Seasons greetings! And we can't think of anything more festive or merry-making than this glorious conversation with lexicographer, author and podcaster Susie Dent! As well as writing many books on words and language, with the latest being the brilliant An Emotional Dictionary, Susie resides in Dictionary Corner on Countdown and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and hosts the podcast Something Rhymes With Purple with Gyles Brandreth. We talked to her about tricky words in Dickens, the perils of reading your own audio books, the wonder of swearing and her favourite book to give as a gift. Find out more about the books mentioned on the episode by visiting our bookshop.org shop. Sign up for the You're Booked newsletter by heading to: FurtherReading.Substack.com

BOOKS

Dale Shaw - Painfully British Haikus

Susie Dent - An Emotional Dictionary

Charles Dickens - Our Mutual Friend

Charles Dickens - Bleak House

Twice Upon a Time: Susie Dent

Noel Streatfeild - Thursday's Child

Noel Streatfeild - Ballet Shoes

Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden

Francis Grose - The Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

Samuel Johnson - Johnson's Dictionary

Michele Obama - Becoming

Elizabeth Jane Howard - Mr Wrong

Daisy Buchanan - Careering

DH Lawrence - Sons and Lovers

DH Lawrence - Short Stories

DH Lawrence - Lady Chatterley's Lover

Jilly Cooper - Harriet

Stephen Sondheim - Finishing the Hat

Louis Macneice - Autumn Journal

Christina Rossetti - Artists Studio

Mary Oliver - Collected Poems

Lucy Ellmann - Ducks, Newburyport

Gyles Brandreth - Dancing By the Light of the Moon

Sam West - Pandemic Poems

Zadie Smith - Feel Free

Anne Lamott - Almost Everything

Gyles Brandreth - Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait

Alain-Fournier - La Grand Meaulnes

Julian Barnes - Le Grand Meaulnes Revisited

Julian Barnes - Flaubert's Parrot

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