Every book has two stories: the one it tells, and the one it hides.The Secret Life of Books is a fascinating, addictive, often shocking, occasionally hilarious ...
Cannes, a white mess jacket, and the pure joy of P.G. Wodehouse's "Right Ho, Jeeves"
Right Ho, Jeeves was the 34th novel by the British writer PG Wodehouse, written when he was - struggling writers take note - 52 years old. But you would never guess this. It is fresh, energetic, joyful, structurally perfect and one of a handful of books that might be considered Wodehouse’s masterpiece. The story follows the escapades of hopeless toff Bertie Wooster and his mentally superior butler Jeeves as they tackle the romantic woes of Bertie’s friends, the demands of his formidable Aunt Dahlia, and bicker over matters of fashion, all against the romantic, timeless backdrop of a large English country-house. Join Sophie and Jonty as they uncover Wodehouse’s emotionally-starved childhood, during which he was brought up by nannies, aunts and school matrons while his parents sweated the benefits of imperialism in Hong Kong. How he perfected the Jeeves and Wooster characters while his neighbour and friend on Long Island, F Scott Fitzgerald, wrote The Great Gatsby. How he enjoyed the side hustle to end all side hustles as lyricist for the great composer Jerome Kern. How the secret to understanding Jeeves may lie in the opening chapters of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. How Wodehouse dedicated Right Ho, Jeeves - arguably his masterpiece - to his tax lawyer of all people. And how, having achieved fame and fortune as one of the best-loved novelists in both Britain and the United States, Wodehouse torpedoed his reputation by broadcasting a series of Nazi-friendly radio essays for Goebbels in Berlin during the Second World War, joking that the only issue between the Allies and the Nazis was a lack of mutual understanding, that he was no longer proud to be English, and that he would give the Nazis all of ‘India’ if they’d let him go home. Further reading: Wodehouse: A Life by Robert McCrum -- To join the Secret Life of Books Club visit: www.secretlifeofbooks.org-- Please support us on Patreon to keep the lights on in the SLoB studio and get bonus content: patreon.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast-- Follow us on our socials:youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@secretlifeofbookspodcast/shortsinsta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.socialSupport the showProducer: Boyd BrittonDigital Content Coordinator: Olivia di CostanzoDesigner: Peita JacksonOur thanks to the University of Sydney Business School.
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The Craft of Writing, the Booker Prize from Australia: Charlotte Wood on My Name is Lucy Barton
Elizabeth Strout’s My Name Is Lucy Barton is a much-loved and perennially-read novel that has caught the attention of literally millions of readers worldwide. But it’s quiet, low-key book, about family dynamics and difficult feelings, with a modest plot and characters who wouldn’t seem heroic if you met them in real life. Find out why Charlotte Wood found herself drawn to a novel that refuses to be a “people pleaser.” How does it connect to her own novel Stone Yard Devotional, shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize. Charlotte also unearths one of SLoB’s best-ever secrets about how Elizabeth Strout trained herself to write with radical honesty. Sophie waxes lyrical about the landscapes of Strout’s homestate Maine, and Jonty makes a passionate care for My Name is Lucy Barton as a classic about men as well as women, equally compelling for the blokes.-- To join the Secret Life of Books Club visit: www.secretlifeofbooks.org-- Please support us on Patreon to keep the lights on in the SLoB studio and get bonus content: patreon.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast-- Follow us on our socials:youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@secretlifeofbookspodcast/shortsinsta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.socialFurther Reading:Elizabeth Strout, My Name is Lucy Barton, Anything is Possible, Oh William, Lucy by the Sea, Tell Me Everything, (Random House, 2016-2024)Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional (Riverhead/ Allen and Unwin, 2024)https://www.charlottewood.com.au/Support the showProducer: Boyd BrittonDigital Content Coordinator: Olivia di CostanzoDesigner: Peita JacksonOur thanks to the University of Sydney Business School.
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Literature's great parties: launch 2025 in style with Lady Macbeth, Count Dracula and the Mad Hatter
To round out 2024, SLoB is hosting the world’s shortest New Year’s Eve party, in which we rank literary history’s most under-the-radar ragers. Crank up your sonos and get ready for classic fun this New Year. In under an hour, and with lashings of improvisational revelry, Sophie and Jonty review and rank party scenes from the books they covered in 2024. Most readers of the great English classics come for the amazing settings, the unrequited passions, the rampant alcoholism, homicidal rage and untreated personality disorders. But after this episode, you’ll stay for all the underappreciated scenes of hospitality, small group functions and intimate dinners. SLoB ranks according to five key metrics - all in the name of literary festivity and new year’s optimism. Pre-game for your 2024 NYE bash with this baby, recorded in a new studio with a special machine that enables Jonty to make amusing sound-effects over the voice tracks. Support the showProducer: Boyd BrittonDigital Content Coordinator: Olivia di CostanzoDesigner: Peita JacksonOur thanks to the University of Sydney Business School.
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Did Dickens Change the Face of Christmas Forever? Scrooge, Tiny Tim and the First Ever Turkey
From the “man who invented Christmas,” this is the ultimate Christmas fable. Everyone’s heard of Scrooge, and many could quote his “Bah! Humbug!” And maybe even Tiny Tim’s “God Bless us, every one.” But who knows which Christmas season mega-industry Dickens started, with Scrooge’s parting gift to the Cratchit family? And what was going on in Dickens’s life that drove him to the power and melodrama of this micro-novel?Sophie makes a foolhardy attempt to link Dickens’ Christmas Carol to our modern wellness and self-care movements, while Jonty takes the moral and spiritual high-road and ties this short novel to Dicken’s interest in social welfare and the Poor Laws. Everyone’s in heated agreement, though, that Dickens has a decidedly creepy relationship to young women, which he channels into the handsy narrator who takes us through this classic tale. Whether or not you buy into the political messaging and Scrooge’s discovery of “manifesting,” you won’t be able to resist the descriptions of Christmas-time food and drink in merry London, so come ready for Christmas revels.-- To join the Secret Life of Books Club visit: www.secretlifeofbooks.org-- Please support us on Patreon to keep the lights on in the SLoB studio and get bonus content: patreon.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast-- Follow us on our socials:youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@secretlifeofbookspodcast/shortsinsta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.socialSupport the showSupport the showProducer: Boyd BrittonDigital Content Coordinator: Olivia di CostanzoDesigner: Peita JacksonOur thanks to the University of Sydney Business School.
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The Albatross Curse, Bad Weddings and Lots of Opium: Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - the name of a classic song by Iron Maiden AND a decent-ish poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It’s the latter that’s under the microscope in this episode. Written in 1798, in a haze of opium smoke and revolutionary fervor, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a long ballad poem describing the supernatural curse against a sailor who shoots an albatross. There’s a ghost ship, angelic spirits, a zombie crew and many unforgettable lines, including ‘water, water everywhere nor any a drop to drink’.In this episode Sophie and Jonty look at the road to Rime, following Coleridge’s flirtation with anarchism, friendship with William Wordsworth and a particularly unpleasant case of diarrhoea. In so doing, he wrote some of the greatest poems about fatherhood ever (Frost at Midnight) and the orgasmic Kubla Khan. Sophie does a pretty good job of explaining the complexity of poetical meter in this deceptively simple poem, while Jonty commiserates with Coleridge’s travails as a fellow mouth-breather. -- To join the Secret Life of Books Club visit: www.secretlifeofbooks.org-- Please support us on Patreon to keep the lights on in the SLoB studio and get bonus content: patreon.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast-- Follow us on our socials:youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@secretlifeofbookspodcast/shortsinsta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.socialSupport the showProducer: Boyd BrittonDigital Content Coordinator: Olivia di CostanzoDesigner: Peita JacksonOur thanks to the University of Sydney Business School.
Every book has two stories: the one it tells, and the one it hides.The Secret Life of Books is a fascinating, addictive, often shocking, occasionally hilarious weekly podcast starring Sophie Gee, an English professor at Princeton University, and Jonty Claypole, formerly director of arts at the BBC. Every week these virtuoso critics and close friends take an iconic book and reveal the hidden story behind the story: who made it, their clandestine motives, the undeclared stakes, the scandalous backstory and above all the secret, mysterious meanings of books we thought we knew.-- To join the Secret Life of Books Club visit: www.secretlifeofbooks.org-- Please support us on Patreon to keep the lights on in the SLoB studio: https://patreon.com/SecretLifeofBooks528?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLinkinsta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@secretlifeofbookspodcast/shorts
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