still kid me about crying at a minor part of All Creatures Great and Small as I read it aloud to them as children.
So glad you liked them, Laura! I am keen to go on a Laurence binge now.
I’m also on the fence here, as the thinking/feeling thing depends entirely on the book. I have such a grasshopper mind that I love to read all kinds of books and some I respond to on an intellectual level, some on an emotional. There’s room for both in my reading! :D
How have I missed that you have a podcast? Well, no matter, I’ve subscribed now.