Tea or Books?

By Simon and RachelArts

Tea or Books? episodes

February 06, 2025 #135: Can Literary Fiction Be A Comfort Read? and Enter Ghost vs Lady Living Alone
Isabella Hammad, Norah Lofts, comfort reads – welcome to episode 135!
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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
59 min
January 01, 2025 #134: Our Top 10 Books of 2024
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!
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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
1 hr 23 min
December 13, 2024 #133: Do We Have Reading Rules? and Two Willa Cather Novels
Willa Cather and reading rules – welcome to episode 133 of ‘Tea or Books?’!
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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
58 min
October 24, 2024 #132: Interview: Edward Carey on Edith Holler
Edward Carey joins us to discuss his latest novel, Edith Holler. Welcome to episode 132!
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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
59 min
October 04, 2024 #131: Do We Read Deeply or Shallowly? and One Year’s Time vs Which Way?
Angela Milne, Theodora Benson, and reading deeply – welcome to episode 131 of Tea or Books?!
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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
0 min
August 24, 2024 #130: Do Books Need Romance? and The Ladies’ Paradise vs Babbacombe’s
Emile Zola, Noel Streatfeild, and romantic books – welcome to Tea or Books? episode 130!
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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
1 hr 9 min
July 14, 2024 Tea or Books? #129: Authors Who Wrote Too Much vs Not Enough and A Room of One’s Own vs A Bookshop of One’s Own
Virginia Woolf, Jane Cholmeley, and authors who wrote too much or not enough – welcome to episode 129!
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In the first half, we use a great topic suggestion by David – do we prefer authors who wrote too many books or those who didn’t write enough? And what do we mean by that? It was really fun trying to decide which authors fell into which category.
In the second half, two quite different works of non-fiction: A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf and A Bookshop of One’s Own by Jane Cholmeley.
If you’d like to find out more about our appearance at Marlborough Literary Festival – here’s their events info.
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:
Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid
The Visitors by Mary McMinnies
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
P.G. Wodehouse
The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
The Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Dorothy L. Sayers
Mapp and Lucia series by E.F. Benson
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
Barbara Pym
Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
My Husband Simon by Mollie Panter-Downes
Storm Bird by Mollie Panter-Downes
One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes
Sanditon by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Dorothy Whipple
Virginia Woolf
Barbara Comyns
Muriel Spark
Mary Essex/Ursula Bloom
Paul Gallico
Ian McEwan
Michael Cunningham
Mary Lawson
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Sarah Waters
Adele and Co by Dornford Yates
Tove Jansson
The Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett
Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen
To The North by Elizabeth Bowen
Babbacombe’s by Susan Scarlett (Noel Stratfeild)
High Wages by Dorothy Whipple
1 hr 5 min
June 08, 2024 Tea or Books? #128: Do We Read Plays? and Fifty Sounds vs The Housekeeper and the Professor
Polly Barton, Yoko Ogawa, and plays – welcome to episode 128!
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In the first half of today’s ‘Tea or Books?’ episode, Rachel and I revisit a topic from years ago – plays! Specifically, do we think that plays should be read on the page, as well as seen on the stage. In the second half, we compare two books with a Japanese theme: Polly Barton’s Fifty Sounds, a non-fiction about moving to Japan and learning the language, and Yoko Ogawa’s novel The Housekeeper and the Professor, translated by Stephen Snyder.
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:
A Body Made of Glass by Caroline Crampton
The Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offill
Weather by Jenny Offill
Conventional Wisdoms by Jocelyn Brooke
The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi
One Good Turn by Dorothy Whipple
Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple
They Knew Mr Knight by Dorothy Whipple
The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
J.B. Priestley
Tennesse Williams
The Dover Road by A.A. Milne
The Second Mrs Tanqueray by Arthur Wing Pinero
Private Lives by Noel Coward
Hay Fever by Noel Coward
Still Life by Noel Coward
Dear Octopus by Dodie Smith
Caryl Churchill
Lungs by Duncan Macmillan
People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan
Infinite Life by Annie Baker
Paula Vogel
White Noise by Suzan-Lori Parks
Posh by Laura Wade
The Watsons by Laura Wade
Jane Austen
Miss Elizabeth Bennet by A.A. Milne
Mr Pim Passes By by A.A. Milne
A View From the Bridge by Arthur Miller
A Bookshop of One’s Own by Jane Cholmeley
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
1 hr 9 min
April 25, 2024 Tea or Books? #127: Do We Have Guilty Pleasures? and A Clergyman’s Daughter vs The Vicar’s Daughter
George Orwell, E.H. Young, guilty pleasures – welcome to episode 127!
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In the first half of the episode, we ask: what is our guiltiest reading pleasure? Has that changed over time? Do we feel guilty about anything connected with reading? In the second half, we compare two similarly titled novels: The Vicar’s Daughter by E.H. Young and A Clergyman’s Daughter by George Orwell.
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:
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in a Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Wifedom by Anna Funder
Burmese Days by George Orwell
A Bullet in the Ballet by Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon
I Would Be Private by Rose Macaulay
Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham
Miss Read
Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary by Ruby Ferguson
Malory Towers series by Enid Blyton
The Love-Child by Edith Olivier
The Plant Hunter by T.L. Mogford
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Warden by Anthony Trollope
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
Jane Austen
Charles Dickens
He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope
The Rector’s Daughter by F.M. Mayor
Chatterton Square by E.H. Young
The Misses Mallett by E.H. Young
Miss Mole by E.H. Young
William by E.H. Young
Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
51 min
March 18, 2024 Tea or Books? #126: Should Books Be Banned? and Lessons in Chemistry vs Dear Mrs Bird
Banned books, Bonnie Garmus and A.J. Pearce – welcome to episode 126!
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In the first half of the episode, we discuss banned books – should books ever be banned? Does a book being banned make us want to read it more? In the second half, we pit two recent novels set in the mid-century: Dear Mrs Bird by A.J. Pearce and Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus.
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:
Strangers May Kiss by Ursula Parrott
Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott
Spinsters in Jeopardy by Ngaio Marsh
Dear Octopus by Dodie Smith
How To Be Multiple by Helena de Bres
The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer
Barbara Pym
Day by Michael Cunningham
A Clergyman’s Daughter by George Orwell
The Vicar’s Daughter by E.H. Young
The Rector’s Daughter by F.M. Mayor
52 min