George Orwell 3: Murder In The Barnyard: Animal Farm Secret Life Of Books podcast

40:32

Published in 2018, Lisa Genova’s Every Note Played follows the experiences of renowned concert pianist Richard Evans from the moment he is diagnosed with a form of Motor Neurone Disease, or MND, to his death less than two years later. It is a confronting, blow-by-blow account of the physical deterioration caused by MND, but also a testament to humanity’s capacity for empathy, love and redemption. In this special episode, recorded in support of MotorOn (which raises funding for MND research), Jonty talks to Professor Dominic Rowe - director of the Macquarie University Centre for MND and one of the world’s leading experts in MND. When Every Note Played begins, Richard is recently divorced from his wife Karina, but neither have been able to move on from their anger and endless emotional ruminating. But when Richard is diagnosed, Karina becomes his primary carer. Over the last months of his life, they learn to forgive one another and move on - one towards death, the other towards creative rebirth. Every Note Played is the fifth novel by Lisa Genova, who made her debut with the bestselling Still Alice in 2007. Still Alice was adapted into a film, with Julianne Moore giving an Oscar winning performance in the title role as the 50 year old Alice who develops onset dementia. Richard Glatzer directed the film while suffering from advanced MND - and he died a few months after release. Inspired by Glatzer, and their friendship, Genova wrote Every Note Played. Content warning: this episode is a frank conversation about a subject some may find disturbing. For more information about MND, please go to: Macquarie Centre for MND Research - www.mndnsw.org.au - the site has links to info lines and information packs If you are interested in donating to MotorOn and supporting the work of the Macqueries Centre for MND Research, please go to www.motoron.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Oscar Wilde 3: "A Handbag?!" The Importance of Being Earnest 1:24:35

4 days ago1:24:35

1:24:35

The Importance of Being Earnest, first performed in 1895 at the sumptuous St James' Theatre in London, was Wilde’s last, and without question his greatest piece of dramatic writing. The handbag, the cucumber sandwiches, the Bunburying and the first class ticket to Worthing all come together to create a timeless classic that has been rarely out of performance since its debut. It was a smash-hit from the moment it opened, but even as the lights went up, Wilde was grabbing the spotlight in the press and the courts with his libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of Wilde's young gay lover Bosie. None of this is apparent on first viewing "Earnest," which seemingly refuses to be serious. It's a farce and a romance and a fairy tale -- but it's also a radical confession of homosexual attraction and a bitter satire on Victorian morality and domestic politics. It’s also a parody of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta Patience which was itself a parody of Oscar Wilde and the aesthetic movement in England. Content warning to listeners: reading this play – and possibly just listening to this episode - will cause you to irritate your family members by attempting aphoristic remarks and epigrammatic witticisms. Books and writers mentioned in this episode: Oscar Wilde: A LIfe (2021) by Matthew Sturgis Sodomy on the Thames: Sex, Love and Scandal in Wilde Times (2012) by Morris B Kaplan Oscar Wilde, Vera, or, The Nihilists; Salome; The Importance of Being Earnest; Lady Windermere's Fan; A Woman of No Importance; The Ideal Husband. Oscar Wilde, "The Portrait of Mr. W.H."; "The Decay of Lying"; "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"; "The Critic as Artist" Bram Stoker, Dracula Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream; Much Ado About Nothing Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal; The Rivals Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer Henry Arthur Jones, The Silver King; Saints and Sinners Arthur Wing Pinero, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Emile Zola Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler; The Doll's House George Bernard Shaw , The Philanderer, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Pygmalion Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina Mary Shelley, Frankenstein -- 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/shorts insta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/ bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.social Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Oscar Wilde 2: If Looks Could Kill: The Picture of Dorian Gray 1:20:30

11 days ago1:20:30

1:20:30

The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde’s only novel, and it caused a sensation. It was used as evidence in Wilde’s trial for the crime of “gross indecency” in 1895. The conceit of the story is famous – a portrait grows old and corrupt while its human subject remains eternally youthful. But who knows what really happens in this famous modern myth? Sophie and Jonty talk about the influence of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Dr . Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , and Jonty throws around some exciting legal phrases like the Criminal Law Amendment Act. There’s plenty of discussion of Wilde’s personal obsession with home interiors, as well as a debate about why Wilde is so indebted to Dickens when he’s always going on about his contempt for matters of morality. Find out how a novel that is quintessentially about London is also about Wilde’s Irish identity, and what kind of wallpaper Oscar Wilde had in his student digs at Oxford. As the arch-aphorist and aesthetic rogue Henry Wotton would say, this podcast episode “has all the surprise of candour,” so find out what really happens in this legendary modern myth. Books referenced or mentioned in this episode: Oscar Wilde: A LIfe (2021) by Matthew Sturgis Sodomy on the Thames: Sex, Love and Scandal in Wilde Times (2012) by Morris B Kaplan Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888) Oscar Wilde, “The Decay of Lying,” “The Soul of Man Under Socialism,” and “The Portrait of Mr. W.H.” (1889) Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (1838) Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864); Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870); Around the World in Eighty Days (1872) Robert Louis Stevenson , Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897) H.G. Wells The Time Machine (1895) War of the Worlds (1898) -- 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/shorts insta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/ bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.social Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Classic Books vs Trump: Jill Lepore on reading her way through the first 100 days 26:20

18 days ago26:20

26:20

Jill Lepore is one of America’s most renowned intellectuals. She’s Professor not only of American History, but also of Law at Harvard University; she's a staff writer at the New Yorker, and still finds time to write some of the most renowned history books of the 21st Century, including the magisterial and monumental These Truths: A History of the United States, the brilliant Secret History of Wonder Woman and Sophie’s personal favourite, a history of King Phillip’s War and the origins of American identity. For the first 100 days of the new US presidency, Jill Lepore turned to the classics-- the Penguin Little Black Classics to be exact. In these miniature volumes of great writing, Jill found the imaginative intelligence, resilience and sense of ordinary pleasures she needed to abide with what's going on across America -- and at Harvard specifically -- as a result of Trump's turbulent regime. Listen and learn how the classics reconnect us with deep truths that we might "hold to be self-evident," but which have so often been under threat across human history. Books mentioned in this episode and published in Penguin Little Black Classics: The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio (~1350) "As Kingfishers Catch Fire," Gerard Manley Hopkins (1877) Anon. The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue (late 13C) Wailing Ghosts, Pu Songling (c.1640) "A Modest Proposal," Jonathan Swift (1727) Tang Dynasty Poets (c8C) "On the Beach at Night Alone," Walt Whitman (1856) A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees, Kenko (13C) "The Eve of St Agnes," John Keats (1819) "Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls," Marco Polo (c1300) "Caligula," Suetonius (121 CE) "Olalla," Robert Louis Stevenson (1885) The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848) "Trimalchio's Feast", Petronius (c.60 CE) Inferno , Dante (14C) "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale," Geoffrey Chaucer (c1390) Essais , Michel de Montaigne (1580) "The Beautifull Cassandra," Jane Austen (1788) Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey "The Maldive Shark," Herman Melville (1888) Socrates’ Defence, Plato (399 BCE) "Goblin Market," Christina Rossetti (1862) -- 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/shorts insta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/ bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.social Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Oscar Wilde 1: The Happy Prince and Other Stories 1:15:11

25 days ago1:15:11

1:15:11

Few writers have blurred the boundaries between life and art quite so spectacularly as Oscar Wilde. In his writing, he challenged the moral standards of the time, advocated for Irish Nationalism and demanded tolerance of homosexuality. He wrote about decadence and the corruption of youth before going out in a fireball of scandal of his own making, his reputation shattered in the infamous trial that followed. So, was Oscar Wilde the great genius of his day or just a rather talented man with a knack for publicity? Was he a martyr in the history of gay activism, or just a self-absorbed pain in the arse? These are just some of the questions Sophie and Jonty are asking in the first of a four part series on Oscar Wilde. In this first episode, they look at his early years and how cultural and political movements of the time shaped his first great work - the seemingly timeless fairy-tales of The Happy Prince and Other Stories. Into these stories, Wilde condensed years of scholarship, literary criticism and the development of a personal aesthetic and philosophy. It is a short book and deceptively simple because these stories - like all the best fairytales - conceal deeper truths about human experience. Most importantly, through them Wilde found his voice as a writer, unleashing the extraordinary creative outpouring of the following ten years. Texts referred to: Oscar: A Life (2018) by Matthew Sturgis Alice in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll Children’s and Household Tales (1812) by the Brothers Grimm Doctor Faustus (c.1594) Christopher Marlowe Patience (1881) by Gilbert and Sullivan (extract from 1961 recording with John Reed) Study of the Greek Poets (1873) by JA Symonds Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873) by Walter Pater Social Life in Greece (1874) by John Pentland Mahaffy David Copperfield (1850) by Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens Hard Times (1854) by Charles Dickens Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker -- 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/shorts insta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/ bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.social Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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BONUS: More 'Rivals': Actor Katherine Parkinson on the joy of Jilly Cooper and playing Lizzie Vereker in the television adaptation 41:17

29 days ago41:17

41:17

Hot on the heels of our Rivals episode, Sophie and Jonty are joined by the actor and writer Katherine Parkinson - one of the stars of the recent adaptation for television. Katherine talks about playing Lizzie Vereker, wife of the ghastly James Vereker, and the satisfaction she finds in her characters's affair with Freddie Jones; why Jilly Cooper is the Jane Austen of the modern age; and why champagne is more than an optional extra when it comes to sex on screen. -- 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/shorts insta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/ bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.social Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Bollinger, Board Battles and Bonking Galore: Jilly Cooper's Rivals 58:00

5 weeks ago58:00

58:00

Jilly Cooper’s Rivals (1988) is the ultimate bonkbuster - a story of professional rivalry in the Cotswold’s fast-set with lashings of sex thrown in. It follows a wide cast of characters as they jostle for power, conduct affairs with one another’s spouses, eat terrible 1980s food and listen endlessly to Chris de Burgh’s Lady in Red. Rivals was marketed as an airport book back in the day, but beneath the brash cover is a sophisticated story that draws in surprising ways from classic literature to create what is now considered to be a modern classic. Sophie and Jonty why they are so drawn to Rivals, what we can learn about the 1980s from reading it today, and the ways in which it engages with a wide range of literary influences, including Austen, Trollope and Yeats, but also Valley of the Dolls and the works of Jackie Collins and Danielle Steele. BOOKS DISCUSSED/ALLUDED TO: Rivals (1988) by Jilly Cooper Mansfield Park (1814) by Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen The Wind Among the Reeds (1899) by WB Yeats A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975) by Anthony Powell Barchester Towers (1857) by Anthony Trollope Possession (1990) by AS Byatt Oscar and Lucinda (1988) by Peter Carey Bilgewater (1977) by Jane Gardam Middlemarch (1872) by George Eliot Cocktail (1988) screenplay by Heywood Gould Lady in Red (1986) by Chris de Burgh Valley of the dolls (1966) by Jacqueline Susann The Bitch (1979) by Jackie Collins -- 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/shorts insta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/ bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.social Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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The Epic of Gilgamesh with Robert Macfarlane 50:26

5 weeks ago50:26

50:26

The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest surviving works of literature - an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, stitched together from fragments going back as far as 2100BCE. It tells the story of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, his friendship with the wild man Enkidu, and his attempts to come to terms with his own mortality. Although incomplete, the essence of the story - and many passages - are preserved thanks to the work of dedicated Assyriologists past and present. To discuss this extraordinary work, Sophie and Jonty are joined by Robert Macfarlane, author of The Wild Places (2007), The Old Ways (2012), Underland (2019) and now Is A River Alive? (2025). Rob has been obsessed with Gilgamesh for many years - what it has to tell us about humanity and the environment. BOOKS REFERRED TO: The Epic of Gilgamesh (1999) translated by Andrew George Gilgamesh: A New English Version (2004) by Stephen Mitchell Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (2021) by Sophus Helle We Have Never Been Modern (1991) by Bruno Latour Camera Lucida (1981) by Roland Barthes Civilization and its Discontents (1930) by Sigmund Freud The Country and the City (1973) by Raymond Williams People of the River (2021) by Grace Karskens Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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The Tortured Poets Department: Emily Dickinson, the Transcendentalists and, yes, Taylor Swift 1:12:42

6 weeks ago1:12:42

1:12:42

Emily Dickinson is probably the most famous female poet in the world. And yet – at least according to Dickinson mythology – her work could easily have gone unpublished. She wrote 1800 poems but published only 10 in her lifetime. Instead, she bound them into little bundles of paper, tied with kitchen string. These were found after her death by her sister Lavinia and after many stops and starts the first collection was published in 1890 by her friend and mentor, the critic and abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson. It was an instant hit with 11 editions in less than 2 years. The spontaneity and freshness of the poems appealed to readers, as well as their fragmentary, transient, unfinished quality, as though they were moments of thought or feeling, grabbed out of thin air. She wrote about death and life, ordinary objects, the natural world, light, air, love and god with a kind of improvisational vim that proved timeless. The legend of Dickinson is more flamboyant than the writing, which is precise, miniaturist and modest. In this episode Sophie and Jonty talk about the relationship between Dickinson’s world in Amherst and her world on the scraps and fragments of paper she wrote on; the tensions between her reclusive persona and her prolific and highly professional writing life; her disdaining publication and her making sure that it would happen, and the ambiguities of her most intimate relationships. How has such a quiet and unforthcoming poet destined to become one of the most relatable, personal and confessional voices in the history of world poetry? Books etc referred to in this episode: Martha Ackmann These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson Cristanne Miller and Karen Sánchez-Eppler Oxford Handbook of Emily Dickinson Diana Fuss The Sense of An Interior Lisa Brooks The Common Pot: The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre Emily Bronte, “No Coward Soul Am I” Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese and Aurora Leigh Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus and On Heroes Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays Henry David Thoreau, Walden , A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Cape Cod Isaac Watts, Hymns Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department. -- 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/shorts insta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/ bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.social Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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BONUS: Secret Life of Democracy (Literature at the polls) 54:00

6 weeks ago54:00

54:00

As Australia heads to the polls, Sophie and Jonty slap their democracy sausages on the bbq and take a tour of the greatest elections and electoral candidates in literary history. Their journey takes them through the full political spectrum - from Ancient Athens to Shakespeare's London, the fictional towns of Middlemarch and Market Snodsbury to the great American plains. Candidates include Richard III, Sir Robert Walpole and a flock of unruly birds, but in the end there can only be one winner. Who will it be? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

Secret Life of Books

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Guns and (war of the) Roses. The irresistible rise of Shakespeare's Richard III 1:17:18

7 weeks ago1:17:18

1:17:18

Richard III is one of the OG villains of English literary history, the usurper king who killed his brother, nephews (the infamous “Princes in the Tower”) and seduced his brother's wife all in the space of about six months. Richard III is also known as “Crookback,” or the hunchback of Windsor Castle, because of his curvature of the spine, which prompted the great historian and Tudor apologist Thomas More to describe him as “little of stature, ill featured of limbs, crooked-backed,” a condition that made him “malicious, wrathful and perverse.” Shakespeare used Richard’s villainy and disability with unprecedented skill and daring, creating a character whose deformity and appetite for evil became assets and sources of charm. Richard III is Shakespeare’s first masterpiece. He probably wrote it in 1592 or 93, after warming-up with Taming of the Shrew , Henry VI parts 1, 2 and 3, Two Gentlemen of Verona and Titus Andronicus . With the psychological depth of these characters and his analysis of relationships under the strain of political volatility and anxiety, Shakespeare accessed a new kind of writing, influenced by Marlowe’s hit Tamburlaine . In Richard III we see the cruelty and misogynistic violence of Shrew reappear, along with the lust for blood that Shakespeare front loaded in Titus Andronicus . And we see the sit-com like return of the royal family from the Henry VI plays – all of whom would have been familiar to Elizabethan audiences. Richard III is like the season finale of Succession , when we find out what’s going to happen to all the scheming, unpleasant, entitled nepo babies and their underlings. -- 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/shorts insta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/ bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.social Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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BONUS: The Disappearance of Agatha Christie 29:07

7 weeks ago29:07

29:07

On 3 December 1926, only a few months after the publication of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (in book form), Agatha Christie mysteriously disappeared, leaving an abandoned car in a ditch. As the days passed, the media went wild with excitement, vast searches involving thousands of volunteers were conducted in the Surrey countryside, and her husband Archie let the side down with unsympathetic speculation about what might have really happened. Eleven days later she was discovered staying incognito in a spa hotel in Harrogate, having suffered a terrible breakdown, involving memory loss and confusion about her identity. After a short recovery, she resumed her career becoming the best-selling novelist of all time. Sophie and Jonty recount the story of what happened during those eleven days. BOOKS/FILMS READ OR REFERRED TO: Agatha Christie (2022) by Lucy Worsley -- 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/shorts insta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/ bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.social Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Hercule Poirot, a Tunisian dagger and an evening of Mah Jong: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd 1:17:21

8 weeks ago1:17:21

1:17:21

The three best-selling authors of all time are, in order, God, Shakespeare and Agatha Christie. Exact figures are hard to know, but the gulf between Christie and the second division is big enough to guarantee her place. She has sold over 2 billion books (and just to make that number easier to comprehend, that’s two thousand million). There are a handful of contenders for her greatest book overall, but The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - first serialised exactly 100 years ago in 1925 - is usually amongst them. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd tells the story of murderous happenings in the English country village of Kings Abbot, peaking with the mysterious death of local squire Roger Ackroyd. By happy circumstance, the famous detective Hercule Poirot has recently retired to the village. Already bored stiff by his attempts to grow marrows in his garden, he leaps at the chance of solving a crime, slowly revealing the hidden desires and secrets of his suspects before the grand reveal. Sophie and Jonty turn detective too to work out why this relatively short book with its action never ranging far from a small village has proven so successful and influential. It has been adapted many times for radio, television and film with Charles Laughton, Orson Welles and (of course) David Suchet playing Poirot. Its influence on popular culture is much broader, inspiring everything from the board game Cluedo to films like Knives Out. In this episode, Sophie and Jonty going to reveal the secrets behind Agatha Christie’s unique take on detective fiction, tell the origin story of her most famous creation Hercule Poirot, and show how the publication of the book was an inciting incident for her infamous disappearance a few months afterwards. Their investigations take them surfing with Agatha in Hawaii, into speculations about the origin of the Wagon Wheel biscuit and, of course, some truly dreadful impersonations of Hercule Poirot. SPOILER ALERT! We reveal the identity of the murderer, but only in the final part of the episode and give clear warning before we do. BOOKS/FILMS READ OR REFERRED TO: The Life and Times of Hercule Poirot (199) by Anne Hart Agatha Christie (2022) by Lucy Worsley Who Killed Roger Ackroyd (1998) by Pierre Bayard The Murder of Roger Ackroyd radio play (1939) by Orson Welles One Thousand And One Nights The Chalk Circle (14th century) Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (18th century) The Murder in the Rue Morgue (1841) by Edgar Allan Poe Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens Bleak House (1853) by Charles Dickens The Woman in White (1860) by Wilkie Collins The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1921) by Agatha Christie The Wasteland (1922) by TS Eliot Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce Cane (1923) by Jean Toomer Mrs Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf The Weary Blues (1926) by Langston Hughes The Sun Also Rises (1926) by Ernest Hemingway Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker Heart of Darkness (1899) by Joseph Conrad -- 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/shorts insta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/ bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.social Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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Who watches the Watchmen?: Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen 1:04:03

9 weeks ago1:04:03

1:04:03

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, wrote the Roman poet Juvenal two thousand years ago. And just in case your Latin isn’t up to scratch, we’ll translate it for you: Who watches the watchmen? That line provided inspiration to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen - arguably the first graphic novel to join the ranks of classic literature. Published as a stand-alone comic in twelve issues between 1986 and 1987, and compiled later that year, Watchmen did for comics what Sergeant Pepper’s did for pop music, legitimising them as a serious artform in the eyes of many. Watchmen is influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Pynchon and Jorge Luis Borges as much as Superman and Batman. It tells the story of a group of morally-dubious, has-been superheroes, who are being picked off one-by-one by a mysterious killer against the backdrop of nuclear threat. These are the ‘watchmen’ of the title, but - as the quote from Juvenal suggests - pity the society that is looked after by these guys. Sure, they fight crime, but they also commit a lot of it - and even they aren’t sure if the world is a better place for their existence. While the book isn’t short on action, its characters also discuss philosophy, analyse the history of the comic as an art-form and engage in commercial ventures to capitalise on their own story. Some time ago, when TIME Magazine listed the 100 most important books of the past century, Watchmen was on the list, wedged somewhere between Lolita and Things Fall Apart (in this case you really do have the watch the watchmen because one of the people responsible for the list and, in particular, for Watchmen’s inclusion, was Sophie’s husband Lev). To discuss the book, Sophie and Jonty are joined by Andy Miller - writer, performer and one-half of the power duo behind the brilliant Backlisted podcast. In fact, when we asked Andy to come on the show and what book he wanted to do, Watchmen was the first thing he said. In this episode, Andy, Sophie and Jonty discuss how Watchmen predicted the 21st Century, changed the shape of comics and literature, and why Alan Moore can’t stand the term ‘graphic novel’. BOOKS REFERRED: Watchmen (1986-7) by Alan Moore Providence (2015-17) by Alan Moore Jerusalem (2016) by Alan Moore Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (1991) by Art Spiegelman The Dark Knight Returns (1986) by Frank Miller American Psycho (1991) by Bret Easton Ellis Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton Tristram Shandy (1767) by Laurence Sterne The Prisoner (TV series) (1967-8) Revelations In the Wink of An Eye (2024) by Jeffrey Lewis -- 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/shorts insta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/ bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.social Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

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SLoB's Secret Life of Pets 58:07

10 weeks ago58:07