Ian McEwan helps us get dangerously modern in our latest ‘Tea or Books?’ episode, as we chat about Atonement and On Chesil Beach (along with a whole bunch of his other books) – while, in the first half, we discuss whether or not we want to read novels in which one or more characters do our jobs. You can see why I have opted for something briefer in our subject line.
As announced, there’s a crossover episode next time – I will be joined by my brother Colin, doing half-books and half-movies. Check out his podcast (especially if you want some clues as to what the format might be). Sorry that Rachel will be absent for an episode – but she’ll be back for glorious episode 34, in which we’ll be discussing E.M. Delafield’s Messalina of the Suburbs and F Tennyson Jesse’s A Pin to See The Peepshow. You’ve got a whole month to prepare!
As usual, our iTunes page is over yonder. Rate and review if you can work out the internal mazes of iTunes!
Here are the (many!) books and authors we natter about in this episode:
Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
Reuben Sachs by Amy Levy
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Stoner by John Williams
Goodbye Mr Chips by James Hilton
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
Then We Came To An End by Joshua Ferris
Tepper Isn’t Going Out by Calvin Trillin
A Far Cry From Kensington by Muriel Spark
Greengates by R.C. Sherriff
London Belongs To Me by Norman Collins
Faster! Faster! by E.M. Delafield
High Wages by Dorothy Whipple
The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
The Chronicles of Barsetshire by Anthony Trollope
Dr Thorne by Anthony Trollope
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Hearts and Minds by Rosy Thornton
The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch
The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
Seasoned Timber by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey
Alva and Irva by Edward Carey
Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand (actually published in 1935, not 1910, sorry!)
Atonement by Ian McEwan
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Ulysses by James Joyce
Nutshell by Ian McEwan
Virginia by Jens Christian Grøndahl
A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth
Wish Her Safe at Home by Stephen Benatar
Solar by Ian McEwan
Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
The Child in Time by Ian McEwan
Messalina of the Suburbs by E.M. Delafield
A Pin to See The Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
I must confess I’ve never read McEwan and I don’t know that I really need to now… ;)
That was speedy! :)
My guess is that you will have much preferred Atonement to Chesil Beach. I’ll have to listen and find out if I am right.
you’re not wrong!
You were struggling to think of jobs in books. I think one of the trades you could not place in a novel was that of bus driver. What about ‘Maintenance of Headway’ by Magnus Mills. I seem to recall that you really liked that one, whereas it was one of many comic novels that I could not take to at all.
Yes! That was the one I was trying to remember! I actually like that one least of the Mills novels I’ve read.
Hi, I’m really enjoying these podcasts now that I have found them. However, the dismissal of the plot of On Chesil Beach as being unbelievable because no two people in the 60s could have been so clueless about sex was unfounded. The book is set in 1962, which had far more in common with the 1950s than with 1968. As Larkin notes, sexual intercourse began in 1963 – and I think that’s why the book is set in 1962, as a nod to that, and to how old-fashioned attitudes were hard to shift. They declined over time, rather than being swept away in a sea of permissiveness.
I can’t remember, but I’m going to say that was Rachel (sorry if I’m maligning you, Rachel!) I don’t remember finding it unrealistic myself. Really pleased you’re enjoying the podcast!